:D

I literally just addressed every line of the OP you halfwit :D

Bye bye chump

In the meantime I can hopefully help a little by pointing out several issues raised about the OP.

1) “This is, I believe, a new argument for antinatalism.

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent.”

- Having done nothing neither makes someone ‘innocent’ nor ‘guilty’. It is irrelevant.

2) “An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved.”

- You have failed to explain this. If your position is that an innocent person deserves no harm but that is what innocent means then you have no argument. You are just stating something and expecting people to follow.

Either way, it is faulty to paint things so black and white. In a scenario where two ‘innocent’ people’s interests conflict harm is inevitable so your definition does not hold up at all. Such inevitable harm comes about through ignorance/misunderstanding. You can still argue on some level that ‘neither deserve harm’ even though two innocent people have just caused harm to each other, but only if you accept that the judgement of what someone ‘deserves’ is a judgement made with an effort to ignore any blame due to ignorance.

3) “Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life.”

- Unsubstantiated claim.

4) “So, an innocent person deserves a happy, harm free life.”

- To repeat. Unsubstantiated claim.

5) “This world clearly does not offer such a life to anyone. We all know this.”

- We know this because life without any degree of ‘harm’ whatsoever is not ‘life’. Life requires learning and learning is always, at some stage, a hardship.

6) “It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person when one knows full well that one cannot give this person what they deserve: a happy, harm free life. To procreate is to create a huge injustice. It is to create a debt that you know you can't pay.”

- None of this follow as you are riding on too many unsubstantiated claims and poorly sketched out terms.

7) “Even if you can guarantee any innocent you create an overall happy life - and note that you can't guarantee this - it would still be wrong to create such a person, for the person deserves much more than that. They don't just deserve an overall happy life. They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life.”

- I might want to be able to fly like a bird or win the lottery. A ‘harm free’ life would not be a ‘life’ at all. This seems to be a rather naive view. It is a bit like expecting a child raised where their every action is praised blindly and expecting a well rounded individual to emerge from such a methodology of raising children. Many parents have attempted to ‘protect’ their children too much and with pretty horrific outcomes. The very same idea of ‘no harm whatsoever’ (regardless of deserving said harms) inflicted upon someone would result in early death due to said person being incapable of looking after themselves. I do not view a ‘happy life’ as a life under the perpetual guardianship of a tyrant whose sole purpose is to shield said ‘innocent’ from every single possible harm.

There is also the embedded problem of putting an ‘innocent’ on a pedestal. An ‘innocent’ person is also a person with no experience, knowledge, reason nor any real understanding of morality. Be careful if your purpose is to prolong such a state of ‘innocence’.

Anyway, I will provide a proper argument for antinatalism and I suggest you provide a proper one against it.

Argue with yourself. Meaning do what I suggest. Make an argument AGAINST antinatalism and see if you can help yourself understand the opposing views given and address them properly.

He was overly sensitive, quick to insult and never showed any attempt to use even a slight degree of charity in any interpretation. Once cast in the role of ‘enemy’ he lost all sense of reasoning.

If he was more thick-skinned it might have played out differently. Maybe after several months of therapy he will learn or maybe not. Either way good riddance!

How can I find ‘karma’ abhorrent’? I said those espousing ‘karma’ as a justification for people less fortunate as themselves as ‘abhorrent’.

It is especially silly when based on a steadfast belief in reincarnation from one body to another.

Where is having the cake and eating it? I don’t quite understand what you are getting at with that line?

I don’t completely agree there, but in general I would certainly agree that in its current guise it is probably no more harmful than Christianity (although several orphanages would probably prove otherwise?).

I was interested in this topic because the philosophical position of ‘karma’ and ‘past lives’ is something that is often swept under the carpet. I think viewing misfortune in this life as some kind of penance for misgiving in some imagined previous life is an abhorrent idea that essentially has some people categorised as ‘deserving their fate’ by simply being born with some form of disability or other.

Several years overdue. He needs therapy more than any other person I have seen on this or any other forum.

Hope he works through whatever his issues are.

I am just surprised he wasn’t done away with years ago tbh. Being knowledgeable is no excuse for open and untamed bigotry and bullying directed towards anyone who happens to share a different opinion.

