He's right you know
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He's right you know
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So why are you still alive?
Because my parents didn't read the book before they had me
Not that I'm calling you one, I've no idea of your entire personality and being, but seems that only socio-emotinally immature people agree with what ~~*Benatar*~~ is saying in his book.
Pain and suffering are an inescapable part of life, and you can either let them crush you, or make you a better human being. Historically, billions have had it far worse than you, and many of those have lived rich lives, whether in caves, on farms, in towns or concrete jungles.
I sincerely wish for you to find a suitable person with whom you can have children, to see what joy they are.
Also, call your parents, write to them, and tell them you love them. Remind them of the joy you gave them when they had you.
Good post. Thanks for trying to spread wisdom anon.
What wisdom? A well adjusted 16-year old will tell you that shit!
No it's not a joy to roll the dice while creating a meat puppet and ensuring that the suffering in the world will go on, you genuinely have to be delusional to feel joy from doing that. Leading rich lives despite suffering doesn't justify burdening others with existence.
I talk to my parents every day and give them more joy than any of my siblings. The assumption that I'm some crazy incel that makes his parents suffer for being born is the most normalgay thing I ever heard.
What you're not getting is that you are presenting your own subjective value judgment about the world (eg its a burden, full of suffering, not worthwhile etc), out onto the world as if it were objective fact. But it's not. Most people don't view their lives as an imposition or a burden, but rather a good thing. They are glad to be born despite the various harms involved. Their loves are worth living.
I don't doubt that there are lives worth living, but they don't have the right to create another life and subject them to suffering. The world is filled with disease, depression, war, destruction and looking at ourselves as a species outside of our own mundane lives the sheer scale of abuse and ruin that we create has to be stopped.
And it has to be stopped despite the people who don't realize it, who insist that this is okay because of their programming and selfish nature that wants to preserve itself no matter how absurd or grotesque the world becomes.
The living can't ask for consent from the not yet living, even if they would be grateful to live. Your absolutist moral standard is untenable and would lead to the extinction of life. Maybe that's what you want, which is amusing since it's indistinguishable from a cartoonish villain.
Moreover, antinatalism fails in game theoretic terms. You will never convince everyone to not have kids, at most you will convince the marginal person who is most amenable to your position, which will select against antinatalism and in favor of pronatalism in later generations.
The only way antinatalism could achieve its goals is the extermination of all life, which is kinda hilarious as it pretends to be the morally superior position.
>The living can't ask for consent from the not yet living
Exactly so why create a situation where there needs to be consent? Especially since many people will delude themselves into thinking that they wanted this because only alternative is suicide.
What's more evil, creating pointless suffering or making sure that suffering never happens again? Even if just one person is convinced to do the right it's worth it.
Humanity will go extinct one day, it can't be avoided. And the only thing we get to choose is how much more pointless suffering will we create up to that point.
You completely sidestepped the game theoretic questions and focus on absolutist moralizing.
Life is not pointless if I enjoy life. I've had a seriously rough life, as have countless others, and still think life is worth living.
Because if the impossibility of consent, it's a gamble worth taking so that future beings can enjoy the gift of consciousness.
Truly, if you do not think the gift of consciousness if worth it, have a nice day. It's always an option. I'm not saying that to be malicious. I want you to continue living and enjoy the gift you have.
I never said that life is pointless. It's nice that you enjoy life, but there are many people who don't. It's outside of their control.
No, a life is not something to gamble with. Because the consequences are extremely serious and the severe suffering when the gamble goes wrong cannot be justified.
Would you tell your child to kill themselves? Is that something that you want them to go through? Because I deal with those feelings and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
So if something is a gift to you but a curse to others then you shouldn't force it on everyone. You're still free to enjoy your gift, that should be enough for you.
The option to live life and commit suicide is better than never having the option at all. That's what it comes down to between you and I.
Many people don't get to commit suicide. They suffer silently their whole life. It's not as easy as it seems. That doesn't mean that they secretly love being alive, it's just that suicide is extremely hard and telling people to kill themselves is easy.
Yes, I understand you do not truly want to commit suicide. Consider this circumstance a gift, an intermission before you make a more final choice, or such a choice is delivered upon you through disease and death. You still have possibility, you can make real changes in this universe. You can help others.
There is always possibility. We are in a vast, dynamic, infinite world.
If I were to suggest a book, I could only recommend Man's Searching for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
I wish you the very best in life, and hope you continue the lineage.
I don't see life as meaningless. You can fight for things, make other lives better. Just don't create another life and burden them with existence.
If life isn't meaningless then it's worth living yes? That's what it comes down to. Whether life is worth living.
Soon you may feel you have enough power, resources, to make a wider reality and have a family, children, and so forth.
It's about maintaining possibility and potential.
That's why "gender affirming" care is so pernicious. It robs children of their potential by sterilizing them with hormones and surgery. Demonic.
Consider the fact you are under the spell of similarly demonic forces. I say this as an atheist.
It can be worth living when the damage is already done, you can minimize your suffering and the suffering of others. It will never justify creating more suffering.
> Most people don't view their lives as an imposition or a burden, but rather a good thing. They are glad to be born despite the various harms involved. Their loves are worth living.
Oblivious normie moron take. Benatar isn’t right about everything but he’s more likable than the Igbo tribesmen who are using western welfare states as lebensraum and the wagies who toil like chattel for women that don’t appreciate them and children with zero future prospects. Sorry to be the first to tell you, but if white people are a minority in a thing than that thing is enjoyed by (on average) less intelligent people. So Christianity(Latinos, blacks, and amerilards), natalism(inbred Amish troglodytes, inbred haredis who make babies just to rape them, welfare queens, and tax avoidant hispanics and nafris), and any sense of national identity beyond a policy of ubi panis ibi patria are all chains to keep you driving the plow.
>no goy we need cute white babies how else will we get our rocks off!?
>no goy don’t be an expat, how else will dequantaviusha feed her 11 niglits!?
>no goy go worship a israelite and mutilate your children genitals!
>bout everything but he’s more likable than the Igbo tribesmen who are using western welfare states as lebensraum
Stopped reading there. Go leave
The trouble with this kind of thinking is that our popular historicity views all those issues as leading to a present or future time of plenty and now that we're there well, it's just nihilism greeting us.
The moment you became aware of your own capacity for suicide you exist purely due to your own consent. Stop whinging about perceived harm others have "inflicted" on you and follow through with your conviction or stfu and brave the struggles of life like all the rest. Perhaps you'll find yourself a better person at the end of it. Or die trying, so no loss to you either way.
>Benatar/interviewer go for a walk in the park
>interviewer forwards the idea that life can be improved
>Benatar raises his voice and starts sperging that life never improves (objectively false by the way)
>Benatar literally starts crying: "life is unacceptable"
>interviewer is taken aback by his outburst and at a loss for words (Benatar is inconsolable)
Benatar is a mentally unstable weasel. No wonder he mostly avoids interviews. On top of that he admits that his ideas are damaging while using the excuse that his work is academic and only meant for those that seek it out (note that these people are likely to have personality disorders and mental illness). Benatar objectively creates suffering and given that he's under the delusion that his work is toward the opposite: he's delusional and irrational
>Asymmetry argument
Is a tautology that can be rejected and/or interpreted differently. Anti-natalists aren't very bright so they're completely filtered by this fact and will assert its validity while attempting to monopolize its interpretation. This is the core of their ideological belief structure and they are unable to be anything other than disingenuous when responding to criticism directed toward it.
>Quality of life argument
Is the real justification for anti-natalism. Whenever you point out it's subjective and unquantifiable anti-natalists will just deflect back to the asymmetry tautology while pretending it isn't central to their argument (yet whenever they bring up their anti-natalist bullshit they always sperg on and on about quality of life). Even Benatard himself admits it's only "vaguely true."
>Suicide
Deep down anti-natalists don't actually believe their own bullshit and make excuses so as to avoid the logical conclusion of their worldview. What's more when they reduce their argument back to a tautological stance, as moronic ideologues are wont to do, they betray the fact it coheres with morally atrocious outcomes (like mass murder and suicide).
>Anti-natalists
Are ideologically possessed sad sacks who project their negative ideation out onto the world. They don't actually care about the reduction of harm and are simply obsessed by violence and misery. They are prone to mental illness and personality disorder and let their resentment guide their experience of the world.
Anti-natalists are annoying morons and the only thing they have right is that they themselves shouldn't breed (note: most of them only come to this conclusion because they know they'll never find a willing partner that will put up with their bullshit).
