If there were only nothing, no justification would be needed, but if we assume that existence also does not need justification, then automatically nothingness becomes more justified: Occam's razor. — chiknsld

Well, absurdity though only has impetus in how it affects us. I see it affecting us in the patterns of constant sameness, and yet novelty is also absurd.

The sameness in the turning of the globe, the getting up to make your way in a society for survival, comfort-optimization, and entertainment pursuits, and doing this over and over and over and over again. Even the so-called "novelty" being just a part of this dissatisfaction or inherent boredom in the species. Boredom is like the flat-bottomed proof. It is the feeling itself of the absurd. Being is just one long tiring game that has come out of billions of years of interactions.

However, as I said earlier, a view from nowhere as a non-sentient universe would be, is basically "nothing". The animal is a dissatisfied universe. A universe that cannot handle nothing.

Existence is not "the source" of suffering and nonexistence neither prevents nor ends suffering – for the already born who actually suffer (plus all who have ever suffered), whom it is more "perfectly reasonable that a human is concerned" for than 'hypothetical sufferers'. — 180 Proof

It certainly is the source of suffering if we agree there is some form of inherent dissatisfaction with the animal and (amplified many times via) the condition of being a human.

However, if you speak of contingent suffering being circumstantial and stochastic, well, can you deny that plenty from rich to poor, tribal to industrial peoples get their fair share of trauma, troubles, and woes? If you deny this, then we can just stop talking cause I just won't believe your statements as true to what is going on and no further discussion can be had.

Besides, what could be more absurd than the antinatal "nostalgia" (Camus) for, in effect, humans deliberately 'to destroy the human species in order to, they hope, save the human species'? — 180 Proof

It is the "waking up" to "being burdened thus" by this shitty, really tedious, inescapable (except through death/game over) video game we call existence that we can at least communally recognize. There is aesthetic value in this realization. The ethical implications for those who are born are to not take it seriously and to try to burden others as little as possible. It is impossible for sure, but at least keep it as a guidepost.

And of course for future beings, we not creating onto others more burdens that are entailed inherently (dissatisfaction) and contingently (all the harms that befall us from circumstance and interactions with the world over time).

But don't worry, you will again make the Optimist Fallacy, over and over..

Then why this thread? — baker

Because I am aware of the ignorance and bringing it to light? These are core to my philosophical viewpoints, so why wouldn't I discuss them at length with those willing to engage in dialogue?

Thank you :D.

Only if philosophy consists of being disturbed by something completely beyond your control, in which case--

DIE, PHILOSOPHY, DIE! (copyright Ciceronianus 2022). — Ciceronianus

THE, PHILOSOPHY, THE? :D

Philosophy might be defined as just that, especially anything beyond ethics or applied ethics. What is X? What is a truth statement? What justifies X action? Yeah.

Surely it is easy to say that we can always go back to nonexistence, but there is no way to prove this is so. We could come from an entirely different lifeform or plane of existence before having entered into this one. Aside from that small chance though, It is certainly true that we only know of this hemisphere of reality. — chiknsld

I think exactly his point is this habit of ours to think in terms of always a “there” there because once “we” are created there is always a sense of locus of being that we cannot get away from. Hence notions of heaven, other planes, other realities, or modes of existence. Non-sentient being isn’t nothing, but it is a “view from nowhere”. At the end of the day, without a locus of a POV, what’s the difference? People mentioned entropy, which can be metaphorically analogized or reified as something akin to Schopenhauer’s Will but it’s not that. Barring panpsychism, the view from nowhere, from this somewhere where I am, looks like nothing.

Maybe the more people there are, higher the entropy. — Agent Smith

True enough, but mere existence need not be mere self-aware existence. We are not only being, but willing/becoming creatures with POV. But we are not only that, but self-aware versions of willing creatures with a POV. We are two steps removed from merely being in the, “just being there” sense of a universe that is something rather than nothing.

Sure, you can choose oblivion I guess. But that would be a different thread - the absurdity of non-existence (as a “choice”, when all you have to do is wait - entropy may take its sweet time, but it will track you down eventually!) — apokrisis

Same as 180, humans are the only beings (we know of) that can make a choice of perpetuating a POV of the absurdity. Entropy may have created our species, but it is us who choose to keep it going, each instance of procreation.

