Because water doesn't fit the definition of life. It (water) doesn't nourish itself, neither does it reproduce, etc.

Of course you could ask for the definition of life to be expanded to include water but you'd need to give good reasons for it. Likewise for amino acids; they don't reproduce or respond to the environment in any life-like manner. — TheMadFool

Well, I think I gave a good reason for why AI Programs should be regarded as life. I argued that it seems more important to think of life as the process of being alive or the state of animation. Some AI Programs do seem to be alive and be in a state of animation. Whereas, trees do not seem to have those characteristics. My question is why is the ability to nourish yourself and reproduce more important to what makes life special than the state of aliveness which really seems to be the thing which makes living things more interesting than non-living things?

Built by whom, is the obvious question. And, it’s question begging to refer to robots as ‘beings’. — Wayfarer

Well, I imagine that it’s likely that intelligent life could come about through evolution perhaps through different compound mixtures than the one which produced the first organisms on Earth. While the robots were not likely to have evolved and were obviously created(they might also not be reproducing and simply die out once the machinery breaks). It not clear if these robots were created by beings who were made of roughly the same chemical composition as us or if they were made of a completely different chemical composition. Nonetheless, it seems that the fact that they were created doesn’t make them any less alive. After all, I don’t think we would be less of a living thing if we were created by an intelligent designer rather than evolution.

I suppose you could have an active rational agency if you can experience things. But, my understanding is that organisms as simple as fish can experience things. We don’t normally think of fish as having an active rational agency(or at least a philosopher like Aristotle would probably object to that classification). Of course, I do think that fish should undoubtedly be classified as living things. I also think that deeper levels of mental activity are designed for deeper levels of agency. For example, humans have a longer memory span than a squirrel which allows them to make more long term plans than squirrels. It also allows them to enjoy or suffer while thinking about their past experiences(although I’m not sure if squirrels can be nostalgic or traumatized. It kind of hard to imagine how that would work without a good memory).

there are different levels of being alive, but the base level involves willing and subjectivity. — TheGreatArcanum

I don’t know if I agree with that. It depends on what you mean by willing. Suppose that I lost all my limbs and received severe brain damage from a terrible car accident. I lack the ability to move in any way and I have lost my personality and memories. I also lost the ability to control my mental activity and seem to no longer be self aware. But I’m still the container of experience which has to endure the suffering involved in my state of being(I understand that this might not be physically possible though). Would I still be alive? My intuition seems to be that so long as I can enjoy positive experiences or have to endure negative experiences, then I would still be alive even if I seem to lack agency. On the other hand, perhaps AI Programs which appear to lack mental activity could be considered alive because of their appearance of agency(this is mainly because we could never know if our current AI Programs truly lack mental activity).

Well, it’s true that there is a connection between the presence of organic matter and the possibility of life but it’s not clear to me why we should start on a cellular level. Some scientists think that viruses should be considered life despite the fact that it’s less complex than a cell. What about amino acids? You can’t create cells without animo acids. Does this mean amino acids should be considered life as well? We can go further back than that. Without the molecules of water, carbon, and phosphorus we couldn’t create amino acids which means we can’t create cells which means we can’t create humans. Why not say that a water molecule is a simple life form? You would need to show that the beginning of evolution started with unicellular organisms rather than viruses or primordial soup. Of course, we could also say that the elements necessary for primordial soup formation is the first form of life by this logic as well. Now, I actually think it makes sense to say that being alive falls on a spectrum perhaps. For example, I imagine that a human is more alive than a typical robot not because it is made of organic material but rather because it displays more complex and animated behavior and we have more reason to think that humans are usually conscious. I also think that we should entertain a possibility of life that was designed rather than evolved. I think that we have created new life forms by the invention of machinery and software that seems more animated and more likely to have mental activity than a tree. I think there has to be something said about that.

The chain of causation relevant to potentiality can be extended into the past and the future.

You, me and everyone else are part of this potentiality chain or web if you like. — TheMadFool

Yes, but if you removed the potentiality by preventing the production of sex cells, wouldn’t that prevent the deprivation? If potentiality implies possible deprivation, then if an antinatalist mad scientist invents a powder that prevents the future production of sperm cells and he puts the powder in the food of unsuspecting men, you would have to conclude that he is doing something good by preventing the harm of deprivation of all the potential happy beings that were extremely unlikely to be born anyway. That’s because most of these potential beings that would of been produced by the future sperm cells had they existed would not be potential beings anymore and that means the mad scientist got rid of the deprivation by removing the potentiality.

There was a Siddhartha Gautama once, the Buddha, whose philosophy is founded on pain and suffering. He was right. During his time his words were true.

In the 21st century his foundational thesis, that life is suffering, is only partially true.

All of us, 21st century people, were only potential humans during the Buddha's time. Yet, here we are enjoying, even if only relatively, our lives.

Yes, there's a lot of suffering but this isn't a photograph in which we're stuck in one state/pose forever. It's more like a movie - states change - we can become happier. If I see a photograph of African slaves it saddens me. Yet, if you observe the passage of history, a movie as it were, then you see emancipation.

The potential for happiness can't be ignored and, as of habit, we don't. Don't we all go to school, sacrifice little pleasures and willingly undergo a little pain, for a greater state of happiness/contentment? The potential for happiness or greater happiness is very relevant.

It is the above element of truth that is missing from the worldview of antinatalism. — TheMadFool

Well, if life was suffering in the past and is now better, we would expect to see a reduction of the suicide rate and antinatalism should be becoming less popular. What we are seeing in the 21st century is opposite of that so it’s not clear to me that material well being leads to life satisfaction and happiness. As I have mentioned with the hedonic treadmill, our level of happiness tends to stay constant throughout our lives and we simply adjust to our increased well being and find new things to be miserable about. The upside to the hedonic treadmill is that we can adjust to our suffering also but that takes a longer time and is more difficult.

Because you're forwarding that it can somehow be objective, and you're basing an argument for that on popularity. In other words, I'm criticizing it from the context you're proposing. — Terrapin Station

I was forwarding that if we asked about people preferences, their collected answers would constitute an objective fact. You admitted that you agreed that was the case in your previous comment. Whether or not this fact is relevant to the case of reproduction is a different question. You could argue that it’s up to debate as to how relevant this fact is. I never claimed it was the only fact we should consider and think about relating to reproduction but it’s worth considering. When I say it is worth considering, I am not claiming that it’s an objective fact that it’s worth considering but I’m claiming that the objective fact is the collected explicit preferences from different people.