What if you were an antinatalist to try and deny that you actually had a preggo fetish all along?
i'm an antinatalist and women adore me because I'm tall, have a full head of hair, and am attractive. i am physically superior to you in every single way and am actively oppressing you by fricking your future wife (if there even is one).
that's just how reality is, little man. just another reason why antinatalism is correct. nature is evil.
You could like, try not to be an butthole
>LISTEN STRANGER ON THE INTERNET, I ASSURE YOU I'M HANDSOME!
Lol, just when you thought anti-natalists couldn't be anymore pathetic.
Why should it matter? The whole thing is an ad hominem anyway. If should be dismissed out of hand instead of argued against like any easychair psychology
>The whole thing is an ad hominem anyway.
No, there are arguments in it. You're confusing the tone of disgust/ridicule that are probably there for the sake of entertainment as a thesis. Learn to read better maybe.
Pain and Pleasure can be both good and bad.
An ideology designed to justify one's depression
if only 'filename', the world would be a better place.
Pic related actually did
https://vitrifyher.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/antinatalism-in-purgatory/
>I’m an antinatalist. I think it’s unforgivable to bring new people into this world given that there is suffering. The thing is that lately I’ve been thinking and feeling that people aren’t real. This would partially solve the problem of evil. There is just my suffering and everyone else is a simulation designed to spite me. This should cause me to not feel so antinatalist since the breeders are disgusting alien mockeries of a true human being, namely myself. Yet somehow I still feel very antinatalist. When I see children with their parents I am disgusted at the entire concept. They are probably just facets of the simulation and not souls brimming with the inner light of awareness like myself. And yet they still move me enough to cause disgust. I suppose that was the intention of the designer(s), to create something that appeared so real that it was actually disturbing. Dr. Miller says I have some sort of syndrome after finding out about my solipsism. I think he’s an imbecile who deserves to be burned on a stake. But out of my bodhisattva-like compassion I would instead grant him a consciousness and send him to heaven forever.
That guy committed suicide for repressing his homosexuality and pretending he liked women.
nature will take care of everything that is against it in due time, antinatalism is self destructive and therefore wrong
how long has this op been used as a easy bait thread at this point
definitely feels like over 2 years by this point
how do you know? have you never been? on what basis can you make that claim?
Who is "she"
my natalist wife
According to his youtube videos, infamous anti-natalist Adam Lanza frequented a blog that linked to this list of books. What do we think of them?
Core Frameworks
Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (PDF)
Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, & Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language (PDF)
Martin Daly & Margo Wilson, Homicide
Philippe Rochat, Others in Mind: The Social Origins of Self-Consciousness
Roy Baumeister, Meanings of Life
Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theater
Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
Peripheral Frameworks
Donald E. Brown, Human Universals
Alex Messoudi, Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture & Synthesize the Social Sciences
Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, & Reginald Adams Jr., Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind
Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (PDF)
Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
W.Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (text)
Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Terror
Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip
Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (PDF)
David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been
Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
Adam Seligman & Robert Weller, Rethinking Pluralism: Ritual, Experience, and Ambiguity
Roger Schank, Tell Me a Story: A New Look at Real and Artificial Memory
Linda Dégh, American Folklore and the Mass Media
Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (PDF
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (PDF)
Carl Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
Journals
Perspectives on Contemporary Legend
Journal of Ritual Studies
Hermenaut
Novels
Evan S. Connell, The Connoisseur
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Lanza is/was based
what did he know?
did he uncover something?
>infamous antinatalist
He is an infamous mass murderer
He murdered little children who were still learning the alphabet
People always tell antinatalists to kys and take other people with them but when they do it it’s le bad? Parents knew the risk of their children being harmed yet they still chose to bring them into this world.
You are being funny and quirky in the defense of a child murderer
I’m serious albeit
This wouldn’t happen if their parents were antinatalists
They should only do themselves in. It's morally reprehensible to make decisions like that for other people.
People create a life without asking. Why can't you take one without asking? Especially when you believe that it will lead to less suffering down the line as opposed to life inevitably creating suffering.
If you believe creating life without asking is bad, then it's equally bad to take life without asking.
The whole argument is about not asking to do something. Surely you either haven't read the book or are ESL.
It's not equally bad when you take someone's life because they can't suffer anymore. When someone is born they can suffer their whole life. Plus killing someone prevents them from breeding and creating more suffering.
You are misunderstanding the theory. Giving birth to someone is bad because it is possible they suffer their whole life, it is also possible they enjoy life but it is more dangerous to give birth because you could make them suffer.
If you kill someone who's enjoying life, you might as well have a child and ensure he has a terrible life, those are equal in damages.
In reality all of this theory is garbage but atleast understand it fully if your going to say you believe it.
No, killing someone who is enjoying their life is absolutely not equal in damages to ensuring that someone has a terrible life.
Yes it is. I will not further argue with someone who hasn't read the book or lacks a firm logical ability.
No it's not. I would even say that killing someone while they still enjoy life is doing them a favor, because they don't even get to suffer later on potentially. And it happens because life can change very fast.
But to make someone suffer their entire life? That's crazy.
>No it's not. I would even say that killing someone while they still enjoy life is doing them a favor, because they don't even get to suffer later on potentially. And it happens because life can change very fast.
>
>But to make someone suffer their entire life? That's crazy.
You are a moron and are larping in this thread pretending you've read the book. Go finish high-school, get psychiatric help for your personality disorder, finish college (impossible likely), have a meaningful encounter with a woman (impossible), finish your masters and PhD program and read the book.
After that we can talk.
You obviously can't argue against it otherwise you already would
Consult
and
>I would even say that killing someone while they still enjoy life is doing them a favor, because they don't even get to suffer later on potentiall
And there it is. I see this kind of crap all over antinatalist discussions online. All this talk of harm mitigation/prevention and the importance of consent, autonomy and non-imposition... and then in the very next breath it's killing is good, nuke the world, nothing matters but ending life, kill pregnant women etc. A lot of it just seems like poorly masked misanthropy disguised as altruism.
Also note how the majority of antinatalists are rabidly pro-choice and pro-abortion (even benatar himself) and yet half their arguments are about consent, suffering, and non-imposition. But none of that matters when it comes to killing babies I guess.
Most of them just want to destroy the world and weaponize arguments they don't even believe in order to push the idea. How many people became antinatalist because of rhe axiological asymmetry argument? None. They hated life, and looked for a way to philosophically justify it and latched onto these arguments as logical proof for their emotional reaction to their own existence. In most cases it's a psychological pathology disguised as legitimate philosophy.
The humans that are alive clearly don't have a problem with killing. Otherwise they would stop reproducing and no killing would ever took place again.
Nuking the world is just speeding up the process of not reproducing. Yes nothing matters but ending life that's antinatalism. Pregnant women are obviously not good for antinatalism.
Abortion is good for antinatalism. Aborting a baby is preferable to the suffering in the world.
Yes antinatalists want to destroy the world since it's a terrible place full of suffering that can't be justified and extremely selfish human beings that love to create it. And yes there has to be something to hate about life to justify antinatalism. So of course there is an emotional reaction like there is to everything that we experience. The world that we live in is not a good place. You can lead a good life but there is no reason to burden others with existence and suffering. This is not something that is hard to believe, it's simply how things are.
>Abortion is good for antinatalism.
How? You already brought the baby into existence against its will, which goes against the whole thesis. Are you one of those leftist morons who takes "antinatalism" literally, thinking life and sentience actually begin at birth?
Aborted babies can't grow up and make other babies.
True, but sterilize the prostitutes afterwards.
This is a category error though. There's nobody to ask. People do not pre-exist their development in the womb. You are applying the concept of consent/non-consent where it doesn't belong. And in cases where we assume the consent of others (eg doctor working on unconscious patient) there is not a blanket judgment that consent would never have been given if it were possible. I imagine if you asked the population "would you have given hypothetical consent to your birth?" the majority would say yes. So even if we perform this category error by applying consent to the unborn nothings, is it not right to assume consent when the majority would say yes?
You may say majority isn't all. But then not all unconscious patients would give hypothetical consent to be "saved", if it were possible. I tried to kill myself via drug overdose once. I had no possibility to give consent to medical treatment. If it were possible I would have said no let me die. But the doctors did not act immorally. I think it was just a mistake. Humans are flawed, we don't get everything right all the time. Antinatalism is analogous to me campaigning to an end to medical treatments entirely on all patients who cannot consent. Somebody gets knocked out? Can't do nothing doc, he's not awake to say yes save me. Just let him die. That's antinatalism.
>If it were possible I would have said no let me die. But the doctors did not act immorally. I think it was just a mistake.