This is absurd, of course, because even human extinction neither solves nor, for that matter, even addresses the problem of suffering (i.e. entropy). — 180 Proof

But why should the human predicament care about the impersonal entropic suffering? It seems perfectly reasonable that a human is concerned with human suffering and recognizing its source and stopping its perpetuation (onto yet another).

The proper answer to the chicken and egg riddle, as any Peircean knows, is first came the pansemiosis, then came the biosemiosis. First there was the entropy gradient, then the genetic code that entrained it. — apokrisis

But humans can choose not to bring more life into the world. So they can choose nothingness in terms of a POV that another would otherwise take on. We are a species that can choose nothingness, contra the rest of the universe, perhaps, which can't help but follow its necessary path, coupled, with its contingent interactions.

You accusing me of pragmatism? Wanna step outside to discuss this? Or take your insult back. — Banno

Surely not. I mean the degraded form we use today when we say, "That is pragmatic".

dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. — Google

At all levels, the systems of life - from sociopolitical systems to solar systems - are repugnant and should be negated as MALIGNANTLY USELESS.
Fact is, nothing can justify our existence. Existence of any flavor is not only unjustified, it is useless, malignantly so, and has nothing to recommend it over nonexistence. A person’s addiction to existence is understandable as a telltale of the fear of nonexistence, but one’s psychology as a being that already exists does not justify existence as a condition to be perpetuated but only explains why someone would want to perpetuate it. For the same reason, even eternal bliss in a holy hereafter is unjustified, since it is just another form of existence, another instance in which the unjustifiable is perpetuated. That anyone should have a bias for heaven over nonexistence should by rights be condemned as hedonistic by the same people who scoff at Schopenhauer for complaining about the disparity between “the effort and the reward” in human life. People may believe they can choose any number of things. But they cannot choose to undo their existence, leaving them to live and die as puppets who have had an existence forced upon them whose edicts they must follow. If you are already among the existent, anything you do will be unjustified and MALIGNANTLY USELESS. — Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is already within yourself, your way of thinking. — Marcus Aurelius

And yet, the fact I exist at all was because two other people weren't happy enough with themselves.

The chooks laid two eggs for my breakfast. That'll do. — Banno

Even pragmatism is a role you decide to play. But you are on a philosophy forum, apparently the eggs just weren't enough. Mans' main problem.

Things just are. 'Nuff said. — Ciceronianus

And thus ends philosophy.

On the contrary.
I think you vastly underestimate just how alien your -- and Schopenhauer's -- ideas are to most people. — baker

No I’m aware on a daily basis. The average workaday folk can’t understand how life can be inherently suffering. They only understand folk-harm, that of the workaday contingent variety. If you ask them on a good day, they even forget how much of plain old fashioned contingent harm exists, as built in, iterative, Pollyannaism mechanisms rear their ugly head. And they certainly can’t fathom the idea that procreating is a political agenda, forcing the dictates and burdens on another, because they feel they are messiahs spreading some goodness onto a new person or some way of life they think other people need to live out. It’s all just forcing comply or die burdens on another person and then blaming them if they don’t embrace it.