That is, assuming that (a) probability really works the way people like to imagine it does, and (b) we could have data for something as ridiculously oversimplified (outside of frustrated teenagers expressing frustration) as whether people are "glad they were born." — Terrapin Station

So, what do you think is a more relevant fact to consider here then? It’s sounds to me like you don’t even think anyone could make a sound moral argument of any type and that there are no relevant facts to addressing any moral issues. So, how should we talk about the morality of reproduction then?

That's still not valid. You could say that if you rob a bank you increase your chances of going to prison, but that tells us nothing about what anyone should do a la validity, which has to do with truth. Shoulds can't be true (or false). That's a category error for them. — Terrapin Station

I think we’re using a different definitions of valid here. My definition of valid here is something worthy of consideration that is relevant to the subject matter at hand. The fact that you might go to prison for robbing a bank is valid because it’s something worthy of consideration that is relevant to the subject matter at hand. Similarly, the fact that most people claim to prefer existence over non-existence is valid because it’s something worthy of consideration that is relevant to the subject matter at hand. On another note, whether or not, shoulds can be true or false is dependent upon which theories of truth you except. If you accept only the correspondence theory of truth then shoulds cannot be true or false(although, something could be neither true nor false but still be valid under my definition of validity. Although, I must point out that the technical definition of validity in logic has to do with the structure of the argument and not the content of it. By the technical definition of validity, you could make a valid false argument because an argument is valid if the premises would lead to the conclusion even if the premises are false or could not be true nor false). But if you accept the coherence or the pragmatic theories of truth then shoulds could be true or false. By the coherence theory, shoulds can be true so long as there are no contradictions in the larger framework of all of your should claims. By the pragmatic theories of truth, shoulds can be true if believing in them is useful for your life.

Imagine you have a gift that you're sure will make anybody happy. Imagine you're a filthy rich man. Wouldn't you produce children or find someone to appreciate and enjoy your gift/wealth? — TheMadFool

I’m actually a fairly wealthy person myself and I used to be poor and I could tell you that having more money is not going to make you any happier. I don’t think existence could ever be a gift that will make absolutely everyone happy. Alleviating suffering is not as simple as giving them enough material resources and opportunities to form relationships. I think suffering is inevitable so long as we do not alter our genome or strip away our humanity. We used to suffer from disease and starvation but now we are suffering arguably just as much because our romantic partner broke up with us or we are in poverty while surrounded by rich people in the developed countries. This is among the reasons why the suicide rate in developed countries is higher than it is in many developing countries. Tragedies are so much worse when you seem to be the only one experiencing them.

I would still love to hear the answer to my question about whether or not preventing the production of sperm cells in your body would prevent anyone from being deprived of being born since the reason you gave me for why you think not having children deprives someone revolved around there being an identity attached to each individual sperm and egg combination. It’s not clear to me how there could be an actual physical identity if the sperm and egg do not combine and if each individual has a dual identity before fertilization, then simply preventing the production of sperm and egg cells would prevent the deprivation.

However, a person doesn't come into existence from nothing. A plant grows from a seed. The seed has the potential of becoming a beautiful flower. Would you deny the seed of its potential?

Likewise, in our bodies the female egg and the male sperm together, have a potential for a beautiful life. Are antinatalists not then depriving a potential wonderful life? — TheMadFool

Well, by that logic, we are depriving a near infinite number of potential beings. Every time you are not reproducing, you could be potentially depriving someone who could of lived a happy life. You seem to be suggesting that all of the gazzilion of different sperm and egg combinations could be potential victims. This seems absurd to me. I would also like to point out that it takes both a sperm and an egg to create an identity unless you hold the strange metaphysical view that we had dual identities before the sperm and egg came together. So, it’s not clear to me if I would harming a whole being or half a being by not reproducing. I also would like to ask you a question. Suppose that a person who doesn’t want to have kids and who could raise a child in a utopian circumstances agreed with your argument and decides to remove his testes to prevent the production of future sperm, thereby making it so that there is nobody who could be created or deprived by not being brought into existence. Would the fact that he avoided creating sperm cells make any moral difference under your view?

Well, isn't depriving people of heaven/utopia a bad thing? When I say utopia/heaven I mean a permanent state of happiness. All the problems of existence dealt with decisively. — TheMadFool

How could you deprive someone that never existed? Deprivation requires that there’s someone to be deprived so never bringing a child into existence can never be harmful to anyone. You could say that you are failing to provide a benefit if you don’t reproduce under utopian circumstances. But, am I obligated to provide a benefit to someone? We typically don’t think that someone is blameworthy for refusing to benefit someone. Otherwise, I would be immoral for refusing to donate some money to charity to help the starving children in Africa. On the other hand, somebody that harms somebody else could be called immoral. Reproduction involves potentially harming someone and it could therefore be immoral but avoiding reproduction can never harm anyone so it can never be immoral. It’s also not clear to me if creating a happy life would be morally praiseworthy. That’s because you took a risk of creating an unhappy life in the process. On the other hand, avoiding reproduction can also be potentially praiseworthy because it could be considered preventing harm and we typically think that preventing harm is praiseworthy. Another way you could be praiseworthy is by preventing reproduction by donating money to charities that provide contraception to developing countries. That way we could prevent the creation of lives that are even bad by your standards. The average cost of raising a child in the US is around $250,000. Imagine if I donated that amount of money to charity to provide enough contraception to prevent potentially dozens of terrible lives from coming into existence. Wouldn’t you think that would be more virtuous? Less controversially, I could just donate that money to provide food and shelter to developing countries and that would be more beneficial than having children.

As this reveals the only problem with existence is suffering and pain one has to undergo in living. — TheMadFool

It’s not clear to me how your thought experiment does reveal that the only problem with existence is suffering and pain. Some philosophers would argue that betrayal, ignorance, disappointment, malevolence and death would also be part of any properly dystopian future even if they wouldn’t contribute to the suffering. Some pessimistic philosophers would even argue that life is good but death is bad and it’s the combination of life followed by death that makes being born regrettable. Also, it seems that I could just as easily argue that the only thing good about existence is pleasure and happiness. There’s a debate in philosophy about whether or not intrinsic goodness or badness lies in experience or if there are also things that are intrinsically good or bad outside of its effect on experience. I tend to think that intrinsic value could only lie in experience.

