Also, I did mention it quite clearly in my previous post that selling antinatalism to the suffering is preaching to the choir. — Agent Smith

I think this is a sweeping generalisation and might even in fact be a purely personal statement.
How many 'dramatisations' have you seen of people experiencing great suffering who are still very life-affirming. I personally have memories of such life-affirmation from dying people.
Look at the recent example of the death of 'bowel cancer babe' Deborah James in the UK.
A lady who was life-affirming all through her excruciating battle with cancer.
She would have spat on antinatalism!
Suffering can cause you to fervently fight for life.
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

In the meantime I can hopefully help a little by pointing out several issues raised about the OP.

1) “This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.”

- Having done nothing neither makes someone ‘innocent’ nor ‘guilty’. It is irrelevant.

2) “An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.”

- You have failed to explain this. If your position is that an innocent person deserves no harm but that is what innocent means then you have no argument. You are just stating something and expecting people to follow.

Either way, it is faulty to paint things so black and white. In a scenario where two ‘innocent’ people’s interests conflict harm is inevitable so your definition does not hold up at all. Such inevitable harm comes about through ignorance/misunderstanding. You can still argue on some level that ‘neither deserve harm’ even though two innocent people have just caused harm to each other, but only if you accept that the judgement of what someone ‘deserves’ is a judgement made with an effort to ignore any blame due to ignorance.

3) “Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.”

- Unsubstantiated claim.

4) “So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.”

- To repeat. Unsubstantiated claim.

5) “This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.”

- We know this because life without any degree of ‘harm’ whatsoever is not ‘life’. Life requires learning and learning is always, at some stage, a hardship.

6) “It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.”

- None of this follow as you are riding on too many unsubstantiated claims and poorly sketched out terms.

7) “Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.”

- I might want to be able to fly like a bird or win the lottery. A ‘harm free’ life would not be a ‘life’ at all. This seems to be a rather naive view. It is a bit like expecting a child raised where their every action is praised blindly and expecting a well rounded individual to emerge from such a methodology of raising children. Many parents have attempted to ‘protect’ their children too much and with pretty horrific outcomes. The very same idea of ‘no harm whatsoever’ (regardless of deserving said harms) inflicted upon someone would result in early death due to said person being incapable of looking after themselves. I do not view a ‘happy life’ as a life under the perpetual guardianship of a tyrant whose sole purpose is to shield said ‘innocent’ from every single possible harm.

There is also the embedded problem of putting an ‘innocent’ on a pedestal. An ‘innocent’ person is also a person with no experience, knowledge, reason nor any real understanding of morality. Be careful if your purpose is to prolong such a state of ‘innocence’.

Anyway, I will provide a proper argument for antinatalism and I suggest you provide a proper one against it.

Full of sound and fury. Address the argument

Full of sound and fury. Address the argument — Bartricks

Is that it, is that all you have? Just 'address the argument,' no matter how many times and how many posters have not just addressed your infantile arguments but have completely debunked them and revealed them as having no substance. I have lost any sympathy for you I might have invoked. You deserve all the ridicule you get. You would be as well walking up and down the streets where you live wearing sandwich boards with the words. 'Address the argument!' written as many times as possible on both sides. Then when people approach you and ask 'what argument?" you can respond with 'I am an antinatalist with no idea how to defend the viewpoint so I thought I would make these sandwich boards and walk up and down the street as I don't know how else to defend my...............something........thoughts......I think.....?

That's not how this works. If you've got nothing to say, then stop saying it.
Address the op

Address it, Sound and Fury. The premises are clear. Deny one.

Address it, Sound and Fury. The premises are clear. Deny one. — Bartricks

I think its time to treat you as an innocent. Italian sounds most apt imo.
oh mio caro bambino

Or perhaps oh mio povero bambino is more appropriate.

I was a (hopeless) romantic too once. It didn't work out for me. Maybe I'm an exception but I wouldn't bet on it.

