I don't see the point in international green house gas reduction initiatives, the only nations that actually need to be on there are the US and China, but of course they won't, because of economic incentives. It would be drastic reductions for them, and staggering costs. It's a much more empty gesture for most other nations. I still think that waiting for top down enforcement isn't going to happen, and isn't desirable. People need to take responsibility, as the real overwhelming causes because of their incredibly high levels of consumption, demand, and waste.

I see Trump as fulfilling an ego trip, and not really predictable about what he'll actually do, or will be able to do. Rubio and Cruz on the other hand I believe them to genuinely hold certain values and positions which I am deeply opposed to.

I can't always be around to make everyone's day. :D

Fun, even though pointless, isn't it?

I think that the global warming thing isn't substantial, it's only about political allegiances. No matter who's in power, it doesn't stop people from reducing their consumption, waste, and going vegan. Look at the lifestyle of someone like Al Gore, and all of the money he made from peddling that shit. I don't give a shit what people say, I care how they live.

As to your point, I can't be bothered to vote, and don't think much of politics. I particularly don't like how the right tends to paint Trump as the worst possible, mainly because he's a stupid ass hole, but I think that Cruz, or Rubio would be worse. Not that I'm a fan of any of them, and would favor Hilary.

Isn't the defining distinction between mob rule, and democracy the protection of the minority from the majority? In a democracy, the majority can't just vote minorities into second class citizenship, that's what it means to be in a democracy in the first place.

That doesn't exactly address your point, but I think that it speaks to the spirit of it.

I'm weary of all power structures ripe for abuse, and corruption. Every political system works perfectly when they're just and benevolent, but not so much when they're mercurial and corrupt.

Private powers with little oversight, transparency, regulation, or accountability are particularly worrisome, and as a matter of principle, I think that precautions and restraints need to be imposed -- but I have no objections when it works out in the favor of justness, and humanitarianism.

Funny how the second most used language to look up gay porn is Arabic. Making something taboo, the stronger the powers that be attempt to enforce an unreasonable restraint the more interesting it will become. The reason areas like Japan don't have as progressive LGBT rights is arguably because it was never opposed as strongly as it was in the west. There are 1.3 billion Muslims, to paint this as "Islamic" is obviously highly simplistic, and promotes the racism and terrorism many middle easterners experience everyday, just trying to live there lives, and not even suicide bomb anyone at all.

You got me with the middle east thing. I forgot how selective I am about that. As I matter of course I always tell people that I don't believe pretty much anything I hear about the middle east, and consider it mostly war propaganda. I work with a guy from Iraq, got to see him today, in fact. His name is Osama, but he of course has gone by Sam now for years. Moved her in the early nineties I think, but has an accent. I also once worked with a tiny Iranian guy, that spent time in Russia before Canada. When I was working with him, he went to visit his Parents in Iran, and on the flight back there were an layover in NYC, and they deported his wife for not having Canadian citizenship, and split up his twins. I knew a Muslim girl in Halifax too, though she married a muslim and was a white Canadian. I got her to show me her hair, lol.

Maybe there are a lot of evil terrorists over there, and lots of terrible shit, but we don't seem to be doing anything about it, and the way the news, and mainstream media portrays things, even making them our new go to movie villains, when the Nazis or Russians aren't available, neither of which you can really tell by looking at them that they aren't from here. All I know is that it makes people racist, and I don't like it. I have no interest in hearing anything about the middle east, or middle easterners unless it's about them being normal fucking people. That's all I've seen in my life.

It may be that most people don't really grasp it even if they think they do. — schopenhauer1

It may be, but pointing that out over and over again gets old fast, and doesn't add anything to the conversation.

No man... not agreeing with something isn't the same thing as failing to grasp it, this is just the conceit that you keep asserting to explain away disagreement. Sometimes shit's wrong, and it's your ass staring at cave walls. In this case, for instance.