As I mentioned, the suffering and pain graph is showing a downward trend with modern medicine, technology, and good governance. There is no logical contradiction in utopia is there? Utopia is possible and if we go by national strategic planning and UN millenial goals, such as eradication of polio, universal health for all, etc., the global community is, in reality, aiming for a utopian world or thereabouts. — TheMadFool

Well, even if I knew that in 200 years there would be a utopia, would it be right for me to create a child living in circumstances that I believe are worse than non-existence in order so that my great-grandchildren can live in utopia? It’s seems like I would be using my children as a means to an end and that could be objectionable from a deontological perspective. But, even if I was to be a pure consequentialist and I knew that a utopian world would come about in 200 years, how long would this utopian period last? Would it be an everlasting utopia? What if it peaks 200 years from now and it sustains it’s utopian state for another 200 years but then it goes to hell afterwards because something goes terribly wrong and it continues being hell for thousands of years. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren might have to live in hell! This is why it’s not clear to me if we should rely on future predictions as a basis for justifying or condemning reproduction.

That's not a fallacious sentiment--sentiments can't be fallacious, arguments are; but it's also not true or false, correct or incorrect, or objective in any manner (aside from the objective fact that when polled, most of your guests said they wanted pizza). — Terrapin Station

If this is a sentiment and not an argument then I imagine that you also think my point regarding morality of reproduction is a sentiment also. Then, why accuse it of being fallacious since sentiments can’t be fallacious?

That makes a lot less sense to me. You should consider that fact when thinking about the morality of reproduction in what context? Deciding your own moral stance? — Terrapin Station

You should consider the probability that your offspring will be glad to be born. This fact could help you determine that probablity. I’m not claiming it’s the only thing you should consider but it’s a good start.

You can't have a valid should. Shoulds are preferences that individuals have, too. They're not valid or invalid. — Terrapin Station

If I say that you shouldn’t rob a bank unless you are willing to risk going to prison, this would be a valid should insofar as I am making a pertinent point if you are not willing to risk going to prison.

You are because you used the word "objective." What was that word supposed to suggest otherwise? What difference did that word make to the sentence you typed? — Terrapin Station

If you go back to read my original quote, I mentioned objective human preferences. By objective, I was referring to something worth mentioning as a fact relevant to the subject matter at hand. For example, if I am hosting a party and I ask my guests what do they want to have for dinner and the most popular answer is pizza, this is a fact I should consider whenever I’m deciding to what dinner I should bring to the party. It would not be fallacious for me to argue that I should buy pizza because that’s what the guests want. Similarly, it would not be fallacious to argue that if most people prefer existence over non-existence then we should consider this fact when thinking about the morality of reproduction. To bring the point home, here’s a difference between some ad populums and valid preferential arguments:

Ad populum: antinatalisms is wrong because most people think it is wrong.

My claim: most people prefer existence over non-existence. This fact should be taken into consideration when thinking about reproduction.

Ad populum: The most guests at your party believe that ordering pizza would be best for everyone at the party.

Valid argument: Most guests at your party want to have pizza for dinner. This fact is one objective fact about the overall preferences of your guests that should be taken into consideration

Given the context above, how would one make a good judgment on the matter? — TheMadFool

Well, it’s a good time to bring up the thought experiments that I have come up with then. The first thought experiment is what I call the suspended experience machine experiment. Imagine there is a device that allows you to suspend your ability to experience things during certain times in the day while maintaining your functionality and allowing you to do things you need to do without having to experience them. Let’s say you don’t want to experience your work day or your school day and you could make the experiences disappear almost as if you were asleep the whole time and you would still perform your work and gain all the memories and knowledge from the time you were unconscious. It’s almost like you could make yourself a philosophical zombie with this machine any time you don’t want to experience something unpleasant. The downside of this machine is that it does shorten your lifespan because you will still need to go to sleep at night and if you use it a lot, you will only be awake for a short period of time. The question I would like to ask you is how often would you use the suspended experience machine. For me, the answer is about 40% of my current life. That just includes me skipping my work day, and my chores with the machine. Considering how pleasant my life is, I find it remarkably shocking that I spend almost half my life doing things that are worse than being unconscious. I imagine that my life will get worse as I get older and I start having health problems.
The second thought experiment I have thought about is what I call the magic coin experiment. Imagine that you find a magic coin on the ground and whenever you flip the coin, if it lands on heads you will re-live the best day of your life so far but if it lands on tails, you will re-live the worst day of your life so far. Would you be willing to flip that coin? For me, the answer is a resounding “no”. I can’t even recall what the best day of my life was but I can certainly recall the worst day of my life. Given my responses to both of these thought experiments, I think it would be better if I don’t reproduce. That is because if I can’t conclude that my own life is better than nonexistence then I can reasonably expect that my future offspring would share the same attitude since that offspring would inherit my genes and environment. I can’t say if my conclusion about these thought experiments is just my own subjective judgment or if many people would agree with me so I don’t know if I have a reasonable consequential case against reproduction for most people or everyone. But if you agree with my intuitions, it seems appropriate for you to consider refraining from reproduction at least until you can improve your life enough that you would have little use for the suspended experience machine and you would be willing to flip the coin. I doubt that one is likely to improve or worsen the quality of one’s life over the long term though. That is because our best research on happiness seems to indicate that people’s happiness stays around a set hedonic set point that seems to be mostly determined by particular genes(scientists have actually already identified those genes). This is what is called the hedonic treadmill in happiness research. Whenever a really good or bad event happens in people’s lives, it tends to only impact their reported happiness over a period of 6 months or a couple of years at the most. Afterwards, their happiness returns to their normal hedonic set point. It seems to be an asymmetrical treadmill though for 2 reasons:

1. Periods of temporary suffering after a tragedy typically last longer than periods of temporary happiness after a positive life event.

2. In rare cases, some life events could permanently shift your hedonic set point up or down. It is more likely that a tragedy will lower your hedonic set point permanently than a positive event will raise it.

