Then it seems like this is pretty much only saying "those that are already happy will be happy, and those that are not will not." That doesn't really offer much guidance. — I don't get it

But was it ever meant to offer guidance?

Are you asking if I envy animals their thoughtless way of life, or people who don't think about procreation in political terms (e.g. creating more laborers who can evaluate their laboring as negative)?

If the latter, I don't envy them. /.../ — schopenhauer1

If you don't envy them, then what do you do? Fear them?

This is more refined in that it is less obvious. It is about our very ability to understand what we are doing as we are doing it, and seeing it as negative, but still knowing we have to do it to survive.

The pronatalists are posing a threat to your survival, doubly so: 1. to your person (which is endangered by pollution, socio-economic collapse, etc. posed by (over)population); 2. to your idea of what life on Earth should be like.

See, if you'd be a true pessimist and a true antinatalist, you'd just chuck the pronatalists and the gloomy prospects for planet Earth in the fuck it bin. But you don't do that. You argue against them on an internetz forum. Because even as a pessimist and an antinatalist, you still want to have a good life, right?

Granted. But to be fair, have people ever really been presented with antinatalist arguments? Only people on philosophy forums and niche groups probably. So it really hasn't been tested either. — schopenhauer1

Apart from the relatively small group of people who have found themselves forced by external circumstances not to have children, antinatalist views are reserved for the privileged who can afford not to have children.

It's hard to live with a pessimistic outlook on life if one actually has to work for a living. In contrast, pessimism is the luxury that the privileged can afford. Such as those living off trust funds.

There's a weird thing where not only does the argument have to be good, but the presentation of the argument must be convincing to really make people do something from it. It is a combination of ethos, pathos, and logos.

I don't think this is weird at all. Why would it be weird?

Do you want to be like religious people who rattle down their doctrine and demand people to just believe it??

So, my question is, how does one live in the face of this knowledge? Is life even worth living in light of this view? Or have I just created a false dilemma, a non-problem? — I don't get it

In Early Buddhism, such an insight is a starting point for the quest for the end of suffering.

And, of course, what if you're an orphan?

Your parents have forced you to live a life. Well, we're all entitled to make them pay to insure us against the various risks we will face while living it. Yes? — Bartricks

And your parents can pass the buck to their parents, and they to theirs, and so on, back to Adam and Eve, or the Primordial Soup.
Where exactly does that get you?

That’s reason to accumulate savings enough to last you a lifetime, sure. But that is still far less that what billionaires accumulate. — Pfhorrest

If you want to be prudent, you need to prepare for everything, including natural catastrophes and the collapse of economy. For this, billions are needed.

Also, who is dictating what to whom? Who wants/opposes the denouncing of all gender? — Pfhorrest

It's fashionable, and it's a way to leverage power.
A few years back, when some young-ish actress (I won't mention her name for fear of revenge) who officially goes as "non-binary" declared herself as such, you know what I felt? Fear. Consternation. Because this was yet another thing that other people can potentially use against me, in the same way that rich people can use their wealth against me, or the way spiritual people can make declarations of attainment to use them against me.

In the end, it's all about power. And in terms of power, anything goes. Beauty, wealth, education, secret club membership, spirituality -- anything with which one can gain some leverage over others. And if one doesn't have beauty or wealth or the traditional means with which to gain power, then one has to invent new means, launch new ideas that can captivate other people's mind for long enough to give one leverage over them. Such as "big and beautiful" or "non-binary".

What was once a stack of 200 resumes, providing a snapshot of 200 applicants we now have a stack of blank paper. How exactly is this a good thing? — Book273

Pshaw!
HR don't concern themselves with that. Why do people fear HR? Because HR has power. So it has always been, so it will always be.

Thing is though that once there’s no way to make money just by owning other people’s stuff and charging them to use it, there’s pretty much no motive to own more than you use yourself anymore, and so no reason to be a supermultibillionaire at all. — Pfhorrest

Of course there is such a reason: safety. Since time immemorial, people have strived to amass wealth in an effort to guarantee as much safety for themselves as possible.

