Your preferences, happiness, ideal set-up and outcomes, or whether you even want to be a part of it in the first place, don't mean much. — schopenhauer1

It depends on who or what we're talking about for that though. For example, if we're talking about on-sentient objects, then saying "your preferences . . . don't mean much to non-sentient objects" is a bit disingenuous rhetorically, because of course nothing means anything to non-sentient objects.

But if we're talking about the sorts of things for which there is meaning in the first place--individual sentient creatures, then one's preferences might mean a lot and might be one of the most important things there is.

all the other tropes I usually bring up via antinatalism — schopenhauer1

Many people do pair bond without any intention of continuing the species, you know.

I have thought, think, and will probably continue to think that anti-natalism is a cry from the heart. By that I don't mean antinatalists are profoundly unhappy (maybe you are, maybe you are not -- I don't know). What I mean is that antinatalists, and nihilists too, have a hungry heart -- it has not been satisfied yet. You are hungry for something. Actually, lots of people who are neither antinatalists nor nihilists are equally hungry. For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic.

Antinatalism IS a trope: it's a virus. It's a meme. (and no, I don't think these things perpetuate and spread themselves. We are the vector.)

Many people do pair bond without any intention of continuing the species, you know. — Bitter Crank

As long as there are those who do pair bond and it results in the continuance of the species, the argument still stands.

I have thought, think, and will probably continue to think that anti-natalism is a cry from the heart. By that I don't mean antinatalists are profoundly unhappy (maybe you are, maybe you are not -- I don't know). What I mean is that antinatalists, and nihilists too, have a hungry heart -- it has not been satisfied yet. You are hungry for something. Actually, lots of people who are neither antinatalists nor nihilists are equally hungry. For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic. — Bitter Crank

That is a good point. Routine gives some solace and not others. Likewise, variation gives some solace and not others. Most are content perhaps when they have both routine and variation. This allows for the appearance that they did something new and exciting and consequently are able to accept the routines they inevitably face, like a release valve. Then there are those who question the whole routine variation while participating themselves as that is the default option.

Antinatalism IS a trope: it's a virus. It's a meme. (and no, I don't think these things perpetuate and spread themselves. We are the vector.) — Bitter Crank

But so is procreation as an institution as well as other social institutions, and keeping society going the way we have in general can be considered many tropes playing out, so that is isolating one trope without taking into account the others. The difference is that this trope is questioning why we continue all the other tropes rather than merely following the tropes without question or only questioning one particular trope. Furthermore, if I was to keep with the theme of this thread, we are dominated by tropes of continuance. Cultural institutions, and genetic determinism for likelihood of procreation being a part of this.

Sure routine and variation are a reciprocal pair.

I'll just state this again.

What I mean is that antinatalists, and nihilists too, have a hungry heart -- it has not been satisfied yet. You are hungry for something. Actually, lots of people who are neither antinatalists nor nihilists are equally hungry. For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic. — Bitter Crank

For assurance? Meaning? Certainty? Clarity? Belonging? Love? Something basic. — Bitter Crank

I mention routine and variation because this goes into these questions. Belonging, meaning, assurance, etc. are not forever, but are experienced for a duration of time. Then they become routine and thus, variation occurs, and then back to the routine. I don't think there will be a permanent satiation to the hunger for many. It will always be there. Something basic can be met for a moment, but then something else takes its place.

It's telling that we have to appeal to goods in life and not life itself in order to justify the latter, which is apparently not able to justify itself and so has to appeal to the accidental contingencies to cover this embarrassing disvalue. As we learned from Nietzsche, life continues not on reason and logic but on emotional impulse and irrationality. We can also take a Heideggerian route and ask: if Being is Good, then why is it that we have such a difficult time approaching and understanding Being? Does it seem right that the Good is almost impossible to apprehend?

I would not say that we are "pawns", as this implies we are being manipulated by an agent, and as far as I know the universe is not an agent. Thus any description of our predicament as manipulative or pawn-like is only a metaphor, a description that only makes sense from the "inside" and not from the "outside", the inside being a phenomenological account and the outside being an (ideally) impartial naturalistic account. Just as it's poetic to say the sea "swallows" a sinking boat, it's similarly poetic to say we are "slaves" to our genetic programming. It's not wrong, but neither is it entirely accurate, either. It's just one way of interpreting the same set of data, just one of many ways of painting reality.

Actually this very point was brought up in a book based upon a conference in Germany a few years ago, called Is Nature Ever Evil: Philosophy, Science, Value, which covered issues including whether or not we can actually see "Nature" as good or bad. Such topics brought up include analyses of "selfish" genes, or "nature, red in tooth and claw", or "a chaotic, indifferent cosmos" or what have you. Science is NOT as impartial as it tries to be. There will ALWAYS be value somewhere.

The best I can say right now is that, ultimately, nothing is intrinsically valuable in the sense that it contributes or plays a role in some cosmic theatrical production. Part of the human condition seems to be the realization of time-linearity as one of many constraints on our being, and the disconnect between what we can imagine and what actually is the case. The angst emerges when one sees that the universe as a whole has an unconscious direction towards maximal entropification, and that this "telos" is not in line with our own desires and expectations.

So, going back to the whole metaphor thing, I think it makes more sense to describe humans (and other sentients) as prisoners, victims, or, even better, exiles. Any sort of description like this is going to somewhat metaphorical and from the perspective of life-as-it-is-lived, and not life-as-it-is-studied. Or something like that.