Why not take it at face value and just argue or defend or simply comment on the arguments that antinatalists make rather than try to find these underlying and dubious motives? — schopenhauer1

Because the arguments you put forward are simply not convincing.

It's ill to care about whether someone else even exists or not. So when someone proposes to care so much about others, the simplest answer is that there is something else going on.

A simple argument from misanthrophy, for example, would be far more convincing than yours are.

No not at all. This isn't equivalent to "child-free" movements or anything where it's about lifestyle choice or something like that. — schopenhauer1

Actually, it seems like a way to justify refusing to take up the hassle of being a parent.

Specifically, the whole antinatalist argument reads like a sublimated effort of a man who knocked up a woman and now he wants her to abort, and is looking for ways to convince her to have an abortion.

No it is not. The unjust and unnecessary causing the conditions for harm to take place and overall prevention of starting unnecessary harm for another is mainly the point. — schopenhauer1

Bah. I don't buy this oh-so compassion and oh-so empathy.

What are you, Jesus? Why on earth would you care so much about others and their suffering? It makes no sense to care so much about others!

It is the parent's preference only. — schopenhauer1

And this is the whole point of antinatalism, isn't it?

It's about a person who doesn't want to be a parent, but who feels a need to convince society that refusing to be a parent is a worthy choice and that such a non-parent still deserves full respect as a human being.

Right?

Those "higher ideals" can mean anything anyone wants them to mean. This makes them useless, other than for purposes of manipulation.
— baker

Of course, what else would ideals be used for? — unenlightened

So manipulation is a higher purpose than profit?

Why is this the default? — schopenhauer1

The default (whatever it is) must be and is beyond comprehension, beyond human power to control. Otherwise, it wouldn't be the default.

Those "higher ideals" can mean anything anyone wants them to mean. This makes them useless, other than for purposes of manipulation.

That question doesn't make any sense. How do my higher priorities -- things like keeping myself alive -- "match how things really are"? What does that even mean? — Pfhorrest

This really isn't rocket sicence. Duh.
Have you never been to church or some such??

There is The Truth, the How Things Really Are. And a particular person either matches/lives up to that Truth, or they don't.
You might think that something is important, but in Reality, it might not be important at all, and your preferences and convictions could be all wrong.

I mean, really. Have you never spoken to any religious person? I'm pointing out religious people because they are especially clear on these matters. For example, you might think that being a vegetarian is important in life, but a Christian might tell you that it is not only not important, but that it is, in fact, wrong, that it is not in line with How Things Really Are (and How Things Really Are is what God commanded -- and God commanded that people must eat meat).

For some kind of an objectivist, you sure have a poor grasp of authoritarian/objectivist discourse.
Even though you yourself use the authoritarian/objectivist style. For example, you say, in true authoritarian/objectivist manner "That question doesn't make any sense" (instead of, e.g. "I don't understand what you mean here"). As if questions objectively make sense or they don't, and you are the arbiter of this sense-making -- but I am not.

I can just see a rich right winger advocating truth, justice, kindness, democracy, respect for person.

Truth.
Justice.
Kindness.
Democracy.
Respect for person. — unenlightened

If only the meaning of those wouldn't be so easy to define in accordance with the motive for profit ...

Higher Ideals than The Profit Motive

What would be a higher ideal than the profit motive?
Do list at least three such ideals.

I'm saying that "compelling reasons by one's own standards" aren't usually considered as good enough.

Accepting "compelling reasons by one's own standards" as a valid criterion means that we'd need to accept that pretty much anything anyone believes is justified -- from believing that Trump won the 2020 elections to beliving that human civilization on Earth was started by aliens etc. etc.
Neither philosophers nor scientists accept that. Nor do religious people or culture at large. Instead, they maintain that people must have some objective, interpersonally verifiable or agreed upon reasons for believing something, in order for those reasons to count as "good reasons".

though of course I have higher priorities in daily life. — Pfhorrest

And how do they match "how things really are"?

Between this and your say similar question in that atheists thread, you come across as baffled by why anyone would have any concern for truth. — Pfhorrest

Because it's silly, to say the least! It's not how people generally function!

Just as Kierkegaard ignored much in Christian dogma, and was a better Christian than all of them, it could be argued. — Constance

No, you're like someone who reads only a few entries from a language dictionary but claims to be proficient in the language.

You disagree but do you really know what it is I am talking about? All religions, all cultural
institutions, language, indeed, the entire human endeavor is really describable at the level of phenomenological ontology.

If all paths would lead to the top of the proverbial mountain, then everyone would already be enlightened and all your efforts are redundant.

