Are you serious or being facetious? Are you choosing religion over science?

Moral means knowing the laws of Nature? Isn't knowing these laws the cause of the chaos we increasingly observe in Nature?
I know what you mean, but if we don't want to find out how Nature behaves at all levels, in every direction, and at every height and depth, wouldn't that be better for Nature? We are taught from small age that acquiring knowledge is of uttermost importance. The children are treated as ignorant to be filled with a kind of knowledge only possessed by the ruling power, which makes the claim of possessing objective knowledge to be obtained by strict methods. The methods as well as the value judgement of the importance of the subject matter is subjective though, but in modern society it's made the so-called objective norm, while this so-called objectivity is just a label to cover the subjective essence, thereby lending it a justified power position, like God was once used to justify claims on power. — Raymond

Yes, moral is knowing the laws of nature and good manners, and that concept goes with democracy and liberty.

"Isn't knowing these laws the cause of the chaos we increasingly observe in Nature?"

I can understand how someone would think that, but I believe in every case the chaos is the result of not knowing enough. There is no way we could have known enough because we did not have the tools essential to learning what know today. For example, we could not know of bacteria and viruses until we had microscopes. We could not know of the atmosphere before we had the technology essential to measuring what is far above us. We learned a lot by studying other planets and that requires getting to them. We didn't know we polluting rivers and oceans would become a problem until it was, and in some cases, with better knowledge, we have been able to reverse the damage and this is why it is essential we pay attention to science, so we can reverse the damage.

With the tools and knowledge we have today, we can learn far, far more than humanity could have known before. And be clear about this, without the knowledge and technology we have today, our life expectancy would be 45 years and many children would die before they could reproduce. We could not feed the world if we knew only what we knew 100 years ago. Fear of a god, prayers, and burning candles never did as much to end evil as science and technology has done.

Unfortunately, no holy book prepared us for science, and overcoming real evils and religions have become a huge barrier to doing better than infecting people with a virus because we ignore science, and keeps us contributing to global warming because we ignore science. Religion is promoting ignorance and this is a terrible thing.

"The children are treated as ignorant to be filled with a kind of knowledge only possessed by the ruling power,"

That was not so 100 years ago because no one knew enough to do that. The best we could do is prepare the young for independent thinking and lifelong learning. People were encouraged to use local libraries and buy books such as "Science of Citizens". I think a big problem was developed in 1958 when President Eisenhower asked Congress to pass the National Defense Education Act. That act changed everything. It was supposed to end in 4 years but never ended. We replaced liberal education that taught independent thinking, with education for technology and groupthink. We are no longer aware of what science has to do with democracy, morals, and liberty, and we have technology confused with science.

"while this so-called objectivity is just a label to cover the subjective essence, thereby lending it a justified power position, like God was once used to justify claims on power."

You said that very, very well. That is exactly what is wrong with the direction education took in 1958. I could not say that better than you have. Thank you. I sincerely mean that. What you said is why I keep arguing we are as Germany was when Hitler came to power because this is what we educated for. This is why President Eisenhower in his farewell address, warned us of the Military-Industrial Complex that he put in place and the danger of relying too much on experts.

Perhaps some other people would do well to not project their pessimism onto others ;) I wouldn't wish to derive happiness out of ceasing all valuable experiences.

The suffering also doesn't mean anything on its own. However, it does have significance for those who exist, just as the positives do. If nobody exists, there isn't anybody in the void who benefits from the absence of harms. If the lack of suffering would be good, I believe that the presence of happiness is also better (in an abstract sense, of course).

I like the idea of driving an electric car. As a high school student in the early 1950s I would take the electric buses in Atlanta downtown frequently. But an accident involving electric vehicles is scary. All that electrical energy could fry you to a crisp. Gasoline is dangerous, too, but it's not "alive" like electricity.

But imagine all those cars, buses and trucks running out of power in dire conditions, and then efforts to charge them all to get started again. Whereas along comes a truck squirting a couple of gallons of gas into tanks as it slowly passes by.