I believe that life is getting ''better''. We have medicine, machines, knowledge, democracy, etc. All mentioned afore facilitate a happy existence. Things were different a few thousand years ago - tyranny, disease, ignorance, etc. Am I wrong in thinking there's a positive trend here? — TheMadFool

Well, developing countries do often report having a higher happiness level and lower suicide rate than developed countries so I’m not sure if I agree with that. But when I think about the suffering of people in developing countries, I almost have it hard to believe that their life could be as good as mine. Dostoyevsky was famous for arguing that even if we gave a person everything he could possibly want, they would still suffer just as much as people in unfortunate circumstances do, simply because they can do so or out of some strange spitefulness. Perhaps there’s is a solution to problem of suffering that could be offered by altering the genes responsible for it and other technological methods that could be developed in the future that could eliminate suffering for everyone. There is a philosophical community known as the hedonistic imperative that hopes for that kind of future and thinks we can be successfull at eliminating all suffering. I hope they are right but I tend to be skeptical of such utopian claims.

If there's one thing to go by I guess it's population. An increasing population would mean longer lives, healthier women and children. There may be depression, suicide, and other social ills but it seems to be of lesser effect than the positive effects as evinced by world population growth. — TheMadFool

Regarding population ethics, I think it’s really difficult to predict what impact a particular world population would have on the world. There are so many confounding variables to think about. I’m aware that the world population is expected to peak at around 9 billion and then start going rapidly down due to the low birth rate in many developed countries and it’s estimated that once developing countries become more developed they will have a population decline also. The 2 biggest reasons for the low fertility rates seem to be access to contraception and higher education levels for women. While the underpopulation in developed countries could cause economic stagnation, it could also slow down global warming and if technology progresses to the point that most people would be unemployed within a couple of generations, then underpopulation would be good I think. That’s because if we have a high unemployment rate, we would most likely have to resort to something like a universal basic income to support most people and most young people will be unproductive and just taking up resources. The more educated and skilled older people would likely be extremely productive in this new type of complex and technologically advanced economy.

Well, while it’s true that we can imagine much better and worse states of beings than our current lives, I don’t think that it necessarily means that our existence is about as good as nonexistence(I’m guessing this is your position but correct me if I’m wrong). For example, let’s imagine that non-existence has a hypothetical value of 0 and heaven has a hypothetical value of 1000000 and hell has a hypothetical value of -1000000. Our lives could on average have a hypothetical value anywhere between 10000 and -10000 for all we know and that would still make a huge difference between existence and non-existence. The antinatalist could believe that life is really awful but hell is just so much worse. They would also likely to believe that the disvalue of hell is much more farther away from the zero of non-existence than the value of heaven is compared to non-existence. So, heaven might only have a value of 1000000 but hell has a disvalue of -1000000000000. The antinalist philosopher David Benetar is known to argue that if you ask people if they willing to experience 30 minutes of the worst suffering imaginable for 2 hours of the best and most sublime pleasures, most people would not be willing to take the deal.
Overall, whether or not existence is overall good or bad for the average person, I think it’s almost certainly not anywhere close to non-existence in value or disvalue. That’s because we spend decades on Earth experiencing good and bad mental states and having preferences and desires. Given how consequential our existence is, it seems that we have to have a strong view of its goodness and badness if we really think about it. While it’s really difficult to compare existence to non-existence and we may not know the answer, I do think it is important to ask the question. I have thought about several thought experiments that seem to give at least a rudimentary answer to this question but I’m not going to take the time to explain them unless you would like to continue having this discussion in that direction.

You're forwarding an argumentum ad populum. — Terrapin Station

No, I’m not actually. Although I thought I was when I wrote the original comment. An argumentum ad populum is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated as: "If many believe so, it is so." The key word in this definition is belief. When evaluating the most likely human existential preference, we are not saying that the belief that people hold about their life is the reason why life is good but rather the preference that they have for existence over non-existence. The difference between a belief and preference is that a belief is an opinion about the nature objective reality while a preference is an opinion expressed in personal taste and there’s no claim that something is objectively better but rather just an expression of subjective preference. I think when evaluating 2 state of affairs, it is appropriate to try to figure which state of affairs most people prefer. This would be one empirical fact that the pronatalist could use effectively to make her position stronger. By all means, I do not think that it’s the only valid empirical fact regarding the morality of reproduction. If you read the rest of my long previous comment, that becomes quite clear. I must also add that I’m more of an antinatalist than a pronatist and I was giving the devil his due by providing the strongest potential argument for pronatalism. To me, the most absurd position that a person could hold on reproduction is actually the most common one: that is the view that reproduction is amoral or not morally relevant. I can’t imagine how something as consequential as reproduction could not have any serious moral significance. The only way an action could not be morally significant is if:
1. The action has no morally significant consequences
2. There are no duties related to the action in any way
3. There are no commonly understood virtues or vices that go along with the actions.

In my opinion, none of the 3 above criteria apply to reproduction much less all 3.

There can be no objective truth in what is inherently subjective. Antinatalism, if I'm correct, needs, for it to make its case, suffering and pain to be objective facts.

Some people, like antinatalists, find life to be miserable but some find life enjoyable and worth it.

We need to be objective about this if we're to make a judgment as to who is right. However, this isn't possible for the simple reason that people's values differ both in type and degree. You don't tell people not to eat chocolate because you don't like it. Some people will. There's no objectivity antinatalism, if you ask me. — TheMadFool

If there can be no objective truth in what is inherently subjective and we have to rely on an objective truth to make a claim that something is morally wrong then it’s not clear to me how we can conclude that something like murder is wrong either. Just as you insisted that someone shouldn’t tell you to refrain from eating chocolate because that someone doesn’t like chocolate, I could just as easily insist that someone doesn’t tell me to avoid killing people just because that someone doesn’t like death. Now, I think the best response against antinatalism is not to try to deny an objective moral truth but rather to insist that the mean collective subjective opinion could be regarded as objectively true. That is to say that if we compiled the opinions of millions of people across various cultures and took the average of those opinions, we would get the closest approximation of the actual objective human preference. This might get the accusation of using the bandwagon fallacy, but it may seem appropriate to ask the preferences of others as the basis for predicting the likelihood that a person would be glad to have been born for most of his life.
But the antinatalist could insist that instead of asking people for their existential preference, it is more appropriate to ask whether or not it morally right or wrong to create preferences in the first place. For that, we would need to compare 2 different preferential circumstances: the circumstance of having preferences of which some preferences will be satisfied and others will be frustrated and the circumstance of never having any preferences. You might insist that these 2 circumstances are incomparable and therefore we can’t judge one to be better than the other, but I think it is self-evident that creating a preference that is certain to never be satisfied and will lead to frustration is not morally preferable. Whereas, creating a preference that is guaranteed to be satisfied isn’t self-evidently morally preferable. That is not to say that it is never good to create a likely satisfied preference. I’m not taking a radical anti-frustrationist position on this topic but rather I’m insisting that there seems to be a skewed scale against creating preferences. Having said that, I do think that in addition to preferences we should observe the various experiences in our lives to get a better understanding of whether or not we think the experience of being alive is overall preferable to non-existence. My instinct is that if someone doesn’t enjoy their life, then it’s probably a bad idea for them to have children. That is because their children would likely inherit their misery. I don’t necessarily think that people who enjoy their lives should have children because of my moderate anti-preference creating views and because I think avoiding harm to others should be a stronger motivator for morality than providing someone with a benefit.

