You're the one making an argument in favor of antinatalism.
That means you have to find justifications for why people should not have children, and you have to find a way to convince them of that.

So, both parties - Christian nuns and Muslim women - have been brainwashed. How? — TheMadFool

You think wearing a minskirt and high heels is _not_ a case of _not_ being brainwashed??

I don't mean to suggest that we should treat the truly ridiculous ideas of the "other side" as legitimate like that, but only that we shouldn't treat the people as enemies merely for not having made up their minds about them, because that then frames us and the undecided as enemies, as so inclines them to whatever side is opposite ours. We should be clear in our view that those ideas are not worth consideration, but we should convey that in a way that's more like warning a stranger away from a path they may not have seen the dangers of, and less like attacking an enemy for daring to even consider going down that path. — Pfhorrest

The middle group, AKA the "fence sitters". A decidedly derogatory term. These people are a liability because they are undecided, so it's no wonder they get considered enemies.

We should be clear in our view that those ideas are not worth consideration, but we should convey that in a way that's more like warning a stranger away from a path they may not have seen the dangers of, and less like attacking an enemy for daring to even consider going down that path.

We, we, we. There's that us vs. them rhetoric.

Do you personally know what it's like to be that "fence sitter"? I do. Your style so far is not inviting me to get closer to your side.

Are you familiar with the anti-psychiatry movement?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry

Because most people don't want to live such monkish lives of self deprivation. — Bartricks

Well, you're the one making an argument in favor of antinatalism, so you have to find a way around people refusing to live monkish lifestyles.

"sigh" ! You found the Concept of Anxiety ORIDINARY?? Not possible. — Constance

When one grows up as the only non-Catholic among Catholics and is bullied by them, and tries to make sense of it by reading a lot of Catholic literature, one begins to consider many things as ordinary that other people probably don't. It's a long sordid tale.

One cannot be interested in Buddhism and think Kierkegaard is a bore.

Oh, I took to Buddhism because it promised enlightenment, and I thought that once I'd be enlightened, I'd be able to figure out which religion is the right one, specifically, whether Catholicism is true or not. Needless to say, that didn't work out so well.

There has to be a radical misunderstanding somewhere.

Probably because I don't approach religion with self-confidence and in the hope to find a solution to existential problems.
Which also happens to be why moral realism makes so much sense.

How on earth is wearing a minskirt and high heels a case of _not_ being brainwashed??

has been, well, brainwashed. — TheMadFool

Who hasn't?

Maybe I haven't produced anything great because I am just not unhappy enough? — Bitter Crank

Or because you're just not an artist? :p

Why is so much fiction about unhappy people? Because unhappy people are more interesting. As Tolstoy says in the first sentence of Anna Karenina, "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It's a more satisfying experience I suppose to produce works of art about unhappy people

Oh, the drama, the horror!

Don't you find it unsettling that unhappy people seem more interesting? Why is that?

Happiness, success, predictability, pastel prettiness, etc. make for a very dull story. A good story needs some grit, failure, dark color, misery... to contrast against the sunshine.

But why? This expectation about what makes for a good story could be a case of life imitating art.

And where is that sunshine anyway?

What movie has described this scenario already? — Raul

Tolkien's conception of the elves fits the bill.

One hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf.

A lot of art (all categories) has been produced by people who were/are known to be happy, pleasant, normal, decent people. And a lot of great art has been produced by people who were/are known to be screwed up, unhappy, abrasive, abusive people.

Sometimes knowing the biography of the artist helps one understand and appreciate a work, sometimes it doesn't. Some people want to prosecute the artist for any moral deficiencies they can find, and other people are content to not turn over every rock, looking for shock value. — Bitter Crank

I think that in part, it's about the mystery of art:
How is it that a thoroughly screwed up person can create works of art that people are so delighted with?
How is it that a perfectly decent middle-class person can love the art produced by a decadent and poor artist?
How is it that one can feel both compassion and contempt for a protagonist of a novel?
And so on.
One of my literature professors said that happy people don't produce great works of art.


One of the reasons why some people are so eager to learn about the artist's personal life is because through this, they hope to justify their fascination with his artworks, or else, overcome this fascination and write it off as inappropriate.

What's the difference?[/quote]
The difference would be salient if either of them would feel oppressed by their outfit.
Quite likely, neither of them do.

Rebelling against social norms is for teenagers.

Further from your link:
/.../
Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's sexual interests. Hugues Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.[88] Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time, and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.

Karoline Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.[89] She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls.

You wanted to give up the bad habit. So, you're good as per intensionalism. — TheMadFool

Would you say that in the process of giving up the bad habit, you always had control over your intentions and your intentions were exactly what you wanted them to be?

If you ever relapsed, then clearly you didn't have control over your intentions. If the only thing that stopped you from acting on the bad habit was some external circumstance, then clearly you didn't have control over your intentions.

A more skeptical person would suspect that something isn't right here.