Are you really that naive? That is like saying violence is not permitted in Christianity and ‘turn the other cheek’ is always employed.

Myanmar. Plenty of instances of violence there openly encouraged by buddhist monks.

Go back several decades and in the UK muslims would pretty much never get involved in violence. The doctrines don’t matter too much when corrupt leaders of institutions wish to flex for political gain. Religious institutions are political institutions.

Merely a matter of geography. Buddhist doctrines can just as easily be used to kill and maim. Extremists can exist in any institution.

The general message in every religion is one of peace and love. Some seem to need more reforming than others … not denying that. A bullet to the head is still a bullet to the head. The gun it comes from generally doesn’t matter too much.

True. It is an argument that every human action is potentially harmful and therefore no action should be taken.

The point being if you follow through the thought it is both impractical and ridiculous.

Procreating can cause increased harm as can walking down a road, breathing too loudly, sniffing a flower or not killing someone in a murderous rampage.

There is something a little clandestine in the thought that innocents deserve no harm because this kind of implies that the guilty deserve harm. Then it is a question of who decides who is or is not guilty. From a stance of newly born children then we can view them not as purely innocent creatures but more or less as vessels for future harm riddled with guilt on the immediate horizon.

Anyway, I will continue to work on my argument for antinatalism I suggest you work on an argument against it.

Karma is simply an extension of known laws of ethics: what goes around comes around, one good turn deserves another, a taste of one's own medicine, you reap what you sow, you get the idea, tit for tat, quid pro quo, a law encapulated in the word "reciprocity". — Agent Smith

Well, if only! The buddhist view is basically that children with bone cancer have bone cancer due to what they did in a previous life. Them having cancer is ‘karma’.

There is a much darker side to buddhist beliefs many prefer to ignore.

You presented a one-dimensional position with no attempt to offer up any other explanations for the existence of ‘religions’.

Your entire argument starts on the assumption that people started religions for purely selffish/nefarious means. That could be true of course, but I see no attempt made to consider any other possibility. Hence, you are arguing/asking from a position of clear bias.

It was nice to see Corbyn actually give another genuine option for the voters. No denying that.

I came to the same basic conclusion. Many questions are still unanswered/unknown but it certainly a position that contends strongly with any other when it comes to the ‘origins of religion’.

I do think there is something to basic human greed and fallacies that have led to ‘opiate of the masses’ and other such views. I do not see these positons as the instigators though. Shamanism, and shamanic traditions, are imbued across all religions yet shamanism is not a ‘religion’.

Altered states of consciousness seem to be where the whole landscape of ‘religion’ stem from. Nothing supernatural but certainly something deeply obscured.

Poor and symplistic analysis based on biases you carry.

There is no Ad Hom. I am quite capable of calling someone a complete cunt and yet taking their argument as an argument detached from said cunt.

Evasion again in response to the first point. People DO NOT derserve either harm nor good. Agree or not? If not why? If you do then why are you focused on harm being deserved rather than good?

I will write something arguing for antinatalism. You will probably be able to follow it but batricks will be left a gibbering wreck I expect … am I being ‘mean’ and causing ‘harm’ by saying so? Who is the judge here? That is the underlying issue.

Anyway, until I write it have fun not having fun or have no fun having fun. Whatever just don’t expect others to sit idle when people are punching themselves in the face and hitting ‘innocent’ bystanders too.

Cake and eat it syndrome.

You speak just as much gibberish.

People do not deserve harm nor good. It is literally that simple. Jumping back and forth between some disembodied ‘ethics’ and then back into human reality as and when suits to avoid any criticism is why people just end up laughing and leaving the discussion because the discussion cannot begin if those posing some idea cannot grasp the most simplistic criticisms throw at their half-baked ideas.

It is WAY more frustrating to see literally dozens of people voice the same criticisms and those criticisms being ignored.

I can argue better for antinatalism than both of you combined. The question is have either yourself or batricks bothered to argue against antinatalism? I doubt it.

That doesn’t follow. If harm is caused by not having children, or being able to have children, then you are wrong. Many would claim that not having children can and is a greater harm than having children.

We could also rightly state that mass euthanasia would prevent all human harm eventually as there would be no more humans left to suffer. It is a bit like preventing someone from being murdered by killing them.

Evil lurks in the guise of ‘just deserts’.

