You might not. But why should I want what you want? Why should everyone have to serve your preference in this matter? — apokrisis

My outcome leads to no negative outcome for a future individual.

My reply to the OP was that one justification is that having kids makes you less selfish, more socially responsible and involved. — apokrisis

Can't one do this without kids? Anyways, what makes these three things you mention valuable/worthwhile/good? This is indeed your preference, as you admitted. Preferences aren't necessarily good ethical justifications. But, I'll see if perhaps you do have a justification that your preference for some outcome (which may or may not happen from someone being born, but that's a different argument) of less selfish/more socially responsible/ and involved is good enough reasons to start a new life for someone new. What is it about putting forth a new life that you value? X reason= Achievement? X reason = Accomplishment? X reason = relationships? Etc. etc. With structural and contingent sufferings what possibly justifies any X reason as a justification for starting another person's life? Nothing is lost. Nothing misses out. Nothing even existed to deal with whatever burdens of life there are whether structural or contingent.

Or do you propose it about power? The power to see some sort of outcome from your efforts? Or perhaps it was unthinking- just a simple outcome from one act.

What are we really trying to achieve here by procreating an individual's life? Do you see yourself as a vessel for continuing society through progeny? Do you see this as a necessity? What possible reason is it justified other than its possible to procreate? What is it about the word "flourishing" that draws people like a moth to a flame? Is this word and concept really the nail you hang your hat on for why it is good to put forth a future person? What is it about life that needs to be carried forth by another individual? If we know of the sufferings, why are the "positives" worth it when nothing had to be created at all? Is it an ideation of a future without a person to experience the positives?

And collectively, as a society, we will make some general choice. Who could complain about that? — apokrisis

Because there is always tension between the individual and society (unless society's givens/expectations/roles are EXACTLY what the individual wants, which I would dare to say is never really the situation). Of course we conform to society's expectations/roles/givens, etc. We eventually learn to integrate. But why do we want this process to continue? What is it about this process that we want future people to experience it? Why force people into having to confront the given? Why force them to make situational choices in the first place?

I see the fact that individual needs/wants/goals, though being wrapped up in the social world, are also thwarted by the givens of the social world. There is always a negotiation. I say that to make people negotiate is a reality once born. To have new people that need to constantly negotiate through the world of the give, is questionable. What is it about seeing new people navigate the social/physical world that is valuable to you that this needs to be procreated to a next generation? It is a legitimate question, but so fundamental you seem to think it should not be asked. You will always "LOOK" the wiser in your "this is just how things are", but that is simply a rhetorical shell. The good questions come from fundamental question-asking. To question why procreate in the face of X, Y, Z (in this case individual-group dynamic) should not be shunned out of hand, as you seem to do.

So basically this argument is about antinatalism and whether to expose new people into this dynamic of individual vs. group (or individual being integrated/subjegated into group roles/expectations/demands). Now, we both agree on what is the case, mainly (in your words):

We must be both sufficiently differentiated and integrated to thrive as ... social creatures. And everything else I say follows from this basic picture of the human situation. — apokrisis

Now from here, you take this IS and make it an OUGHT by PREFERRING to have future people that experience this dynamic of the individual and society. However, just because it is the case that there is this individual/group dynamic does not mean there SHOULD be more future people that experience this dynamic. That is what I mean by bridging the IS/OUGHT gap. You cannot presume or assume, you must justify why what is, is what ought to be or what ought to continue to be.

What I tried to say for justification was thus:

This is not a smooth process. Individuals have an inclination for freedom of their own thought. Thus, not recognizing people's tendency for their own freedom of thought, is tacitly just putting the "is" of group dynamics as the "ought" of individuals conforming to demands of the given. Rather, though people must acquiesce to the given, the situation is still the given. Why create more situations where individuals must encounter the given? — schopenhauer1

My point was about acquiescing freedom of thought to the demands of the given. Here we are with a personality (granted it is created from group interaction, but exists as a phenomenon nonetheless), and this personality has preferences, beliefs, values, and ideas that must aquiesce to the given. You say this is a good thing and should be carried out because that is just what happens. Again, this is an is ought problem that you have not managed to justify yet other than rhetorical moves that go back and forth from one to the other without the bridge. Your bridge usually comes in the form of talking about your metaphysics/epistemology of symbolic triadism/ information theory but explaining a theory is not a justification for why something should continue. Rather, even if it was the ultimate theory (which is a different matter), that informs little about ethics, values, etc. for what should be carried out, especially in light of the fact that people can make decisions and are not impelled by anything other than social norms, their own decision making heuristics, and perhaps biological brain tendencies (which would be very hard to pinpoint for each individual).