In the workaday world, complainers will not go far. When someone asks how you are doing, you had better be wise enough to reply, “I can’t complain.” If you do complain, even justifiably, people will stop asking how you are doing. Complaining will not help you succeed and influence people. You can complain to your physician or psychiatrist because they are paid to hear you complain. But you cannot complain to your boss or your friends, if you have any. You will soon be dismissed from your job and dropped from the social register. Then you will be left alone with your complaints and no one to listen to them. Perhaps then the message will sink into your head: If you do not feel good enough for long enough, you should act as if you do and even think as if you do. That is the way to get yourself to feel good enough for long enough and stop you from complaining for good, as any self-improvement book can affirm. But should you not improve, someone must assume the blame. And that someone will be you. This is monumentally so if you are a pessimist or a depressive. Should you conclude that life is objectionable or that nothing matters— do not waste our time with your nonsense. We are on our way to the future, and the philosophically disheartening or the emotionally impaired are not going to hinder our progress. If you cannot say something positive, or at least equivocal, keep it to yourself. Pessimists and depressives need not apply for a position in the enterprise of life. You have two choices: Start thinking the way God and your society want you to think or be forsaken by all. The decision is yours, since you are a free agent who can choose to rejoin our fabricated world or stubbornly insist on … what? That we should mollycoddle non-positive thinkers like you or rethink how the whole world transacts its business? That we should start over from scratch? Or that we should go extinct? Try to be realistic. We did the best we could with the tools we had. After all, we are only human, as we like to say. Our world may not be in accord with nature’s way, but it did develop organically according to our consciousness, which delivered us to a lofty prominence over the Creation. The whole thing just took on a life of its own, and nothing is going to stop it anytime soon. There can be no starting over and no going back. No major readjustments are up for a vote. And no melancholic head-case is going to bad-mouth our catastrophe. The universe was created by the Creator, damn it. We live in a country we love and that loves us back. We have families and friends and jobs that make it all worthwhile. We are somebodies, not a bunch of nobodies without names or numbers or retirement plans. None of this is going to be overhauled by a thought criminal who contends that the world is not doubleplusgood and never will be. Our lives may not be unflawed— that would deny us a better future to work toward— but if this charade is good enough for us, then it should be good enough for you. So if you cannot get your mind right, try walking away. You will find no place to go and no one who will have you. You will find only the same old trap the world over. Lighten up or leave us alone. You will never get us to give up our hopes. You will never get us to wake up from our dreams. We are not contradictory beings whose continuance only worsens our plight as mutants who embody the contorted logic of a paradox. Such opinions will not be accredited by institutions of authority or by the middling run of humanity. To lay it on the line, whatever thoughts may enter your chemically imbalanced brain are invalid, inauthentic, or whatever dismissive term we care to hang on you, who are only “one of those people.” So start pretending that you feel good enough for long enough, stop your complaining, and get back in line. If you are not as strong as Samson— that no-good suicide and slaughterer of Philistines— then get loaded to the gills and return to the trap. Keep your medicine cabinet and your liquor cabinet well stocked, just like the rest of us. Come on and join the party. No pessimists or depressives invited. Do you think we are morons? We know all about those complaints of yours. The only difference is that we have sense enough and feel good enough for long enough not to speak of them. Keep your powder dry and your brains blocked. Our shibboleth: “Up the Conspiracy and down with Consciousness.” — Ligotti

Ligotti, Thomas. The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (pp. 172-174). Hippocampus Press. Kindle Edition.

I’ve taken your scheme into consideration and have found it at the end of the day, just another (convoluted, obfuscated) version of comply or die.

I noticed no response. I guess my points landed.

I see. Sorry if it sounds reductionist to you but I like sex, that is all I would argue.
With sex there is some possibility for birth... We should accept that if we want to have sex. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

That possibility can be of course minimized to a very high degree. For humans, it is not if --> then. Obviously we have birth control methods.

I will assume you are joking. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Absolutely not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

Antinatalism is a thing and "We need people to procreate" is just false even on the face of it.

We need other people to procreate. That is a fact — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

No that is not a fact, that is a choice. I’m an ardent antinatalist and I think it’s immoral to burden others with the collateral damage of the negatives of life. One they’re born, it’s suffer, comply with the game to survive, deal with negative circumstances or choose the hard act of killing yourself.

It does negate the limitation as ‘forced’ - the limiting factors apply to life, not to our capacity to act against these factors. Dissatisfaction and survival factors can influence and obscure but not eliminate choices we are able to make that take us beyond these limits. — Possibility

Huh? Our capacities and choices are all in relation to the dissatisfaction/survival. There is no metaphysical leap beyond it as you imply here.