"That's it??"
— baker

Sorry? — FlaccidDoor

It's a rip-off of Goethe's supposed last words -- "Mehr nicht??" (ie. 'Nothing more??')
(The official party line is that he said "Mehr Licht!" (ie. 'More light!').)

But think about it: If one would always wonder whether what one currently has truly is "as good as it gets", then this ought to make one reflect and strive at all times.

"That's it??"

I was asking for _your_ motivation in particular.

I guess my point is, people justify their beliefs by their commitment to them, ultimately. — Pantagruel

This is not a stance generally held by philosophers or scientists.

What do you get from asking me this question? — schopenhauer1

A special kind of satisfaction.

Have you ever tried to provide a thesis or proposition before? Why did you do that?

Yes. In order to test drive it, to see what objections to it others would raise, and as such, where the flaws and vulnerabilities of said proposition were (and what I must fix).

Why do you think people write on this forum in general?

I think a lot of it is for philotainment. Some people go drinking with their buddies to bars, some go mountainhiking, some bake cookies, and some discuss philosophy on internetz forums.

Why do philosophers publish their thoughts and have a dialogue?

Some do it because it's their only marketable skill.
Some have been doing it for a long time and they just don't know how to live otherwise.
Some do it for fun.
Some do it in an effort to achieve world domination.
And probably more.

For the sake of that illustration I take it for granted, but that is just an illustration.

Whenever it is discovered that a person with such and such characteristics experiences such and such phenomena differently that other people, our models have to be updated to reflect that. — Pfhorrest

Why on earth would anyone want to do that??

When people see a truth of some kind (at least as they see it), they tend to want others to also understand it, grapple with it, have a dialectic about it, and so on and not just have a conversation with themselves only. — schopenhauer1

And why is that? What do they get from it?

Same reason I want to decide the truth of any other claim: I want to believe only things that are true, and avoid believing things that are untrue. — Pfhorrest

You do realize how immensely impractical this is, do you? I'm sure you do.

I also doubt you practice it consistently. You aren't all that concerned about the truth about the half-life of radioactive isotopes that exist only on Triton or the vaginal system of fleas, are you?

Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?
— baker
Because this is what language does. It is inherently interpretative. — Constance

The thing is: You're not doing your homework. I'm tired of referring you to suttas for the questions you ask. There are Buddhist answers to the questions you ask about Buddhism. But you ignore them. Forget them. Apparently, don't even think of looking to the suttas for them.

It's as if you actually aspire to keep yourself ignorant of Buddhism, so that you can keep making up your own parallel Buddhism and your own definitions of terms.

:( :( :(

I rather think that is exactly not what they hate, but instead something else, the fool who thinks he knows. — tim wood

And the patient is, of course, by default "the fool who thinks he knows".

I (or anyone else) can argue compelling reasons not on his list because they have to be compelling to me and by my standards. If he failed to find them he failed to find them is all that can be said. The fact of his good evidence argument or standard does not itself justify or recommend the conclusion he reaches for anyone else. — Pantagruel

Yet both religious apologists as well as their a(nti)religious counterparts tend to dismiss this approach, arguing that "compelling reasons by one's own standards" aren't good enough.

What do you have to say to them?

But I don't get what you are trying to imply with motivations of antinatalists. — schopenhauer1

What's so hard to understand?

What do _you_, as an antinatalist, get if other people don't have children?

There must be something in it for you, or you wouldn't argue for it. Instead, you beat around the bush like a demivierge.

Besides attraction (which is its own difficulties to explain in terms of instinct) and the desire for pleasure, can you describe what the "I want a baby" deep-rooted instinct looks like and explain how its an instinct? — schopenhauer1

They they they. Duh. Stop talking about others, and instead come forward clearly stating what's in it for you if other people don't have children.

In the end, it should be YOU who is making the decisions because nobody cares about your health like you. If you are going to defer to an expert, then you are going to treated by a physician doing the best they can, but that's not nearly good enough.

Don't leave something as important as your health to the experts because you never know when they are going to take the drill out of their black bag and... — synthesis

And yet doctors and other medical professionals routinely expect their patients to blindly trust them and obey them. They hate an informed patient.

That, my friend, is a very limiting belief because it prevents you learning anymore from what I have to offer. Everybody (both stupid and smart) has something to teach you that you do not know. — Thinking

This contradicts/undermines what you said earlier:

"believe only that which empowers you most, everything else is used to instill fear in you and doesn't serve you in any way, even if it is true." — Thinking

Ha! Good point!