I don't deny that, we agree on the bumpiness. The preference to continue it though is yours.

It is you who desire the smooth and frictionless existence here. Funny that. Folk are always projecting. — apokrisis

No no, you are right in that I desire smooth and frictionless, but you are wrong that I think you want frictionless. I'll rephrase the qualifier of "smooth" and just say that you think this should be the way of things (i.e. individual bumping against the given). In fact, my point was that because it is not frictionless, why do you want to see it perpetuated? Well, it is simply a preference of yours. What is it about individuasl bumping up against "the given" dynamic that you like to see carried out generation after generation? Just remember, whatever X reason you provide will simply be your preference, and not the world-writ-large. What you tend to do is take your preference for seeing X phenomena and say that this is what should be. It is subtle but a tendency you have, unwittingly perhaps.
Look what I said again:

I do not agree about how smooth this balance is. It is a constant realigning one's values with the social ones. It is not a complete subjugation of one's own will to the economic/social demands. It is a constant need to create habits to work with the group. This is not a smooth process. Individuals have an inclination for freedom of their own thought. Thus, not recognizing people's tendency for their own freedom of thought, is tacitly just putting the "is" of group dynamics as the "ought" of individuals conforming to demands of the given. Rather, though people must acquiesce to the given, the situation is still the given. Why create more situations where individuals must encounter the given? apokrisis suggests that this is something that should be done, but other than describing how individuals and groups have to negotiate, the reasoning for why it should be done is not explained. Again, it is not a smooth process. Either there is a denial of this bumpiness, or there is a preference-writ-large to make new people experience this bumpiness. Again though, this has no justification other than this is a preference- a preference for seeing the same thing continue into the future. — schopenhauer1

This ignorance of the @apokrisismachine as a whole is still something that I think I would like more than digging in the dirt with tools I understand. Even in a simpler world, the presence of that world must remain mysterious. — syntax

We are born into the given- an accumulation of general processes over time. We can only work within that given and never create it whole out of cloth. Thus the demands of life are largely not ours to create, only work within. The demands of a particular economy is already there presented to us as well. The economy can only work within a particular physical reality that is also presented to us.

What I think is odd, is that we have to trick ourselves into certain habits of thought. We have to pretend to care about things until we actually might fully care about them. We subsume ourselves in the given, despite our (at least to us seeming) freedom of thought. We live in a society, but we must constantly subsume our thoughts with what the given economic and social system require. Why do we want more people to contribute to this system?

@apokrisis seems to think there is this smooth balance of the individual with the whole- as if human social relations are simply a machine. I do not agree about how smooth this balance is. It is a constant realigning one's values with the social ones. It is not a complete subjugation of one's own will to the economic/social demands. It is a constant need to create habits to work with the group. This is not a smooth process. Individuals have an inclination for freedom of their own thought. Thus, not recognizing people's tendency for their own freedom of thought, is tacitly just putting the "is" of group dynamics as the "ought" of individuals conforming to demands of the given. Rather, though people must acquiesce to the given, the situation is still the given. Why create more situations where individuals must encounter the given? @apokrisis suggests that this is something that should be done, but other than describing how individuals and groups have to negotiate, the reasoning for why it should be done is not explained. Again, it is not a smooth process. Either there is a denial of this bumpiness, or there is a preference-writ-large to make new people experience this bumpiness. Again though, this has no justification other than this is a preference- a preference for seeing the same thing continue into the future.

It would be nice to not work for anyone, read, write, watch good TV, enjoy a variety of sex partners, never age, have lots of profound friendships, be admired for my creativity, and so on and so on. As I get some of this, it doesn't exactly keep me from wanting more of this. And if I could make a living strictly from my creativity, I still find something to gripe about (lack of immortality, the imperfection of friends and lovers, etc.) That monstrous, infinite hole of abstract appetite is just something one puts up with and is maybe even grateful for. — syntax

What Schopenhauer called will. There is a bit of giddyness to some aspects of pessimism ironically. I've mentioned that before. To read a really good turn of phrase about the existential situation.