Does anybody see anything on the horizon that might indicate a reversal this incredibly disturbing trend? — synthesis

Blondie's third term.

Circular reasoning is a problem in a range of areas and not just confined to theists. You keep coming back to whether people are troubled or not by their logical fallacies. Sorry, but I can't quite work out the relevance. — Tom Storm

The relevance is that they don't lose sleep over such things, while philosophers do. Now, who's better off?

Most people with circular thinking are not troubled by it. Most people are not troubled by their lack of critical thinking in general.

Then how is lack of critical thinking a problem?

I mean, learn to stand up for yourself. — Banno

Stand up for yourself -- and get hit on the head, with nobody to blame but yourself.

And my question still stands:

Do you envy them their "animalistic", thoughtless, going-through-the-motions way of life? — baker

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't see how any argument could change the way both proactive and defensive pronatalists view procreation favorably.
It's not like we could come up with an nifty antinatalist syllogism, and then, boom, people change and stop making new babies.

t's not like they feel troubled by those circularities.
— baker

So what? Wrong is wrong, even if people think it is right. — Tom Storm

My point is that the theists themselves are not troubled by their circular thinking. They can go about their days just fine, and they pretty much rule the world, to boot -- and their circular thinking about God doesn't get in the way of their successful functioning.

Racists are untroubled by their beliefs too. Does this mean we follow their lead?

What if circular thinking isn't as bad as philosophers make it out to be?
Clearly, it's bad for philosophical purposes, but it doesn't seem half as bad for everyday purposes. It would be imprudent to dismiss this.

As I said, you describe a power imbalance. You might do well to change that. — Banno

What do you mean? IRL, power imbalances are the norm in most interactions. One cannot simply pretend they don't exist.

Yay!

So much the worse for them. — Banno

Why? It's not like they feel troubled by those circularities.

You describe a power imbalance in which you are the one asked to make the justification. Flip that around; seek a justification from those who demand you justify yourself. Learn to use Socratic method.

And invite their wrath?! Justify them beating me up (metaphorically or literally)?!

I think the real issue is the plebeification of royalty (!). But this is complex and unpalatable to put into words, so it's easier to focus on some racist aspect.

You don't know whether I should kill some random stranger? Or you don't know whether I must have a reason not to kill some random stranger to refrain from doing so? — Ciceronianus the White

I don't know whether you need to give a justification or not.
I don't know whether there is someone to whom you need to justify your moral principles, or whether there is no such person.

This does not remove the basic problem: what to do next. Ought one to love god? Saying "yes - because god says so" is quite circular. — Banno

Well, religious people generally don't seem to have any problems with circularity. So this one is on us, the outsiders.

Why must I justify the fact that I won't kill some random stranger? Do you believe I should do that? Do you think I must have some reason not to kill some random stranger to refrain from doing so? If so, explain why. If not, don't ask me for a justification. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't know. Like I said, I can't imagine what that is like, to live in a world where one isn't demanded to justify one's moral principles to others. I simply haven't lived in such a world. I suppose it's a nice world to live in.

She's following a classic toxic female script.
— fishfry

What is that and why is this perspective not sexist? — frank

Because it doesn't imply that all women are like this, but that some women are like this.

I don't make a point of thinking of humans as animals, so this doesn't touch me they way it apparently touches you.
— baker

But this is the most important point and informs the other objections you were raising. So it isn't a particular but any society that is being perpetuated by procreation. However, we can evaluate and assign negative value to things. At each decision, we have to put a justification for why we do or don't do anything. It's usually for reportedly "practical" reasons, but even those are justifications. Other animals do not need that. They just "live". I recognize they have preferences perhaps, but they don't need justifications. That is important. At any moment, we can negatively value doing any task of the superstructure (work, chore, task, etc.). — schopenhauer1

I think this awareness and ambivalence are inherently human.