I also mocked your telling me all about how you just see things that I don't, like the cave analogy for the like fourth time. What's the use of saying that? Do you think it will persuade me rather than substantiate points? No, of course you don't, that just sounds like something that you like to tell yourself, as a force field against objections. It's about persuading yourself, not anyone else.

I'm getting at the notion that you have to throw your hands in the air because different moral sentiments aren't illogical, or irrational or factually mistaken necessarily, one has to throw their hands in the air and say nothing can be done, all is equal. That's not implied at all, there are still rational arguments that can be made, and there's always the use of force when all else fails.

I'm sure that you do liken it to that. I'm Enlightened too. High five!

I mainly am a moral emotivist, somewhat of a consequentialist, but consequentialism doesn't have any force without some emotivism.

I could make an argument that a society that kills its members is simply a less secure, and more dangerous society than one that doesn't. Just like torture, and others things. For the golden rule's sake, we don't want to support and promote those activities within our societies because they increase the likelihood that we ourselves will become victims of them. I can make this argument based solely on the premise that you give a shit only about yourself.

I think that veganism can be argued on this ground as well, that simply a more compassionate, sympathetic society is a better society, in the sense that it promotes more kindness, less exploitation and selfishness.

Someone disagreeing completely, like a murderer, or someone dangerous in an excessive fashion, even though I don't think that it's objectively written into the stars that they're wrong, will in no way prevent me from condemning them, and sanctioning action against them.

I don't need the universe's permission to enforce my moral sentiments, to have a good time, or to live a meaningful life.

Another thing that super awkward, is when you scare people walking around at night. I walk pretty fast, so I usually overtake people, and sometimes lone people in the middle of the night would get noticeably uncomfortable and worried about you coming up behind them, which always made things super awkward... like what do I do? Slow down? Can't do that, it would probably make things worse... usually I just gave them a wide birth if they seemed worried.

Most of the time when I am talking about others, I'm just talking about myself, and projecting it. I'm just really really honest. Not entirely though, I'm squeamish and have no interest in watching real life violence and death, or even if it's too realistic in fiction. I do though, know that it captivates, even me in the right formats, and media.

I don't really underestimate the average viewer, that's why I said that news can't be too full of shit, or it will lose people's faith -- a war of the world radio broadcast will never work like that again, because it changed everyone. Just like the first propaganda campaigns changed everyone. I think that it has to appeal, and lots of people disagree about lots of things, but it has to be representative of what a significant portion of viewers think and feel, or no one will watch it, and certainly won't believe it just because it's on tv. So I do most assuredly think that the news has to maintain some semblance of accuracy, and reliability, or they'll lose our faith. This is my major objection to the notion that large conspiring rich people can just manipulate us all through the news media into believing and feeling whatever they want us to (which seemed to be the thesis of the book).

Funny thing about that... I'm white trash, so when I lived in cities it was always the worst parts of town. I lived in a street in Halifax were people smoked crack on the sidewalk, and were knifed all the time. I spent a lot of time at friends houses in the projects too, which were pretty rough areas. I was never too worried though, people don't actually do random violence unless you're really weak looking in my experience. There is plenty of violence, sure, but it's always over some dispute. I used to get drunk in the bars down by the water front and then go walking the streets in the middle of the night trying to buy drugs of sketchy looking people. I'd walk around the projects in the middle of the night too. Once I was going to meet a friend of mine, though this was completely during the day, and I saw someone in the distance that I thought was him, so I started flipping him off for a good couple of minutes, before I got close enough to notice that it was actually a huge black guy, and not the huge white guy I thought it was... so I crossed the street, and pretending like nothing happened, but when he got close to me he approached me and I was kind of worried, but then he just asked me if I had a dollar, so I gave me two.

And I moved to a better part of town, I found the white college students in groups of ten were a lot mouthy drunks than I experienced in the shitty parts of town, though I never wore expensive cloths, I'll admit.