In a sense it means this life is not ours to do what we wish with it. Few would argue that we could do whatever we want with something that is not ours. It kinda dovetails into a more secular perspective of social existence. We live for others and they, in turn, live for us. So, suicide would be violating this agreement.

The above perspective makes complete sense when we consider how sacrificing one's life for another is valued as heroic and almost encouraged of us. The ''agreement'' that your life is best spent or, in this case, given up, for others isn't transgressed. — TheMadFool

While I do think that your friends and family do give you some reason not to commit suicide, I find it hard to imagine that we have made an agreement to continue living our lives for the sake of others. For one thing, it seems like an agreement requires an agreer. That is to say, in order for someone to be violating an agreement to continue living, he would of had to agree to uphold the agreement in the first place. Since nobody chooses to be born or signs an actual contract agreeing to not commit suicide, it seems difficult to argue that there’s any kind of agreement in place. I suppose you could argue that as long as you are living in a society, you have to abide by the rules of that society. But that just means that it is permissible for you to commit suicide if you decide to move away to a deserted island. As far as any agreement made to a divine being not to commit suicide, I find it hard to imagine how it would be justified for a God to have me be born without my permission and then punish me for violating an agreement to continue living my life that I never agreed to. Having said that, I’m glad we can at least agree that euthanasia should be allowed and that it is not immoral to provide it.

Personally, I have a preference for a mate who has the same background in the classics and science that I have. For the two men, I had breakfast with, this intellectual focus is lacking in feeling and spontaneity. I was working extra hard to be sociable with these men. I thought their Christian bias made them insensitive. :lol: We, that is all of us, are divided between thinking a president should be a thinking person like Obama or a spontaneous person like Bush or Trump. Christians want to trust in God and the other side wants to trust in education and the perfectibility of man. Then we have those who are sure computers and robots are best. :lol: I am not willing to give up my planet to the computers and robots, nor do I desire to wake up every day with a Christian. — Athena

I'm usually pretty indifferent about what philosophical views or interests my friends have but I like being friends only with nice and pleasant people. Even if I don't share someone's interests, it's easy to have a decent conversation with someone who is really nice and friendly. Even though I am a young man, I tend to get along better with women and older people. It's been awhile since I befriended a young man around my age lol. I do find it helpful to talk about philosophy with likeminded people occasionally though. I just don't think the real world is a good place to find such people

Fair enough, I agree that perhaps the newer generations would have a completely different outlook about having a conversation with AI programs.

Well, I wish you my sincere luck with your struggle. I agree that social support might often not be enough. I personally find that the advice that the Stoic philosophers like Epictitus and Seneca have taught can be extremely useful in dealing with difficult situations in life and in regulating emotions. I also found Epicurean philosophy helpful in learning how to avoid unnecessary suffering in life and getting rid of unhelpful habits. But the advice given by Epicurus is pretty controversial. His views on death could intensify suicidal ideation. Nonetheless, he is a philosopher you can read and understand in like an hour or two. He encourages people to avoid unnecessary luxury and to not make a huge fuzz over minor and unnecessary things. I heard that learning how to meditate could be useful also. I haven't seriously tried meditation though so I don't really know about that. Finally, I heard some people benefit from psychedelics and it cures them of their suicide ideation. I would use that as the last resort though and ideally you would want to find someone who knows how to use psychedelics in a more therapeutic rather than recreational way.

problem is hormonal. Some of us avoid men because like you, we are perfectly happy with our independent, private lives. However, we may need help with something, or we may want a male companion, an escort to dinner, travel partner, etc. Problem is, once we start speaking with a man, our hormones can start messing things up. We may want to be intimate and that can lead to a worse hormonal problem called bonding. Then we end up fighting with ourselves with our heads screaming at us to be reasonable and the feeling self screaming at the intellectual self because the feeling self does not want to be denied and the intellectual self does not want to give up her freedom and independence and be stuck with a man. — Athena

I know what you mean. Romantic attachment can really make you lose your sanity. I once got romantically attached to a woman and I completely lost my convictions to avoid getting married and having children for about a day. Luckily, I regained my reason and realized I had to be careful about who I get romantically involved with. It really strange. I'm sexually attracted to just about any woman but I'm only get romantically attached to attractive women. It's one of the many reasons I only date unattractive women.

Very important. If you know you don't want to be a father, make that very clear. Women can be totally unrealistic about this because their hormones are driving them, so talk about how awful it is to have a child with a man who doesn't one and who will not be a good father. Of course, she will think you are the perfect man because you care about such things, but you must do the impossible. You must active her reasoning. I hate it, we like to think we can have the perfect family even when we know this is unlikely. — Athena

Unfortunately, activating my girlfriends reasoning is quite hard because she has bipolar and schizophrenia. Luckily, I don't think my girlfriend could even get pregnant and she doesn't want to have kids. She claimed that 2 of her doctors said it was extremely unlikely for her to get pregnant. I believe her since she has many health problems and takes too many fertility killing medications. Plus her periods only last 2 days usually which is strange. She is on birth control also. Although, I'm still taking a risk by not wearing a condom and ejaculating inside of her. It feels so damn good though :grin: .