However, technology will improve for E-vehicles. — jgill

What a wake-up call! That is a very good objection to electric cars. We had an electric car blow-up stuff where the accident happened and I think we all have novocaine in our brains, including me, What happened was alarming but I don't think any of us thought it through as well as you have. We do not want pieces of the battery crashing into our living rooms!!! That happened and the people who lived in the house are lucky to be alive.

As for the cars stuck on the freeway, no one trapped in snow should keep the car running. Those folks were lucky because the snow was not falling a building up around their cars. North of us, people caught in a snowstorm were asphyxiated as the snow built up around the cars and the cars were filled with exhaust fumes.

What you said about having to recharge all those cars if they were electric, is also alarming! For sure we need to rethink how to manage such situations.

Maybe you should skip Bible Study Group next week. Take a breather. :roll: — jgill

:lol: Nicely said.

Don't let the big numbers (2022) fool you. This is still the Dark Age: still the Age of Christs and Kings.

The Enlightenment's down-trickle's discouragingly drip-drip. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I do not agree with that statement. The more we know, the more we can learn and the amount we have learned in the last century is far greater than we learned up to the 21 century. Today it is not a drip-drip but a flood of information and people, in general, can not keep up with it.

As I see the problem today, our demands and expectations are completely unreasonable. It takes much more to satisfy people today than it did before the 21 century. The Enlightenment was acceptance of what science could do for us and what we have achieved is far beyond what anyone imagined at the time of the enlightenment.

we — Athena

You're too generous with this pronoun. The bulk of us have learned little. If you need evidence relocate to rural America for a spell.

The Enlightenment exists in the hearts and minds of a tiny minority. The media obscure this by presenting a vision of the universal elite.

We have promoted ideas of superiority in obvious ways, such as the notion that going to the "right colleges" makes people superior to those who just went to a community or a state college. Or those who have A grades are superior to those who have C grades. Or those who believe this and not that, are superior. Perhaps if we continue to discuss this I can think of betters words for explaining what has gone terribly wrong! It is not just that what we know that is important but also how we learn to think. — Athena

I do not mind continuing this discussion at all. after all I am in education, though in the Netherlands, not in the US. We have no private schools (yet) for instance, but only community or state education. We do not have Ivy league colleges but nearly all our state universitties are in the top 100 world wide. I am not saying that to brag or anything but display that our system is still much more egalitarian.

I have my own ideas of how the grading system works, what education does, and it is not all positive or a success story. I am a keen reader of Michel Foucault. I do wonder where you got the distinction between the US and 'Hitler's' system of education from. never heard this comparison and it seems way too unnuanced for me. So if you could point out to me where you got these ideas from I would sincerely appreciate it.

I also think you should be careful mixing subjects. International relations is something different from the education system. All kinds of moves are played in the international arena and no, that arena is not democratic. the Westphalian order sees states as sovereign, not subject to some higher democratic body. Focus your ideas and take one step at the time. I sound overly school master like maybe. but focus and you will be able to win your battles.

"Know your enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious in every battle, know neither the enemy nor yourself and you will succumb in every battle "Sun Tzu, the art of war, paraphrased. A Goddess of strategy needs to learn these things.

I should add that I do believe that a lot of people do, unfortunately, create beings without considering it properly. I think that we should focus on implementing ideas such as a liberal RTD along with improvements in technology to ensure that suffering is minimised. In this respect, it's great to see compassionate people like you who care about others. Hope you have a good day ahead!

Perhaps some other people would do well to not project their pessimism onto others ;) I wouldn't wish to derive happiness out of ceasing all valuable experiences.