I think this might be a case of ‘let’s stop wasting our time’ :D

Compared to the US the UK had a left-wing government.

Corbin was pretty unrealistic and useless. The only party leader of any worth I have seen in my lifetime was Paddy Ashdown.

The public in the UK will go for labour again, or libs maybe, when there is someone who can stand out. I will give Corbin his dues … he did offer up a clear alternative but it seemed like too much infighting hurt his attempt. If others had supported him and bolstered his ideas with something more solid he may have done a lot better.

At the end of the day people will go for the leader who not only hits home on the policies they care about but also show steely determination in the face of opposition. Boris is still there because he fights on where others with more … integrity … would have resigned.

It is hard to judge with the pressures of social media due to politicians being forced to respond to a rather overly vocal minority on every matter. Paste on top of that the UK press … well, maybe the people who are right for the job are just smart enough not to do it because the risk to reputation and public opinion is too high.

I have always believed that the right person to lead is most often the one who least wants to do it. Once things get desperate they usually have no choice but to stand up and be counted. Until a real crisis hits they will avoid the limelight as much as possible I reckon (whoever they are).

So when someone points out that your use of terms is narrow to the point of being overtly obtuse your response it “I don’t understand”?

You misuse/abuse the term ‘innocent’. To state that innocents do not deserve harm (any harm) is not an argument and it also lacks any depth of meaning.

People do not deserve to live either. So what? See how I use the term ‘deserve’ there?

Mephistopheles would just find another ‘innocent’ group to dupe.

It was badly written because I was half asleep. Still, if you do not see why it is important to show why the innocent should not be harmed it shouldn’t take you much imagination to understand that in a world full of innocent people harm will still occur.

You are not looking at this with any sense of depth it seems.

You may as well ask ‘Does anyone deserve to live?’ … but it not really a solid question because the assumption is that people ‘deserve’ or do not ‘deserve’ something in the first place. It is a common habit of the virtue signalling types to claim that they have an ‘undeserved privilege’ based on their sex, skin tone or perhaps their native tongue … it is taking the term ‘deserve’ and framing it as some technical term where it is actually just a term that can be applied in many ways given on differing situations.

To say that ‘innocent people do not deserve to have harm caused to them’ only makes sense in terms of particular instances involving an ‘innocent bystander’ hit by a car. It makes little to no sense to state they didn’t ‘deserve’ it yet ‘innocent ‘ also crosses into the category of ignorance. Ignorance is not something that can excuse people on one side or another.

In some cultures it may be deemed a threat to life if you wave at someone yet if you walked into the village of people with this cultural signal of ‘threatening death on someone’ by waving to say hello they are innocent if they attack you and you are innocent by being attacked. If both parties are innocent it does not necessarily mean there is ‘no harm caused’.

That is why I asked why you think ‘innocent people’ do not ‘deserve harm’. Generally speaking we all understand what you meant and generally speaking myself and others have tried to point out why your claim is not fully justified because it is parcelling up ‘innocent’ as having a concrete meaning that you insist others adhere to. Hopefully you can see why this is not necessarily the case although in society today it is generally something many people will believe without bothering to question it … just like antinatalists insist what they are saying is something that questions common assumptions.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm — Bartricks

Why?

I was not spreading misinformation. I used terms and defined them specifically and even just quoted where I did this?

I am extremely open to criticisms and feedback. Trust me there though when I say you have got the wrong end of the stick. I was certainly not backtracking on errors as you put it. I was just telling you that I said I was using the terms as I stated and to then throw that back at me as ‘misinformation’ is disingenuous or misunderstanding - I would usually assume the latter but given that I literally pointed out what exactly I said this may be in vain :D

There is no thesis btw. I was doing precisely what I said I was doing and it would have tied in to the use of the term/concept ‘hammer’ if you had read to the end.

It was part of an attempt to write something within a 2000 word limit but this was a hard task as I could have written practically endlessly. It is far from perfect for sure.

It is a short essay. I defined the terms and how I would use them in the opening section. If you bundle in and argue against how I use them it is useless to read further.