However, if you would like to open the descriptor of "natural" to include any event which leads to any death, then yes, those who die from collateral damage would be considered, as per your interpretation, as "natural selection", however, once that has been allowed, everything would fall under said category and it would become effectively useless as a descriptor. — Book273

Hardly any word/concept has been so debated as "natural".

Why should social forces that are at work in human society be somehow not natural?
If, say, women pick the prospective fathers of their children by how much money they earn, then how is this not natural selection? It's just the human variant of when a female peacock hen chooses a male with splendid plummage.

No contradiction there — khaled

Happy people fuck up the planet, and that's okay?

The mental action of desiring to help someone doesn't automatically lead to a particular verbal or bodily action.

There is an element of choice inbetween. You can have the intention to help someone, and then you can choose from many possible options what you're actually going to do in an effort to help them.

I was just quoting the first noble truth. I know it’s not meant to be taken literally. — khaled

No, the First Noble Truth says "There is suffering", not "Life is suffering".

You think the average human isn't miserable??
— baker
Yes. And they seem to agree when surveyed about it.

They are enlightened?
— baker
Not necessarily. Just not miserable. Heck, happy on average even, as it turns out.

Then do reflect how come these, on average, happy (although unenlightened people) whose company is not conducive to suffering have made the planet the mess that it is.

Yes, but that's beside the point. Most people aren't going to live such lives, nor are they morally required to, and if they did then - for most people - such lives would contain far more undeserved suffering than pleasure. — Bartricks

Why would such lives contain far more undeserved suffering than pleasure? Can you explain?

You are seeking to make an argument in favor of antinatalism. If you want to argue that not having children is a good thing, then you need to explain why is it wrong for people to be unhappy without children (ie. why it would be wrong for them to refuse to live a celibate monastic-style life).

I'm seeking to bring about sustainability, with the minimal possible change in any other respect. I'm not a revolutionary. I want the powers that be to be able to get on board, because time is short. The window of opportunity to prevent disaster is closing quickly. — counterpunch

I agree. But I don't see how your attitude is conducive to inspiring others to change.

It really matters that we have the correct approach - and less energy is not the right approach.

What do you mean by "less energy"?

Stop eating meat, cycle, second hand clothes, stop flying, insulate homes - it goes on and on.

For many people, such changes are too much to commit to within some foreseeable time frame. This is the reality of change.

Then the sequence is not incomplete. Good intention, bad outcome, wrong. You added “bad action” in the middle but if “bad action” is literally “bad outcome” (because that’s how you defined it) then it’s redundant. — khaled

Here's the sequence again:
good intention: to help A
bad/inappropriate action: take away A's phone
bad outcome: A misses an important call


Another one:
good intention: to help A
good/appropriate action: instal app to A's phone that blocks FB
good outcome: A can still use the phone normally for important calls

if “bad action” is literally “bad outcome” (because that’s how you defined it)

Can you copy-paste based on which words of mine you surmise that?

So, it's a dilemma then. — TheMadFool

It's a dilemma if our aim is to judge, condemn, and punish others (or ourselves).

For all practical intents and purposes, the primary use of a moral theory seems to be precisely to judge, condemn, and punish others (or ourselves). Have you ever seen a moral theory be used for some other purpose?

We have control over our intentions

What do you mean by that?

Have you ever tried to give up a bad habit? Would you say that in the process of doing so, you always had control over your intentions and your intentions were exactly what you wanted them to be?

how do you tell what a bad action is from a good one? — khaled

Personally, I believe that there are three kinds of actions, depending on where/how in reference to the person they occur: mental, verbal, and bodily; ie. whether one performs the action with one's mind, one's tongue, or one's body. (I am well aware that people usually don't view this this way.)
Then, depending on quality, there are another three kinds of actions: good, bad, and neutral.

If an action leads to harm and suffering for oneself, for others, or both, it's bad.


See here, the Buddha's advice to his son.

I think politics does that all on its own - no help from me. It's like that old joke. You can tell when a politician is lying. His lips move! — counterpunch

What a splendid attitude to have, so conducive to making a positive change in the world and bringing about world peace!

Make friends with the abyss and carry on. — Book273

Ah, dragons have high standards.

It seems unreasonable to me that intentions are all that matter. For example: If A is addicted to their phone I can intend to help them by taking it away, but then only result in A missing an important call and losing their job. Good intentions, bad outcome, and wrong. — khaled

This is incomplete.
The sequence should be: Good intentions, bad action, bad outcome, and wrong.

Your intention to help is good. But there is a considerable range of options (with different outcomes) to review as to which action to do in order to act on that intention to help. Instead of taking away their phone altogether, you could install an application that blocks Facebook on A's phone, for example.

In your example, the fault is not with the intention, but with the particular action taken in the name of that intention.

Who sits opposite and why? — counterpunch

You conflate what it means to be the opposition in politics with opposition to truth.

But an inquiry into the meaning of Buddhism at the basic level is a very different matter. — Constance

Do you know how many ideas there are about what "the meaning of Buddhism at the basic level" is? As many as there are people willing to entertain them.

You've never read anything by Kierkegaard, have you? I mean, quite seriously, you haven't read a thing of the man who affirmed God over reason. Armchair?