What you keep describing as mistakes is humans being selfish and knowingly causing harm. It is a mistake yeah, but one that they are very much aware of and love to repeat.
No consent is being violated for people who don't exist. There is no need to create them. And it's quite easy to simply answer like your programming wants you to. Because many people don't think about the harm of existence, only themselves.
#
>People always tell antinatalists to kys and take other people with them but when they do it it’s le bad?
Yes. I know anti-natalists are morons so I'll tell you directly: the fact the logic of anti-natalism dovetails with suicide/murder is one of the (many) reasons it can be rejected. In reality, anti-natalists are just miserable people with an unhealthy fixation toward suffering and violence. They don't care about reducing harm and want to drag others down by projecting their misery and resentment out into the world
Violence does not fit into antinatalism. Well, from this point of view it is useless like everything else, only absolute violence that definitively exterminates everything would work, which reasonably seems impossible. Meanwhile, the killings, torture, rapes, etc., I would say, are caused entirely by natalist people or people who have nothing to do with or know about antinatalism. Antinatalists are a minority and therefore an exception to that violence that dominates the human experience. Those who defend the slaughter are the ephilists who are mentally ill and not at all philosophical. The edgy normalgays also do it, of course, when it suits them; cowardly b***hes.
>NOT REAL COMMUNISM
It fits and such becomes blatant when you morons retreat back to your dumb tautology thinking it's a magic key that proves your pathetically miserable beliefs. I'd tell you to touch grass but seeing as you're an antinatalist it would probably give you a panic attack lol
Where i talk about communist?
well you see antinatalist-kun, he was implying for the sake of criticism that the arguments you used to defend yourself were quite similar to the ones communists use, being that you claim the ideological proponents of your beliefs are incapable of any wrong, and when they are found guilty of doing wrong, you claim they, retroactively, weren't proponents of your ideology
Antinatalists inherently cause harm, yes (just like everyone else), but assuming they follow their philosophy. They would be the beings with the least tendency to cause harm. The point is that you and others claim that antinatalism is bad because it causes massacres and suicides. But in your blinding rejection of antinatalism you can barely name Lanza or that gay man who committed suicide, you forget the vast, vast majority of cases in which antinatalism had no place.
he means someone that is not me, also if you want to talk of statistics, you should actually find them first 😉
Wow, what a terrible argument.
>He is an infamous mass murderer
Yeah, he murdered them because he was an anti-natalist.
I used to be an antinatalist. I still follow the youtube antinatal/efilist scene and the various dramas. My thinking has softened quite a bit since then, and I'm not so convinced by the arguments. I still won't have children (already had a vasectomy for antinatal reasons - which I do not regret), but I don't think its right or logical to morally condemn others for doing so, or to view it as wrong in all cases.
Firstly I was never convinced by the asymmetry argument and it's hard to even parse what it is considering benatars chapter is an autistic mess of graphs and analytic "philosophy", but I think Julio Cabera made the best argument against it in one of his papers (he is also an antinatalists) showing that it rests on a conflation of two different senses of "good" (impersonal and person-affecting). Myself I just don't find the argument intuitive. Benatar specifically states he isn't claiming that the absence of suffering is some kind of ontological "good", but rather an absence of suffering is comparatively "better" (which beneatar then converts, autistically, to the word "good"), than the counterfactual case in which that person is born and suffers. But then by the same token not being born and not feeling the pleasure of a good life is comparatively worse ("bad") than being born and living a great life. Benatar applies a person affecting sense only in the case of an absence of suffering (better never to have been), and not in the case of absence of pleasure (nobody exists to be deprived of its lack!), hence an asymmetry. But it's a conjured asymmetry from an application of different standards for the absence of suffering and pleasure. So logically, we can just restore symmetry but benatar says we shouldn't because he has 4 other axiological asymmetries he claims are widely held (an empirical claim he provides zero evidence for..) pointing to a sort of inherent asymmetry humans have in their value judgments towards absences of sufferings and pleasures. But these can be clearly accounted for through other reasons (too long to go into here), but in the first place he needs to provide evidence THAT these are even things we need to account for in the first place - it's an empirical claim and experimental philosophy needs to be done. Can't just intuit via the armchair what seems right to you and project it onto the whole world.
Quality of life argument is a difficult one. Not his specifically because his writing is trash and is nowhere near the level of actual pesimisstic philosophers of the past. But I think here is the only real case to he made for antinatalism. But a big part of me is just like... well this is directly refuted by those who say their life is good and they're glad to be born. I don't share the same arrogance as the south African to invoke pollyannaism and status quo bias and essentially just say nay everyone is wrong their judgments about the value and quality of their own lives is WRONG and only mine is right. It's the height of arrogance. And so there goes antinatalism - at least some lives are worth starting - the ones in which it's worth it to the liver.
But how do we know???!!! Risk!!! Imposition!!! Consent!!! Screams the antinatalist. But almost everything we do in service of our desires involves risks to others - driving a car, medical treatments, etc. None of these we view as immoral even though horrific things result and people die all the time. Why specifically the focus on procreation then? If you want to make a wider all encompassing case against risk imposition you'll be forced never to leave the house. The consent argument is just a category error, and life is not imposed onto anything- babies grow in wombs burdening their mothers bodies, imposing their own risks on her, and are then cared for and nutured ensuring their survival through tireless parental effort. Antinatalism treats procreation as a singular act (an incredibly male-brained thing to do- mirroring the asymmetry in the sexual risk and responsibility between the sexes. Wam bam thank you mam, vs risking death by pregnancy/labour and woken do the majority of early childhood parenting.. ). There's some definite incelly vibes in antinatalist discourse - you'll notice the near complete lack of gender/sex analysis in the online debates (odd- considering how babies are formed). But not odd when you realize the majority are male and have the PRIVILIGE to view procreation through a detached lens and apply moral judgment, and not see it as something that can be imposed via force, comess with great personal risk and has implications for one's bodily and legal autonomy...
Oh and another thing I noticed is the near complete lack of discussion around parental desire and the harms of living a life childless, for those who want offspring. Does this suffering not matter? Antinatalists demand of these people to live in r/childfree martyrdom for their entire lives in service of another extinctionist cause and their reward is what? And why can't children suffer a little bit for their parents desires? You can't suffer a bit to make your mom happy? Are you a pussy b***h? She wanted kids so what you get sad every now and then. Love your mother and deal with it. She deserved a fulfilled life with children and you're whining you wish you were never born?
Anyway I'm ranting. My conclusion is that some lives were not immoral to make (those people judge themselves are worthwhile) therefore antinatalism is wrong. There's better and worse ways to raise children, but like everything else nothing is guaranteed and the world is a risky place. If you don't want to try for your own children that's up to you, but to call it immoral when others do is incorrect. It's like saying driving is immoral because sometimes kids die, even though you made it to the shop and back just fine - most people don't regret their birth like antinatalists do.
I mean yeah driving for example is immoral. Making a big metal object that pollutes the environment go super fast just so you can get somewhere is not exactly the right thing to do. And there are thousand of car accidents every day that cause immense suffering.
Someone saying that their life is good doesn't justify the sheer abuse and suffering that goes on in the world as a whole. I love my mother a lot and I make sure that she knows it. But I don't think that she had the right or that she deserved to have children. But I do have the right to be unhappy because I never asked to be born, especially not into this world. And I don't suffer a bit. I'm actually in agonizing pain through a lot of days. Sometimes for months without end. I don't get sad every now and then. I feel absolute misery and despair.
So I do suffer quite a lot for my family by merely waking up every day and living my life. And worst of all my mother is not exactly happy either, she's on medication and obviously suffers from depression. And this kind of a "suck it up" attitude for pointless and vast suffering is the most immoral and despicable of all.
I think if anything we're not pessimistic enough. Because as easy as it is to tell other people to kill themselves all of us are still here and we do everything in our power to delude ourselves to go on another day.
>Someone saying that their life is good doesn't justify the sheer abuse and suffering that goes on in the world as a whole.
But that's beyond the scope of antinatalism which deals specifically with the permissibility of reproduction. You don't need to justify the world's suffering in order to have children, you only need justify whether that 'act' of procreation is permissible or not. It's kind of like saying you shouldn't drive a car because you canr justify all the horrific car accidents in the world. But if you go to the shop and come back fine, what's the issue?
I think, at best, individual acts of procreation can be said to be mistakes, not immoral. Is it immoral to make a driving mistake and crash? To misjudge a gap and cause a fender bender? I don't think that's immoral, I think its just a mistake.