I anticipate a pessimistic response, and I grant that pessimists have noted the way that desire expands with possession. But this surplus desire or frustration isn't exactly unpleasant. It's the like the tension felt in trying to beat a video game or solve a puzzle. — syntax

Interesting point and I think there is something to it. This is why there should be existential communities- we can call it "The Joy of Pessimism" akin to the Joy of Cooking or the Joy of Painting :D. I know there is the School of Life which does have a similar theme on YouTube. Even this though is a bit too self-helpy for my taste, but a good start.

As for the production idea of this thread, the point is that we can never have full knowledge of the very world we use to keep us alive. Hunter/gatherers know the man-made tools that they use. Our ancestors did at least. But here we are, using this computer, and I am sure most of us wouldn't know much except generalities about processors, RAM, binary code, source code, etc. that still wouldn't scratch the surface of all the functionalities. Of course, SOMEONE might know every piece of information that goes into how the computer functions (still doubtful because of the programming aspect), but they don't know about some other phenomena that they use in daily life. It is a very subtle point I am making that I think people have missed.

Thanks for sharing the video.

Don't we have that right here and now?

Or do you really mean a community of anti-natalists? And isn't something like that out there? — syntax

Not in the real world. I haven't seen many "Communities of Existential Thought" in many cities. There's probably one or two somewhere I'm sure on a meetup site, or perhaps just philosophy meetups, but generally there is not. Ironically, we only relegate religious institutions for this kind of thinking, and that is wrapped up in the trappings of supernaturalism, traditions, custom, allegory, and historical baggage.

Maybe the entire notion of some grand truth about life in general is bogus. These 'maybes' are an example of the complexity that a fixed pessimism can be accused of dodging. — syntax

But then, is a life worth starting because it has complexities? The antinatalist does not assume that the answer is yes.

What exactly is your need for a need? — syntax

Starting a whole new life on behalf of someone else seems to me as good a reason for a reason as any other decision.

The 'machine' is still loved as the condition for the possibility of trying to shut it down. — syntax

One is never not choosing to decide some stance, at least those with minds capable of metacognition- awareness that one is making a decision (or what appears to be one) in the first place. I think you do identify an interesting dialectic though. The antinatalist asks the "why life?" in the first place. It grates on people who never stop to ask this question or who have projects and goals that they do not want to question the importance of. It is a slap in the face- more personal than almost anything else.

And of course your namesake stuck around for a long time without having to work at anything but his complex denunciation of life. He had a cute little retro outfit and resented Hegel getting more attention. I bet he was grateful to have been born when fame finally caught up to him in his old age. This doesn't mean his life was 'really' good. It just complicates the message. — syntax

Interesting observation. Indeed Schopenhauer was independently wealthy.

And my point is that neurocognition tells us the mind depends on its dichotomous responses. It needs to be able to swing both ways with adaptive flexibility. It must be able to worry when worry is required, and to relax, when that is what is best. Be jittery or be calm. Be introspective or be outwardly engaged. Etc, etc.

So the richness of lived experience is the ability to move strongly in opposing directions as suits the needs of the moment. Joy and pain. — apokrisis

And what causes this effort to be balanced in the first place? Why does this balancing act need to take place? Ah, the existential questions- in other words, not taking what is for granted as what should be. Why should there be this balancing in the first place. Putting the cart before the horse again. Taking an is for an ought.

It is nothing like death or the void. It is not the abyss or the chasm or the terror that needs to be managed and suppressed. — apokrisis

I never said that, so this is a straw man.

So if we are going to start building psycho-philosophies, they ought to accurately identify what would be the natural general baseline condition of a well-adjusted mind. We ought to know what we are shooting for when making our generalisations. — apokrisis

The baseline state is boredom or restlessness that motivates to pursue this or that goal. You can call it a vague-like state if you will and dress it up in your terminology, but that is the feeling. Not anticipation, etc. etc. as that is a layer beyond. It is the restlessness of the striving human animal, challenged by projects and tasks of his/her choosing. Some things are more given than others (hunting/gathering provides for a more confined set of choices for goals than a post-industrial economy for example but it is the same basic goal-categories: survival, comfort/maintenance seeking, boredom-fleeing).