Four years ago, I discarded all the books I had of his and all the notes I made. So I'll just summarize: I was not impressed with his work. Affirming God over reason seems quite ordinary to me.

And you spend so many words on justifying ad hominem arguments?
Off the deep end, I'd say.

*sigh*

No matter, I am right, my detractors wrong. I can argue this very well, and it is the genuine foundation for moral realism and the reality of the self. — Constance

But let's say I decide to live as a hermit. Okay, well now my life would contain a great deal of undeserved suffering, for living such a life would be extremely unpleasant.

Of course, it is entirely unreasonable to expect anyone to live such a life, and unreasonable to expect that any offspring one creates will adopt it. Most of us live our lives in ways that cause considerable undeserved suffering to other creatures. Our lives also contain much undeserved suffering - but if we went out of our way to prevent causing undeserved suffering to other creatures, then our lives would contain even more. — Bartricks

The Jains propose to have a solution for this.
They aspire to live the lifestyle you describe and they seem to be happy with it.

As far as I understand, it teaches that life is suffering — khaled

No, it doesn't.
Life Isn't Just Suffering

not that people are on average bad for each other. On the contrary, Buddhism also emphasizes the Sangha or “community” as a very important tool for your journey to be free of suffering, definitely not as its cause.

Associating with run of the mill people (the average) is conducive to suffering, which is why one is told to avoid false friends and fools, and to instead seek noble friendship.

Well first off, it’s not inevitable at all. Maybe in the modern day it’s difficult to live as a hermit, but if humans were always a bad influence on each other on average we would have never formed groups.

A band of gangsters are a bad influence on eachother, but they still stick together. Living with others is a mixed bag of experiences: some good, some bad.

And secondly if it was inevitable, and it was also true that humans are a bad influence on each other, then you’d expect the average human to be miserable which is also not the case.

You think the average human isn't miserable?? They are enlightened?

how can I improve my comprehension and my memory regarding philosophy? — deusidex

By deciding what your purpose for reading those texts is, and then reading those texts with that purpose in mind.
And making notes and reviewing them regularly.

I think this is demonstrably false. If this were true then humans would be each better off living as hermits. And you would expect that when they live around each other that they’ll all be miserable — khaled

Actually, early Buddhism teaches something similar (and it prescribes celibacy as a prerequisite for liberation from suffering).

So it must be that the average human is a positive influence on others. — khaled

Or perhaps this is backwards, and we ascribe positive influence of one person on another because to think otherwise, while inevitably living with one another, would be demoralizing.

My assumption was that nature is a fixed thing for the individual, something determined by his or her genetics. — Todd Martin

How do you know whether a particular child has a bad/perverse nature due to genetics, or whether it is due to poor parenting?

Irrespective of how individual businesses fare, the market as a whole would contract. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, and as long as capitalists are willing to adapt, this is not a problem for them.
The kind of capitalist who just aims to have 100x more than a poor person seems to be more flexible and better off. Because it seems to be always possible that a person can be much better off than the poor, regardless of the state of technology/civilization.

But owning a lot of wealth in absolute terms (such as 1,000 kg of gold or 5,000 km2 of land) seems to be much more difficult with a shrinking market, so fewer people will be able to do so.

Well, a person reflecting on their own actions is the primary application of morality. — Echarmion

This is extremely charitable!
Based on my experience, the primary application of morality is to judge others.

Nevertheless, most legal systems deal extensively with the issue of establishing intent, so it is possible to judge.

It's possible to ascribe intent, it's possible to accuse a person of a prticular intent, yes.
But intent is, in its nature, private. It cannot be up to a jury or forensic experts etc. to be the ones who decide what a person's intent truly was; they can only accuse a person of a particular intent and support this accusation with particular evidence.

As for the legal use of establishing intent: this makes for a statistical minority, given that a person typically has numerous intents in any given period of time. Building a moral theory on something that is a statistical minority is problematic.

Take a look at the typical fate of a business with falling or static stock prices. It's a problem. — Kenosha Kid

It's a problem for that business, but not for capitalism on the whole. One business fails, and another one flourishes. That's capitalism.

Isn't he talking about what the Prince should do? — Banno

There has been a long debate as to whether the text should be taken at face value or not:
Interpretation of The Prince as political satire or as deceit

Yes, someone will ALWAYS have an advantage. You are looking for heaven on Earth. It's simply not possible. — synthesis

I'm saying you are the one looking for heaven on Earth, when you say:

the best path seems to be to allow for each participant to chart his own course (within the context of respecting others' rights to do the same). — synthesis

Therefore you allow those participating to figure out what works best for them in their situation (and guard against folks over-reaching and corruption). — synthesis

So from both ends, a contraction in the population is a contraction in the markets. — Kenosha Kid

Which is still not a problem, as long as the capitalist aims to be proportionally/relatively wealthier than others.
Ie. for such a capitalist to be successful, wealthy means to have x-times more than others. Whether this means having 10 billion when others have 10,000, or whether this means having ten horses while others have one donkey.