People, once born, are wasting valuable resources if all they’re going to do is avoid dissatisfaction and survive. The fact that you didn’t choose to be born does not excuse your decision to continue wasting precious energy on complaining about it with no intention of changing your part in the system. This has NOTHING to do with self-actualisation. If you don’t consider your own life to consist of opportunities, then the MORAL action would be to give all of your resources and potential to those who will use it to its fullest, not continue to piss it away on yourself. Because it’s honestly not about your ‘self’. There is no moral value to an individual who cannot or will not choose to exist in relation to the world. — Possibility

Are you kidding? This is EXACTLY the type of thing I mean by self-actualization (your version). In fact I predicted your pretty common middle-class response earlier (and you ignored to quote)

It is selfish on the part of the parent to try to play tinkerer.. trying to direct here, and adjust there, and protect hither and think that by just doing the right inputs, they will create a child that will be a self-actualizing/society contributing blah blah blah. It is disrespecting the dignity of the person created for your selfish means to create a being in your likeness (even if that likeness is a dynamic independent blah blah.. i — schopenhauer1

Here you are finally showing all your cards. You are literally just saying in your own words here to comply with the agenda or kill yourself (at least "go away" in some fashion). It's the mentality of Willy Wonka's Forced Game.. Did you read it? "I made this world for you. If you don't like it, you should double down on playing my game even more and learn to play my game better.. Or you can just kill yourself and stop complaining!!".

Your implications are exactly the amoral/immoral idea of the individual I thought you would bring up too. For you it's "Fuck the individual.. you are part of the collaborative game (insert maniacal laugh here).. Go play your part because who gives a fuck that it's the individual that bears the brunt of living his whole life".. You are also doing EXACTLY as I predicted earlier by trying to weasel out of the fact that an individual is the locus of the interactions with the world, even though they OF COURSE have to interact with the world de facto by living. In other words, you overshoot the individual to try to pretend like its all a system of interactions and you don't recognize the great harms and suffering of the individuals. It is not the system that feels the harms and sufferings, it is the individual EVEN THOUGH, people's collaboration (OBVIOUSLY) is necessary to keep the individuals alive and comfortable. Your only advice is to double down on the "lovingly" created game for you (the individual) to have to interact with or die. Great. Great. Keep the apologetics going for the collaboration game. Fuck individual. Long live the game? Is that it? If you can't beat em, join em. In other words, comply or die with the agenda, is that it? As I thought.

Updated last post.

I’m NOT claiming that it’s justified and I’m not arguing FOR procreation. My position is non-moralistic. It is YOUR narrow view that all harm (intentional, ignorant and self-inflicted) is inherently immoral. I’m only saying the intention is NOT to force an agenda, as you claim, but to open it up to variation. — Possibility

So as your arguments become more concrete, and less obfuscating, I notice they look pretty much like all the usual ones that I have encountered many times before. I have addressed this type of idea that there is so much "variation" (in hopes to justify the broader limiting factors) in whole threads, such as https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10842/willy-wonkas-forced-game/p1
My point in that thread was that parent's often give the excuse that they are giving "opportunities" for "so many choices" and thus they could not be held responsible for forcing an agenda, because life's dictates can have such variation to choose (and thus are not really dictates). This is not true in theory, nor de facto. It is not true in theory because there are still the limiting factors of having to survive itself, getting comfortable, and overcoming dissatisfaction. In fact, my whole thread here started with recognizing the human condition as comprising this limiting factors. A different way to go about surviving, doesn't overcome this fact. It is just another excusatory argument to justify the fact of the broader limiting factors of dissatisfaction/survival. It is not true de facto either, because though there are extreme "thresholds" one can choose, it is untenable for most individuals. This doesn't mean, "AHA! This shows the average activities of X lifestyle is thus correct", simply that most character-types (or personalities with a set of preferences) tend to limit their encounters with extremes. That there are extreme variations along with more common variation lifestyle choice, are still confined factors in the broader limiting factors of life. yawn..

‘Survival’ may be a dictate of life, but it is NOT a principle of conscious (potential) existence. At this level of awareness, the concept of ‘survival’ is only a limitation on actuality, not on perceived potential. A conscious existence is more than capable of acting in opposition to ‘survival’ - even as their potential for survival approaches a perceived upper OR lower limit - without necessarily resulting in death. Death is only actual at the moment a potential for survival reaches that limit of actuality. — Possibility

Right, pretty much addressed this above and with my Willy Wonka thread (just read the OP at least). However, I will add that I never meant that the socio-cultural-economic agenda is X variation. A hermit living in the woods on a handful of grubs and a bohemian-type living on a mixture of dumpster diving, restaurant leftovers or whatever, are all accounted for.. I already addressed this in my last post (and you seemed to ignore it):

It is disrespecting the dignity of the person created for your selfish means to create a being in your likeness (even if that likeness is a dynamic independent blah blah.. it is still trying to direct another being into a direction one had in mind, even if it the parameters of the direction are wider). At the end of the day, the child will encounter the sufferings of the dissatisfactions of living, and the contingent harms that come with the everyday. It is wanting to see another being go through the gauntlet of life, and thus making the political decision for that child that they must comply (or die), as the will of the parent has thus created for them. — schopenhauer1

That leaves a lot of room for contingency. If I take action that prevents me from being economically productive, I can sustain this action for weeks or months, and I won’t necessarily starve to death. I can live for years hand-to-mouth on a desert island or give all my time and money to the poor and depend entirely on charity. I can sit in meditation for hours on end without even coming close to death, or I can deliberately end my own life in any number of ways. I can practise raising my heart rate to its maximum and keeping it there, or holding my breath for several minutes, without necessarily compromising my survival. The more we understand about our upper and lower limits of potential and how they relate to possibility, the more varied our choices that are at least temporarily opposed to this so-called ‘agenda’. — Possibility

Yep, already addressed this in my above quote. Variation doesn't negate the limiting factors of dissatisfaction/survival. Your whole "we have so many choices" thing is not justification for the broader limiting factor.. Willy Wonka's Forced Game.. Read it..

And I can raise a child to recognise that their potential and value in relation to possibility varies well beyond any limited actuality, to the point where there is no ‘forced agenda’ to be concerned with, only upper and lower limits in actualising potential to be conscious of - apart from their own fears and desires, and the moralising judgements of onlookers or society in general. But it is FAR more efficient to simply recognise this in ourselves, and make use of what limited actuality we have in maximising our collaborative potential to reduce suffering in the world, not just minimise our own. — Possibility

Right so you are doing what I said in the beginning of my response.. Just demonstrating that people will tend towards the averages, doesn't mean that THUS we have proved anything about the dictates.. It is still forcing dictates on someone. This is besides the point that once born, people will tend towards the middle of the extreme versions of lifestyle to minimize stress on themselves. Also, this whole "collabortie potential to reduce suffering" was already predicted and addressed earlier when I said:

It is selfish on the part of the parent to try to play tinkerer.. trying to direct here, and adjust there, and protect hither and think that by just doing the right inputs, they will create a child that will be a self-actualizing/society contributing blah blah blah. It is disrespecting the dignity of the person created for your selfish means to create a being in your likeness — schopenhauer1

Basically, you have failed to overcome my objections raised in that earlier post a couple pages ago. You are just sounding like people need to be born so they can self-actualize and follow Maslow's Hierarchy (as predicted).. You can obfuscate by talking about limits and potential..but it amounts to about the same. Maslow also never defined what self-actualizing is.. but it amounts to what you are saying and I object to yours as his reasons for the excuse to give people "opportunities". The illusion of choices does not excuse the collateral damage and dissatisfaction/survival dictates (that tends to averages within those boundaries anyways).

Even though your moral judgement of parents is based on an assumption that they evidently decide to enforce a potential agenda upon a potential child - none of which you will admit even exists prior to actualisation, let alone a prior decision or any thoughts towards it. Where is the concrete evidence of a parent’s prior knowledge of either agenda or child on which to base the supposed culpability of their decision? — Possibility

Oh for fuck's sake.. We all know that children can be born when one does X.. If one allows this to happen, one is agreeing that this life is appropriate for that child to live.. It doesn't even have to take much thought (which is clearly evident in many parents' choices). But it is enough that they think this life is "good enough" for someone else to live.. That their choice is something that should profoundly affect another. You know this though.

You would need to admit this evident potential prior to actuality in order to accuse parents of moral culpability in procreation. In acknowledging this potential as evident, you would have to also acknowledge evident potential to choose actions against the agenda (as described above), rendering it ‘not forced’. — Possibility

I don't know what you are saying here. What I do know is this is all gaslighting.. At the end of the day your ideas represent a manager giving his workers more work and then saying "I am giving you opportunities to grow".. I spit on this shit. I call it middle class, not because it has to do with Western culture-office spaces.. I just broadly label that mentality to those who make others work and in paternalistic arrogance that this is "necessary".. But of course none of it was necessary prior to birth itself.. It's just a reflection of the agendas and goals of the parents willful nature.

Once we are already born, yeah we have to "grow" and " collaborate" and shit like that, but it is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS in the fact that we were forced into this scheme of inherent suffering and collateral damage. This "growth through adversity" scheme is just PC MIDDLE CLASS, high grade, transparently manipulative excusatory bullshit. The same as the manipulative manager giving you opportunities to grow..

But it is nevertheless evidence that this ‘agenda’ is highly variable, and that as self-aware persons we are not bound by the same agenda as our parents, nor even the adjusted agenda we were born and raised into. — Possibility

But the agenda are the dictates of life (sociocultural economic way of surviving and overcoming dissatisfaction). So no, there aren't these magical variables, just contingencies in a situatedness of the ways of living that were forced upon a new person.

experiences they get out of the interaction themselves because they disagree with your claim that life sucks and that’s all there is to it. — Possibility

This is laughable. You are trying to sugar coat the fact that the parent's edification is coming from someone else carrying burdens of life and harms, etc.

Because I also think that your moral indignation here is based on ignorance that is much more deliberate and harmful than that of any parent, — Possibility

Assertion with no evidence examples to back it up or give any reasoning for the premise.

and your pessimistic call to simply ‘gripe’ against a supposedly ‘forced agenda’ actually undermines antinatalism more than anything else. — Possibility

Doesn't undermine anything. People who already exist gripe.

The potentiality of a person is NOT what you or I or their parents perceive it to be. Nor is it what the agenda or society dictates. It is what the person themselves perceives it to be - and it is more valuable as such than any iteration of being or ‘self’ that might be actualised and then judged by you according to some impossible moralistic stance of ‘zero potential harm’. — Possibility

You simply don't have an answer for why it is justified to make someone else go through the gauntlet of life.

hey’re not buying into a package deal, but an opportunity to interact beyond the dictates of socio-cultural, political and economic living that appear to constrain their own life. In the past, the extent to which they perceived variability in ‘the agenda’ was dependent on the diversity of their mating partnership - in much the same way as genetics work. These days, we recognise so much variability in these dictates, that parents can almost construct the details of their child’s agenda from scratch.

Procreation, combined with child-rearing, is an attempt to vary the agenda - to provide a more satisfying ‘way of life’ for future individuals. And yes, in the course of varying this agenda, parents impose upon a child certain experiences they consider to be important, and strive to protect them from others they believe to be damaging. Their best intention is to adjust and improve on the agenda they experienced themselves, and possibly even to develop in the child a capacity to be aware of and not be bound by the same agenda that binds them. — Possibility

So this way of looking at one's progeny as a system one can control and adjust is exactly the kind of thinking that I think is misguided and ultimately, unethical. It is folk genetics taken to the extreme. Children might have some tendencies and dispositions based on genetics, but the child is NOT an extension of the parent in any meaningful way. They are their own person.. every internalization from the environment, every interaction is from a point of view of a "someone" that is NOT the parent, but a separate being. You haven't here, but I am predicting you are going to try to confuse interactions with environment with the idea that no one is a separate contained "person" or identity.. thus trying to weasel your way out of the recognition that the parent has created another being/person with their own thoughts, feelings, sufferings, and pains about the world that is fully felt as their own. It is selfish on the part of the parent to try to play tinkerer.. trying to direct here, and adjust there, and protect hither and think that by just doing the right inputs, they will create a child that will be a self-actualizing/society contributing blah blah blah. It is disrespecting the dignity of the person created for your selfish means to create a being in your likeness (even if that likeness is a dynamic independent blah blah.. it is still trying to direct another being into a direction one had in mind, even if it the parameters of the direction are wider). At the end of the day, the child will encounter the sufferings of the dissatisfactions of living, and the contingent harms that come with the everyday. It is wanting to see another being go through the gauntlet of life, and thus making the political decision for that child that they must comply (or die), as the will of the parent has thus created for them.