Sweeping generalization? I made it a point to mention the well-to-do and their right to have as many children as they wish. Only they'll never be able to ensure the happiness of their progeny to a 100%. That's gotta jolt them out of their slumber. Sometimes 99.99% just ain't enough! Life's not a joke, don't take it lightly unless you don't mind being exhumed and charged with criminal neglect of your children à la Pope Fromosus (vide Synodus Horrenda).

:D

I literally just addressed every line of the OP you halfwit :D

Bye bye chump

I was a (hopeless) romantic too once. — Agent Smith

I am not hopeless (even in brackets). One person's romance can be experienced by another as pure trauma.

I made it a point to mention the well-to-do and their right to have as many children as they wish. Only they'll never be able to ensure the happiness of their progeny to a 100%. — Agent Smith

Do you really think the rich qualify as good parents merely because they are rich?
Why do so many children of the rich end up as messed up as any child of a poor person?

I am not hopeless (even in brackets). One person's romance can be experienced by another as pure trauma. — universeness

That's not what I meant, but you have a point; nevertheless for the guy/gal who goes through the trauma of unfulfilled love, suicide becomes an option (vide Romeo & Juliet).

Do you really think the rich qualify as good parents merely because they are rich?
Why do so many children of the rich end up as messed up as any child of a poor person? — universeness

Précisément!

Sweeping generalization? — Agent Smith

As you yourself agree, no economic or academic or sociological condition that you possess can protect your offspring from random happenstance harms. Suffering is just a bad justification for the antinatalist viewpoint because suffering is too complicated on the cost/benefits analysis scale for it to be used as the main justification for antinatalism.

As you yourself agree, no economic or academic or sociological condition that you possess can protect your offspring from random happenstance harms. Suffering is just a bad justification for the antinatalist viewpoint because suffering is too complicated on the cost/benefits analysis scale for it to be used as the main justification for antinatalism — universeness

True, but for the poor, the sick, suffering > happiness. Antinatslism is for these demographics. Another issue is the difference in weightage of suffering & happiness: :sad: $\geq$ :smile: + :smile: + :smile: +... (you get the idea).

True, but for the poor, the sick, suffering > happiness. — Agent Smith

Again, I beg to differ. You made no comment regarding my example of the recent death of Deborah James who was very life-affirming despite her intense level of suffering. Your formula above would only work for her imo if it was the sick, suffering < happiness as a measure of 'totality.'
What you suggest is true for those who say it is true but that membership cannot claim all sufferers. I would dispute that it even has claim to a majority of sufferers. This is why I accused you of making sweeping generalisations, perhaps based solely on your own personal feelings.

Antinatslism is for these demographics. Another issue is the difference in weightage of suffering & happiness: :sad: ≥≥ :smile: + :smile: + :smile: +... (you get the idea). — Agent Smith

I agree that there are morose people who will focus on the single stressful event that happened to them on a particular day and that event will outweigh the multiple unstressful everyday events that occurred.
That's what a pessimist is but even in those cases it's the ability to moan about everything that makes such people content. This for them is a positive, a vent.
It is unlikely even truly evil people would advocate for antinatalism as evil people would have no one to prey on.
Antintalism would cancel the (as far as we know) around 13 billion years of time it took to produce life.
For most of the existence of the universe, the antinatalist existence was in vogue. What purpose was inherent in the universe then? Perhaps the only purpose was its progression towards creating life. If antinatalism was realised through global human will and consent then the universe would simply try again. Do you agree that this would be the most likely outcome based on what science proposed has happened since the big bang?

There's an argument in the OP. You need to address that argument. Currently you are simply venting. You don't seem to know what the argument actually is. I don't know of a way of expressing it more clearly than I did in the OP. But most of you here seem to have deep fat fryer minds such that no matter what argument I give to you, you just cover it in your own mental batter and fry it, turning it into an unrecognizable and extraordinarily unhealthy lump of nonsense.

