Ten Suggestions to Build a Healthier Antinatalist Community
We held a panel discussion at our 2023 Antinatalist Advocacy conference on 'Building a Healthy Antinatalist Community' with three wonderful guests:
Amanda Sukenick, host of The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast. and co-author of Antinatalism, Extinction and The End of Procreative Self-Corruption.
Ash Wickety, an antinatalist and animal rights activist who has done extensive work with Stop Having Kids.
Shweta Ramkumar, a child-free advocate who has been involved in organising and maintaining both online and in-person child-free communities in Australia.
After the conference, we wanted to write up the themes discussed in the panel discussion into some easily accessible takeaways. We subsequently produced a list of 10 suggestions for building a healthier antinatalist community, which you can check out below!
1. Make the intentions of spaces clear
One of the key points of discussion in the panel was the appropriate set-up and management of AN spaces. Given that we are an almost exclusively online community, it is crucial that we have functional online spaces to come together, and a huge part of this is informing participants of the intention of said space. Too often we’ve seen conflicts and flare-ups over what is and isn’t permissible conduct (more on that later), so we believe there is a strong onus on those managing spaces to make the ground rules clear. If this is somewhere to come and rant about procreation and the pointlessness of existence, or a space where this kind of ranting would not be welcomed, then it should be clear to those who have joined.
2. Have realistic goals
We’ve noticed that the conversations in antinatalist spaces tend to focus on grand visions of a ‘better’ world than the one we currently find ourselves in, such as a world without humans, or the infamous red button. While we believe that thought experiments and hypotheticals can be important for testing our ideas, we worry that too much time in AN spaces is spent in the abstract, and too little time is spent on tangible steps forward. We believe therefore that more attention should be paid to realistic goals that we can work towards (e.g. improving access to contraception, or moving away from animal agriculture) instead of grand sweeping visions.
This applies to both activism and community-building - we’re probably not going to agree on everything (or much, as we'll explore later!), so 'arriving at a community consensus on X/Y/Z important issues' is probably a little too ambitious to attempt.
3. Our differences are important…
Speaking of not agreeing… There is a lot of intellectual diversity within our small but growing community. We've got antinatalists who are opposed to human extinction - at least for the time being - and we've got antinatalists who believe that extinction should be the primary (and obvious) end goal. We've got VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement) supporters who think nature should be allowed to flourish, and those concerned with wild animal suffering who believe the exact opposite. We've also got a lot of diversity with respect to non-AN issues, with antinatalists of a range of political and religious persuasions. We truly believe that this diversity, while it can at times lead to friction, is important. We can learn from each other's perspectives, and also attract others to the community with a range of backgrounds and interests.
4. …but it helps to focus on things that unite us
While the different perspectives within the community are highly important, constantly focusing on our points of disagreement can lead to a culture of friction and hostility. We hope - perhaps a little naively - that any two people who subscribe to the label of ‘antinatalist’ can find some common ground to build on. We’re already a tiny and disparate community, so there’s no need to divide us even further!
5. Build bridges with other communities
Given the intellectual diversity within the AN community, the number of people who subscribe to any one flavour of antinatalism is likely very small. Therefore, if we want to help grow the community, especially in its capacity to do good, we need to form alliances with other groups and movements without losing our own identity as antinatalists. Candidates that come to mind include the child-free folks, animal activists, environmentalists, and people concerned about extreme suffering. We may not align on all topics, and it's likely they won't subscribe to the antinatalist label, but that shouldn’t present an insurmountable barrier to collaboration on points of common interest. As within our own community, we can focus on the things that unite us in the pursuit of common goals.
6. Online spaces need careful (but fair) moderation
Going back to our first point, it's important to make the intention of online spaces clear. Having clarified the purpose of a space, we heard from the panelists about the careful moderation required to keep the space functional and cohesive. This can include clamping down on certain behaviours, such as personal attacks or spamming, or restricting discussion on controversial topics, such as pro-mortalism or disliking children. It’s remarkably easy for a space to go ‘off the rails’ at breakneck speed, so we wouldn’t begrudge a moderator for being a little heavy-handed. That said, while robust moderation is often required, we believe it is crucial to be fair with your firmness. A sense of undue bias or a lack of clarity in moderation can lead to people losing confidence in the space and checking out. To pick a real-life example, if you want to ban people advocating veganism because you believe it’s irrelevant and divisive, then we think that’s fine. However, criticising veganism in that space, and then banning people who respond to your arguments, strikes us as inconsistent and unfair moderation. If you want to heavily moderate certain topics - which, again, can sometimes be necessary - then we believe you should be even-handed to maintain fairness.
7. Have a culture of forgiveness
We all screw up occasionally and wouldn't want to be defined by our mistakes. Therefore we shouldn’t be holding others to standards we wouldn't want to be held to. While repeated toxic behaviour will undermine a community, we believe that genuine remorse should be welcomed and that we shouldn't be too quick to punish without the possibility of rehabilitation.
8. It's good to get offline from time to time
It’s unsurprising that most of the above points are relevant for online spaces. We are a small and disparate community, with many of us feeling uncomfortable to publicly identify as antinatalists. The internet provides opportunities for us to come together in a safe and inclusive way. This said, it can be good to get out and interact with people in the real world. The often-highlighted toxicity of online spaces - echo chambers, personal attacks, pile-ons etc - is less prominent in face-to-face interaction. It can also make being an antinatalist feel less isolating when you meet other ANs in the flesh. So - if possible! - turn off the screen and go and hang out with your fellow antinatalists in person. If those opportunities are not on the horizon, why not go out of your way to create them yourself?
9. Remember that community-building is difficult
While the AN community can feel like quite a toxic place at times, remember that everybody struggles with this, so you shouldn't be too dispirited if and when you find building the AN community difficult.
10. Kindness goes a long way
As mentioned repeatedly, the AN community can definitely feel a bit dysfunctional and unfriendly at times. We're (loosely) bonded as a community by our ethical beliefs - beliefs that we ANs tend to feel very passionate about. You'd expect a bit of friction in this kind of environment. Therefore, we believe that showing empathy is highly important. A little bit of kindness, especially to your fellow antinatalists, can go a long, long way…