People have children. They want them. They try their best and sometimes the kid just grows up and says I wish it never happened. Did the parent commit an immoral act in conceiving and raising their child? I think they just made mistake - they thought there would be one outcome when innfact there was another.
I like to drive. I don't see driving as immoral even though it contains risks to others. Even others who can not consent to burden that risk (eg, kids or infants being driven by their parents having no choice in the matter). It's possible there's a catastrophe and I kill someone by making a bad driving mistake. I think the analogy is similar to procreation - a risk taken on behalf of other people, for my own desires (I want to drive), with potential catastrophic results. But driving isn't immoral. We all manner of risk mitigation in place - rules regulations training etc. It's the same with parenting to a degree - laws around it, the state will step in if you frick up too bad, there's schooling and Healthcare etc.
So what's the difference? If procreation is immoral then so is driving. But driving isn't immoral overall. Yes you can make mistakes in both. And yes in both you can have individual circumstances of immorality eg purposefully crashing, driving wasted, reckless speeding - or raising your kids all fricked up abusively. But to condemn ever act of reproduction and every act of driving as immoral is stupid.
You may have a pesomisstic take on human existence. So do I. I won't have kids because of it. But at the end of the day that's just my opinion about the world and has no more claim to objectivity than life loving baby breeders. And really, is it not the height of arrogance to think the ideal number of humans is 0, because life is bad FOR YOU?
>But if you go to the shop and come back fine, what's the issue?
The thousands of other cases where someone doesn't.... obviously. It's not a mistake if you know the risk, you're just betting on it not happening for your own gain. That is extremely selfish.
>Did the parent commit an immoral act in conceiving and raising their child?
Absolutely, presuming one outcome is not only selfish but also stupid. The mistake in the first place was to have a child. Because as we see suffering is everywhere in our world. It wouldn't be there if we stopped reproducing.
>I like to drive.
People like a lot of immoral and fricked up things.
>rules regulations training etc. It's the same with parenting to a degree - laws around it, the state will step in if you frick up too bad, there's schooling and Healthcare etc.
Yet these things still happen. Children get abused without anyone knowing.
>But to condemn ever act of reproduction and every act of driving as immoral is stupid.
The only stupid thing is trying to justify the suffering that we create.
>And really, is it not the height of arrogance to think the ideal number of humans is 0, because life is bad FOR YOU?
The height of arrogance is to create suffering that wouldn't exist because life is good FOR YOU. Just because it's good FOR YOU doesn't make it good FOR ME or many, many other people who never wished to be born.
>assuming the literal infrastructure is not made for these kinds of harmful stuff
moron
How could those people be "suffering from being childless" in the first place. Oh wait thats right being born in the first place.
>WAAAAHHH I CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN DUDE... I CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN AAAHHH THE LE SUFFERING!!!
Normalgays are literal homosexuals. They boil the lobsters alive to cook them, but no, for the normalgay the suffering consists of not fulfilling their whims, lmao
And there it is, once again. All this talk of reducing suffering, empathy, harm minimization from the antinatalists and the moment you challenge them their hatred and misanthropy comes frothing to the surface. This has nothing to do with ethics. Antinatalists just hate humanity and want to see it all blown up.
He's right.
I'm not sure I'm anti-natalist. But hatred towards beings (especially towards humans) is completely justified, precisely because of the damage they do, a useless and immeasurable torture that leads to the survival of literally... nothing. I mean everybody will die
>Quality of life argument is a difficult one. Not his specifically because his writing is trash and is nowhere near the level of actual pesimisstic philosophers of the past. But I think here is the only real case to he made for antinatalism.
Just to add this, I agree with the pessimistic, well moreso the buddhist analysis of existence (first noble truth/dukkha -minus the samsara 31 realms nonsense), but I think ultimately, it's just a sort of subjective personal opinion. I can make a case for there being structural 'negativities' within human embodiment (eg pereptual need for food water shelter etc, inevitability of aging, death, inherent vulnerability to be harmed and capacity TO harm), but others view it differently. For me hunger is a great evil - it speaks to our deficient nature and our struggle against a ravenous body that will ultimately cannabilkze itself to death for want of nutrition. Others? They see Hunger as just a signal, neither bad nor good, that it's time to eat and EATINGS GOOD! Of course i think these people are moronic and wrong, but ultimately I have no more claim to an "objective" analysis of the value of human embodiment than they do. Maybe they'd change their minds when the supermarkets run out of food. Or maybe I'd change mine if I wasn't such a cynical depressed miserable frick who regrets his own birth. Who knows?
Ultimately it's a wash either way as they antinatalists won't breed and the clucky women or the too moronic or religious to use condoms will, so any sort of "antinatal" activism is pointless, if not outright counterproductive considering you'd be leaving the world to the breeders. And anyway people don't really have kids for altruistic reasons anyway, they don't breed out of "natalist ideology" as if out of altruistic desire to impose a positive existence on the unborn, but for more mundane reasons- babies are cute, mom wants grandkids, it's "what one does", hubby wants a legacy, oops the condom broke, etc.
Fun fact: lanza was actually a fan of the(infamous) youtube EFIList (an extreme pro violence and antinature form of antinatalism) - Gary Mosher/inmendham.
>muh antinatalism
i don't understand why you have to make an ideology out of it
life is shit and i'm not going to have children, but i see no reason to dwell on that fact
You can save someone from being born. You don't have to, but you can. Especially if you feel like your own existence is very unfair it can be cathartic to show people that it's not right.
But the best outcome would be to end all suffering in our world. Even if it seems impossible.
>Triyng to convince sexless kissing virgins not to have children.
https://www.abolitionist.com/anti-natalism.html
>Benatar's policy prescription is untenable. Radical anti-natalism as a recipe for human extinction will fail because any predisposition to share that bias will be weeded out of the population. Radical anti-natalist ethics is self-defeating: there will always be selection pressure against its practitioners. Complications aside, any predisposition not to have children or to adopt is genetically maladaptive. On a personal level, the decision not to bring more suffering into the world and forgo having children is morally admirable. But voluntary childlessness or adoption is not a global solution to the problem of suffering.
>Yet how should rational moral agents behave if - hypothetically - some variant of Benatar's diagnosis as distinct from policy prescription was correct?
>In an era of biotechnology and unnatural selection, an alternative to anti-natalism is the world-wide adoption of genetically preprogrammed well-being. For there needn't be selection pressure against gradients of lifelong adaptive bliss - i.e. a radical recalibration of the hedonic treadmill. The only way to eradicate the biological substrates of unpleasantness - and thereby prevent the harm of Darwinian existence - is not vainly to champion life's eradication, but instead to ensure that sentient life is inherently blissful. More specifically, the impending reproductive revolution of designer babies is likely to witness intense selection pressure against the harmfulness-promoting adaptations that increased the inclusive fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment of adaptation. If we use biotechnology wisely, then gradients of genetically preprogrammed well-being can make all sentient life subjectively rewarding - indeed wonderful beyond the human imagination. So in common with "positive" utilitarians, the "negative" utilitarian would do better to argue for genetically preprogrammed superhappiness.
I wish this was thing. The earth doesn't need 8 billion invasive species ruining it. I wish covid would have culled the population down to 2-4 billion.
That's not antinatalism though. The ideal number of humans for antinatalists is 0. They aren't talking about reducing the population to save the planet, it's an extinctionist philosophy based on human life being irredeemable. Some even include the animals as well.
He is right. My first son has turned into troony, my second son streams himself bothering people for living and my daughters does interracial porn on only fans. That wasn't suppose to happen to me.
what do you want us to discuss, its not possible to refute that take without looking like a moron
>be antinatalist
>be disproven by analytical philosophy, simple logic, and pure semantics
>be regarded as false by 9/10 philosophers
>be seen as half the truth by all religions ever
>read only non-fiction of your bias
>read only fiction of your psychological dispositions
at least try to outgrow your fedora phase
After all the shilling I finally illegally downloaded this book, and I have to say, it's just bad. The arguments are bad.
>my unborn child, would you like to be a wageslave for decades and then take care of me while I have dementia, only to die and disappear back into the void anyway?
>no, you fricking moron
Normalgays are so selfish they would do it anyway and just tell them to suck it up because life is suffering for everyone and that somehow justifies it
Although I enjoy philosophical pessimism very much, anti-natalism is one of the stupidest beliefs ever. Like, you can't even decide whether you will be brought into this world or not. And even if there were the anti-natalistic "utopia" in which people put an end to any procreation, nature would find its way to create another sentient species somewhere else in the galaxy sooner or later.