Trust that I mean it when I say:

The difference of ‘perception’ and ‘experience’, in this essay, will be considered thus ... ‘perception’ being the amalgam of sensible ‘experience’, where experiences are ‘after’ sensible input (of content receding into the past and drawn on to form the present context - the ‘perception’). To differentiate with more clarity between ‘perceive’ and ‘experience’ it will serve to view ‘experience’ as that which ‘moves’ back through time; a receding thought. Whilst ‘perceive’ is a reversal fo this; the ‘feedback’ - perceptions brought forward to culminate in the moment alongside, not apart from, ‘experience’. To sum up, Perception ‘drives’ forward and Experience ‘drives’ backward, yet they exist parallel/entwined in the now and are known as one unity pulled in different temporal orientations; attracted as they are toward temporal poles (future and past) yet BOTH in equal possession of said poles. This is akin to the ancient Greek titans, “Prometheus” and “Epimetheus.” The brothers representing ‘foresight’ and ‘hindsight’ respectively; or Perception (perceptive) and Experience (memory). Note: Epimetheus was often depicted as being ‘foolish’. — I like sushi

I have reframe the terms ‘perception’ and ‘experience’ for the purpose of the essay. Do not take it out of context.

No you cannot. You said “nothing but” x, y and z. This is clearly rubbish unless your perspective is that all forces of nature are purely destructive … which would make the term ‘destructive’ pretty redundant if the only thing there is is ‘destruction’.

Do not make false claims and expect people to just accept them blindly.

Waste of time unless you make the effort to present sources that counter your argument. It is not exactly hard to find some source that backs up your claim but it makes for a more honest approach to show you have tried to counter your own position/s and questions them to some degree.

I do not think there is anywhere near enough of this here.

You would first have to back up the claims made (which you cannot).

Basically this OP looks like gibberish because it is gibberish. If you ere just looking to see if someone could point this out I am sure many above already have? I haven’t actually looked but hope I am correct.

Is red more yellow than fish are birds?

Same kind of question really.

Do not get fooled by words. ‘Nothing’ is generally a reference to ‘absence’. There can be many things in a room but once you have removed them there is nothing in the room. The ‘nothing’ exists in context to there being the ‘absence’ where there was once something. This is a concept that is so engrained in our lived experience that we barely give it a second thought.

The concept of a table is almost certainly nothing to an ant. An ant walking across a table is not in any way state or form aware of a ‘table’ it merely walks from one point to another with no conception of the item we call ‘table’ as a surface made for putting things on to keep them off the floor.

There are many useless/empty terms in the English language.

I do not really see why this is a thread. Equally empty and useless? ;)

No one agrees on everything. Whoever is talking about getting rid of metaphysics is essentially talking about doing away with philosophy.

If everything is just physics then it is just physics. Metaphysics originally meant on the fringe of physics I believe. Science is not a doctrine.

By understanding that our understanding is necessarily limited (Kant) we come to understand something. The limitation is what sets the precedent for knowledge.

No metaphysical conception would equate to no knowledge or understanding of anything.

No. Existence is kind of an important concept for conscious beings. We cannot just sweep it under the carpet.

I am thinking how many see these writers, especially Kant, as being outdated philosophers of the past. — Jack Cummins

Right there is a problem. Kant pretty much still holds up to this day with his work COPR. If many of those writers say that I would say they are probably pandering to science rather than making any concerted effort to delineate between philosophy and science.

Basically you are boiling this down to humans having a complex language and other animals not?

I agree. ‘Morality’ is a concept born through complex language. The objective origins of ‘morality’ would be something different from what we general call ‘morality’.

To even begin to address whether animals have some species of ‘morality’ would first require us to outline, on an objective level, what/where morality is and then be able to apply some kind of empirical unit to it that remains constant.

You would like me to have a fetish for guns I imagine. Would make life easier if everything was black and white.

You bore me. Bye

The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. — Michael

Well … no. When it comes to homocides the US is WAY ahead. I have actually looked at the stats too you know ;)

True, around 80% of those are gun related … would all of those 80% have not found another means to commit murder though? It may well level out at around the same as some European countries. It well not be the case at all that taking guns out of the equation would reduce the homocide rate to something comparable to other western nations.

Clearly more strict regulations in the US are required for gun ownership. Having gun ranges seems okay to me but simply don’t let people take their guns home? The whole thing is completely foreign to me.

Yeah … I did say my point/question was probably not relevant to the title of this thread.