Steve Jobs said that people don't know what they want until you show it to them. When it comes to plenty of products, I think that it has a lot to do with brand recognition, and advertisers themselves are shooting in the dark. When some product comes out with a successful ad, which really drives sales, they don't know why that happened. Did it make people happy, did it make them sad, was it funny, gripping, was it the music, or setting? There is tons of guess work involved. This is all I mean by the necessity of appeal. They have to figure out how to appeal to people's values, and dispositions. They can't just tell you to do things, believe things, and like things. I'm sure they wish they could. This is what generates advertising trends. Someone does something successful, and then everyone tries to copy it based on their perception about what it was precisely that made it successful. Attractive people tend to be a pretty big stable. So, it's, I think, a combination of product recognition, and presentation. People can't buy things if they don't know that they exist. So the first step is just getting it out there, so that people know about it, and the second is doing it in a way that appeals to them, and makes them pay attention to it, and want it.

I'm not convinced that only since the advent of local news have people thought that the world is more scary and dangerous than it is, and others are more frightening and dangerous than they are. Other people than the ones we know have always been weird demonic sub-humans that don't share our higher values, sophistication, or intellect. People want to see train wrecks, and not train building. That's why the former will be all over the news, and the latter will get a small blurb.

We are definitely all parrots of things we've read, and watched, but that isn't so much in my view that we've changed our values, as much as we think they formed our sentiments in a better, more persuasive way than we could, and they're authoritative. People's opinions definitely change, but no so much their values We can all be lied to, and believe things that aren't true, but appeals to strongly held values and opinions are a little different. It takes some world shattering sky-opening up revelations to change those.

Good question, my lack of nuance shows my lack of much knowledge or insight into the subject, but that never stopped me from thinking I'm the most right about something before!

The book was about the news media, it seems to me. I know that I conflated the issue some in mentioning studies about entertainment media sources, but I thought them still relevant, or evidence of my opinion that people's values are not too easily swayed by such influences.

So, the news media, and the idea in the book was about how they're basically all owned by the same people, and manipulate and control what people know and believe about world events, politics, and the like. I more or less think it's basically all entertainment. Whether it's accurate, true, complete bullshit, or whatever doesn't ultimately matter as long as it's captivating, and people are willing to watch (read it/listen to) it and take it seriously. So that it really depends on your faith in the viewer to decide the quality of the news, in my view.

I didn't read it all, just enough to be bored with it, the first couple of pages, lol.

Having to assert that you're being fair or balanced is rather just rhetorical. It will seem fair and balanced to those that hold similar political, religious, and moral sentiments to the presenter though, and won't to those that don't. Being generally smarter, or maybe just more cynical, a left wing presenter is much more likely to say the same thing ironically. They tell you how they're biased, and such, but this is meant as an ironic statement, declaring more self-awareness, and objectivity by implication. Saying that they're biased is suggesting themselves to be more fair and less biased than someone that would claim that they're fair and unbiased for being so self-aware. It is also a rhetorical move, in order to inspire confidence.

I, being a cynical leftist am much more prone to ironically asserting my credibility as well -- and further recognizing this upgrades my credibility yet a step further!

Point being is that some people are going to consider the Fox stuff perfectly fair and balanced, and be more open to certain kinds of rhetorical appeals, and I'm going to consider like minded presenters far more fair and balanced, and be much more conducive to their bullshit -- and when we look at each other's favored sources, we're going to think the complete opposite, and be far more immune to their more shallow opinion-swaying maneuvers.

A few steps down the rabbit hole, but hopefully still sensible.

That's some silly shit. "Unnecessary risk" implies that something could be accomplished without the risk. Otherwise it would be like telling someone attempting to assemble a bed that a screwdriver is unnecessary, they could just roll over and die instead.