People are not systems to try to tinker with to try to find a "more satisfying 'way of life'". That is using the child and thus disrespecting the fact that they will be harmed in the process with no escape but the harmful prospect (to any self-reflecting animal) of death and pain of death. In short, all your excuses are just excuses to do something to another person for one's own edification for seeing another person play the life game on their behalf. The child is not the parent, can never be, and should not be created to be forced into the parent's political agenda (of going through the gauntlet of life). It's controlling, not paying attention to the collateral damage, and disrespecting in general. It's a political agenda forcing others into submission of the dictates of life.. the necessary and contingent forms of suffering. It is nothing more.

I would reply to Apollodorus myself, but you are doing an excellent job already explaining the major points, especially that last post.

No rather, there is nothing prior to compare it to. It is, "Do you (the parent) want to create this agenda for the child or don't you". If you procreate, you do. The child is born, the child has to comply with agenda (or commit suicide). — schopenhauer1

This is why I call procreation a political move.. You have an agenda that this socio-cultural-political-economic-physical arrangement of society/existence is something another person must go through.

I would say as a self-evident truth but I'd re-word my point to ask whether it's a self-evident truth that living is limiting compared to suicide or whatever manner you compare it to as greater or even necessary. — Shwah

No rather, there is nothing prior to compare it to. It is, "Do you (the parent) want to create this situation for the child or don't you". If you procreate, you do. The child is born, the child has to comply with agenda (or commit suicide).

The problem is, that there will always be niche elite programs out there.. Would this ever translate to wider society? Probably not in a multicultural, very diverse society. The problems of the differences between the private school/higher track programs and the other populations are very complex. Mostly, the fact that people (especially kids) are not naturally motivated the way you might be about a subject, and to have more than 10 people (typical classrooms being 20-30) causes all sorts of environmental factors of classroom management that you will deal with that have nothing to do with curriculum. Any deep Socratic method in that case goes off the rails real quick... In essence, your Epicurean/Socratic vision becomes about other things. It becomes about modeling behaviors, social work, child psychology, school administration policies, identifying or working with learning disabilities, and all the other things that have nothing to do with content.

I’ll keep your words in mind. You make a good point. I work for the public school system already and thankfully the school I’m at currently is vocational; respectful students that seem somewhat engaged in the work. The emphasis however is on getting them set with a career after they graduate. — Dermot Griffin

Got it.. Try working in some urban or rural poor schools to get some perspective.. or even just middle of the road with a mix.. Sounds like you are here.. but I mean with mixed upbringings.. parents in jail, homeless, etc..

If there's nothing prior then how can you justify the state of living as negative? — Shwah

So I have been on this forum for many years (and its previous incarnations).. I have answered this question numerous times.. I am not trying to argue out of bad faith or be an asshole, but before I repeat myself infinitum, can you think of ways I might answer this question or completely drawing blanks?

See above.

Applying for several positions to teach high school history for the next school year has led me to ask the question of what students should be learning. Anyone can stand up there and read off of a slide and get paid for it. I know that there is a way to make students interested in the content even if they don’t find it interesting. I tend to advocate a kind of perennialism, sometimes called a “Great Books” curriculum. In the college setting as I’m sure many of us know, myself included, this kind of curriculum is frowned upon if not openly attacked. You can teach about Plato, Sophocles, Marx, Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky in an intellectually honest manner. You can teach the Bible or teach American State Papers (i.e. Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist no. 10) in an intellectually honest manner. You can teach the driving factors behind Greco-Roman society and Ancient Chinese society in an intellectually honest manner. All of these things to some people may seem contrarian but they reveal what Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins called the Great Conversation, a discussion of various ideas. These are, of course, just my thoughts. I just feel that teaching be it at the secondary level or college level is becoming way too politically charged. — Dermot Griffin

All great stuff, but you have to look at the population. If the kids are already set up for this kind of thinking then you are fine, but a lot of US schools will be lacking in even bare minimum reading level comprehension and behavior control.. They are kids after all.. I bet you have in mind private school or perfectly attuned honors kids that are hanging on your every word.. Not in most common public schools

So you would classify living as limiting then? — Shwah

That's a loaded question because there was no one to limit or not limit previously. Rather, living means X, Y, Z for a person. Don't force X, Y, Z.. Limiting sounds like there was someone prior.