Yet this doesn't matter to procreation sympathizers (or agnostics).

Not sure what you mean here. Do you envy them their "animalistic", thoughtless, going-through-the-motions way of life?

Apparently, perpetuating the structure is deemed more important than any individual potentially having negative evaluations of the very structures needed to survive.

Are you sure they put that much of this kind of thought into their acts of procreation? Or did they "just do it"?

Art viewed as escapism—how very naïve. — Nagel

There's a simple cure for this naivete: Enroll in a college course to earn a degree in art.

So, my question: Is there a dividing line between low probability events and the Supernatural? Is it just a matter of the degree of probability or should one apply other criteria to an event to qualify it as 'Supernatural’? — Jacob-B

Per Clarke's Third Law, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
IOW, if it seems like magic (or the "supernatural"), it's just a sufficiently advanced technology.

Nihil admirari!

not that it's absolutely wrong, but that it's unhealthy. Note that I am using the word 'escape' here, but escaping from what? Duties, work, personal problems,...etc. All forms of art have the capacity to sooth one from the daily frustrations of living, and it is that temptation to abandon one's real life situation for a pleasure-based consumption of art that I am concerned with. Reading a Shakespearean book /.../ — Nagel

As far as literature goes (and this has implications for other forms of art): Studying literary theory can go a long way in both demistifying art and in making one aware of one's place in relation to it (thus making it less likely that one will be a mindless consumer of it).

For example, an introductory book like John Sutherland's How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts can be very helpful for this.

I wonder what the implications of the above sentence are for Plato's view that we're all chained to the floor of a cave, forced to perceive only the shadows of truth? If the mind itself is susceptible to and does create its own false reality, what hope do we have? — TheMadFool

But for Plato, that doesn't matter, does it? Humanses are ephemeral, but it's the ideas that are eternal, and this is all that matters.

Do you speak German? I don't know any English sources directly for this.

In the same vein, people agree that there is such a thing as the familiar and the alien, the understandable and the strange. The problem is that morality , and its judgments of what is right and what is wrong , generally comes down to these dichotomies, so that morality is just another word for the drive to enforce
conformity. — Joshs

Absolutely!

But you could justify it to yourself, and I don't know if most people really need a philosophical justification to do good things anyway. — Dharmi

Since there is such moral diversity in the world, in order to navigate said diversity, one might acutely feel the need to justify one's sense of morality.

Further, other people may be intolerant of one and demand that one justifies one's morality to them. Such as when Christians demand that non-Christians justify themselves to them.

Doing what is right for fear of punishment is ethics for three-year-olds. Adults take responsibility. — Banno

To which theists tend to respond along the lines that one ought to do what God commands not out of fear of punishment, but out of love of God -- that this is how one takes reponsibility.

What need is there to justify morality, by the way?

Questioner: "Prove that you should be moral, Ciceronianus!"
Ciceronianus: "Why should I do that?"
/.../ — Ciceronianus the White

Unfortunately it is much easier to follow rules than to engage in self reflection and improvement. Especially when you can pay for a lawyer. Or Bishop.

And so we have a common way of thinking about ethics that is assumed in Franz Liszt's OP, where the key question is not "how can I become a better person?" but "Which rules should I follow?"

Can you justify morality without religion? The notion that one might need to justify doing the right thing is ridiculous. — Banno

For example, when I was a vegetarian, a Christian made clear to me that I was wrong to be a vegetarian, and he said, and this is from memory, but almost verbatim, that I am allowed to be a vegetarian, provided I concur that it is wrong to be one.
I kid you not.
I was so taken aback by what he said that I remembered it.
And this isn't the only such instance.
As long as I can remember, many people in my life demanded me to justify my moral principles.
And just look at forums like this: Posters demand justification of some other poster's morality.


Personal anecdotes aside, I don't see how one would be in a position of not feeling compelled to justify one's morality. It seems it takes a pretty strong, solid ego/sense of self to feel above such need for justification.