Most children don't develop debilitating diseases, as just a matter of statistical likelihood, so assuming that a child won't is hardly optimism bias, unless most of the children around them actually were. Otherwise the exact opposite is actually the case. As Sapient says, all of your examples are hyperbolic, and outlying unlikelihoods. If life was so bad, you'd had something better than death itself that was more commonly applicable to people.

Bringing me to death. For some reason it's not okay to not be totes bummed out by death in every moment, and no matter how much icecream and blowjobs someone is getting in the moment, that's just a distraction from thinking about the terribleness of death all day -- yet if one had a speculator life reminiscing, or distracting themselves with memories, and maybe even appreciating them good ol'days even more when the horrible end comes is inappropriate, or irrational. One should instead be all like "I wish all of that awesome stuff didn't happen to me along with this!", instead of "man, I wish all of that awesome stuff was still happening instead of this".

I plan my last words to be "totally worth it".

No, I'm not conflating the two, I think attributing moral obligations to potential people is absurd in the first place. I'm more pointing out that if I had to guess what potential people wanted, the best guess would be based on what actual people wanted. What are you basing it on other than just your own private opinion, and nothing objective at all -- rejecting everyone's opinions instead, rendering your view in no sense descriptive, and entirely prescriptive.

It's an unreasonable view because it asks you to accept outrageous claims about the value of life, that disagree with what you feel and believe about life, while telling you that you just don't get it like I do.

To further go on, what you consider to be "pointless", "meaningless", "empty", and "vain", I very much do as well, and that's precisely why they're so great. I definitely wouldn't want there to be some thing I'm supposed to be doing: some test or end goal to my life. That sounds like a lot of pressure, and a kind of slavery. The triviality, the lack of deep meaning or point in everything that I do is what makes them light, and enjoyable to me. This is life's greatest virtue in my view.

Being a weirdo like me, I've always been surrounded by other people and their absurd notions of a natural or divine order, or teleology, attempting to impose on me the way things ought to be, what they're for, and how to feel about them, and myself in the world. The biggest relief is that they're all wrong.

I don't think you know what "logic" means. You mean something agreeing with your emotional evaluation, not logic, or facts. What information does someone that hates pie have that someone that loves it doesn't? Aren't they perfectly capable of having all of the exact same information, or facts about pies, agree, but still have different dispositions? How much sense does it make to say that one is illogical to like pie? Is it illogical to like or dislike anything, really? Tastes, or emotional dispositions aren't about logic, or facts.

I didn't realize that when you were talking about not thinking "this is your truth, and this is mine", that you were talking about tastes, which I indeed do think are relative.

I am not sure that you are characterizing the argument that antinatalists make correctly. — schopenhauer1

Probably not, since I was talking to a particular person about a particular thing they said.

I don't think that you're grasping the context of the particular point I was making. The claim was that it's appropriate to have moral obligations to potential people, and consider their wills, and well being, and this is why it's immoral to have births, because you don't know whether or not they will wish to be born. I was then pointing out that if this was true, then it's a better assumption that they would want to be born. Whether they're wrong to want that or not is neither here nor there. You aren't violating their wills, if anything not having children is violating the wills of the unborn, if actual people are any indication with regards people's dispositions towards wanting and not wanting to have been born. Whether they ought to want that, or are wrong to want what one wants is neither here nor there.

I don't expect people to be all "well, that's your truth, and this is mine". I expect the complete opposite of that, and find it trivial to expect that people think others are wrong, and missing something when they disagree with them, rather than all is relative.

No, no. That's why I said what you said was "honest", I don't think you're saying that antinatalists are wrong, I figured you were one.

The imposition is with respect to claiming that it's really what everyone wants, or that it's a violation of the wills of the unborn to force them to exist. Of course not to simply tell people about what they think, but to claim that everyone actually thinks it too, and are lying, or confused, or some such. That's an imposition of one's view on to others. It would be of course be a lot worse to try to sterilize everyone or something, lol, which would definitely be a more extreme case of it.