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved. — Bartricks

They are also born ignorant. Ignorant of the concepts of “moral”, “justice”, “choice/ free will”, “harm/ suffering” and the diversity of “joys/ pleasantries” that life will serve them. The only harm or joy they experience as an infant is basic at best and instinctual - satiety, warmth, sleep, quiet and comfort vs. Hunger, thirst, coldness and startling sensations.

To not permit them to be born and grow up you deny not only the capacity to know greater and more complex joys and wonders, you prevent them from autonomy - allowing themselves to be educated to a point in which they can be self determined, self fulfilled, self directed.

You deny them the opportunity to fight suffering, to offer goodness into the world and bring joy and comfort to those around them/ their loved ones whether or not they suffer unjustly in the process of maturing.

Furthermore, one must experience pain, suffering, illness to know what it means to suffer and therefore the importance of being a good person, of being compassionate, of being empathetic and therefore gaining the wisdom to ameliorate it in others.

One is not just a passive object subjected to suffering and joy. We are active - we create both for ourselves and for others. And therein lies the free will to do either.

To live is to survive. It’s competitive, it takes effort and control and order and comes with an inherent angst - the prospect of failure and death, of decay, of the end, that every child comes to know at a certain age.
Entropy is against living systems.

I don’t believe that suffering coming to the innocent is a reasonable argument for anti-Natalism because it should be the victim of said harm that decides whether it is something they can prevail over and feel proud of overcoming. And they can’t do that if they are not granted the permission to live and decide for themselves.

I know they are born ignorant. And they don't deserve to be. The ignorance is among the injustices. To create a person you know will be born ignorant is to create a person who has much less than they deserve.

You then proceed to make claims that presuppose that people exist prior to procreative acts being performed and desire to be brought here. That is not something one is entitled to believe.

You then proceed to make claims that presuppose that people exist prior to procreative acts being performed and desire to be brought here. That is not something one is entitled to believe. — Bartricks

I made no such claims in any format different to how you did. We are both speaking on the behalf of those born/ to be born and whether it’s morally correct or not.

I also don’t see how ignorance is unjust. There’s nothing intrinsically unjust about being ignorant as long as someone knowledgeable (the parents) are providing for the needs of the ignorant. They are ignorant to both sadnesses and joys of the world so it’s ultimately neutral to be born ignorant.

Furthermore being ignorant allows for learning and education and trial and error. It allows for growing up which is a unique experience and part of life.
What would you suggest - that we are all immortal and omniscient?

Being omniscience the opposite of ignorant, doesn’t just stop the ability to be unjust/ immoral as choice is always an option for the conscious. So it’s a moot point

You said that to not procreate is to deny someone opportunities. Who? They don't exist. You can't deny opportunities to someone who does not yet exist.

But anyway, you then ask why they do not deserve to be ignorant. Well,is it not a bad thing to be ignorant? Why are we obliged, to some extent (and a very large extent if one is the parent responsible for having created the story situation) to try and fix the ignorance as best we can (and note, we are largely ignorant ourselves) if it is not a bad thing?

And if you admit that ignorance is a bad thing, then what has the innocent child done to deserve to be in that bad situation? By hypothesis, nothing. So, by procreating one creates a person who is going to be in a condition they do not deserve to be in. That's to create an injustice. And that's default wrong. All you have done is underline this.

Or perhaps your point was that as newly born children lack the concept of justice, then it does not apply to them. But that's false. That's as confused as thinking that as my cat lacks the concept of a cat it is therefore not a cat

Antinatalists, conveniently ignore, the massive harm and suffering many people would experience if they could not have children. People will turn to IVF or might even 'dump a loved partner,' because of their personal need to have a child. Are antinatalists REALLY accusing such people of being immoral?
Do they not care about how childlessness can cause great suffering for many people? — universeness

One does not have the right to impose a lifetime of injustice on another person just because you want to have a little baby to look after.

First, you're begging the question, for if procreative acts visit great injustices on those whom they create, then you're default not justified in satisfying preferences to perform those acts ("but I really want to!" does not standardly justify visiting injustices on others). For what you have discovered is that you desire to do something that is default immoral. The thing to do about those desires is frustrate them and try to change them, not seek to satisfy them.

