[I wrote this essay in July of 2011.]
I create my writing, videos, and music in the context of my broader point of view. Many of my individual works, however, reflect but one facet of that viewpoint, and when studied out of context risk giving a misleading impression of where I stand. For that reason I write this essay: this is the nutshell of my whole point of view. It encapsulates, in the briefest format possible, the totality of where I stand and what motivates me.
- The world is fucked up.
- Something needs to change — and fast.
- We human beings are the problem.
- It is our responsibility as a species to change things. No one and nothing else is going to rescue us or solve the problem.
- There are too many of us on the planet, we use too many resources, and we use many resources dangerously.
- We need to have fewer kids — and fast.
- The best way to change the course of humanity is for us to grow up, become emotionally mature, use our brains — and fast. Nothing else is going to solve the problem.
- The best way for us to grow up, become mature, and engage our mental potential is to heal our unresolved childhood issues — and fast. No other idea in the history of the world has remotely as much potential efficacy.
- Healing our unresolved childhood issues would accomplish two separate things: First, it would make us far better and less abusive parents, because when we heal our traumas we don’t pass them on to our children, and second, because of this, any children we had would be far healthier stewards of the earth and better parents too, because they wouldn’t be so traumatized, and thus, by extension, destructive.
- The best way for us to heal our unresolved childhood traumas is to do self-therapy — and fast. The best way to optimize self-therapy is to focus our energies inward by avoiding engaging in projection, thus, to not have kids (the easiest projection objects), to be single, to be celibate, to limit or curtail contact with our parents, and to live healthy lifestyles. The seeming conundrum here is that those of us who are most likely to heal are the least likely to have kids. The short-term answer to this is that we who become healthy become parents by proxy to the whole species. The long-term answer is that once the species as a whole plays catch-up and heals into maturity, then many of the healthiest among us would then want to procreate.
- Anyone who denies we are in a major rush to change things has his or her head buried in the sand, and lacks an ability to fathom the destruction we will have wreaked on our planet and on our children’s children in a few short generations’ time. Conclusion here: the time to change is now. If you deny this you are part of the problem.
- Despite the rush we are in, healing ourselves is a process that takes time. It does not happen overnight. But it need not take many decades or generations, especially if we have allies on the healing path.
- Attempting this plan requires major sacrifice — personal, emotional, social, familial, economic, and relational. So be prepared for a rough road. The irony is that we presently have the option of sacrificing; in the future, if we don’t do our homework, these sacrifices will be thrust upon us in far less pleasant ways.
- I support experimentation. If any of my ideas sound too extreme or farfetched, I suggest consciously testing them for yourself. I have arrived at my point of view through testing — often doing the opposite of what I suggest above. That is how I gained perspective. And I continue to test. The only thing I strongly suggest not testing is having children. That is one test with irreversible consequences.
- I have hope, because I have seen how radically people can change. I also love humanity.
I just recently saw your video called ‘Humanity’s Primary Addiction: Having Children, An Unpopular Thought Worth Considering.’
I think that this opinion is only unpopular currently because we’re living in the Dark Ages/Endtimes. I know this sounds crazy from a modern western secular perspective, most people think that Medieval times were the Dark Ages, and that in modern times we’re more advanced than in the past. But this Idea exists in Hinduism of yuga cycles, currently we’re in the Kali yuga, also in Buddhism it’s called ‘The Dharma Ending Age’ and in Jainism the ‘Avasarpini’. Even Judaism, Islam and Christianity have prophecies about the ‘endtimes”.
Look into the work of Vedic/Hindu Creationist Micheal Cremo and his theory of ‘Human De-Evolution’, an Alternative to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection. Also, look up ‘mudflood theory’ videos on youtube, for example Jon Levi channel and Philip Druzhinin channel.
Every major world religion, Including Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, in the old times, viewed the state of being a celibate monk or nun as ideal.
The only difference between now and the past is that in the past, artificial contraception was viewed as worse than having children. So the idea was, if you were a very pure, strong, virtuous person, you would avoid having children through becoming a celibate monk or nun. But, if you could not control your sexual desires, it was better to marry, and have sex only for the purpose of having children. Then I guess the idea was, you could have like 15 kids, and the exhaustion from taking care of so many children all the time all would lead to having less extra energy in the body, and less energy meant less sexual desire. But still, the state of being married with children as never in the past viewed as ideal, it was just seen as a necessity for people who would otherwise be too weak to control their sexual desires. Monks and nuns were always viewed as being the most ideal type of human beings
It seems that ostensibly, anti-natalists, who view having children as being morally wrong, and anti-contraceptionists, who view the use of artificial contraception as morally wrong, have opposite view points. Really though, the anti-natalist and anti-contraceptionist view points don’t have to be opposite of each other, one views sex as evil, one views having children as evil, however, if a person remain celibate their whole life (such as all monks and nuns who have kept their vows throughout history have done), then a person can avoid the evils of both sex and avoid the evils of bringing children into the world. Well, sex is where babies come from.
I feel like anti-natalists frequently overlook the fact that in every major religion throughout world history has been inherently anti-natalist. Modern atheistic and agnostic anti-natalists mistakenly have thought that because most religions have always been anti-contraception, that they couldn’t also simultaneously also be anti-natalist. The idea being “well, how could huge amounts of humanity in the past have had the saintly self-control to avoid BOTH having sex ever AND having children ever? Didn’t humanity used to be a bunch of backwards, primitive, warlike, illiterate apes?”. That’s why modern people don’t realize that in the past during the beginning of this avasarpini era hundreds of years ago, basically almost everyone DID actually believe in anti-natalist ideology. It’s just that celibacy was seen as synonymous with not having children, since the average ancient person’s consciousness was more pure than the average modern person’s consciousness.
There’s been a cover-up of this though. Maybe some people would this this is a crazy conspiracy theory, but it seems like as recently as 1816, there was a world-wide technologically advanced advanced civilization, much more advanced technologically than any country on earth today, which was wiped out by a world mudflood. (See the Philip Druzhinin youtube channel for more information about this topic, Professor Anatoly Fomenko, and also Micheal Cremo’s Hindu creationist research).
So I also think it’s not that they didn’t have the technological capability of using a lot of artificial contraceptives, they were in fact very technologically advanced. They just choose not to use it, for moral reasons. So, most people either had children and didn’t use any artificial contraception, or they were celibate monks and nuns in their respective religions around the world ; whether it was Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Sufi Islam, Shinto, or whatever.
There’s the argument that women and people of color have only gotten human rights fairly recently, and that in the distant past, women and POC were treated more horribly than they are in modern times. However, I think that before the mudlfood of 1816, things actually weren’t as bad for women and POC as they are currently. And a woman of color myself, I have to say from my personal experience, I don’t see how people could really say that thing have gotten all that much better for women and POC. My life has been mostly unpleasant. I think starting in 1816, women and POC got really horribly abused. In 2021, maybe things are marginally better for women and POC than they were in say maybe 1921, but it’s very much only marginally better.
I think they the abuses which women and POC allegedly went through prior to the world flood (1816) have been largely over-exaggerated and fabricated. And that the abuses which women and POC have been put through since 1816 have largely been glossed over and ignored in the history books, and even completely wiped from recent history. In my opinion, what women and POC have gone through in the past 2 centuries has been much worse than what most people think, and what women and POC have gone through prior to 1816 have been not as bad as what most people think, even to the point of being mostly lies/fabrication. I think Christopher Colombus likely did his massive sadistic genocide of Indigenous Americans much more recently than 1492, most of history is a complete fabrication. However, I know most people would think that all I’m saying here is an insane conspiracy theory, what though, I don’t care.
I think that humanity, including all races and genders, is currently headed into really bad times, the avsarpini prophecy is true. Things aren’t end up like an apocalypse movie, no massive natural disasters, no mass deaths, no huge catastrophes. Thing will just get s tiny bit worse every year, a very slow decline. Until finally, maybe a 1,000 years in the future, most of humans will have died out. Then, the Utsarapini (ascending cycle) will start, and things will very very slowly, get better and better every year. Of course, during this Avasarpini, individual human can still evolve on a personal level by becoming celibate monks and nuns (regardless if they are religious or atheist), but overall, the prophecy basically implies that during every avasarpini, the childhood trauma in every generation compounds even more, so, the people who are able to refrain from having sex and refrain from having children will be fewer and fewer.
I don’t think this means everything is hopeless though. Whoever lives the life of a pure monk or nun, will definitely be reincarnated in one of the heaven realms when they die, and then from the lower heaven realms, eventually get to the highest eternal heaven realm called Moksha. So, even though on planet earth, everything will slowly get worse, there’s hope for any individuals who can wake up to the truth of the situation, then avoid sex, lying, stealing, killing, taking intoxicants, and the 7 deadly sins, etc, and then reach heaven when they die. So, the fact that everything will slowly get worse on earth as humanity’s collective trauma compounds in each generation during the avasarpini era, shouldn’t be seen as overly cynical. All humans have to die eventually anyway, so the most important thing for each person is getting to heaven when they die, even if most of humanity collectively sends itself to hell.
For the most part, every human can only control their own behavior, and can’t control anyone else’s behavior. Sure, people can have some positive or negative influence on others, but it’s not always a huge influence, for better or worse. So, if people just take personal responsibility for trying to develop virtues and avoid vices (the 2 primary vices in my opinion are having sex and having children, I’m personally both anti-contraception and anti-natalist, also I think the 3rd vice could be eating food which isn’t vegan, however, the other first 2 are more primary in my opinion). Then, those individuals can go to heaven, and if everyone goes to hell realms because they indulged in too much vice, well definitely I’ll be sad about that, no compassionate human with basic empathy and morality could ever wish for another human to go to hell! but I don’t like to worry about it too much since it’s something which is outside of my control. (I just think heaven and hell are a result of karma, good actions have good consequences and bad action have bad consequences, not that anyone ‘deserves’ suffering in hell realms’.) Also, I believe hell is not eternal and that all souls will eventually get to Moksha, even if it takes them a long time.
Hi Daniel,
You are right atleast partly about our current system of living. But you lack a clear protocol how to change the system without devastating consequenses. Example:
If we all stopped having children it would propably result in a system collapse. And that would lead to misery and suffering for many, many people. Mainly ordinary people. This system, which isn’t by no means perfect, has lifted more people from absolute poverty than any other system before.
What’s your take on that?
Hi Affis,
I made a video on this subject some time back. https://youtu.be/SlYSwd19Ksw
Maybe you’ll find it interesting! Greetings–
Daniel
Hi ! Wow. I lived like that but i have never heard someone saying or writing what you did write. I am 58 years old now and stil working on my themes. (-: Since 1989. There were a few moments that I did give up and that later I started again. And in 2017 I started again on the level on working every day on myself. And that I allowed my resistance to be there too. But in the last months something happened through meditation. And inner child work on shame; I found out that my whole live and all the work where you are talking about was not about, how to find my way (earn money) or how to be more in peace with myself, but that my live was about my death wish. And that morning i decided to do more with that. It ends up that I am writing a book about it; How did I survive a death wish (without medication ) for 25 years ? I have red a lot of literature since then too and i find that I have something to ad to the discussion in that field. But i write it not for “the experts” but for the people who have to deal with this. It still is a lot of work but it gives me a focus, not by force anymore ( I have to have something to focus on) but by an inner drive, it makes me more and more happy… Daniel, thank you that you are there, it makes me even emotional that I can share this with you, , thank you for reading this !!! I wish you all the best with all the things you do and with you being you (- : ! Engelien (Brummen NL)
Hmm. I had a typical traumatic childhood and have moved mountains to heal, and have changed and grown *tremendously*. But here’s the problem. Now that I think I’m more or less healed enough that I would probably be a decent parent, or at least not pass along the whole heap of family dysfunction, I’m 57 years old and it’s too late. So this brings us to the question, what do we healed-and-healing people *do*, concretely, to help spread the love and healing, if we don’t actually have children? How do we not become basically useless little “islands of sanity” while kids continue to suffer in crazy families? I help my friends who are working on their traumas, as my friends help me with the stuff I continue to sort out, but my friends are mostly also middle-aged single women, so again, all this healing is unlikely to benefit the next generation. How do we “pay it forward”?
I agree and do believe myself that all the psychological problems are because of childhood Traumas which were not coped properly . However The answer to the problem may not be what Daniel says here – Example – Daniel says 1)The best way to change the course of humanity is for us to grow up, become emotionally mature, use our brains — and fast. Nothing else is going to solve the problem. – 2) There are too many of us on the planet, we use too many resources, and we use many resources dangerously. 3) The best way for us to heal our unresolved childhood traumas is to do self-therapy – Yet if you really Ponder – These answers are the real problems in the first place – Think about it –
Hi Daniel
I love this. I have spent so much of my adult life trying to unravel the confusion left by my upbringing reading complicated theories and stupid simplistic bigoted hogwash that appeals to grandiosity and negative projection – what none of these writings can do is this beautiful parsimonious ‘in a nutshell’, honest explanation of a theory or viewpoint. I think it works like this because its true. No need for obfuscation, baffling with bullshit, or appeals to pig ignorance. Love it. Love your work. I love how you say ‘ No other idea in the history of the world has remotely as much potential efficacy’. It is the rational place to arrive at and i’m glad you are brave enough to say it. It is the conclusion I came to after reading your book and whenever I tell anyone else about your work (which I do whenever I can) I am waiting for them to realise this and say ‘oh my god this is the best idea in the history of the world!’ which it is.
why thank you Carrie!! very nice to read this message from you. now i’ll go back and read the essay. i haven’t read it in a while!!! all the best to you, Daniel
i just re-read the essay…and i liked it!! yes, this is what i still stand for. greetings again, Carrie. –Daniel M.
CARRIE, SO GOOD THANK YOU…