Yes, certainly everyone tends to think that everyone that disagrees with them about anything is missing something important. Personally, I'm fairly confident that I alone have sole access to the truth.

That is entirely my impression, and is an honest reply. It isn't about the description of the wills, or dispositions of others, and a worry for this -- it is rather an imposition, and global evaluation of life made by the anti-natalist.

It has nothing to do with what anyone else wants, or feels. It's all about the anti-natalist being right, anyone else that disagrees just being wrong, and evaluating the whole of life as pointless, and negative.

And if you asked the vast majority of living people if they'd rather have never been born, what do you think they'd say? If they said "no", are they wrong, or just confused? If the vast majority of people would say "no" (which I'm fairly confident they would), why would you expect a different answer from the unborn? If they're just wrong, and confused about wanting to be alive, again, why is it different?

It is none of your business, unless it's about their reproduction, and then it's all your business, despite good reason to think that the vast majority of potential people would rather be actual than not, if asking actual people is an indication.

There are very many scenarioes in which one takes every precaution, and isn't negligent, and harm still occurs which isn't in their control. Everyone frowns on negligent parents -- yet understanding that plenty that we do involves risk, and requires attentiveness, care and precaution. The implication being that no one should ever act in any way because of the risk of harm that may ensue, or that all actions are negligent unless one is omniscient and omnipotent in being able to avoid harm. That is clearly an unreasonable view.

Special pleading. Why does unsolicited mercy killings not violate liberty and consent of potential people? Why can't you kill actual people based on the assumption that there is a chance that they would rather be dead than alive?

You have to admit that you are treating potential and actual people entirely different, with entirely different (often opposing) moral obligations. You can kill people without causing them harm or suffering. You're right though that it's because it's in the realm of another person, and you must ultimately stay neutral and unpresuming about whether they want to live or die, because you know that they actually have their own will, and get to decide that. When it comes to potential people you can project all over them, because they don't.

So now you are the cause of their suffering? I thought you were just telling TGW about how that's straining the definition of "cause"? It must only be cool when you do it.

And even if you take a non-consequentialist position, such as deontology, you can still have an antinatalistic deontological theory based upon a normative rule that one shall not harm another without their consent, which is an intuitive and simple law. Or you can say that one must not take risks associated with an agent without the agent's consent. The non-identity problem does not make potential agents not morally important, either. — darthbarracuda

Considering potential agents morally important leads to absurdity, and special pleading. Every time you whack it you kill a billion potential people without their consent. If you are saving them from the suffering of living then why can't you kill actual people for the same reason? If it's because it would cause them pain to do so, then there are ways to do it painlessly. If you can just assume a priori that potential people would rather be dead than alive, then why can't you assume this with actual people?

As you can see, such a position leads to inconsistency, and special pleading.

I'm no villain... do I look like a monster or alien? I can't be reduced to a greasy spot, I'm redeemably human!

*Gasp!* How do you know my mother?

No demonization of sexual activity has occurred. I can do so if you like, but it wouldn't affect or have to do with my original claims. — Thorongil

Oh it occurred, but apparently you didn't like. You hold moral qualms against sexual activity, but just claim that you have compartmentalized them from the point you are making in this thread... because you can remain unbiased by them, presumably... only others have pointed out to you that you've been drawing an illogical connection between sexuality activity, and the lack there of, natalism, and the justness/justifiability of one's position. The connection between the two, although not logical, is clear to me. Q.E.D.

I was under the impression that you were relating "anatalism", and your moral qualms with natalism with abstinence, and celibacy... and others were assuring you that they were not related. Demonizer...

Between what? — Thorongil

Demonizing and having "serious moral qualms" with something. Those are practically identical, although of course you would object to the former, as the phrase is indicative of my attitude that the "serious moral qualms" are unjustified.

In a magical time long past, and still in many places in the world today, having children is an economic investment: they provide labor, care for the elderly, the continuation of the family unit, and so on. When you're wealthy and don't need to have children to survive (and your culture does not value having them for any reason but personal choice/fulfillment, since the extended family is a weak institution), one of your major incentives goes away.