>you can't even decide whether you will be brought into this world or not
So that makes it okay to bring people into the world and create suffering? You can decide not to bring people into this world. Most people don't even think about it. They just do it because they want to. Either you care about the pain of your child and prevent it by not having them or you don't care about it and you put your desire to have a child before them.
I believe that most likely there already are other sentient species. And it doesn't justify bringing people into this world. To give an example it's like dealing drugs because if you won't do it someone else will anyway. Stupid.
This is the moronic asymmetry that antinatalists invoke. They state the absence of pain is good, and yet the absence of pleasure is not bad. This is an absurd contradiction borne out of a resentment of their current circumstances. Prima facie, it would be a better world to have more conscious beings enjoying the universe and feeling the rich spectrum of experiences than a cold lifeless universe.
Maybe your particular life has been particularly shit and you think it's not worth it, yet you don't have the courage to commit suicide. So you waste your time arguing online saying how you wish philosophies were around so you weren't born. Truly, I say to you, have a nice day. It's the morally righteous thing to do under your philosophy.
I hope you don't have a nice day. I want you to believe in the potential and beauty of life. Truly. There is vast complexity and beauty in the smallest things on a fractal scale. It's only a matter of perspective.
No, it's not better to have a world filled with suffering. I don't think there is any beauty in it. The difference is that my perspective is about humanity as a whole and not just the people who manage to cope with their existence. It's a problem that doesn't need to be created.
>This is the moronic asymmetry that antinatalists invoke. They state the absence of pain is good, and yet the absence of pleasure is not bad.
To be fair to benatar, this isn't really HIS argument (which is far more convaulted and qualified than this). That some online r/antinatalism idiots only exposure to him is an out of context diagram which they weaponize to push extinctionism isn't a reflection on his argument, but only their own moronation.
>which is far more convaulted and qualified than this
Eh...It has a lot more mental gymnastics to peel through if you're arguing but the foundation is as weak as r/antinatalist bullshit.
The analogy with drugs is kinda silly, because dealing that is socially and legally unacceptable whereas procreating has always been seen as something greatly positive and essential to human nature.
I mean, if not having children is deemed as an ethical act personally for you, then nobody stops you from being childless; but, as for me, it gives you nothing, but some precarious brownie points. It doesn't solve the problem of suffering on a metaphysical scale, and all our moral/immoral acts fade away in the face of that.
I don't see procreating as something positive. I think it's even worse than dealing drugs.
The scale of things doesn't justify even the smallest crimes.
I'm not antinatalist, but I am child free and misanthropic. I don't like arguments for antinatalism because I consider life meaningful but human life meaningless.
I would have preferred being a bird or whale during a time without man, a powerful demon, an ancient tree, or so on. I loved the scenes in Maldoror with the dolphin-man and pelican-man's monologues; the anti-humanism and sense of breaking out of the confines of human intersubjectivity greatly appeal to me.
This is why I absolutely hate Christ. I interpret Christ as that "sense of humanist brotherhood that confines man to his form and intersubjectivity". I hate it. I like to imagine myself transforming into some kind of Lovecraftian transcendental abomination like Ebrietas or becoming a cosmic dragon or phoenix who grows indifferent to mankind's hubris.
It's why I like older JRPGS where the misanthropic villain sheds his human form and transforms into a cosmic entity. I imagine myself like this. I would have no issue destroying all of humanity and watching them suffer as I mock them if I became some kind of transcendent being.
These feelings have remained consistent for past 10 or so years. It's become more intense lately where I can't read literature that doesn't place strong emphasis on the "non-human".
Here we're just a bunch of worms and we always will be. We're conscious enough to realize how insignificant we are and that the suffering we create is pointless and could easily be prevented.
I'm not a nihilist. I actually think there are good arguments for panpsychism and Gaia Theory.
I just reread chapter 2 of better never to have been, and there are so many issues with his assymetry argument (and his autistic convulted barely legible writing style). I could go into detail of the issues but I doubt anyone here has actually read the book so I'll just say I don't accept there's an assymetry. Absent harms and absent benefits should he valued symmetrically and so what determines the consideration of what makes a life worth STARTING is whether (in benatars utilitarian terms) the good outweighs the bad. Which accords with most peoples intuitions no? A good life is worth starting and a bad one isn't. Now I have a whole separate argument for why this entire utilitarian calculus of the value of life fails but that's beyond the scope of this thread.
Another big issue is that benatar presents chapter 2 as a standalone case for why existence has no advantages over non-existense. Then SEVERELY blurs the lines with chapter 3. Is it a standalone argument for ANTINATALISM or not? If it's just an argument that coming into existence, with respect to the hypothetical interests of a potential person, is always disadvantaged over "staying unborn", this doesn't make an antinatalist case that it is WRONG/IMMORAL to procreate. Let's say we grant this assymetry. So what? Do parents desires not matter? Do other values not matter like the furtherance of the species, social cohesion, etc? If we grant the asymmetry all it establishes is THAT there is a disadvantage to being born. This doesn't make it immoral to procreate. Almost everything we do disadvantages others in some way. Driving a car pollutes and is a risk to others. Is it immoral? No. Because the disadvantage is minor. Chapter 3 then goes on to true to show how this disadvantage is MAJOR (it does this very poorly basically saying people are deluded and their own assessments of the value of their lives are unreliable). But then it's a two step argument to reach ANTINATALISM now: assymetry PLUS the degree of the disadvantage that being born bestows.
But then how the frick is this not just an autistic rewriting of bog stabdard pesimissim? Life is bad the world's shit everything's suffering bla bla. It's an subjective evaluation of the conditions of human existence and has no more claim to authority than the life lovers.
I mean I don't even grant the asymmetry so it's a moot point but still.
My overall point here being, he requires chapter 3 to establish the IMMORALITY of procreation (antinatalism), but this can be easily refuted. You can basically just ignore the asymmetry argument and what are you left with? Some guy whining that everyone's wrong about how they value their lives and its all shit don't breed? Why should I listen?
Personally I think the best argument FOR antinatalism (I'm not one) is one to do with risk imposition and whether we can be justified in imposing risks on others for our own (or their) potential benefits. There are many arguments supporting this
Antinatalism is extremely simple
Either you care enough about the suffering of others to prevent it. Or you don't. And if you don't care then of course any kind of argument for antinatalism is useless because it doesn't concern you. Because you put yourself and your desires before others. Like you said. You like to drive, you think that parents have some selfish right to create suffering for their own joy. You don't care about the thousands of car accidents that destroy lives. You don't care that people didn't ask to be born because they can take a knife and slit their wrists after experiencing extreme suffering. You don't care that keeping a species that creates destruction and suffering going just for the sake of it is insanity.
You wake up every day and choose to be ignorant of the suffering that goes on in the world. Because it makes your life easier.
>You wake up every day and choose to be ignorant of the suffering that goes on in the world
And antinatalists don't?
If everyone was an antinatalist then suffering in our world would cease to be.
Common now, that sounds illogical. If everyone was anti-natalist the total misery would increase because they're 100x more miserable than the average person.
Obviously after we all die. I imagine that antinatalist society would be strange to say the least. But it doesn't really have to be unhappy. People can still adopt thousands of unloved and abandoned children and prepare them for being childless.
Depends on how it would be handled. The world could slow down and we could stop worrying about a lot of things.
Literally the plot of Children of Men.
I'd like to imagine that everyone would basically be like this guy. I know it's not that easy. But when people say that antinatalism is cowardly I think they are afraid of doing the right thing because it's difficult.
My issue with anti-natalists is that they're not good people. Their ideology doesn't come from a sense of empathy and despair at the suffering in the world. No ideology that purports this would dehumanize others as "breeders" and have such contempt for the common man. It seems to stem from their personal failure and considering most of its adherents are from the first, the source of their angst seems to be that they don't have millionaires life with a hot model for a gf/bf.
This movement also overlaps with other new age voodoo bullshit like veganism, Childfree, etc..again mostly populated by white men and suspiciously high percentage of white women who think having a kid cuts into their vacationing time.
"My ideology would work if everyone was nice, had my ideology and shared stuff"
Yeah, no shit most ideologies would work out if everyone was good, nice and bought into the same ideology. But the reality an anti-natal world even if ideologically homogenous would be filled with suffering for practical reasons. You need young men to maintain the infratructure and make your fricking food. The last generation of people are going to suffer IMMENSELY before they die off and it's going to make children of men look like a picnic. And This is assuming everyone is NICE AND GENEROUS.
The reality is antinatalism offers no practical solutions to end suffering and it's because antinatalists have ruled out two practical means to walk the talk with mental gymnastics i.e Suicide and a mass killing before you committ suicide.