The antinatalist might respond, but why should I have to form a meaningful engagement with the world? Why should I have to form close bonds with others? To do it, to do it, to do it? Why was I thrust into this predicament? Why was I forced to seek out and create these things? But the objection comes from a place of deficiency, whereas the rest of the world is already engaged and involved in these things. For the vast majority of the natalist world - the world in which people form close bonds with each other, have sex, create families and futures - these objections simply don't arise, because they're already involved and engaged with the world. — Inyenzi

So what exactly is the need for more people? What is the X reason? I think you have a well-stated post. Actually, it might be the most coherent response to the pessimist argument as it attacks the premises head on. So kudos to you. I still think the rebuttal, though well-stated, is still lacking in response to the pessimist's argument. As I mentioned with csalisbury, even if people do not see the bigger picture, it does not mean that something is still not going on here. Why does that new person need to be born? What is this trying to accomplish? Eventually the argument will come back to the idea of circularity, instrumentality, absurdity, etc. That is a vicious circle that would be hard to break in argument.

I will offer an olive branch to the anti-antinatalists/pessimists. Do you think that people should be at least thinking of life in the meta-awareness sense that some pessimists advocate? Religion, tries to fill this role. Literature does too. But, is there a way for communities to directly address issues of existence head-on without mediating layers of allegory and metaphor? Can we have communities of existential discussion? I haven't seen it, and it would be interesting to see how that would work. I am aware this is a routine, but its a routine that is referring back to the meta-awareness of the existential situation.

How does this square with the 'ethics of phil. pess.' and the refusal to 'subsume, isolate, distract' etc? Isn't it odd that on the one hand you have a very specific demand alongside plenty of posts repeating the same basic points, again and again. But then on the other, you're differentiating yourself from those who believe in the reality of meaningful demands, those who get caught up in circular routines? — csalisbury

I have no enmity towards those who are caught up in circular routines. In fact, we all (including pessimists) must do it to survive. We are built with cultural mechanisms that rely on choosing routines to ground ourselves in an umwelt. The freedom to choose, along with our group dynamics/group-derived identity demands it. So it's inevitable and I am not even saying one should not do so. It is descriptive, not normative. However, the ability to see it for what it is, can be considered normative. This meta-cognition (or self-awareness) of what one is doing is perhaps part of the pessimist's heuristic recommendation. In this regard, Existentialism as a movement is very much about this meta-awareness that one is really choosing paths of "care" (things we care about/ intra-worldly affairs). In this way Existentialism and pessimism are linked in many regards.

What you've done here is describe your own approach as someone else's, and then condemned it. Some people self-soothe, others can confront the 'deep'. — csalisbury

No one has committed a pessimistic crime by not using their ability for self-awareness regarding their paths of care or circular routines. I don't condemn it, but there is a recommendation to be aware of it. One can be caught up in the routines without knowing the bigger picture of it. When you do see the bigger picture, you tend to see that aesthetic perspective I was talking about of striving will that wraps itself in layers of circular routines in the individual's umwelt. At the bottom of it is a sort of emptiness/boredom- a dull silence that we wrap more routines around.

Of course, it's hard to figure out what you're not confronting. Everyone has something different. But I think mostly its the condemning voice. You have to find a way to take away its power rather than trying to get it condemn something else, and leave you safe. It's a strategy that only works temporarily, and works less and less each time.

And I don't think its a psychological problem. I think its a spiritual one with psychological ramifications — csalisbury

Most people think there is some teleology to their existence. At any particular time, I should be doing X thing. But this isn't the case. Rather there is simply habits and routines we choose to pick up because we don't like the alternative of looking at the yawning void. Condemned to be free. Inside outside, do this that. Experiences are said to accumulate into something more and more developed and growth. Nope. It's the same circular pattern. Did you ever think the ideas of self-actualization and moving towards something better were there as a way to cope with existential dread? Yes. It's best we soothe with words of self-help wisdom so that individuals don't look too deep.