Why don't you ask them? Christianity is more complex and subtle than you might imagine. — Tom Storm

I asked them. They aren't open to discussion.

Most Christians accept evolution. — Tom Storm

Then how can they possibly believe in God? Metaphorically?

It seems just as reasonable to assert that humans became interested in the source of their existence and the cause of everything (metaphysics) prior to their interest in right and wrong (ethics) and therefore God was inserted at that earlier stage. — Hanover

What if God placed that interest in the hearts of men to begin with?

God entered the scene, so to speak, only after or, more accurately, only within long-established societies; it follows, does it not?, that morality preceded humanity's encounter with the idea of the divine. — TheMadFool

That's taking for granted the theory of evolution. I'm not going to do that, I need something more robust, something that isn't at the whim of empirical data and its interpretation.

Also, it requires being a hard atheist, which is just another a dogmatic position.

So another big point here is that bringing a child into the world isn't "just" this...bringing an individual into the world. Rather, it is perpetuating the ideology of the superstructure and reinforcing that superstructure. So I can't emphasize enough this becomes a political issue due to this broader societal nature of procreation. It isn't just, "A child is born". It is also, "And the institutions, values, and ways of life of the society shall be enacted and reinforced again and again with each new child". Our mode of production/consumption/trade/survival/comfort-seeking/entertainment is all wrapped up in the socio-economic-cultural superstructure. Birth is a clear YAY in its perpetuation. — schopenhauer1

It's no so indiscriminate, though.

An upper class pronatalist surely isn't glad if a lower class woman gives birth. And vice versa.
White pronatalists aren't happy about black people having children. And vice versa.
And so on.

And further, it's not like pronatalists typically want to have as many children as physiologically possible. It seems they typically want to have a set number of children.

How do you account for that? You said, "And the institutions, values, and ways of life of the society shall be enacted and reinforced again and again with each new child". But given the above considerations, this holds only in the sense that there are many superstructures, some of them opposite to eachother.
So that, for example, the white supremacist pronatalist supports one superstructure, while the black supremacist pronatalist supports another one, and the two are in conflict, each wanting to eradicate the other.

The closest comparison is tribal competition and warfare.

So combining this all together, by perpetuating more people (aka procreation) it is de facto akin to saying: The needs of perpetuating the superstructure are more important than any negative evaluations that can be had of any given task or aspect of said superstructure.

Or maybe Plato was right and it's all about ideas.

As Ligotti wrote over and over.. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to be, no one to know one to know (or something like that). Yet, we do need this as you explain. As Schopenhauer pointed out, if life was fully positive, we would not want for anything. We would just "be" and there would be no lack. The main point though is that we are an animal like all others, yet we KNOW what we are doing AS we are doing it. It is an odd paradox. To KNOW one can dislike the very tasks necessary to survive. So then the burden of justification is needed. — schopenhauer1

I don't make a point of thinking of humans as animals, so this doesn't touch me they way it apparently touches you.

There's a difference between remaining silent and uttering the words, "I don't want to say anything". — TheMadFool

Note that replying "I don't want to say anything" and similar metacommunicative utterances indicate that the power relationship between the communicating parties is equal, or that the prospective replier is not subordinated or doesn't consider themselves to be subordinated to the other one.

Remaining silent can indicate one's (assumed) superiority, or (assumed) inferiority, so there is an ambivalence to be resolved. Making at least some kind of reply, even if it is just a metacommunicative verbal or non-verbal expression signals the replier is not subordinated or doesn't consider themselves to be subordinated to the other one.


On an important further note: The importance of the nonverbal. In face to face interactions, the nonverbal can, ideally, be seen and read accordingly. Rolling one's eyes or a facepalm gesture can be the nonverbal equivalent of "no comment". But for a person who has to act professionally, colloquial nonverbal expressions are not an option, which is why such a person has to put things into words.

Putting things into words also minimizes the possibility of misinterpretation.

All that said, the firsr order of business seems to be to clarify what race means. — TheMadFool

There are no true Scotsmen!