As I expected you base your main ideology on prevention of suffering and that's the big problem for me. The only way suffering is prevented is by wiping out every human being so we won't exist at all.
Suffering isn't prevented by wiping out every human. If it was doable, it would cause suffering, and it would leave nature to itself so that it can continue devouring itself unmitigated for god knows how long--much longer than if we had stayed around. Not exactly an antinatalist's wet dream.
It's while you are alive that you perceive us not existing as a problem. You didn't have a problem with not existing before. You don't have a problem with all of those potential persons you didn't create with the sperm that went on a tissue, and you don't mourn to lack of life in the universe.
It's a part of life and so is injustice and any other imperfection we can think of. I would not state my utopia simply because utopia is something to strive upon, but you have to realize you will never achieve it. Achieving utopia is an oxymoron by itself. I honestly would find no meaning in life at all if we were born into this perfect society from day 1 and live happily ever after in a fairy tail, without having to deal with problems.
It's part of life, and when you have standards, you can say, nope, life ain't good enough here. I wouldn't have a child in a concentration camp. Would you have one because "life is unjust, deal with it"?
Of course you would find no meaning: for an honest atheist there isn't any beyond fixing things, like I said (and here I'll bring you back to my argument that imposing the burden to fix things on others is unethical).
Why would you think that we are supposed to live in a perfect world? And what's intriguing me the most is, that you try to rationalize everything revolving around life, yet you give the most meaning towards the negatives of it and spend none on the virtues. Rationalizing everything puts them at the same EV at the end when summed up or at least it does seem so to me.
I don't know why you think I believe things should be perfect. I believe that if everyone's every desire was to be instantly fulfilled, we'd just all kill ourselves in boredom. Life is a problem to be dealt with, not something that was designed to be enjoyed. We're limited in how much we can enjoy things; nature's programmed our pleasures to guide us on a road that leads to reproductive success, not one where we are happy and satisfied.
I'm not denying the small joys of life, I'm putting them in perspective. The price of admission is just too high to justify bringing children into the world just so they can enjoy them -- often at the expense of others.
Also, explain how exactly is it not the control of a parent that raises children. If they turn out to be much better persons, because they were raised in a better environment, then surely it was the control of the environment and figuring out how to move through obstacles that put them through? I brought statistics because you obviously cant have a 100% success rate there due to having a brutal amount of factors.
The parents aren't controlling shit. They're stumbling in the dark. Some will learn some things from their mistakes along the way. Others won't. Ultimately, they are flawed people. Even if they are doing their best, they will fail in many ways. They don't control how their shortcomings will affect the child. They don't control how their genes will be expressed in this new person. Sure, you can vaccinate a kid, and you can feed them a well-balanced diet, but there's still a few thousand possible diseases that will afflict them at some point during their lifetime. That's not debatable. For every single thing that you think parents can plan for, there are a hundred they can't do anything about.
True Detective's character was just and example, I did not mean that you are drunk and/or high 24/7, was a remark made about his world view being similar to yours. His epiphany wasn't laughable, not at all. We as humans are programmed to be "consecutive", it's a main virtue of being trustworthy so you can fit into society. This consistency happens even in negative beliefs. In his case, seeing hope is going out of his comfort zone, which is why the ending was as it is.
I don't see it that way. He had a near death experience which made rationality lose its grip on him. I think hope is what anyone would want to feel when they are seconds away from death. It's the most comforting of things, and there is no competing interest left to stop it from invading the mind. When you come out of such an experience, it makes sense to rationalize things like he did and say "I could feel my daughter's love". It's all explainable without resorting to his new found metaphysics.
As an end, I'm guessing that you do have a social life and friends bluh bluh. In order to have close people you have to accept both their virtues and imperfections as they are, it's the same with life except it's on a macro level. We're not supposed to have figured everything out or to only feel positive emotions. In fact, if you think about it, its the bad things that enable goodness to be felt. If you have an utopic test where a generation is raised in a perfect environment and are satisfied to their every last need without any negativity of any sort there, they would not experience any of the positive stuff the same way and I'm guessing generations ahead won't experience them at all. Change is what gives meaning to societies and we fear change because its an unknown and could indeed lead to suffering. It also seems quite unlogical to me for you to have such beliefs while striving for a better society. Even if I allow them in my mind to be a theoretical solution to that, surely that's not practical and would not be able to be implemented ever, which makes it useless.