But that is quite different from a general claim that life on the whole is structurally intolerable. — apokrisis

You try to make the not-so-subtle switch from apokrisis preferences to the world-writ-large. What apokrisis does is balance, what the evil antinatalists do is romanticism. Yet, we are both doing choosing our habit patterns to look away from the void. I am just peeling off the layers to see the barebones of it- what Schopenhauer called "will", I'll call existential striving at the bottom, dressed in goals we give ourselves. Keep outrunning the boredom at the bottom of things etc. etc.

its a justification for not confronting anything. — csalisbury

So here is a value-judgement upon what a person should be doing. Please do elaborate? And then I'll appeal to the usual structural suffering of whatever it is you mention. You will accuse me of unnecessarily reducing life to a framework in order for me to better deal with it. I will then accuse you of not looking at the big picture and finding ways to ignore what is really going on. You will then say I am still hiding from the complexities of life in order to make it easier for me to cope. Your hope is this will then just reveal itself to be a psychological problem to overcome in order to get to "really" living which you haven't quite shared what that is yet, except hinting at "complexity" which is the very term I came up with. Is that about right?

But spot the performative contradiction.

And, having spotted it --- what is the significance of the contradiction?

(hint: phil pess isn't doing what it needs to pretend its doing) — csalisbury

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the quote. What I do know is that when you are born, and you take on an identity and your personality shapes, the "you" (fictional or otherwise as apo keeps reiterating) must make decisions. There is the burden to exist, the condemned to be free. By this I mean even the choice to not exist anymore is something that has to be decided upon, and carried forth. In this way, everything is a burden. You claim pessimists obssesively focus on one major point, but it is THE major point. You can put your attention into all sorts of intra-wordly affairs- the mechanics of building structures, the science of plastics, the intricacies of the circulatory system, the sewer construction down the street, the computer engineering and programming of the computer you are using, the electrical system which almost everything plugged in runs on, the art projects in the art district, etc. etc. The complexity of the world masks the simplicty of the existential situation of being born.

tldr: get over it, you were already born. don't have kids if you don't want to. Find something else to focus on, or you'll never feel better — csalisbury

Then you have missed the point of philosophical pessimism. You are never out of it. Existence is always something that is to be grappled with- not just a fanciful thought experiment for the depressed personality types. The ethics of phil. pess. is such that the aesthetics of existence is not simply hand waved and ignored, as that is the core of the issue. Hence darth's point about intra-worldly affairs. This is looking at the whole pie perspective, not trying to subsume, isolate, distract, and ignore it.

And so the locus of "the self" is a fluid thing - one poised between two complementary directions. And the optimal balance is a constant negotiation - one we are expected to actively partake in, especially in a civilised society. We are meant to be free to choose whether to be more competitive or more co-operative, more differentiated or more integrated, as best suits the prevailing context or situation.

That is what we want people in general to be good at doing. Striking the healthy balance which sees the whole flourish. — apokrisis

You sneak in a lot of YOUR preferences as what OUGHT to be. You are creating an ought from an apokrisis :lol: . No one has to "want" or "expected to partake" in anything. That is your preference writ large. What people do have is the ability to evaluate life and then choose not to procreate it to a future person. That is a fact.

Also, your idea about people being able to cooperate or compete in nice balanced ways is a bit idealistic. Rather, some people have the dice loaded not as good as others, and their coping strategies don't work as well because of this loaded dice. Some people's exact circumstances cannot be compared to the group's in the same way. A lot of factors may make everyone's situation different to a degree that any particular set of strategies may not work on that individual. Anyways, I'm going off the main point which is again, just because identity may be created from group dynamics, does not negate the fact that someone can evaluate LIFE (in total) and deem it an existence that they do not want a future person to have to experience.

Edit: And I already told you my ethic which is that if life has structural and contingent suffering (as I've outlined it elsewhere) no X reason is convincing as to why a new person should exist. No one needs to fulfill X reason in the first place. Certainly there is no ought that derives from the idea that people's identities are created by group dynamics. That is besides the point.

It doesn't even leave room to value the possibility of a growth in civilised selfhood. It is monotonic and obsessive in its complaints.

It does follow its own particular logic to its end, but that remains - in my view, based on larger naturalistic arguments - a caricature of the rich world it pretends to represent. — apokrisis

By what faulty logic would you presume people need the "possibility of growth in civilized selfhood" (whatever reification that means).

