Like, yes, "efilism" is in theory just a broad term for the philosophical idea that "the existence of life is outright negative", whereas "antinatalism" stops merely at the idea "lives that don't exist yet can't consent to being created"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
But in practice "efilism" is strongly associated with the idea of going past antinatalism to embracing policies that actually end life Like at the very least I would say an efilist is someone who's fully on board with pro-suicide arguments
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
And, like, it's associated at the extreme end with stuff like that charity that pays people not to have kids -- and conversely with cutting welfare benefits for parents (If having kids is actively wrong then it's good to pay people not to do it and bad to pay people to do it)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
At the VERY extreme it's people saying stuff like if you have the courage of your convictions -- you still believe outright murder of sapient humans is wrong, but you think sapience shouldn't exist, but you're okay with killing sub-sapient animals -- then we should nuke the Earth
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
I.e. if you think humans existing is *that* bad then VHEMT isn't sufficient After the last human voluntarily dies off, there is now no force preventing something like humans from evolving again by random chance
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
So that last human has not just a moral right but a *duty* to go out by pushing a button and nuking as much of the surface of the Earth as possible to scour it clean, so there will be no sapient cockroach people in another million years who will be hatched only to suffer
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
What I find interesting about the existence of this stuff is at least it shows you where the boundaries are This POV is logically consistent, at least, but even most antinatalists recoil from it
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
In fact the way a lot of antinatalists talk about it they demonstrate they do believe in some specific "demon gene" in Homo sapiens specifically that we have no real evidence for "Maybe when we're gone we'll make room for a new species that's better than us"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
Anyway if you really, really, REALLY had the courage of your convictions even that nuke is a cowardly way out If you are committed to stopping the existence of life and suffering then you'd try to become as powerful as possible so you could actually guarantee it
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
Becoming a spacefaring civilization that patrols the universe killing life wherever it can find it before it has the chance to develop sapience A much simpler and more elegant (if less marketable) explanation for a sci-fi conceit like the Reapers
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Anyway I think the interesting debates are not really about the comic book stuff about the far future and nukes and becoming space gods I think the really interesting stuff is extremely relevant to everyday life, so much so we actually can't talk about it
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
Back in the 1930s it was a fairly widespread and accepted thing among "rational progressives" to be just straight up unconditionally pro-right-to-die P.G. Wodehouse wrote a story joking about this, where a hardcore socialist talks about it so much people think he's suicidal
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy
There was some really harsh backlash to this in the postwar era as people fled from "rational progressivism" and its association with eugenics and the Holocaust and religion made a comeback The taboo that encouraging suicide = blood on your hands came back hard
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