Now I have to close because I have an agreement to meet with a man I have been avoiding. I hope when I tell him I am not Christian he will stop pursuing me, but I hope he will also be agreeable to me a renting a room from him so I can transition from one apartment complex to another, without having to sleep in my car. I hope he will take me to the Annual Steam Engine Fair this summer. :joke: It is crazy! the worst contradiction is within myself! — Athena

Well, I wish you luck with that. I also gotten rejected a lot for being an atheist lol. My girlfriend doesn't reject me but she keeps trying to convert me lol

I thought about this issue a little more and there are 3 objections that I had come up with to your future prediction:

1. Most people desire genuine love as opposed to merely company. Even dogs can have genuine love for their owners, but AI programs cannot actually care about the person they are talking to. Knowing that your friend isn't a real sentient being that feels concern for you would likely to make people feel lonely.

2. Most people desire to be listened to as opposed to merely analyzed by an AI program. Even dogs can listen to our commands because they some have mental activity. AI programs only appear to listen and that partly is the reason why many people don't care that Google is spying on them. The AI programs that spy on us on the Internet don't actually have an opinion about our online activity. We, on the other, desire friends that do have genuine excitement when talking to us.

3. Many people have friends for social status. You can't attain much social status talking to AI friends. In fact, people often destatusize and mock those that only have online friends and don't hang out with actual people.

I would like to point out that it's really difficult to define what philosophy is and that what one person might think of as philosophy is different than what another person thinks of as philosophy. For me, philosophy is the art of categorizing. Under this broad definition of philosophy, just about every field of study relies on philosophy on some level.

Psychology: every contentious psychological debate about mental illnesses and human nature are philosophical in nature. That is because the goal is to draw boundaries between a mentally healthy and a mentally ill person, for example. Or it is to construct a theory about a certain aspect of human nature. Most psychological theories are unsupported enough that they seem more like philosophical theories rather than scientific theories.

Economics: All major economic theories are philosophical theories rather scientific theories by nature. This is why there's no good consensus among economists about what the best economic policies are.

History: History can be better defined as the study of change rather than just the study of the past. In order to study the future, we have to predict it by studying historical patterns. I would call that philosophizing.

Physics: I think we won't be able to fully understand physics without thinking about metaphysical questions. For example, I think understanding human consciousness is necessary in understanding the mechanics of the physical world.

Music: Music critique is a form of philosophy, in my opinion.

Law: What constitutes reasonable doubt that someone commited a crime is an interesting epistemological question to ask. It is certainly a relevant question to ask in our society.

Computer Science: Computer languages implement many advances made in the philosophy of logic.

In conclusion, pretty much all of human knowledge relies on philosophizing on some level.

Hmm. Maybe we should work more on figuring out how to treat these illnesses. — Waya

Well, that's easier said than done. I don't deny that we should study suicidal behavior and figure out ways to alleviate suffering which typically causes suicidal ideation. But unlike "curing" suicidal ideation which requires time and effort, respecting the autonomy of suicidal people requires no effort. If life gets good enough that no people ever want to commit suicide, there would be no need to argue about this controversial issue. I think we can both agree that such utopian future isn't likely to come about any time soon.
I think the last part of your comment describes one of the reason why I think we are so bad at treating suicide ideation. We treat it like it is a symptom of an illness when we should be treating it like an understandable response to life's suffering. That's not to say that suicide is an ideal option and that there aren't obvious drawbacks to it. Rather we shouldn't automatically assume that if someone finds the idea of no longer existing appealing, that there must be something wrong with their head and that justifies us forcing the person to remain alive. We typically use the category of mental illness to denote any behavior that impedes functionality and that's useful in the context of identifying dysfunctional behavior which can cause a person to suffer or cause other people to suffer. Often times, dysfunctional behavior arises from immense mental suffering and it leads to more mental suffering once the original suffering triggers the dysfunctional behavior. It then becomes an inescapable feedback loop and, understandably, the victim of this hell will do anything to escape it. It's like they have been tortured beyond their last capacity to cope. Of course, since suicidal ideation is dysfunctional, it fits the criteria of belonging to the category of the mentally ill. But criticizing suicide for being a dysfunctional activity is missing the point of suicide to begin with. One does not need to be functional if one no longer exists. Therefore, calling suicide ideation a byproduct of a mental illness is like accusing a stripper of sexual harassment during a lap dance. The whole point of suicide is to try to be free from having to function in the world, just like the whole point of a lap dance is to "sexually harass" a willing patron. Having said that, I think there are more effective ways of discouraging suicide:

1. Treat suicide like it is an understandable life decision but convince the suicidal person that it is more likely to escalate their suffering rather than reduce it. Suicide attempts are extremely likely to fail and when they fail, you descend into a deeper level of hell that you didn't even think existed.

2. Provide social support to the suicidal person. Lots of people commit suicide because they have no one to help them with their suffering.

Surely true, now. But we are entering a world where compromise will increasingly fade away. Real human beings in our lives will be replaced with digital entities which realistically simulate humans, and can be customized to taste. You and I are half there already in this exchange. — Jake

I agree, I think AI has a big potential to change the fabric of our society and people are already starting to use technology as a substitute to satisfy social desires. People often use social media to replace real life conversations. If there were customizable AI that designed to learn what makes you interested in talking with them, they could easily replace human conversation partners. People also use porn as a substitute for sex. If there will be sex robots in the future, I wonder how many people would stop having sex with humans all together. Finally, people use video games as substitutes for genuine accomplishments and adventures. I wonder how many people would spend their lives playing advanced VR games if we had them. Some people might argue that no substitute will be better than the real thing though. But I think it doesn't have to be better, it just has to be good enough and cheaper and more convenient than the real thing.

Well, I totally agree with the desire for intellectual discussions and how important the internet is to that! It isn't just that it is easier to find and engage with such people on the internet, but I find my thinking is very different when I am writing than when I am speaking. Also, I like this form of communication because I am alone but not alone. That is I am not concerned with how I look or how close to someone I sitting, or all the other concerns that come up when we meet face to face. For sure avoiding a man's sexual agenda is a huge plus to internet discussion. — Athena

Good point! I do think it is better communicating about complicated philosophical topics in writing. It's very difficult to explain a complicated idea in verbal speech. In addition, there's more anonymity and privacy online. I do think there are some advantages to verbal intellectual conversations though. I find that having a verbal intellectual discussion is a bit more thrilling. It also seems like a more candid and personal way to discuss a topic. Sometimes that can be a bad thing though because it could lead to an uncomfortable situation if you're talking about a controversial topic. I generally avoid having discussions on controversial topics with people who I know can't have a polite and mature conversation about these topics.