So again, if naturalism is true, antinatalism fails. Nothing has really changed. We just have to decide whose metaphysics we believe. — apokrisis

You put the cart before the horse. Just because things can be constructed socially, does not mean that we should therefore keep the social construction going by having more individuals to contribute to it. This is simply making an ought from an is. I have always proposed there is structural suffering of being born and a contingent component of suffering. Both are good reasons not to procreate a future child. To use the child as a vessel to "realize" or "actualize" their "cvilized selfhood" (WTF?) seems quite unnecessary in the light of the two kind of sufferings that I have outlined (in many posts besides this in much further detail). Besides the fact that, why should "civilized selfhood" be realized by any individual in the first place? It seems you have a particular preference that is as arbitrary as anything. You don't see the blind spot in your argument which is that what you take as "natural" is just the result of individual choices of individual humans. By romanticizing "civilized selfhood" you are simply giving a personal post-hoc reason (and arbitrary) for birth.

Because some would rather term elevated selfishness “non-selfish”, this then presents one non-selfish reason/motive to have children: yes, laughable as it may seem, for the benefit of mankind (a category which does not exclude the very parents of elevated selfishness/selflessness which given birth … nor the very offspring themselves). — javra

This presents its own contradiction. Why do more people have to be born to benefit mankind? What does that end goal really mean? If it is something like providing technology or other means to live "better off", then the best off would not needing to have to need technology in the first place, or to be better off in the first place- aka not being born in the first place. Thus, the best choice of all is never having been. By having more people you are creating a state of affairs whereby more people will need to be helped, when they didn't need to be helped in the first place.

Because pleasure isn't an intrinsic but an instrumental good and therefore inherently selfish. — Thorongil

I guess the two follow-ups are:
1) What is your definition of intrinsic and instrumental good?
1a) Why isn't pleasure an intrinsic good?
2) Why is inherently selfish bad?

But is it worse than what we had before?

Maybe a smith would know everything about how an object was made. Was their life better off overall? — Marchesk

I am not advocating going backwards in time. I am just pointing to our ignorance and how beholden we are to larger forces we had no hand in and did not create ourselves but certainly dictate modern life for us. I can't explain its significance more than there is an alienation or atomization to this.

I don't buy that either, as it depends on the claim that experiencing life is intrinsically good. I don't think it is. What would be the reason that it is? Because one can feel pleasure? Well, then we're back to a selfish reason at bottom. — Thorongil

I guess they would respond, "What's wrong with wanting a child to go into existence to feel pleasure/happiness"? I have my own reply, but just wondering yours.

Indeed! Specialization (along with automation) has allowed the standard of living to go way up, for all of us unfortunate souls who get to be alienated. Not saying it's a perfect result, but I would say it's generally less bad than what came before.

Although I have no idea what life was a hunter/gatherer would be like, but at least with civilized life, the standard of living is much better now, for those who have access. — Marchesk

The point of my post was to address the fact that we are mostly ignorant of the very processes and things we take utilize in daily life. We become passive participants and eventually become beholden to the given which is:

You want the STUFF (i.e. all the complex technologically created goods). > YOU must contribute now (since most people aren't technological pioneers through circumstance or lack of aptitude this means lever pushing for many). > You are beholden to the forces of technology because if you want the STUFF

Anything in response to my first response?

I suppose if there is a God and he commanded procreation, then it would be selfless in that case, but I am not in fact religious myself at present, so this can't be appealed to. — Thorongil

Was that to my previous response or its own separate post?

Also I disagree with the equalizing and trivializing of the personal value and meaning of different forms of work you have to give me an argument for why they have the same meaning and end in despair for the individual — aporiap

I meant to say that most are lever pushing outside the very few who change processes for millions. They perhaps have a much greater stake in the production. Even this is one instance and since can't be a part of the whole process, is simply also a passive recipient like the rest.

I don't know if it ends in despair, but it ends with individuals being just very minuscule participants, and thus are essentially pinballs in the "given" of the environs which the behemoth of the world economy provides for the individuals.

It's not always so rote. There are so many job and career options, there are so many ways to feel connected to a given job or career. You might teach or do therapy because you love to work with people or mentor others. You might prefer a family oriented, balanced, low competition life - so you prefer to work in blue collar sector. — aporiap

All lever pushing. That versus the person who invents a better processor or whole new systems which millions rely upon.

The best I have come up with is that procreation is necessary to maintain civilization. But is civilization an end in itself? I think not. And this rationale might boil down to egotism in the end. — Thorongil

Agreed. People will possibly say that they are giving an opportunity for the child to experience and self-actualize. I'm not sure your response to this though.