Second, there are good and bad desires. Desiring to hurt others, for example, is a bad desire. You ought not to have such desires and if you do have them, they don't entitle you to act on them. Well, the desires that some have to create and care for an invalid is a bad desire. To desire to care for those who need it, is a good desire. To desire to create an invalid so that one can then care for them - that's sick.
The desire to educate others who need it is a good desire. The desire to create ignorant persons so that one can educate them is.....sick. The desire to 'pass on one's genes' is a kind of pathetic egoism. And so on. The desires that motivate many to want to procreate are bad desires and it is good, not bad, that they go frustrated.

So, the desire to procreate is a desire to do something immoral (if you think it isn't, then you need to refute the argument in the OP). And that's a bad desire. And then there are the desires for things that procreation will provide. And those too seem to be bad desires. (Not that everyone has those other desires, of course, the point is just that it matters what desires are being frustrated).

Would you or would you not put down an animal who is beyond help but suffering (intensely)? That is to say are you for or against mercy killing? I'd wager you aren't averse to putting the suffering out of their misery with a coup de grâce.

Some of us are in a whole lotta pain, mental/physical/both; so much pain in fact that such folks would even describe their existence as hell! Wouldn't you then honor their request to die (rather than suffer)? If such cases exist and one simply can't ensure that one's children won't ever end up in a similar situation, would you still want to have kids? First of all there's the anguish of not wanting to live and to add insult to injury one has to experience the agony of dying too.

There's an argument in the OP. You need to address that argument. — Bartricks

Your OP argument has been addressed and exposed as impotent.

Currently you are simply venting. — Bartricks

I have responded in kind to your insulting manner and you will continue to get back what you try to dish out to others. Try to learn from it like a grown-up.

an unrecognizable and extraordinarily unhealthy lump of nonsense. — Bartricks

You need to look in the mirror and repeat the above words toward yourself until you learn how to debate others and come up with logical arguments.

One does not have the right to impose a lifetime of injustice on another person — Bartricks

Yeah Sherlock, humans must continue to struggle to build a fairer society for all, well done, you worked that one out all by yourself.

if procreative acts visit great injustices on those whom they create — Bartricks

They don't Sherlock!

Desiring to hurt others, for example, is a bad desire. — Bartricks

Not if the person you are trying to hurt is evil and is currently hurting others Sherlock.

The rest of the points you make are based on your usual shallow, infantile thinking. People who have children do not deliberately intend to create invalid, ignorant creatures who suffer from birth, that's just your misanthropic viewpoint which has already been discredited by poster after poster along with the points you made in the OP.
Responding to you will become for entertainment value only if you keep trying to flog your dead arguments.
You argue with the same conviction as Monty python's black knight:

Would you or would you not put down an animal who is beyond help but suffering (intensely)? That is to say are you for or against mercy killing? I'd wager you aren't averse to putting the suffering out of their misery with a coup de grâce — Agent Smith

In general, I do support assisted death or the right of a human to legally request termination of their own life if they are terminal and face a future of increased or maintained suffering.

Some of us are in a whole lotta pain, mental/physical/both; so much pain in fact that such folks would even describe their existence as hell! Wouldn't you then honor their request to die (rather than suffer)? — Agent Smith

Yes I would.

f such cases exist and one simply can't ensure that one's children won't ever end up in a similar situation, would you still want to have kids? — Agent Smith

Yes because there is a plethora of examples of wonderful lives lived. Lives that have made massive contributions to human progression. Lives that have impacted millions of other lives in very positive ways. I have experienced a great deal of happiness and wonderment in my own life and I continue to do so. I have also experienced some intense suffering but not compared to others. Such measurements are all relative. I think its nonsense to require surety of a pain-free life, as a prerequisite to having a child.
Humans have to learn and grow into what they will become. You need to face comparators such as pain and pleasure to be able to become anything of value. That's why heaven would soon become hell for 'thinking' humans. Only automatons with no individual personality could enjoy something as insipid as heaven.