And the idea that sex is mostly a recreational activity for fun is hugely historically blind. Life was not always post-1965 America, and in many places it still is not.

I agree that when people have material circumstances that don't force them to have kids, they generally stop doing it: because having children is awful for everyone involved. — The Great Whatever

Oh, I misinterpreted you, yes that's definitely true.

I will also note that, at least for me, other people's suffering is many times more difficult to bare than my own. I do find the sentiment laudable, but the only one suffering when it comes to hypothetical people are we, among the living. Wishes to prevent their suffering is a veiled desire to mitigate our own. I find there to be many virtues to be had in having a family. I think that actually loving something more than yourself, and putting them and their well being ahead of your own offers a maturity, meaning and happiness that cannot otherwise be achieved. I have a special admiration for those that have done it.

So poor people have more children because of child benefits allotted to them? Success seems most positively correlated with where one comes from in life, but I think secondly with their ability to put off present pleasures in favor of future ones. With their level of self control. People don't have sex primarily for the purposes of procreation, they have sex because it's fun. People that are taught good restrain, and future planning I think are more likely to be more caution than people that haven't. I don't want children (at least not right now), but in the heat of the moment, sometimes you just don't care enough to take proper precautions. I wasn't exactly raised in an environment of restraint.

Not planning to have children, and being willing to abort pregnancies are very different things. Not that I'm opposed to them, but I certainly recognize the latter as a much more difficult decision.

I really doubt that most children throughout human history, and even in modern times, were actually intentionally planned. Since the advent of contraception, the birthrate has fallen tremendously, and population is in decline everywhere that people do have that level of control. Realistically, the way to prevent birth, or reduce birthrate, is by establishing infrastructure and elevating the circumstances and quality of life in places where they don't have that control, and have the highest birthrates.

I suppose this is where it comes full circle! It is only in places that don't have reproductive control where one may wish to join the Christian missionaries in preaching abstinence.

But living is a lot like being tortured: for example, it forces you to go through a series of complicated and painful tasks in order to secure food, or be subject to a horrible pain of starvation. If some agent were likewise forcing you to go through those tasks or some equivalent, but inflicted the pain in a different way, say by whipping you to death rather than starving you to death, this would obviously be a case of torture. — The Great Whatever

I don't think that's a far comparison. Tripping over a stick and scrapping one's knee isn't like being pushed maliciously to the ground by an asshole. We're social creatures, the emotion, and intention in their eyes, their cruel motivations are far more traumatic than the physical injury inflicted.

Also, it is much different to grow up under capricious, and cruel care than to be thrust under it recently. One becomes accustomed to it, does not expect anything different, and can even love, and hold little animosity or resentment towards their tormentors. That's just normal for them. An abrupt change, the expectation of respect and decency in the face of torture has a lot to do with its level of trauma.

Life is hard... often tremendously so. Most of us don't reach adulthood without being driven insane by it. Delusional beliefs are not a product of faulty reasoning, they're a product of attempting to manipulate, and generate particular feelings. Their hearts cannot bare the truth -- mass delusion sweeps the land. We're all a little crazy, but everything in moderation.

Yes, the feeling is grounded in chemical processes in the brain, but that doesn't make it arbitrary, or random. Someone can feel genuine terror that a teddy bear may come to life at any moment, and rip their face right off! That feeling, and that notion would be inappropriate, and disproportional to the circumstance, grounded in a delusion rendering their response dysfunctional. They'd be a crazy person. Being all "duuuuddde, my hand is super significant!" is being in a stupor. No it isn't.

Chemically altering everyone so that you guarantee only inappropriate disproportional responses to the world is engineering insanity. Feelings aren't random occurrences, they're how all living things successfully navigate through the world. This transhumanist day dream is ridiculous nonsense.