So if you know me, you know that antinatalists have been a point of interest and contrition to me for a long time. In fact, I'm probably one of the few non-antinatalists who even knows about them, or has spent much time arguing with them, rather than passing on in silence.
And there's one book that's about as close to an antinatalist bible as you can get. Horror writer Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against The Human Race a work of philosophy that Ligotti spent a long time working on, and which marked basically the end of his creative output as, far as I'm aware(although he's not dead yet). The book is a summary of the work of a group of philosophers Ligotti calls pessimists: not, in his terms, people who believe that the worst will come, but those who believe that the worst is already here in the state of being alive. The book provoked a flurry of discussion, but one thing about all the ensuing discussion interested me: the vast majority came from non-philosophers or fans of the book's project.
This series of posts summarizing, critiquing, disagreeing, and even occasionally agreeing with Ligotti should fix that.
One thing: this is about Ligotti's book, not Ligotti, the movement he spawned, or anyone calling themselves an antinatalist. I do not mean to attack anyone, just to understand and firmly disagree.
Comments
I still kind of do, only because I cannot stand people who hate people categorically. There is a special kind of immaturity reserved for people who talk about humans as though they're not one.