So because the good in life depends on the bad, your solution is to just dump the burden of improving things on others without them being able to consent to it. I think that sounds fucking awful. Well, you try that and you see how it goes. Have kids and teach them how they can improve the world. I'd bet that you will be severely disappointed in them.
You also completely disregard genetics, but its not a standpoint I could defend, but It feels right to mention it.
I don't know what you're referring to. I disregarded genetics how? You mean the potential of eugenics to prevent suffering or what?
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On December 18 2016 13:19 Liquid`Drone wrote:
how confident must you be that your child will have a good life before it becomes acceptable to procreate then?
For me, it wouldn't matter if I could guarantee the child a very good life--one that's highly meaningful and without chronic disease, no horrible heartbreak etc-- because I still couldn't get out of how awfully expensive such a life would be. You couldn't possibly create such a life without it being at the expense of other lives. And if you take it further and you not only guarantee that they don't suffer much, but also that they will be highly productive people who will prevent and alleviate a lot of suffering, then you're still dealing with the issue of consent. Think about it this way, if a scientist came up with a way to revive the dead, would it not be morally problematic to revive doctors and expect them to go back to work? Perhaps they'd want to do something else with their renewed life. Something they felt like they missed out on in the previous one. Or even anything except more of the same. You can't just expect people to go along with what is best for the greater good at the cost of their own interests. Well you can, but you can't morally obligate them towards others.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
You also completely disregard genetics, but its not a standpoint I could defend, but It feels right to mention it.
I don't know what you're referring to. I disregarded genetics how? You mean the potential of eugenics to prevent suffering or what?
Not only ( if we are considering the gene manipulation research as eugenics, guessing it is ), but also some people having superior genes compared to others.
I now understand your beliefs, I definitely disagree with them, but I dont think either of us will convince the other that his way is the proper so I'm calling it here.
Pass on your superior genes so that you can do what? Impose the burden of fixing things you couldn't fix on someone else. You don't have to agree with my views to at least acknowledge that this is morally problematic and deserving of some thought. How many experts are there telling us that we are on the brink of ecological collapse? Surely if having kids is philosophically defensible somehow, it should at least be put on the backburner while these issues are dealt with--if we aren't already doomed. No one wants their children to inherit a barren planet. That's what we are on course for.
Eugenics is a dangerous game to play and I don't think I need to elaborate much on this. Superior genes are irrelevant to a degree if your concern is human progress. Worldviews aren't inheritable, so you can't assume that even if you give birth to a "superior" (I'm assuming you mean above average intelligence here) human being that he is going to share your worldview and care to advance human progress and not waste his potential (or have it be denied due to environmental factors). IQ is also not necessarily the driving force for such endeavours. People who want to be of service to others have traits like compassion and creativity which are much more influenced by nurture than nature. So an adopted child with the right upbringing and neurological development can do great things for the world even if they don't have a high IQ. It's also more likely that a highly intelligent person will struggle more with mental health issues.
Perhaps you say this because you feel like you did an excellent job in your life actualizing your own potential and so you project the same onto your future child. I personally can't -- I feel like I have wasted a lot of it, but a lot of it was also circumstances beyond my control.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
They do deserve some thoughts, many points are legit indeed. I find it is a matter of choice to pick up which perspective to follow. Both have their flaws in many ways, both have their advantages. If next generations would be forced to live through an enormous amount of suffering only so that our species can progress to another level so they would never repeat our mistakes, then so be it. It's egoistic, but that's how things evolve.
Would be a waste of time to discuss the genetics side of the question as I'm nowhere near capable of conducting proper arguments there. I've just read some random things, seen a bunch of TED talks and my understandings on the topic are laughable at best. Genes are supposed to be the source of many factors, though, IQ is not a leading thing in our society, even though people really try to make it look so. Environment and ways of how a child is brought up play a much bigger role. Also, IQ evaluation has become a joke as you can just study for a Mensa test for a few months and score super high, like 140+ at least. The patterns of the problems are repeated like in any other test, so you can just learn to find them. I even know a guy that did it, he studied for about 8 months I think and got something in the 140-160 range, not quite sure anymore. Obviously doing so is not really productive for anyone, but it really makes you question any IQ results at all.