First of all there's the anguish of not wanting to live and to add insult to injury one has to experience the agony of dying too. — Agent Smith

This may sound a little strange, but I am in earnest. I would personally prefer what you describe above than what is offered by the Christian description of heaven. An eternity of purposeless existence in homage to a gods ego. After a million years of pleasure, do you think you would only crave suffering just so you could feel something to compare your million years of pleasure against?
You can defeat 'the anguish of not wanting to live' by reacting to it differently and you can defeat 'the agony of dying' by getting pumped full of morphine/heroin etc when death is close.
I agree that if there is no hope for you then it's time to offer you every legal/illegal high on the market.
As I said, I support assisted death. I also support the use of any drug that can produce euphoria for those in great pain and who are close to death, as available and free and based on personal choice.
I don't know if I would choose such. I might after I have said all my goodbyes to those who matter to me when I still had my wits about me.
I welcome death however as a harbinger of change. I also advocate for transhumanism and more individual control over and choice regarding when you die.

a
Well, in line with what you said, antinatalism probably spawned in a fit of severe depression and to that extent its validity is questionable.

Like all things, antinatalism isn't meant for everybody, being reserved as it were for extreme suffering, the kind that makes Thanatos a friend instead of his usual role as a foe in people's lives. Nobody wants to go to hell for sure! That should make natalists think a thousand times before they go preaching door to door.

antinatalism probably spawned in a fit of severe depression and to that extent its validity is questionable. — Agent Smith

Are you referring to your own dalliances with the concept of antinatalism?

Like all things, antinatalism isn't meant for everybody, being reserved as it were for extreme suffering, — Agent Smith

Antinatalists don't present it that way however. They declare having children as immoral regardless of how many examples exist of people who have declared something like 'I have had a wonderful life,' on their deathbed. They will focus on those who declare something like 'Life was crap,' on their deathbed.
Perhaps we need official stats on deathbed declarations about quality of life.

Nobody wants to go to hell for sure! — Agent Smith

Well, it doesn't exist anyway but do you not think an ETERNITY in heaven would become the same torturous experience as hell?

That should make natalists think a thousand times before they go preaching door to door. — Agent Smith

I don't know who you are really referring to? The main advocate for reproduction is natural instinct in my opinion not door-to-door people who try to encourage reproduction. Some like catholic priests may well do so to newly wedded young Catholics perhaps but not much nowadays probably.
I personally advocate for only having children when you can afford to and when you think you can genuinely offer them a good chance at a good life and you are fairly sure will be there to support them.
Antinatalism as a general proposal for the future of the human race is beyond contempt in my opinion and anyone who advocates for it should be fervently engaged in debate and be revealed as the misguided fools they are.

Let's meet halfway as I've been suggesting, unknowingly, all along. Those who can guarantee a reasonable degree of comfort for their children are welcome to procreate but those who can't should use contraceptives/avail of abortion clinics/at the very least, have fewer kids. Life isn't jannat, but it ain't jahanam either. For reasons that are not too hard to see the exact opposite is the case - the poor, the represntative of the suffering lot, have larger families than the rich, the spokespeople of those who can provide a comfortable life for their children. It's as if we're being led up the garden path and whose operation is this? Ours! :snicker:

Let's meet halfway as I've been suggesting, unknowingly, all along. Those who can guarantee a reasonable degree of comfort for their children are welcome to procreate but those who can't should use contraceptives/avail of abortion clinics/at the very least, have fewer kids. Life isn't a bed of roses, but it ain't all sunshine and rainbows either. — Agent Smith

I have no children of my own because I was unable to establish the necessary stable environments (couldn't pick a good woman out of a crowd if my life depended on it) and I am too old now Imo. I have always spoken against having children just because you can or as an attempted insurance for your own old age. These cautions are very far indeed however from the main tenets of antinatalism.
I think poor people traditionally had a lot of children either due to religious doctrine or because they believed this was the best way to ensure they had help when they grew old. I agree that both of these reasons are bad.