I'll give another response too. Knowing how the products that we use works means we are an active participant in the very things that surround our economic world. We can't even fathom one part that goes into our car without going in literally a million directions (everything from the agricultural methods used to grow the foods that fed the autoworkers, to the actual engineers who designed the autopart). It is so intractably wide a network, that we are always on the outside of the "know". We are just passive recipients of market forces and not directly involved in that which we utilize. It is an odd sort of alienation that we are removed many fold from. Some might say this is just evidence of the goodness of the market system, but there is an alienation of the users and producers. Those who designed the complex systems and those who take it for granted once it is distributed to a large market for profit.

See the response above:

You want the STUFF (i.e. all the complex technologically created goods). > YOU must contribute now (since most people aren't technological pioneers through circumstance or lack of aptitude this means lever pushing for many). > You are beholden to the forces of technology because if you want the STUFF you need to contribute your bean counting and lever pushing > there is no way out except perhaps antinatalism — schopenhauer1

How about these questions:
What if everyone in the world decided not to work?
What is it we are trying to get out of life in the first place?

The absurdity of both work and the silence of what we are getting out of life in the first place is telling.

Edit: You see, there is an ethos here that is implicit in this situation.

You want the STUFF (i.e. all the complex technologically created goods). > YOU must contribute now (since most people aren't technological pioneers through circumstance or lack of aptitude this means lever pushing for many). > You are beholden to the forces of technology because if you want the STUFF you need to contribute your bean counting and lever pushing > there is no way out except perhaps antinatalism

I don't know, if people like @Baden or someone else I haven't heard from in a while wan to comment feel free. Certainly, this is intended for @Bitter Crank. @aporiap and @andrewk also had some comments in this thread.

I don't think the consumer's knowledge of a product's production method and sources is the issue.

I believe you mean the manufacturer's or worker's alienation from the product and the fact that they only participate in a figurative segment or link in a much larger, sometimes transnational chain of production. — aporiap

No, in a way, I do mean just that about product's production. Consumers don't know much about the very technology they use. Most people praise this as a good thing as it shows that the industrial market economy creates such specialization and labor division, that we can be thousands of steps removed from the process of production/distribution. There are almost an infinite amount of factors that go into making any individual product or utility. Everything we touch and experience in society has some story that didn't involve us, yet we utilize it. We are aliens from the world we inhabit.

So what is the consequence of this? We are simply pushed along by the innovations of others. Empty vessels with no real connection to our own artificial environment.

I consider myself to be a philosophical pessimist and write about it frequently on the forum. Have you heard of Thomas Metzinger? He is a neuroscientist wrote the forward to Ligotti's book and would probably fit under "neurohorror". Check out The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of Self. I haven't read him, but I do know he fits in that genre you speak of. What in particular fascinates you about neuroscience and its relation to horror?

I think a good follow-up question is whether existence is inherently suffering. On the surface, one might be inclined to say that the world is objectively indifferent and it is what we make of it. However, if concepts from philosophies like Buddhism and Schopenhauer are correct, it is in our very animal nature to suffer as we are always willing and willing in this view brings on dissatisfaction.

The Existentialists would say that the world is also inherently absurd. Because of our need for meaning and the indifference of the universe to give an answer, it has an aspect of a bad joke. The planets revolve around this gaseous ball of fire about every 365 days, the planet rotates every 24 hours or so, we survive, clean and maintain our little habitat, and seek some short or long term goal to bide our time.

You know that feeling you get after you think you completed something of great fulfillment? Perhaps an enlightening conversation, an end to a large project, or played some good music? It's that feeling of "Now what?" and back to the world of dissatisfaction you go. There is no gestalt at the end of the rainbow. It is just the world revolving continuously for a lifetime.

We are imbued with language that structures the world in such a way that makes us efficient creators of technology. This novel string of language generation/concept formation/ and technological manipulation creates a sort of pseudo-meaning- we are the animals that manipulate tools and thoughts in an endless novel stream of iterative and novel generation.

However, this is also just a post-industrial narrative that we tell ourselves that gives a sheen of gloss over the absurd core at the center of our little umwelt that we create with our tools, social, and language structures. It's all just planets moving around a ball of gas.

Do you think there is something intractable in life itself which your main solutions of better community and more projects to focus on will not be able to fix? Essentially this is a watered down Maslows Hierarchy of needs. Is that whole self-actualization hope what makes more new people worth bringing into the world?