I still don't understand one point thought. Up to what point is procreation bad according to antinatalism? Let's say the current generation only adopts children without procreating. Then what? We all live until our natural course of life has ended and our species go extinct?
Perhaps you say this because you feel like you did an excellent job in your life actualizing your own potential and so you project the same onto your future child. I personally can't -- I feel like I have wasted a lot of it, but a lot of it was also circumstances beyond my control.
Its statements like these that make me think you only think about perfection, as that is what they imply. I'm probably wrong and you just see the world in extremes, though, which would explain a lot about why you see the world as you do.
On December 18 2016 20:44 Spitfiree wrote:
If next generations would be forced to live through an enormous amount of suffering only so that our species can progress to another level so they would never repeat our mistakes, then so be it. It's egoistic, but that's how things evolve.
Evolving means adapting to your surroundings for survival, so you are saying living things must endure suffering so they evolve... to survive and continue suffering, this makes no sense at all.
On December 18 2016 20:44 Spitfiree wrote:
If next generations would be forced to live through an enormous amount of suffering only so that our species can progress to another level so they would never repeat our mistakes, then so be it. It's egoistic, but that's how things evolve.
Evolving means adapting to your surroundings for survival, so you are saying living things must endure suffering so they evolve... to survive and continue suffering, this makes no sense at all.
It's also strikingly close to a religious argument. "If we must endure this wretched condition on Earth temporarily so that we can have eternal life in Heaven, so be it." Living (and breeding) for the future is a testament to the unsatisfactory nature of life.
It also strikes me as an easy thing to say when you are being subjective, and only really thinking about the suffering that you personally can bear stoically. If instead you were to look into the eyes of the children in Aleppo, it wouldn't be as easy to say that this so-called progress is worth it.
I suspect he doesn't really believe in this, though. I think he believes in the Sisyphean struggle. For as long as the boulder can be pushed and it's meaningful to push it, life is worth it, even though it's absurd. I don't have a problem with this as an answer to suicide, like Camus expressed it. The problem with it is if it's used as a justification to procreate, because it doesn't apply to impositions.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
I still don't understand one point thought. Up to what point is procreation bad according to antinatalism? Let's say the current generation only adopts children without procreating. Then what? We all live until our natural course of life has ended and our species go extinct?
It's not one unified movement. Some are only antinatalists due to the population problem. Some are antinatalists for religious reasons, others like me for philosophical ones. And there's plenty of detail to agree and disagree upon for the philosophical antinatalists. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for it, there's a good breakdown of many different arguments.
You're looking at the extinction of our species in the wrong way. We will definitely go extinct, whether we actively pursue it or not. 99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth-- amounting to over 5 billion species-- are estimated to be extinct. We're not so special that we'd avoid the same fate. The real concern is when and how. A great many antinatalists would agree that it's simply better to go extinct "gracefully"--by our own hand--than it is to let nature take care of it. With the technology that is available to us, and how easy birth control is, it would cause less suffering. But of course, we all agree that this is never going to happen. That's why I say antinatalism as some kind of political end goal is impractical. We would seek to spread humanity in the entire universe and dominate every lifeform we can find--spread McDonald's and Wal-Mart on every planet possible before we'd willingly opt out of this great adventure that is life.
Its statements like these that make me think you only think about perfection, as that is what they imply. I'm probably wrong and you just see the world in extremes, though, which would explain a lot about why you see the world as you do.
I was just setting my philosophical views aside for a moment to consider and share something personal. Of course, I like to think I'm being more objective than the average person, but I can't go the whole way and detach my own life experiences with my decision not to have children. My upbringing and life experiences have something to do with it. But that doesn't make me wrong. I know I'm not only being subjective because I consider problems that I haven't personally experienced. A big one that I consider is old age and death. People will often have children at the prime of their own lives, when life is arguably at its best. They extrapolate from this that this is life, and life is good, and a gift worth giving. They have not yet experienced the agony of losing their autonomy and many of the faculties they cherish, which is also part of the deal. Hardly no one escapes that fate, yet they have the hubris of imposing this on someone else before they know anything about it. You think I'm the one at fault because I would like to have full knowledge of life before imposing it. I think we have a duty to know about the consequences of our actions before we recklessly engage in them.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
"Like the Greek philosopher Diogenes, searching all day with a lighted lantern for an honest person, the search for a rational, ethical reason for creating one more human today goes on without success. Ask someone why they plan to create another of themselves, and they’ll most likely offer one of the reasons listed in the chart below. Their real reasons are given in the middle, and alternatives to breeding for those reasons are given to the right."