The suffering also doesn't mean anything on its own. However, it does have significance for those who exist, just as the positives do. If nobody exists, there isn't anybody in the void who benefits from the absence of harms. If the lack of suffering would be good, I believe that the presence of happiness is also better (in an abstract sense, of course). — DA671

This is linguistic nonsense to get around this simple fact:
If no one exists, no one suffers. Put a value on that of what you want (good, bad, neutral). If someone exists, someone suffers. The value part comes in when you as the parent/already existing person processes this and makes an action or inaction from it. So the parent decides that no one will suffer when they could have. My point is, this inaction (to not procreate), has no collateral damage to an actual person (as they are not born). However, an action (procreating) will create collateral damage, as there will actually be a person that suffers, whatever other good that comes from it. I think the moral choice is to prevent that suffering, and am pointing out that there is no collateral damage either.

The basis for this is basically that it is never good to cause unnecessary suffering (in the first place) that is not trivial and inescapable unless extreme measures are taken (like starvation or suicide). It puts people in a bind of comply or die as well (if you don't like the "rules of the life game" you must "deal with it and go fuck yourself if you don't like it"..aka commit suicide).

On the flipside, it is not morally obligatory to create happiness de novo (ex nihilo) for someone else, especially since no one exists already to need happiness in the first place and that happiness comes with collateral damage of suffering.

Semantics can certainly conceal a lot. If one puts a negative value to the existence of positives (and thus believe their absence to be better), I don't think that it's rational to believe that not preserving the good is somehow not problematic. If someone exists, they can be happy. My point is that not creating a person does not create the opportunity of an immense good for a person (since they don't exist). However, creating them can also lead to goods, even if there would be negatives. I believe that the moral choice is to minimise harms and to increase the goods. Also, I don't think that creating valuable lives has much to do with causing harm. It's certainly good to have good experiences (even if nobody is capable of asking for them before existing), just as you might believe that it's good to eliminate the possibility of harms despite the fact that nobody is hankering for the absence of the negatives before coming into existence. I don't think that the harms is good, and I certainly hope that we had better options for people to find a graceful exit. Nevertheless, I don't think that one should decide to arbitrarily impose a pessimistic view that leads to the cessation of all that matters. Love, beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge matter to a lot of people—definitely a lot more than a "game", and it isn't fair to pull the plug on the basis of a perspective that's not true for billions of people, many of whom deeply value their lives in spite of the existence of harms. "Oh yeah, I can tell that you have deluded yourself into loving your life even though you've suffered a lot, but I don't think that your life needs to be created (if it didn't exist), so it's still acceptable if you didn't exist at all (yet it's obligatory to prevent negatives that don't lead to a tangible better outcome for an actual person, which means the "good" coming from that prevention is an abstract one). If it's obligatory to prevent harms that nobody was desperate to avoid in the void, I believe that it is also necessary to ensure that the good in the world is conserved. Arbitrary double standards, I am afraid, cannot change this ineluctable fact.

Still, I am sorry if my comments came off as being callous towards the reality of suffering. As someone who has struggled with illnesses for much of my younger years, I am aware of the fact that it is a grim reality that isn't addressed properly, particularly in a self-centred society. I advocate for a liberal RTD (along with transhumanism) because I do want the harms to end, and I am hopeful that, provided we work together, we can eliminate most forms of extreme suffering.

schopenhauer1
Also, I don't think that creating valuable lives has much to do with causing harm. It's certainly good to have good experiences (even if nobody is capable of asking for them before existing), just as you might believe that it's good to eliminate the possibility of harms despite the fact that nobody is hankering for the absence of the negatives before coming into existence. I don't think that the harms is good, and I certainly hope that we had better options for people to find a graceful exit. Nevertheless, I don't think that one should decide to arbitrarily impose a pessimistic view that leads to the cessation of all that matters. Love, beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge matter to a lot of people—definitely a lot more than a "game", and it isn't fair to pull the plug on the basis of a perspective that's not true for billions of people, many of whom deeply value their lives in spite of the existence of harms. "Oh yeah, I can tell that you have deluded yourself into loving your life even though you've suffered a lot, but I don't think that your life needs to be created (if it didn't exist), so it's still acceptable if you didn't exist at all (yet it's obligatory to prevent negatives that don't lead to a tangible better outcome for an actual person, which means the "good" coming from that prevention is an abstract one). If it's obligatory to prevent harms that nobody was desperate to avoid in the void, I believe that it is also necessary to ensure that the good in the world is conserved. Arbitrary double standards, I am afraid, cannot change this ineluctable fact.