When it comes to sex and romance and the desire to bond, yes, women are more hormonally geared towards bonding. They can override that, and there is a lot of pressure to that today, but even your overweight, older women are desiring that romance and bonding. They just know being obvious about that will chase the male away, while the more attractive woman works on the premise that she can have what she wants if she doesn't hang with the wrong guy, and keeps kissing frogs until she finds her prince. So for the attractive woman, it is the male who is most likely to be rejected unless he appears to want the same bonding she wants. It is hormonal. — Athena

Every girl I dated did want to have a serious committed relationship. So, I usually have a non-committed relationship with women. I act romantically with them and I try to bond and develop intimacy with them. I also take them out on dates occasionally. But there's an understanding that I'm not a huge fan of marriage or cohabitation. I feel that this a fair compromise between casual sex and committed relationship. I'm pretty introverted and I would prefer to live by myself so that's why I don't find committed relationships appealing but I do want my relationships to last awhile nonetheless. I can spend an entire weekend by myself in my house and not feel lonely or bored, but I need a lot of privacy and alone time because that's the only time I can really be myself.

I'm a pretty isolated and introverted person myself but I don't think that being completely isolated is always a good thing. If you are finding that the people that you are around are frustrating and causing you to suffer, then you should try to find more pleasant people to be around perhaps. I think that we all have various diverging social desires that have to be fulfilled in order to avoid suffering sometimes. Unfortunately, because we have diverging desires, we often have to compromise with people in order to fulfill them.
For me, the strongest social desire has always been sex(I know it's not clear if that counts as a social desire but I think since it requires social interaction it should be considered as one). It becomes very frustrating to go without sex for a lengthy period of time and you start obsessing about it after like 6 months of celebacy if you are a young man like me. The problem with sex is that it leads to a variety of undesirable consequences like reproduction, disease, drama, attachment and feeling like you have to lie to someone about having serious romantic intentions that you don't really have. I think many of these problems could be mitigated if you choose the right person. I try to only date infertile women and limit the number of sexual partners I have to avoid STDs. I also tend to not tolerate much drama from women and I don't make any promises for a serious relationship. I also don't tend to get romantically attached to women and that helps with the frustration that might come with serious cohabitating and married relationships. You might be wondering how I can find an infertile woman that doesn't cause any drama and tolerates my unwillingness to commit. The answer is simple: date older and larger women. If you are a relatively attractive young man and you are sexually attracted to mature 300 pound women, relationships are quite a bit less frustrating and simple. I think homosexuals of both genders also have this advantage since we tend to have more diverging social desires with people of the opposite sex than we do with same sex individuals. In regards to romantic desire, I think women, on average, tend to have stronger romantic desires. Many women tend to be romantically frustrated because they can't find a man that wants more than sex from them(I suppose I would be in that category of men lol). My suggestion would probably be to choose to date older and less attractive but more successful and romantically involved men. In many ways, I tend to think older guys are better for younger women and older women are better for younger men and vice versa. Though, this arrangement is not ideal for reproduction and social cohesion. This is why I think there's a decent social resistance and stigma to it.
My second strongest social desire is intellectual stimulation. I enjoy talking to people about deep philosophical issues and it's hard to find people that share a similar interest in real life. That's why it's good that I live in the age of the Internet and that there are philosophy forums with like-minded individuals.

basically you are saying that the suicidal person ought to be free to fulfil that desire? — Waya

For the most part, I think there should either be some acceptable legal way one can be painlessly euthanized without having a terminal illness or we should have minimal rights to prevent suicides. I also think that if you see an unconscious person who has attempted suicide, then perhaps it is bad to prevent that suicide from being successful.(it obviously depends on the situation though. If the suicide attempt is clearly unsuccessful, then it might be better to take the person to the hospital. That wouldn't really count as preventing a suicide though.)

I think we've had a pretty good conversation about this topic. I definitely learned something new in our discussion and perhaps we can future discussions that are just as good. I'm thinking about potentially writing a long philosophical essay on antinatalism and you have given me a potential new idea for one of the arguments. I think we've said everything that needs to be said about this topic for now though so I have nothing more to contribute. Feel free to contribute more if you have something else to say about this topic though. I would love to hear if you have any other ideas or considerations on the topic of reproduction

In regards to the egoistic reasons for reproducing, I think a similar critique could be made for non-reproducers. Certainly, having children could inflict you with a variety of psychological stresses and other types of emotional suffering. In addition, it deprives you of time, money, and freedom. I think most people choose to reproduce or not to reproduce for largely egoistical reasons. That's because humans, in general, are egoistic or egocentric by nature. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with egoism or egocentrism; as long as nobody is harmed in the process. This is where the antinatalist position has an advantage for me; most people think that egoistical behavior is only wrong when someone else is exploited or harmed for someone else's selfish benefit. That implies that selfishly choosing not to have children is not wrong, but selfishly choosing to have children can be wrong. Having said that, I'm not convinced that selfishly having children is always wrong(although it can never be right or good to do).

he second kind of egoistic group would be ones that have children for the benefit of the idea of family itself. This cultural preference and/or biological drive (though questionable as a biological drive other than the pleasure of satisfying personal preferences or having group acceptance) is to raise a family/have children of one's own/make the grandparents happy/make a contribution of continuing the tribe/seeing one's own progeny and teaching them one's own ideas/companionship/making a family of one's own, etc. These reasons are a variety of preferences that have to do with living a certain lifestyle and revolve around happiness-through-lifestyle-choice (that of being a parent). It also has to do with the social preference and expectations to have children at a certain stage of life. — schopenhauer1

The second type of egoism that you described really sounds more like egocentrism to me. Unlike egoism which concerns itself purely with self interest, egocentrism concerns itself with the interest of the individual and the interests of the loved ones that the individual has. A person that wants to reproduce to benefit his family, tribe, or country is more accurately categorized as egocentric. Although, I don't think benefiting your family necessarily justifies harming someone and it could never be praiseworthy to harm someone to benefit your family(unless you are also alleviating harm with the benefit).

he second camp is the Nietzschean camp. In this view, possible considerations of the future harm/benefit of the child have taken place beforehand. However, the conclusion is that experiencing life is beyond the idea of being harmed or not harmed. Rather, experience is put at a premium (whether it contains adversity/harm or not). Here the idea that people get to live out a story of their own is considered most valuable- even if there is harm. You see, future people in this scenario are seen as "having a chance". They have a chance to build their own life-narrative story, the argument goes. — schopenhauer1

I agree that this argument isn't particularly convincing. I think if someone can't specify what makes life itself or experience itself special, then it's hard to see what point they are trying to make. It's obvious why we love pleasure and hate suffering. It isn't so obvious why we should assume that life or experience is valuable for its own sake.