1. How can philosophy get its hands dirty again with the lived reality of individual desire?
2. How can philosophy influence the trajectory of a culture seemingly caught in death spiral down a vortex of desire? — Kym

Have you read any Schopenhauer? His whole philosophy is predicated on this idea of an overarching Will behind reality that we are manifestations of. We are always deprived- hence our constant need for goal-setting and boredom that sets in when we achieve a goal or don't have any goals in particular. His conclusions were that aesthetics can temporarily stop the will's desire in some sort of Platonic contemplation. Secondly, we can do things out of compassion which somehow takes us out of our own self-interest. Thirdly, we can live as an ascetic, not giving into desires up to the point of death perhaps.

I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, but it does give you some interesting concepts to work with.

True enough, manufacturing has become extraordinarily complex. But that isn't "alienation" exactly. Edited, Marx said,

- My work would be a free manifestation of life,
hence an enjoyment of life.
Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life,
for I work in order to live,
in order to obtain for myself the means of life.
My work is not my life.

If a man builds his own house, cultivates food on his own land, hunts his own game for food and leather, etc. his work and life would be a unity. Since the industrial revolution, the expansion of the capitalist economic system, urbanization, and so on -- fewer and fewer people have had any opportunity to experience a unity of work and life.

Almost all of us work for others, because we must. Production of all that we need and want is pretty much centralized and highly organized. We work in order to obtain the means of life, as Marx said -- food, clothing, shelter, heat, etc. But our work is not our life. We don't work for the sake of the work we do; we work so that we can buy bread.

That is the kind of alienation Marx was talking about. — Bitter Crank

Nice summation of Marx concept of alienation.

The second meaning of alienation comes from, but perhaps not obviously, the fact of one's working in an office or factory that is private property and one is just a hired hand. It comes from the recognition that one, in fact, may not have a place in the world that can't be taken by someone else -- just about anybody else.

When we alienated, unhappy people have lost all our connections that bind us together, we are atomized. The next stage, after Alienation and Atomization, is Anomie, the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group. — Bitter Crank

I agree we are atomized. Bringing this idea to production itself- we are an infintesimally small part of production, yet we are dictated by the transactions of production. Here we are, working in our production settings (e.g. office spaces, manufacturing plants, warehouses, transport mode, etc.) using all these products which we have nothing to do with except possibly paying for or consuming it. The economy is the big MACHINE that we push a tiny sliver of the levers for to keep intact. You are not going to like this, but it all goes back to why we have new humans in the first place. Why bring more people into the world to keep the MACHINE afloat? We think it is for self-interest, but due to the fact that we are tied into this impersonal (invisible) behemoth of an economy- self-interest is simply just the inadvertent strengthening of the MACHINE. More level pushers alienated from the forces that keep them alive and as you explain well, possibly alienated socially from each other. It is a two-prong alienation then- from the factors of technology that keeps us alive and the socialization with others throughout the day (at least 8 hours of it for the usual workers). If this is just what reality is, then what makes reality that great? I still don't get that one. Because you go on rafting adventure trips, read books on the Philosophy of Science, attend religious events, and watch plays and movies? This is the big payoff of life? If reality is just plain reality why do people really prefer it? Is it just that we are alive, so we are predisposed to accepting it as good?

But what are they lacking? and why does the amazon warehouse strip them of that? and then, only then, what to do? — csalisbury

It's easy to decry things. It's very hard to explain how to make things better.) — csalisbury

They are lacking an awareness of the products they use. The answer- there is none. We are just tiny recipients of billions of transactions of labor and resources. We specialize in our little niche and consume stuff. We are awash in "Stuff" but we don't know how it got here. We are alien to our surroundings. Many will praise this as "good" as it shows the invisible hand at work and man's ability to engage in markets that they only need to have a tiny fraction of knowledge of to participate in. There is something missing here to be alien from understanding all the technology that goes into the stuff we use every day or any day for that matter.

1. The general public cares little about the origins of consumer items, which includes slave labor, unethical work practices, and environmental destruction. — NKBJ

Where others see efficiency, specialization, and the growth of goods and services I see an explosion of boredom and anomie spread around. You are so overwhelmed by the factors of production. Yes the invisible hand specializing the pin factory, yadayada. It's always fun to hear @Bitter Crank account though.