Still, I am sorry if my comments came off as being callous towards the reality of suffering. As someone who has struggled with illnesses for much of my younger years, I am aware of the fact that it is a grim reality that isn't addressed properly, particularly in a self-centred society. I advocate for a liberal RTD (along with transhumanism) because I do want the harms to end, and I am hopeful that, provided we work together, we can eliminate most forms of extreme suffering.

I do not mind continuing this discussion at all. after all I am in education, though in the Netherlands, not in the US. We have no private schools (yet) for instance, but only community or state education. We do not have Ivy league colleges but nearly all our state universitties are in the top 100 world wide. I am not saying that to brag or anything but display that our system is still much more egalitarian.

I have my own ideas of how the grading system works, what education does, and it is not all positive or a success story. I am a keen reader of Michel Foucault. I do wonder where you got the distinction between the US and 'Hitler's' system of education from. never heard this comparison and it seems way too unnuanced for me. So if you could point out to me where you got these ideas from I would sincerely appreciate it.

I also think you should be careful mixing subjects. International relations is something different from the education system. All kinds of moves are played in the international arena and no, that arena is not democratic. the Westphalian order sees states as sovereign, not subject to some higher democratic body. Focus your ideas and take one step at the time. I sound overly school master like maybe. but focus and you will be able to win your battles.

"Know your enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious in every battle, know neither the enemy nor yourself and you will succumb in every battle "Sun Tzu, the art of war, paraphrased. A Goddess of strategy needs to learn these things. — Tobias

Okay, you know of Foucault so you know the following as well.

"The Prussian education system refers to the system of education established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, which has had widespread influence since. The Prussian education system was introduced as a basic concept in the late 18th century and was significantly enhanced after Prussia's defeat in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. The Prussian educational reforms inspired other countries and remains important as a biopower in the Foucaultian sense for nation-building.[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system — Wikipedia

The Origins of the American Public Education System: Horace Mann & the Prussian Model of Obedience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZp7eVJNJuw

And in his 1899 book "TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY; AND TO STUDENTS ON SOME OF LIFE'S IDEALS" pg 31-32, William James doesn't have a high opinion of the German model.

That is a start. I have more to say about the subject but it can wait until we resolve a problem.

If you want to discuss the subject with me, make sure you are on-topic and not judging me and putting me on the defensive by telling me what you think I should do. Athena is known to be bad-tempered when she is not respected. And yes, I also have a copy of "Sun Tzu, the art of war".

You're too generous with this pronoun. The bulk of us have learned little. If you need evidence relocate to rural America for a spell.

The Enlightenment exists in the hearts and minds of a tiny minority. The media obscure this by presenting a vision of the universal elite. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I am not accustomed to this forum being one of personal attacks instead of on-topic. Why do you assume I am unaware of rural areas? :rofl: My x kept the family isolated in rural areas and not even in cities are many literate in the Greek and Roman classics that are the foundation of our democracy. Even in the early days of the US when college-level education meant a classical or liberal education, only a tiny minority were aware of the Greek and Roman classics and later philosophies that lead to the democracy of the US.

The US did base public education on that literacy but it was Americanized, leaving us both ignorant of classics but with some knowledge of the principles. The Christian influence on this education and then dropping the transmission of our culture and education for good moral judgment, leaving moral training to the church in 1958, has led to the Christian mythology or our democracy and that makes matters very bad!