I mean they are breeders. They breed. And it is more like animals than humans because the only thing that separates humans is being conscious enough to have control over things like this.
You could prepare for antinatalism and make a suitable world to eventually let the last generation live out in comfort.
>They breed. And it is more like animals than humans because the only thing that separates humans is being conscious enough to have control over things like this.
And because someone makes "conscious choice" to have kids doesn't make them more animal like. This is exactly what I'm talking about, you're not empathetic people. The entire facade about ending suffering is a meme. You don't care.
Let's take the next step in the argument, if the breeders are no different than animals but you still pretend to care about their suffering then what about animals? Surely, you'd want them all dead too?
What would be the point of ending suffering in one species only for another to take over?
> Humanity is not infinite and there will be a final population. Whether it will end instantly in some catastrophe or a gradual decline due to inhospitable conditions is yet to be seen. We are no different from other species the overwhelming majority of whom have gone extinct.
Well, then why do you care and what would be the point of this philosophy? The heat death of the universe is going to end all life anyway.
Now, if the argument is again "the amount of suffering increases the longer life persists" then the point remains, why aren't you spree killing people? If you care about the number and if it pains you so, you should do something about it.
As we've even an ideal antinatalist ending would involve a lot of suffering. So you shouldn't too concerned about the temporary suffering you're causing.
>if you're not spree killing people like Adam lanza, your philosophy is pointless
I don't see antinatalism as some sort of cause or end or movement to enact in the world. I am well aware of the futility. For me, antinatalism is about moral philosophy - whether being born is a good thing, whether we are justified in procreating. I don't think we are. The difference this makes to the world is I, one human out of 8 billion world population skyrocketing to 11 billion by 2050, choosing not to have children. Our individual affects on the trajectory of the species is near imperceptible. But still that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider the morality of procreation. Also all the suggestions of killing and omnicide fly in the face of antinatalisms importance placed on consent, non-imposition, not causing suffering, etc. I don't know why so many people have your reaction. Just because the hypothetical ideal number of new births is 0, for various moral reasons, doesn't mean we are justified in bringing about this state of the world by any means necessary. Obviously.
>>if you're not spree killing people like Adam lanza, your philosophy is pointless.
Your specific philisophy requires you to if ones wants to logically consistent.
>I don't see antinatalism as some sort of cause or end or movement to enact in the world. I am well aware of the futility. For me, antinatalism is about moral philosophy - whether being born is a good thing, whether we are justified in procreating.
I see that as a bit of a cop out. If you're from the west you consume more than 4 to 6x electricity than an Indian or Chinese. Your existence probably causes more animal suffering, habitat loss and what have you than a viet chick having a kid or two.
You admit you're not making a major difference in the world. Just that you yourself are not causing harm in this instance specifically. One less sin than the average joe. You could take it one step further, have a nice day and make room for others but I suppose you're not generous enough for that.
If I go out and help neuter a couple of street dogs while I still have a child, I would've lived a more moral life than an antinatalist.
>Your existence probably causes more animal suffering, habitat loss and what have you than a viet chick having a kid or two.
That's on the parents who choose to bring a child into this world. Simply not creating a life is much easier than suicide or going on a killing spree. It's very merciful.
And when people say, "well, what difference does it make? Not having a child makes an extreme difference. As long as you have children it's all pointless. You can be a saint that never caused a drop of suffering but the moment you have a child you contributed to ensuring that it will not stop.
>You can be a saint that never caused a drop of suffering but the moment you have a child you contributed to ensuring that it will not stop.
Sorry, you're still causing suffering by existing and not killing yourself sooner. As far as I'm concerned, if there 1000 sins the average man committs you're reducing the number by 1 by choosing to not have a child. That's all. There's a lot more you do or abstain from that reduce the suffering of the world but you're not even going to try because that's not convenient for you.
You talk about "net suffering" and "net happiness" but you only want to consider "not participating" in a certain sin you don't like as a good act, one that can't be equalled by any others. A person can save a 1000 lives and help a million poor but he would still be a bigger sinner as per your ideology when he breeds because "net good/happiness" is dropped when convenient.
It's essentially a lazy way of acting like a saint by doing nothing. Nothing more than the ideology of redditors who think laziness is a virtue.
>A person can save a 1000 lives and help a million poor but he would still be a bigger sinner as per your ideology
Yeah, it is pretty depressing that in the long run not having children is more effective in reducing and stopping suffering.
I don't think it's lazy as much as it is just simple. Not for everyone, but definitely for people like me. I won't claim that this makes me better than a saint. I know that I could be much more virtuous, always. But it's not a really a competition about who is more virtuous, it's just about putting an end to it. And that won't happen as long as children are born.
>Yeah, it is pretty depressing that in the long run not having children is more effective in reducing and stopping suffering.
No. You're contradicting yourself. Either A) What you're doing us futie or B) What you're doing is a great service, greater than helping thousands of people.
> I don't think it's lazy as much as it is just simple.
It's incredibly lazy and self-aggrandizing. Despite, your claim that you're not interested in preaching or prosletyzing just like Benatar you just can't help yourself.
There's lots of duplicitious shit in the way you argue and a lot of it is to cover up the simple fact that your ideology in order to be consistent requires you to have a nice day.
It is a great service yes. I don't think it's futile. And most importantly it's not right to have children. Suicide has nothing to do with it.
Usually people don't make a conscious choice. They don't even think about it and that's a big problem. When I think about having a child I ask myself one question. Do I love my child enough to spare it suffering. Yes or No?
I answer Yes and the only way to prevent suffering of my child is not to bring it into existence. If you answer No then you're a monster. Ending animal suffering is part of antinatalism too, yes.
Many people do go on killing sprees. But that's not something that I would ever be capable of. I think if I ever got to that point I would rather shoot myself first. I'd rather do my part by simply not having children.
Life is meaningful, (some) suffering has instrumental value, and the harms of being alive are well compensated for by the benefits of being born. Just as in the case of a doctor operating on an unconscious patient to benefit them, even though they can't consent, I can take the same paternalistic attitude to my own future children and impose existence on them, because the benefits outweigh the costs (I know this because in my own case it is true) and I desire to have children and it benefits me. There's nothing monstrous about parenting it's a great sacrifice of time money and effort and a huge moral and personal responsibility. But it is worthwhile because living is worthwhile and having children is worthwhile because a meaningful life is worth living. You seem depressed and pesimisstic.
Life can be meaningful I agree. But procreation is wrong.
It'd be nice if every operation in our world that a doctor performs would benefit the patient. But that's not the case. Many operations end up killing or harming the patients. And just as a patient can be compensated for a botched operation he can also live with permanent damage that can't be undone.
You were compensated for your harm. So now you think that it's okay to harms others as long as you compensate them. And that's assuming that you will compensate them. And you do it simply because you desire it and because it benefits you. And you say that there is nothing monstrous about subjecting anyone to this.
It is a moral and personal responsibility to not inflict suffering on others. And even a greater sacrifice than money, time and effort is sacrificing your own desires for what is right.
Living can be worthwhile, but subjecting others to it is wrong. I am depressed and pessimistic and no amount of compensation will ever make it right.
>The last generation of people are going to suffer IMMENSELY before they die off and it's going to make children of men look like a picnic. And This is assuming everyone is NICE AND GENEROUS.
Firstly veganism is highly contentious within antinatalism and r/antinatalism losers being mad is more a case of the loudest voices being heard the most but there are genuine considered antinatlists and a lot of internal criticism within the "community".
But anyway onto this quote - the reality is this is our fate regardless of antinatalism. Humanity is not infinite and there will be a final population. Whether it will end instantly in some catastrophe or a gradual decline due to inhospitable conditions is yet to be seen. We are no different from other species the overwhelming majority of whom have gone extinct.
Also you could orchestrate it hypothetically with lower amounts of suffering than just a single generation. For instance a slow managed decline where we all have like 1.5 kids between a couple.
Broadly speaking these doomer philosophical discussions are probably a symptom of shitty economic trends in the developed world. If you're a young mediocre dude, the potential job opportunities are looking bleak in the future. You're either looking forward to UBI or Covid 2.0.
Ideally we make major advances in productivity and energy to create mass abundance resulting in a star trek economy. I don't expect it, but it would be nice if it turned out that way.
I have everything I need personally. Not saying that being wealthier wouldn't be nice but it would still be me. Same worldview and problems. Some things even money can't solve or undo.
Why are you assuming so much about me? I had a vasectomy for antinatal reasons and wish I was never born. I just don't think procreation is IMMORAL in all cases, therefore antinatalism is not correct.