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
You can only rely on statistics when all given factors are the same. Sure, 99% of species that ever populated Earth might've gone extinct, but none of them were even close to being as developed as our species. With the same ease I could say that scientists will develop a comercially available nucler fusion reactor and that would enable us to colonize other planets, except chances of that might actually be higher.
I do not believe breeding is the real source of wars, but I can understand why you feel that way as that is ground zero. Its one of the legit points of the movement. I can see how my argument could seem the same as fanatic religious one as well.
Even though there are regions with immense pain of any sort you could think of, levels of " suffering " as a whole in our species is going steadily down throughout generations. The movement however doesn't seem to able to answer questions like how much pain is too much pain and to what extent do you practice it and according to what is that right morally, surely you cannot defend that extinction of the species is morally right, its just absurd and this statement might make me look like a shallow person that doesn't even allow to accept a different point of view than his, but I'm not.
Thanks for the links, I'll check them out later when my head is not about to explode.
"How much pain is too much pain" doesn't need to be answered because it's an irrelevant question: the argument is built on the premise that it's unethical to impose unnecessary pain -- any amount of it. Because it's unnecessary and the other person can't consent to it, it's unacceptable. It's a simple premise that is easy to agree upon: we don't want people to cause us unnecessary suffering, and so we must assume the same of others. You don't need to be a Christian to believe in the truth of the Golden Rule.
If we remove the issue of imposition and consent, the other problem with focusing on the amount of pain vs pleasure in life as an argument against antinatalism is that it presupposes that hedonic experiences are to be summed up as what most experiences are like, and tallied up to be evaluated as a whole, instead of evaluating specific experiences and their differing intensities. You said that your problem with my philosophy is that we focus too much on the avoidance of pain at the cost of other valuable things. And yet, just like me, if you were given the choice of buying any pleasure in the world, at the cost of suffering the absolute worst pain imaginable, you wouldn't accept the trade. (And if you want to interject and say, "there is more to life than pain and pleasure", then okay, replace the pleasure with a great meaningful moment then). Assuming that your judging capacities are damaged enough to accept this trade, you would deeply regret this transaction afterwards. And we wouldn't have to trust your word -- we could actually measure how much more intense the pain was. Pain is just much more valuable to avoid than pleasure is valuable to experience. And this is despite the fact that you'd be guaranteed that it's temporary, which prevents you dealing with the scariest thing about pain: it can persist for very long without your input, unlike pleasure, which is quickly adapted to and needs to be renewed with new impressions. In a natural setting, pain can be unrelenting and last for years until death; pleasure never can. Sure, we can now artificially limit the pain we experience, and that's the big reason I don't feel like it's absolutely monstrous that people have kids and it doesn't keep me up all night. But having to rely on pain medication is a problem of its own.
I could definitely defend that the extinction of the species is morally right, if it's done through non-violence. The reason you say I can't is because it evokes things like global genocide in your mind.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Oh and don't be silly. Other animals weren't as intelligent as us, blah blah, but our intelligence hasn't allowed us to subdue nature, despite all of our efforts. And it certainly won't ever put us outside the laws of physics. Our rapid development doesn't prevent entropy and propel us into the realm of supernatural beings who can avoid their inevitable doom. We will go extinct, it's impossible to avoid.
And 'development' is quite the right word to use instead of 'progress' -- since it came at an incredibly high cost. You haven't paid that price, but you can't deny it's been paid by others who were less fortunate, and the worst is yet to come. Cioran said that progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors. I don't know how people can look at it as the salvation of our species without seeing it for the monstrosity that it truly is.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On December 19 2016 11:37 Loco wrote:
I could definitely defend that the extinction of the species is morally right, if it's done through non-violence. The reason you say I can't is because it evokes things like global genocide in your mind.
Nope, im not thinking about a genocide. Its basic human instincts to procreate so the race would continue its existence. Its the root of all purpose otherwise everything would be meaningless and we might as well kill ourselves. Any achievement ever would be done for no reason at all if there is no one to continue. So then we come up to the point of is suffering really worse than nothingness? I don't see how you could rationally defend such a standpoint as our perception of existence isn't developed enough to do so. Its a clash between consciousness against that of no consciousness at all. Once, if ever, we manage to explore that part of the problem, then you could have a proper argument about antinatalism imo
"Its the root of all purpose otherwise everything would be meaningless and we might as well kill ourselves. "
C'mon. How you can say that when it's demonstrably false. Lots of people have not had children and lived a fulfilling life. Many of which have contributed great things to society. In this day and age, people choose their careers and hobbies over raising children all the time without being antinatalists. You've never heard of the Childfree movement?
The idea that nothing we do has any worth and it's all meaningless if we don't procreate is unbelievably silly and again sounds like what a religious fanatic would say about faith and God. Did Vincent van Gogh accomplish nothing because he didn't have children? Are his paintings worthless because of it? You really think it's more of an accomplishment to find a woman to pop out a kid with your genes than to become a master at your craft? Or to do great things for others in the world?
"So then we come up to the point of is suffering really worse than nothingness?"
Again, you get terribly confused here. This is the question we ask for ourselves on whether or not our lives are worth continuing. We have different considerations when it comes to the starting of a new life.
"I don't see how you could rationally defend such a standpoint as our perception of existence isn't developed enough to do so."
It's not? A negative welfare, by definition, is worse than nothingness. It's discussed in ethics all the time. So nothingness is what we should really fear according to you. You must really dread going to sleep at night, since it's hours of dreamless sleep, of nothingness.
"Its a clash between consciousness against that of no consciousness at all."
No consciousness is not a problem. It's not a harm. It's nothing. When you look at other planets, you don't become agitated and think "we have a serious problem here - there's nothing going on!"
Consciousness is a temporary mistake, because life on Earth is the result of an accident of chemistry. You want it to persist, but can't hang on to it. It will leave you soon enough, and it will leave our universe at some point. And there is nothing awful about it; if it feels awful it's because we're but animals who can't separate our fear of death with the idea of non-existence. What's truly awful is a never-ending bloodbath over finite resources, not the tranquility of a lifeless planet.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
"Its the root of all purpose otherwise everything would be meaningless and we might as well kill ourselves. "
C'mon. How you can say that when it's demonstrably false. Lots of people have not had children and lived a fulfilling life. Many of which have contributed great things to society. In this day and age, people choose their careers and hobbies over raising children all the time without being antinatalists. You've never heard of the Childfree movement?
The idea that nothing we do has any worth and it's all meaningless if we don't procreate is unbelievably silly and again sounds like what a religious fanatic would say about faith and God. Did Vincent van Gogh accomplish nothing because he didn't have children? Are his paintings worthless because of it? You really think it's more of an accomplishment to find a woman to pop out a kid with your genes than to become a master at your craft? Or to do great things for others in the world?
So are the orphans that you don't care about because of your "superior genes". I don't even know what your point is. Is it that those people have had fulfilling lives and so you're saying their parents would have done them a disservice if they didn't have them? Fulfillment is only a good thing if you have needs. A person who isn't born has no needs and so isn't deprived of any fulfillment. We don't have a moral obligation to create happy people.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
I honestly don't understand what you're talking about at all.
I'm not suggesting that procreation is something preprogrammed in our species and the most basic of needs. It's a fact, it's not discussable. Survival is Top One priority of any species. Procreation is an instrument of survival. Without life, nothing would matter.There will be no one there to acknowledge anything. History won't matter, nor would the present, nor anything that has ever existed. There is not example to give defending the opposite point, because the opposite point would no even exist.
Therefore the most simple follow up is that antinatalism is a movement that passively spreads belief of worthlessness above all. It's absolutely the same as thinking nothing matters. If followers of those beliefs are true to them, suicide would make the most sense for them. If even the slightest bit is not worth it and you would rather have nothingness than suffering in a chance of something better, then I would definitely not see a single reason to live, which on another note would make the movement disappear as there would be no followers either. It's a funny paradox.
It does put a new perspective on how to handle adversity though