I have no idea what you think the "universal elite" know, but I doubt if it is the education that I believe is vital to our democracy.

personal attacks — Athena

It was a conditional: "If." It wasn't an attack.

Rural America is rife with ignorance and superstition, dull-mindedness, racial tension, religious prejudice and a tendency to be cowed by celebrity mystique: the antithesis of Enlightenment values. Think: the mystique of kings.

As regards Trump, we're closer to the Divine Right of Kings than to the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

even in cities are many literate in the Greek and Roman classics that are the foundation of our democracy. Even in the early days of the US when college-level education meant a classical or liberal education, only a tiny minority were aware of the Greek and Roman classics and later philosophies that lead to the democracy of the US. — Athena

Here you seem to take my position: Enlightenment philosophy hasn't yet trickled down to the rabble.

The Enlightenment was acceptance of what science could do for us and what we have achieved is far beyond what anyone imagined at the time of the enlightenment. — Athena

Here, again, "we" is used too broadly. What a significant proportion of "we" has achieved is total rejection of science and scientific values.

Like I said:

A stoning will descend from the celestial sphere, thereby cleansing the Earth from the disturbing wicked elements that stubbornly resist to comply and be recipient to the Golden Ejaculation emanating from His Infinite Erectedness like a brightly colored fountain. The idle, sanctimonious, and pharisaic erections, and the false ejaculates spat out off it, can only be acted against by the incandescent Ejaculate of the immense Erected, and it will strike the ephemeral with unprecedented force to restore the eudomoniatic state of Divine Dedication and Total Obedience.

Only by strictly attending to the confines of the Honest and Pure Trail of the Word spoken by the Incendiary Erect Being, one can hope to avoid the amnesiac beating of His Stern Stick.


Of course this is just silly wordplay. But it is in fact the same as you are doing if you replace "The Pristine Immaculate Being and His Eternal Hole Ejaculate" by "Objective Science and its Majestic Technology". Scientific thinking and its globally technically enforced imprint on humanity, making it the base of state and politics, is just one way to live life. It is forced on all of us, by forced systematic education, not spending a dime on different approaches to nature which don't position them oppositely to her (or him). Of course science can help us to lower CO2 or correct polluting business. But the sci entific view is based on a notion of progress that implies further, deeper, higher, heavier, etc. to increase an artificial knowledge about a nature from which it's farther removed than ever. This knowledge is the cause in the first place of the miserable state of the world. Capitalism too, but the two are influencing mutually. The more artificial order we impose on nature, the more the natural order will reside or be destroyed. Science is nice, it's even an art. What about all the ingenious experiments to articulate theories we have? That's great stuff. For some. I like science too, got my own theory even about the universe. Which makes the existence of god even more articulate. It's their creation we should care about, but who am I to know if they care about their own creation?

The scientific road is just one amongst many, and they don't lead all to Rome. So what can "we" do about it? It depends on what the people want. I want to live in a world where nature exists happily along our side. We are not the only ones on our mega spaceship. All organisms keep it liveable and in good shape. Science removes itself from nature, and the paradox is that she claims knowledge about it. It's a very artificial knowledge, gained in isolated experiments, which must be reproducable, and often performed to fit the math, under strict boundary and initial conditions; it's an art in the sense it expresses a worldview, and the materials, the mediums used are ideas and experiments, like the painter uses colors and linen, though there is a much wider variety of course). What can we do? Not taking part is a way. Cleaning the mess scientifically is possible, fighting technology with technology, though technology is the cause in the first place. If state and science are separated a big first step will be made. Science seems to have the same role that God once had, telling the Truth and killing in his name. Maybe there is a way out: brothers and sisters, let's pray! Let's hold hands and ask Supreme Science to help us. Let it project disaster upon the non-believers.... Isn't the last done wrt to many indigenous societies, who are just superstitious, and ignorant about the True way (while their children were taken away to teach them the right way)? I'm a science lover myself, but who am I to say the Enlightened Path of Science (during the Enlightenment used to set people free from the madness of religion back then, but it seems to do similar stuff in modern times, the pagan being the non-believer in science). And I agree with a commentator in this thread that scientific knowledge is possessed by a group of people who claim to have some divine knowledge and who consider the non-believers are ignorant. The pagan are called laymen, as in the good all days of religion...Though the laymen might believe in science.

