To have no time for ‘anti-human’ people?

[Myfavouritepenguin]

I’ve seen it quite a lot recently- mostly on here rather than in real life admittedly. I’m referring to both the ‘I don’t like children people; I much prefer animals’ contingent as well as the ‘wouldn’t it be better if humans just died out’ approach.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is that irks me, and I think it’s that this attitude seems like a slightly different version of “I’m not like other girls.” - an attempt to separate and elevate and basically look down on everyone else in your category.

The thing is, we are all human. Unless you are literally living off grid with wolves or whatever, you have not opted out of humanity. Whatever makes a human, that is what you are, and you are to some degree or other not only invested in but contributing to the whole operation, children and climate change included.

The answer to humanity’s ills and issues is not to reject everyone else who somehow isn’t as special and above humanity as these people seem to imagine they are!

I agree with you. I think it is the distraction of not liking children that may have made the thread go off in a different direction. I do agree that people who say ' Oh the planet will be better off without humans' are a bit silly and arrogant. In a way, they are making themselves as members of the human race more important than we are. The planet has faced huge upheavals in its lifetime. At least two ice ages wiped almost everything off the face of the Earth. It has been a ball of ice, a ball of noxious gases and will at some point be a ball of fire. We are not that important and we will not destroy the Earth. Yes, our actions will probably wipe out many species but they are not conscious of their own extinction. Only we are. The purpose of making the environment better is to ensure that we and other species can live a comfortable life for as long as we are here. When we are gone, the Earth will recover and another species will replace us, as mammals replaced the dinosaurs. Its supreme arrogance to suppose we are so special that we would be able to destroy a planet. Also, the world birthrate is collapsing, apart from in Sub saharan Africa. But when these people are asked whether they would prefer to let death and disease rip through Africa and kill all their babies they are silent. It is only Immigrant communities that are stopping our birthrate n the UK from collapsing. Shall we forcibly sterilise immigrants? Old people are keeping the World population high. When the baby boomers die, the world population according to some predictions will fall to 9 billion. Euthanasia for the over 80's?

@daliesque

I can't help but agree with pp that maybe this probably was a thread aimed at criticising the childfree....

Really?! You’re completely wrong. I don’t get how you can still think this when I’ve repeatedly said that both parents and non-parents come out with this attitude.

The non-parents on this thread sure are paranoid.

I don't like children, but unless some unruly child is trying to talk to me in a cafe or something, no one would know. I don't wear a t-shirt declaring my dislike, and I certainly don't think I am above anyone else.

God yeah, insufferable twats.

Totally agree OP - you see it a lot on here, MN has a disproportionate number of socially anxious / anti-social hermits who never let a soul cross their threshold, and live very insular lives.

It sounds utterly miserable.

I don’t think anyone who says that thinks they’re better or different to other humans. Of course they’re (we’re) still contributing to climate change, capitalism and all other modern ills. But it WOULD be better for the planet if humans as a species died out. I personally don’t understand why some people are so invested in thinking the human race must keep existing at all costs. Nobody has children for the altruistic purposes of furthering our species, it is an entirely selfish decision. Doesn’t make it wrong, but it is selfish!

This⬆️

And no one can talk to anyone like retail staff or people in a bus queue incase someone chooses to be offended

I think you are over-reacting and taking everything too literally. I don't think anyone actually means it when they say they hate kids, humans, whatever.

It's just a way to let off steam. Don't overthink it.

Yanbu. Tedious, immature people.

People who hate people must, logically, hate themselves. And yet they go on, perhaps even enjoying their lives, and occasionally having to interact in ways with the human race that are not complete torment. Odd that.

Added with 'I only like my own children', Yeah course you do

Tbh animals are so lovable, I get how someone could feel that way. And we are overpopulated and need to reduce the birth rate. By agree that the people who say 'I hate children' and such are really annoying

Oh don't even get me started on 'I'd save my neighbours Guinea pigs in a fire before they're children' because I've definitely seen this type of hypothetical on here a few years ago. It was a very active thread

I don’t really disagree with this as such, but it’s this but that grates:

It WOULD be better for the planet if humans as a species died out

It’s often presented as more than that, as a sort of wish that humans would indeed die out. As if the speaker is so much more zen and philosophical than to care about such worldly things as living. But you know that if you said, “Hey, great news - we’re all going to die out within one generation!” they’d be the first to flip out. It’s this undeveloped thinking presented, ironically, as clever and objective and scientific. The longed for extinction of the human race is always distant enough in the future as to be untroubling to them on any real level.

This shows a fundamental lack of understand that is dangerous.

You can not 'reduce' the birthrate, you will create an unsustainable and dangerous bottleneck in society. Breeding needs to continue in species at a rate of 1-1 (or higher). You need to reduce the CURRENT existing population to reduce the overall population then continue at a replacement level of the lower number.

Otherwise we end up with an aged population and a non sustainable low workforce to support the high population.

This is why countries like South Korea are at a crisis point and many other countries are following suit... measures are being put in to increase the rate of replacement such as people being paid to have children and IVF being free in other countries.

Nature would do this 'cull' with say like... oh I don't know a PANDEMIC but the people who are alive and spouting this shit don't think their existance is the problem (and actively trying to save themselves) and are instead blaming the future generation.

I know a girl who believes like this, 'Humans should die off' and who believes 'having children is the problem' yet she was first in line to get her COVID vaccine and is still on the warpath over the fact she lost her husband to the pandemic. The pandemic that is what her world views WANTED.

Totally agree OP.

I actually don't really understand what it means to say "it would be better for the planet if humans died out". I don't know what "better" means in this context because nature - red in tooth and claw, etc - wouldn't just let the planet settle into an idyllic rainforest paradise or whatever people seem to think would happen. Volcanoes would still erupt, fires and hailstorms and cyclones would still rage, and new species would rise and fall.

If people are concerned that all life could be eradicated that's one thing - but I think those people tend to be more of the "let's invest everything into colonising the moon/Mars as a backup plan" variety rather than the gloomy "the planet would be better off without us" types.

This shows a fundamental lack of understand that is dangerous

@JusthereforXmas

😂😂😂😂🤣

I'm not reading the rest, you sound like a conspiracy theorist in the first line

We need to reduce out BIRTH RATE (do I even know what that is?) = dangerous

Are you ok hun?

The non-parents on this thread sure are paranoid

Nah, we just have to live with constant little comments like the above which is then followed by faux innocence.

I guess you won’t believe me, but I can say, hand on heart, that there was no ‘anti-child free’ sentiment behind my OP. This has nothing to do with that in my mind. Why are people who choose not to have children so prickly about it? Why do you care?

Says the person who can't even be bothered to read anything they think might disagree with their fragile view of what they believe.

By the way I'm not a conspiracy theorist I'm a scientist lol.

This entire thread now reads like a bunch of bad-tempered drunks who have stayed up too late and are slurring at each other instead of getting to their beds.

Oh dear. I don’t like tea. Is that a problem?

Wrong she does not HATE she said 'irks' and 'annoys'. Stop goading.

I was watching the Chris Packham programme ' Earth' last night. Apparently, some trees got so large they sucked all the carbon dioxide out of the air, triggering an ice age that killed everything on the planet ( paraphrasing). Its happened before and will happen again. We have been on Earrh for 6 million years. We probably won't see 360m like the dinosaurs. We are a mere blink of the eye of life on Earth.

@JusthereforXmas U good hun? Step outside and breathe fresh air.