It is not to say this wrong at all. But it is incomplete, — Constance

Incomplete how? Because it's a short paragraph from a glossary? Every term in that paragraph has numerous references in the suttas and in the commentaries, which have further references in suttas and commentaries.

The incompleteness is in your approach to the matter.

and ANY philosophy that can help complete it is valid regarding what Buddhism is.

Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?

No, that's quite the opposite. Consider for example recognizing neurodiversity, as in, the non-defectiveness of autistic (etc) experience patterns. Things that please and calm many neurotypical people can be very distressing and displeasing to neurodivergent people. The position you assumed I was arguing would be to call whatever pleases "normal" (neurotypical) people good, and neurodivergent people defective for not finding that good. But what I'm actually advocating is that we say it's good to act one way toward a neurotypical person (the way that they find pleasant and calming), but bad to act that same way toward a neurodivergent person (because they'll find it distressing and displeasing). — Pfhorrest

This doesn't solve anything, it just shifts the whole burden on the neurotypical vs. neurodivergent distinction, taking it for granted and taking for granted that said distnction can always be reliably established for every person at any given time. As if people would be robots with a make, model, and series number.

Regarding wether there is a faculty of discrimination, as distinct from mind/manas, I posed this question on Stack Exchange, and was told there is a term Paṭisambhidā: formed from paṭi- + saṃ- + bhid, where paṭi + saṃ should probably be understood as 'back together', and the verbal root bhid means 'to break, split, sever'. Rhys Davids and Stede propose that a literal rendering would be "resolving continuous breaking up", and gloss this as 'analysis, analytic insight, discriminating knowledge'; moreover, they associate it with the idea of 'logical analysis' (Pali-English Dictionary, p. 400.2). Bhikkhu Nyanatiloka similarly renders the term as 'analytical knowledge', but also as 'discrimination' (Buddhist Dictionary, p. 137). Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli voices a divergent view in a note to his translation of in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, XIV.8, where he renders paṭisambhidā as 'discrimination': — Wayfarer

Cultivation in accordance with the Buddha's teachings leads to a particular and irreversible ability to discern Dhamma. Without this cultivation, a person cannot rightfully be said to be able to choose between Dhamma and adhamma (because they can't tell the difference).

It's similar to the difference between an ordinary person and a trained gymnast: both have a body, both can do some physical exercises, yet the gymnast can do exercises that the ordinary person can't (and can't even conceive how to do them). It's not the case that one would have a body and the other wouldn't; nor that one would have physical prowess and the other one wouldn't.

If virtue would somehow be something that is baked into the fabric of the universe, so that it would operate by laws similar to those in physics, then there'd be no problem. So, for example, if you did X, you'd feel good, and if you did Y, you'd feel crappy. But it doesn't work that way.
— baker

It's because we can choose. Not only can choose, but have to choose. — Wayfarer

It seems that for the psychologically normal person, morality is never a matter of choice -- such a person "just knows what the right thing to do" is (for such a person, the issue is only whether they are able to do it).

But beyond that, I don't understand where you're going with the way you replied.

I feel like there is no conversation about how antinatalism is based on the assertion that suffering is equivalent to an objective "bad." Why would suffering, a mental state for an individual, be bad for the universe at whole? — FlaccidDoor

The existence of suffering is, for some people, proof that there is something fatally wrong with the universe.

The mistake you're making at the most fundamental level is assuming that it is people who produce other people, with nothing else required. When actually so much that needs to take place in order for a human to be born is outside of the prospective parents' control (from the ability of the man's body to produce viable sperm to things such as the drinking water not containing pesticides that could abort the fetus).
And it's precisely because so many things are outside of people's control when it comes to reproduction that they can't take full and meaningful responsibility for it.

I've also struggled to see the distinction between identity theory and some reductionist theories. What's the difference between saying "The mind is the brain" and "The mind reduces to the brain"? So any help there would be appreciated. — khaled

I'd refer to the emic-etic distinction.

When talking about the mind, we talk about the emic.
When talking about the brain, we talk about the etic.

Pffft!

There is only one good reason to believe in God, as far as I can see, and it goes like this:

"(A small child thinks to himself): My parents feed me, clothe me, keep me warm and clean. And safe. So I trust them. So, I also trust whatever they tell me about anything, including what they say about "God"."

Obviously, this reason is not available to just anyone, one has to be born and raised into those particular epistemic circumstances.

obviously the problem is that of the Christians. — god must be atheist

They don't consider it their problem, wherefore the following

They are damned any way. So if you think that's not a problem, then you got a problem.

is moot.

Motive is essential to establishing whether an act committed is a crime or not.