Also you parental hatred is just dripping from your post. What abkut the suffering of the already existent whose lives will be greatly worsened by not having children? I know the general antinatalist response is to trivialize this or just scream that it's selfish but the reality is having children is part of most peoples life trajectories and this being thwarted is a great harm to many people- the shame of infertility, loneliness, the amount of money people spend on fertility treatments, the absolute panic that women feel as their eggs dry up and they don't have kids. You don't care about this suffering. What you want is a barren world because you feel aesthetic disgust toward the presence of beings with the capacity to suffer. But this isn't grounds for moral claims just as finding chocolate disgusting isn't grounds for wanting to cut down the plantations.
I'm not assuming anything. Only replying to what you told me.
It wouldn't be easy for many people to not have children. But it's the right thing to do. They can try to learn to live a meaningful and happy life without them, knowing that it will prevent suffering and destruction in our world. And I know that many won't be able to deal with it. But that's just another of many problems of existence and it would be better if we had enough sympathy to not burden anyone else with it. I think it would be very noble.
People suggesting suicide for anti-natalists seem to miss a point that fear of death is one of the prime sources of suffering. Logically it's easy to recognise it as an escape, but the treshold is so scary that the majority of organized religion rotates around the subject to placate it. Suicide is an option only when the perceived ongoing suffering is greater than the treshold, which I believe is rarely the case even for anti-natalists.
>quotes the Bible
How does he feel knowing his entire philosophical position was originated and superseded by a book which is more than 2000 years old? Kek. The Bible is not only where he takes that title form, but has the good sense to consider having children an imperative and a blessing anyway.
There's a lot of wisdom in the Bible. Also a lot of bullshit.
I will never read this homosexual but I do have one question.
If he believes that knowing the truth to life is so bad it's better never to have existed and that the people who share his beliefs are often disabled, suffer from mental illness and or completely depressed and that the absense of suffering in non-existence is actually better than suffering in life: why would you ever want to spread these beliefs to other people and or convince happy people of them? What do you get out of that apart from wanting to spread your own hatred and resentment to other people so they can't feel the happiness you obviously want?
I don't want people to be unhappy personally. And I don't even want them to regret the children that they already have or change their entire personality to be depressed. Just don't have anymore children, that's all.
By sharing these views you are actively trying to convince them though, that is literally the only point in anybody sharing an ideology they believe in.
Why does it "need to be said" if not to spread his beliefs?
Ask him how should I know?
>Ask him how should I know?
I would have assumed you read him lmao
He's a professor of philosophy primarily in population ethics he makes his living lecturing and selling books
I don't think that you have to be unhappy to be an antinatalist. But suffering can make you feel a lot more empathy for others, which leads to antinatalism.
If someone is happy and finding out about antinatalism makes them unhappy, then they must have a good reason to feel that way. Some people might be happier if they never confronted ideas like this, but others don't even have a choice and antinatalism can actually make them feel better.
It's not like you can isolate all the unhappy people and contain them in some prison just because seeing them threatens your own happiness.
It's not just "antinatlism" though, to convince somebody of that you're also trying to convince them that their own life and existence is a bad thing. You can't just put it in a vacuun.
>The world and life is so bad it's better not to have kids, also you would have been better never to have been born as well, life is terrible
Wtf are you expecting to people to do if you ever convince them of this? This goes beyond "next generation could be miserable don't have a kid" this is extreme pessimism to the core
>These words are really fricking important and need to be said
>Also I need some cash
Watered down a bit
I don't see the existence of many people as a bad thing. They had no control over it. If they manage to find happiness while not hurting anyone that's genuinely great. I see procreation as a bad thing.
The world we live in is a terrible place, if you don't realize that at some point you're barely conscious. And if you start to act all hurt because someone taps you on your shoulder and points out what kind of a world you bring people in then I have no sympathy for you.
That's your view though, I'm not asking about that.
From the intro
>love suffering
>love life
>love myself
>hate moral homosexualry
Simple as.
All of the poor sub five forever virgins. That have to slave away their entire lives for minium wage in misery. All thanks to the natalists. Yeah humanity should go extinct we are filled with selfish violent people who opress and use each other in hierachies. We have enslaved billions of animals in the form of live stock in order too kill them and eat them. We have and are producing suffering for billions of lives. There are millions of people raped,bullied and starving every day in fact bullies are more succesful then non bullies. I mean how messed up is that? Considering how selfish and horrible human nature is and for that matter humanity as a whole. Why should such a species continue why not end this prison loop known as life. It would be the best end for such a garbage species.
Based if ironic.
Cringe otherwise.
Fool
>we are filled with selfish violent people who opress and use each other in hierachies.
>We have enslaved billions of animals in the form of live stock in order too kill them and eat them.
>There are millions of people raped,bullied and starving every day in fact bullies are more succesful then non bullies.
Based life
Well atleast you acknowledge it albiet proudly. Most natalists do not even do that. I guess it shows that anti natalism is right and that people against anti natalism especially pro natalists are just sadists addicted to suffering.
>it shows that anti natalism is right and that people against anti natalism especially pro natalists are just sadists addicted to suffering.
(You) better believe it homosexual.
>I guess it shows that anti natalism is right
Define "right"
"Right" in the sense that antinatalists rightly deserve to be raped and at laughed to the point that they unalive themselves.
OP got btfo by
Everything afterwards is antinatalist cope for why they aren't offing themselves.
Based.
?si=Sm8a9AgY8Xnryie_
>we must end the human race because I can't get laid
I thought having children was le bad though?
Not a single refutation to this, just jeering. Natalists are demonic.
there's peace to be had in the fact that 99.9999% of people ITT will die an utterly miserable, lonely death, either by suicide or in their shit-stained bedsheets in a nursing home. they've already lost. they just don't know it yet. tick tock tee hee
>assuming he wont die in the next nuclear holocaust or ww3
stupid
I just don't understand why you anti-natalists desire sex so much. The point of sex is to make babies.
good post. This is the only response
written by someone over 25
Trips, also
Yes, people can only defend life by their own ignorance of the pain others feel. It's almost funny when people say that life is worth it despite the suffering, there are billions of people who are dirt poor and have absolutely nothing, except irrational delusions to keep themselves going. There is so much that can go wrong and can go wrong easily and so little that goes right in most cases.
I'm a modest antinatalist but his asymmetry argument is invalid. The best argument for antinatalist is the consent argument or something like Julius Bahnsen where he imagines a conscious agent can be tormented endlessly.
>but his asymmetry argument is invalid
Why
Because you can either say that the pleasure the potential person misses out on is bad or that the suffering the person is spared is neutral, restoring the symmetry. Part of the problem is he is trying to make an analytic argument. Personally I find the analogy of a man in a coma having all his life-savings squandered on lottery tickets to be the strongest argument. Just like he cannot consent to this gamble, the unborn person cannot consent to the gamble on their life, which may even result in some sort of eternal torment potentially. I find antinatalists that are atheists, like Benetar, to be whiners since most people, including myself, live perfectly enjoyable lives. For me it's all about the uncertainty of the hereafter.
That gambling analogy doesn't work. First you say "squandered" loading the argument as if it's all a losing gamble, even though almost all don't regret their birth. But having children is not like a slot machine, it's more like a skilled game where you can play bad or good. Some parents do good some are shit. There's a right ad wrong way to raise children. And also in your analogy the coma patient already exists and has something to lose whereas the unborn are nothing. And also a better analogy to parenting would be like a doctor operating on someone in a coma. They can't consent to the treatment but the doctor assumes the patient consent because we judge that medical treatment is good for them. Just like procreation we say I judge the benefits of being born are worth the struggles in life. Nobody would say the doctor acted immorally. At best we'd say the doctor made a mistake if the coma patient woke up ad was like doc you should have let me die.
Ultimately the antinatalists are just like that coma patient. They didn't want to be born, wouldn't have given hypothetical consent to their birth, but it happened. Because their parents made a mistake in judgment. Is that immoral? We are human we are flawed we try and do the right thing and sometimes we get it wrong. Is this immoral? Morally wrong? Why do you judge others so harsh? And your own mother this way? Have some respect.
And also the gambling analogy fails also because once out lf childhood our life courses are not just pure chance. We have responsibility and can enact effects on our own lives, welfare and living situations. Even our own outlook on our lives is to a large degree chosen, a willful act and can be changed.