Love doesn't have to be pursued, accomplishments don't have to be won, a life story doesn't have to be lived out and shared. In fact much of life is overcoming adversities, getting over anxieties, dealing with various aspects of the givens of survival-in-a-cultural setting, maintenance of comfort levels, and alleviating boredom with entertainment. Individual preferences based on biological/socially-derived personality and broader cultural cues, fit into this framework of simple survival, comfort maintenance, and boredom-aversion. Why does someone have to live this out though in the first place? What does it matter whether someone exists to push that boulder? — schopenhauer1

I agree that we should look at the bad side of many common human ambitions. Ambitions like having lots of love and having lots of accomplishments have a dark side to them. Love usually eventually leads to heartbreak when it goes poorly and if it goes well it leads to bereavement(you will either watch your loved ones die in the end or they will watch you die). I don't think that it's obvious that the warmth and bliss of love is worth the immense grief that it can cause. Accomplishments have a different problem; once you accomplish something, you feel good about it for a little while but then life continues and you continue to feel inadequate. Similarly, how you feel about an accomplishment has to do with your surroundings. If you are always around people who are successful, then you will always undervalue your accomplishments. If you are always around drug addicted failures, then you feel proud of yourself simply because you're not that bad of a failure. In conclusion, if you want to feel accomplished just hang around losers all the time :).

Fair enough, it seems like your argument is now somewhat different to that of Benetar and I don't particularly disagree with it. Unlike Benetar who seems to be making an asymmetry of consequence, you seem to be implying an asymmetry of merit. There are 2 asymmetries of merit that you seem to imply in your last comment that are not ever mentioned by Benetar: The Blameworthiness Asymmetry and The Praiseworthiness Asymmetry.

1. Blameworthiness Asymmetry: While creating harm can be said to be blameworthy, preventing benefit is only blameworthy if someone is deprived of that benefit.

2. Praiseworthiness Asymmetry: While preventing and alleviating harm can be said to be heroic and praiseworthy, creating benefit is only praiseworthy or heroic if someone is alleviated or protected against some harm by the benefit.

The act of reproduction can be categorized by creating harm and creating benefit that doesn't avoid or alleviate harm. If we accept the asymmetries above then we would have to conclude that reproduction can be blameworthy but it cannot ever be praiseworthy. Similarly, the act of avoiding or preventing reproduction is categorized by preventing harm and preventing benefit without deprivation. Given this, we would conclude that preventing reproduction can sometimes be praiseworthy but it can never be blameworthy.
I'm not sure if the above argument is the position you were implying in your previous comment but I actually find it convincing for now. I think it solves many of the problems that Benetar's argument has and it is compatible with my X Being argument since good results do not imply a morally praiseworthy action under this asymmetry.

I enjoyed the 2017 Death Note film, by the way. That's the only version I've seen. — Terrapin Station

I would definitely recommend watching the anime series if you have the time for that(it has around 35 episodes that are about 30 minutes each). It's far more complex and elaborate than the film and it's very suspenseful and thought provoking

I would love to read some literature on the topic but I don't think it would be too easy to find. It would nice if you could send me some links to the relevant literature if you had managed to find some so I can read it for myself. As far as the question of whether or not we should have a democracy decide who will wield the notebook or perhaps have the public vote on who to execute. The latter would obviously be a bad idea since this can create a mob mentality. The former wouldn't be a super fabulous idea either. I wouldn't want the death note to fall into the hands of a Trump-like demagogue. This could lead to reckless killing and violating the rules described in my constitution. I think a good Kira would either use the notebook himself or give to someone who they can trust. It's extremely important that the notebook doesn't fall into the hands of someone with bad intentions. I honestly think that it's not power that corrupts the individual but it's the individual himself who was corrupt before the power but the power simply reveals the evil that has always been there in the individual. Having said that, I think there are few people who don't have that evil and we often aren't even aware of it and we are in denial of it. Because of that, I think that the holder of the death note should feel confident that his intentions are good or decide to destroy the notebook.

I agree that there are dangers to using the Death Note but I don't think the analogy with nuclear bombs is entirely appropriate. That is because nuclear weapons could wipe out the entirety of humanity but it would take you too much time to write 7 billion names down(If I recall, it takes far more than a lifetime to even count to 7 billion. Also if we imagine a Death Note with a finite amount of pages, there's only so many people that could be killed with it). Death Notes are also more precise than most weapons are so we can take out the bad guys without any friendly fire or collateral damage to the innocent bystanders. I think this tool could solve many world problems like terrorism, organized crime, human rights violations, and it will provide us with the ability to actually enforce international laws. I think the risk is worth the benefit but I don't blame you for disagreeing though,

Fair enough, I suppose the test would be hard enough that you would actually have to be intelligent to pass it.

Well, we can't stop kids from fucking anyway lol. Though, the age of consent is designed to prevent adults from fucking kids rather than kids from fucking kids(we don't even have laws that lol) . I think it's probably better if a 16 year old has sex with a fairly responsible 26 year old rather than than another 16 year old though. I suppose the parents in the forum mighty disagree with me though lol.

Well, sometimes extra judicial killing is necessary in times of war at least. If there's a member of ISIS hanging around in Iraq killing infidels and enslaving women, then the entire world has an interest in ensuring that he can't harm anyone else. Instead of killing that terrorist with a drone strike(which is what we are doing right now), it would be better to have an international trial(unfortunately without the terrorist present) in which we can give him a warning to turn himself in(so he can be given a proper trial) or risk getting killed painlessly in his sleep. This is more than fair in my opinion given that the terrorist is an active danger.

I agree that we should lower the drinking and marijuana age in the US to 18. I also think we should allow minors to vote if they pass a political knowledge test. I think the age of consent should be 16. I would keep everything else at 18 though

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One thing we could do is just have a DMV-type organization that grants licenses for all sorts of things, not just driving. — Terrapin Station

I wonder what the drinking license exam would be like lol. I imagine it would be a quite hilarious :lol: