CONTRIBUTOR

ASAGI HOZUMI
Membership Number: 2
Regular Member
Asagi Hozumi co-founded Antinatalism Japan in 2021, and has been the Director since then.
He is doubtful of utilitarianism, and finds much greater legitimacy in Richard D. Ryder's painism.
Oscar Piastri is his favorite racing driver.
What we, vegans, argue that deserves our protection is the well-being of painient* consciousnesses, and not life.
What antinatalists** argue against creating is painient beings or painient consciousnesses***, and not life.
It’s true that, when we practice veganism, we are saving lives in the sense that we reduce the number of individual animals to be killed by avoiding financially supporting industries that cause a great deal of pain to living animals to reduce the demand for animal products.
It’s also true that, when we practice antinatalism, the means to the end of not creating a painient consciousness is often abstaining from creating a life.
But preventing creation of life is not the goal of veganism or antinatalism.
I guess it’s natural for people to want to say “life” just to make it (seemingly) easier to make themselves understood by those whom they are trying to convince, but such a way to phrase their points seems to be allowing the spread of nonsense such as “gasoline is fossil fuel that comes from dead animals, therefore vegans cannot use gasoline-powered cars.”
Engaging in vegan/antinatalist activism with such loose and lazy use of words, in my view, is a great way to fail to convince people of veganism or antinatalism who could otherwise go vegan or anti-natal, allowing the start of existence of consciousnesses that would experience a lot of pain.
* Painient [adj. ]: capable of experiencing pain
** An antinatalist is someone who supports and practices the view that creating a painient consciousness is wrong. Practically, their actions will look very much like those of an anti-human-procreationist (better known as “antinatalist,” which is terribly speciesist and totally unjustifiable!) and a vegan.
*** A consciousness is something capable of subjective experience, and pain is only pain when it’s subjectively experienced, so I think using the word consciousness like this is accurate and comprehensive enough.
The only sources of any kind of value are pain and pleasure, and never life.
Human beings are given human rights because they are supposedly painient.
Dogs are legally protected from abuse because they are supposedly painient.
People are urging the Chinese government to establish proper animal protection laws because cats are supposedly painient.
Not because humans, dogs, or cats are living organisms.
Yes, we tend to save lives when we avoid causing pain, but we cannot rephrase that into a false ethical code that life must be saved.
Only because saving lives tends to save the well-being of consciousnesses, have we been taught, lazily, that we must see lives as something sacred and must protect them at all cost.
If you are a vegan or an antinatalist, you must know you don’t consider life to inherently have positive value.
At the risk of making myself sound like a bloody terrorist, I have to say life must not be valued.
It’s the well-being of painient consciousnesses that needs to be valued and saved.
No mistake must be made about that.
Lives don’t directly generate value.
Pain and pleasure do.
Pages 30-33 of “Vegan FAQ” by The Real Argument make good points on this topic way better and in more detail than me, so if you are a user of Japanese language, I strongly recommend giving it a read.