Yes, I'm not a promortalist. I believe everyone who is born has an ultimate purpose from God but I also believe that if someone is completely celibate, then God's simply not required a child from that person. I have a friend who thinks it is an edict to be married in the 21st century. I personally see the Noahide decree to be fulfilled. You know what words are not in the NT? "Be fruitful and multiply". Rather Jesus and Paul say marriage is a compromise to the devout lifestyle Christians are called to. But most persuasively I find the passage where Jesus says "woe to them who are with child and give suck in those days" to say if you recognize we're at the end of the age, just flat out do not have children and right now it looks like Iran is about to launch a strike on Israel. So this is why I referred to myself as a modest antinatalist; it's just a matter of personal virtue to me, I don't push it on anybody.
I used to be antinatalist. Read all the literature (I guarantee far more than anyone in this thread), but I ultimately ended up 'losing faith'.
Why? At its root, antinatalism is a rejectionist philosophy whose core notion is that human life, the world etc is not good enough, not up to my standards, defective, a problem to be rectified. And I just realized you know what? Frick that. I embrace creation. With all it's horrors and violence and miseries and tragedies. The violence the horror the tragedy and the love. I accept it all. It is not only good enough - it is grand! A world teeming with life, battling to the death, a dominant species pitted aimlessly against itself and other, struggling against an inevitable individual and collective demise. It's beautiful. I go on documentingreality and smile as a Mexican sicario has his head decapitated. Revel in the violence. The world is stained with the blood and the air thick with dying breaths. I reject nothing.
Embrace creation. Wake up and smell the blood in the air. Revel, rather than rebel.
Eat pray love but for chuds
%3D
Embrace the chudemiruge.
This has to be a joke or else it is the quintessence of a copeology
Existence is meant for sadomasochists (God's true chosen people). If you can't experience and adore the underlying oneness of pain and pleasure, or joy and sorrow, then I hate to say it, but you probably should... you know... not that it'll do you any good if Christianity turns out to be true, but what are the chances of that?
This. Excess is all, homie!
You're just hedonists, not ubermensch libertines. kitschy gay
>You're just hedonists, not ubermensch libertines
What's the difference? A libertine is a hedonist who doesn't quantify their pleasure. Suffering is the best gift anyone can give. And you better believe I'll give it to my kids. Hopefully they'll find your pathetic antinatalist ass, and give you the joy of suffering too.
Seething
>You're just hedonists
Yes, and?
*Antinatalist calling others hedonists*
Lol
Lmao even
the older i get the more i realise he was right
The vast majority of this damn IQfy just answers this with vast ignorance of the very horrorific and poor state of our society, and the comparibly worse state by wich we are currently heading. Just spare your children the wars over water morons
Ban short, unattractive, mentally ill, autistic, deformed or otherwise genetically unhealthy people from reproducing and then boom, suddenly life is enjoyable and antinatalism becomes unnecessary.
>beautiful people don't decay and die
The root of suffering is existential
That's such bullshit and you know it. There's a reason why nearly every antinatalist is a dysgenic, bitter loser. Beautiful people that get to enjoy their life have no time for muh existential questions.
You cannot never truly win tho, you will always end up suffering and ending up dying, And victory is subjective and merely temporary.
The point is that the pleasure in a genetically healthy person's life will greatly outweigh their suffering while the opposite is true for the ugly and incellic. What's hard to figure out about this?
there is no worldly happiness that doesn't expand the domain of suffering and death. You have a very blinkered perspective on things
Why the frick is that a point, not only is it not inevitable since historical conditions can easily turn even the healthiest of people into miserable beings, but also because nevertheless they still experience suffering and death.
>they still experience suffering and death
Yes and this only becomes an issue when the suffering outweighs the pleasure in a person's life which rarely happens outside of the ugly, the autistic, the bitter redditor types, etc. who coincidentally are almost always the ones that defend antinatalism. And since it can't survive as an ideology, eugenics is the closest thing you're going to get to a realistic "solution" other than some kind of mass extinction event.
You don't eradicate death and suffering as facts of life by looksmaxxing you fricking moron
>He thinks the sufferings of our society stem from genetically weak people
This guy is a literal fascist lmao
Anyone got an English translation of kurnigs neo-nihilisms?
My biggest problem with antinatalism is the overwhelming majority of them are just hateful losers. I say this AS an antinatalist. That reddit sub is a joke, the youtube scene is a joke. And hardly any antinatalists have even read a single book. The reality is antinatalism is a very narrow bioethical position. Essentially all cases of procreation are "wrongful life cases" rather than just those edge cases. That's it. That's the position.
But somehow this has turned into blow up the world, kill women, everything sucks frick you mom reeeeeeeee
There is a large amount of literature on procreative ethics. Rivka weinberg. Sheena shriffin, benatar, and a huge history of antinatal and protoantinatalist thinkers to read and study. But online? Nothing. Just losers whinging and those STOP HAVING KIDS morons holding their signs on the sidewalk. Mega fricking cringe.
The biggest contra with procreating is that life it's just... a humillation ritual
I know not a single one of you frickers has even read his book, but if you want a decent takedown of it read this
>https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11017-010-9152-y
There is no dilator big enough for the gaping stricture ridden neovegana that is human existence. We are born. We cope. We Sneed. And we dilate. But the wound persists.
I have no womb, no ovaries. I am a crude facsimile of womanhood. And despite my dysphoria, I am euphoric - for my sissy ass can be bred bucked and broken with impunity, without conceiving the curse that is human embodiment. The trannification of the youth shall be antinatalisms salvation. Blockers in the water supply. A Troon on every street corner. Tranime instead of 'toons and a final frickparty before the long goodnight.
The antinatalist saviour comes wearing rainbow thigh-highs and a pink chastity cage. And she's beautiful.
The sign is a subtle joke
I think people with the perspective should commit suicide immediately. Otherwise, grow up and stop being a baby.
KYS FED
Can an antinatalist debate me please? I just did I thorough reading of chapter 2 and 3 of BNTHB, read some critiques from philosophers as well as his responses.
I think my primary issue with Benatar is that, I don't accept his assymetry argument. I just can't make sense of if we are to consider the potential interests of a "possible person" in terms of avoiding harm, and call it good/better, with respect to their (possible) interests (in avoiding harm), then why do we not symmetrically make the case that it is worse, with respect to their potential interests in experiencing pleasure/benefit, to not be born and not be benefitted? As in literally I find this nonsensical, I don't understand why it's not symmetrical? He says because nothing is deprived by not experiencing the benefit/pleasure. But then, symmetrically, nothing is "prived" by not experiencing harm?
It's like he wants to make the case that ontologically speaking, non-being is good, but won't just say so, and instead makes an incoherent argument.
He's right for the genetic underclass.
Antinatalism is just largely elective cryptoeugenics.
> “Go ahead then, have a nice day and you won’t have to think about it again. If you don’t like life have a nice day. If you live and cannot understand the meaning of it, put an end to it, but don’t turn around and start talking and writing about the fact that you don’t understand life. You find yourself in cheerful company, where everyone is happy and know what they are doing, so if you find it boring and objectionable, leave! For in the end what are we, who are convinced that suicide is obligatory and yet cannot resolve to commit it, other than the weakest, the most inconsistent and, speaking frankly, the most stupid of people, making such a song and dance with our banalities.”
Tolstoy
>KYS!!!!! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!
He took the ultimate blackpill but none of yall want to accept it. Sad!
I occasionally check out r/antinatalism if i need a quick pick me up. They manage to make suffering and brooding appear so immensely cringe that i can't just go on being a sad c**t for a while.
Also refuted practically by being outselected. Horrible lack of discource when it comes to animal life too. All humans are dead? Ok, we'll just continue to procreate and suffer for 500 million years while propably giving rise to multiple intelligent species.
That's just falseflagging natalists posting on reddit so they can make screenshots of antinatalists acting cringy.
That is actually the most deluded excuse you could have came up with
It's not anymore deluded than thinking that you refuted an ideology because you found someone cringy on reddit.
I'm not that guy, I was lurking lel.
>cope
Lol, you homosexuals are so cringe it's unreal.
Not my fault you can’t make a convincing falseflag
First, the fact anti-natalists are embarrassing losers is obvious. Second, no one cares about trying to make you look bad. Keep crying on the internet about how sad and pathetic your life is lol
Yes no one cares about trying to make antinatalists look bad that's why your only argument is that they are losers and you keep falseflag pictures to show what losers they are in your anti-antinatalist folder. That definitely doesn't make you look like a pathetic and terminally online loser.
>thinks it's just one person shitting on anti-natalists
Lol, cool paranoia. You sound schizotypal.
This thread gets remade like every month. Do you people seriously have nothing better to read?
Why should I accept the moral presuppositions of antinatalists to begin with?