Schopenhauer's Vanity of Existence and Studies in Pessimism. Maybe his broader Wisdom of Life essays. Perhaps E.M Cioran's The Trouble with Being Born as well. They have to learn somewhere that it was best never to have been, and that now that they are here, they better contemplate this very core understanding and not be distracted by the spreadsheets and concrete drying.

You know what, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that you wanted me to clarify the "agenda" versus the things like "survival/boredom".. Let me clarify as I think I have too closely mixed them in these posts..

The parents are forcing AN AGENDA by having a child, because they feel that the various dictates/dealing withs of life SHOULD BE gone through/experienced by ANOTHER person.

Once born the child must follow the dictates of socioculturalpoliticaleconomic living or die (kill themselves). This is part of the agenda that parent had in mind.. some "way of life" the child would (by necessity of living as a human who must survive through sociocultural means) have to do.

Scratch all of this because I need to explain this better.. so doing it in next post.

I’m trying to understand. You seemed to be differentiating temporally between the agenda being forced and someone being created. But here you are metaphorically asserting that these events are identical. I’m asking you to be clearer in your relational structure here. Try a different predicate than your vague use of IS. — Possibility

Procreation by de facto definition is forcing an agenda, because entailed in a human life is the agenda of comply or die. However, it is true that prior to this, on the parents part, the parent is choosing that this forced agenda will happen, and thus making a misguided choice, as it will result in the forced agenda actually happening.

If that person CANNOT choose other than to comply with the agenda, then they CANNOT choose other than to procreate, etc - or die. — Possibility

Huh? This has no logical sense. The agenda is survival (in sociopolitical-economic-historical situatedness) and general dissatisfaction overcoming (boredom/discomfort things like that).

But then you’re saying that WE CAN (and should) choose not to procreate (ie. to die) — Possibility

No, not procreating is not "to die", so not sure why you are inserting that.

CAN choose not to comply. Which would demonstrate that the agenda is not forced. So... excluding any other awareness of potential... what are you arguing again? — Possibility

Because I am not defining the agenda as procreation, but survival in a sociopolitical-economic-historical situatdness and general dissatisfaction overcoming.. Call it the game of life if you will. It's a forced agenda because the parent deemed this "way-of-life" as something another person must go through.

I am not sure where you are going with this. Are you making a distinction between a son of god and a son of man? And/or between a son of man and one like a son of man? — Fooloso4

Basically.. one like the son of man in Daniel was ambiguous but popular interpretation was that it represented the messiah.. That this figure was later also attached with angelic being (like Enoch/Metatron), and the Jesus was (at least portrayed as) some sort of representative of this son of man figure who was to herald the End of Times.

But this creates all kinds of problems if one also regards Jesus as the messiah and that he suffered and died on the cross. — Fooloso4

Oh sure, it all has to be retroactively justified.. but I am just arguing that people could have thought of him as a sort of "Son of Man" representative.. Adapted to this title perhaps.. some special status conferred to him.

Then again, perhaps none of these issues was of much concern. What was of concern an anointed one who would save or redeem the righteous or the people. I think it is even possible that Jesus' disciples may have held differing beliefs and expectations of the kingdom at hand. — Fooloso4

Well, I agree there were differing beliefs of the characteristics of a messiah. I actually think the Gospel writers were trying their best to fit him into various versions of popular messianic belief (descended from David, riding a donkey on his way into Jerusalem, Son of Man title, etc.).

Matthew 13:37,41-42

He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man.... The Son of man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Luke 18:31-34, Mark 10:32-34, Matthew 20:17-19

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.

Mark 14:62 (ESV), Matthew 26:64 (at his Trial before the Sanhedrin)

And Jesus said, ‘I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven

Matthew 24:30 states:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Matthew 25:31-32 states:

But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goat

Again, look at Sanhedrin 98a again and see that this at least matches up with the Rabbis' interpretation of Messiah coming on clouds of Heaven (if deserved) and a donkey (if not deserved).