The reason I said that you should pick your battles was not because of qualms with you over this subject. It was through your connection of it to Biden's foreign policy. I respect your knowledge on the education system and that is why I honestly asked you for sources so I could inform myself with them, which you graciously gave. Your claims about Biden being undemocratic I found unconvincing and therefore I told you so. Your connection of them in my view weakens the strength of your argument and I think it is also a field in which you are less at home, but I may be wrong. Of course feel free to ignore them. I noticed something else as well, namely that when we breach a topic such as environmentalism and its Manichean roots we somehow ended up talking about education. That happened earlier as well as I recall.

Anyway, I respect you very much on this particular topic. I did not wish to come off condescending, if so I apologize. On the other hand I also do not find your statement that I should be on topic very fair. I also did not use that line against you when you broached the subject of environmentalism and the question of Manichean religion. I like to explore this topic of education with you and rest assured I respect you knowledge.

That said there are some reasons to think you paint an overly dark and indeed Manichean picture of the former US system and the Prussian system of education. Certainly, the education system developed in Prussia was aimed at nation building. It was also aimed at giving the populace the skills to survive in a very rapidly changing world in which bureaucracy and industrialization became driving forces. The German society in the 18th century was nothing like it is now. Illiteracy was rampant, petty princes ruled petty kingdoms, the population lived in conditions of serfdom, also mentioned on the wikipedia page you gave as a source. There was no such thing as mass education. thinking for oneself was at the time always only done by an elite of either merchant classes or nobility. It is easy to criticize a system of mass schooling from the luxury of the modern day world, but I would reckon the access to reading and writing for the population was a big step up from what it had been.

Moreover the idea of nation building in the way described in the video is abhorrent to us of course and especially with the second world war in mind the video becomes even more ominous. However seen in the light of the history of Germany it was not such a silly idea. In the 17th century Germany has fought one of the most ruthless civil wars in history that depopulated much of the country and led to 30 years of warfare in which the German realms (it was not a country back than) tore themselves apart. Germany faced powerful and colonial neighbors in France and Russia. Seen from the perspective of the European history of incessant warfare, the German goals become understandable. The picture of emperor Frederick also deserves a bit of nuance. He was seen as an enlightenment figure in correspondence with Voltaire and a benefactor of the arts and sciences. that goes to show again that your appeal to enlightenment ideals is not as straightforward as you expect them to be. enlightenment ideals value order, progress and mastery of the natural world through education and technology. How they turn out in practice is much more difficult to predict. They may also be used by an emperor who rules despotically.

There are also reasons to view the youtube clip with a bit of suspicion. Firstly it cherry picks among the quotes of Fichte. The wikipedia page for instance gives this as a Fichte quote: "Fichte asked for shaping of the personality of students: "The citizens should be made able and willing to use their own minds to achieve higher goals in the framework of a future unified German nation state"." Now that sounds very different already.

The second reason is a look at the one of the most 'command and control' institutions there is, the military. Prussian military tactics and later German military tactics were base on a combination of obedience and creativity. The adoption of a much more flexible approach to warfare based on objectives to be reached, but leeway to the commanders in the field as to how to reach them, required creativity and independent thinking. These abilities led to Germany being able to take on much more powerful foes 'on paper'. this actually mirrors the German research university, which also fosters creative, if specialized research. What I see in sociological terms is the bureaucratization an professionalization of education Now of course all for the greater glory of the nation, but they were regrettably very nationalistic times. We are talking about the age of colonialism, a very dark age in European history.

The third reason is that the video draws a straight line from Prussian education to Hitler and calls Fichte (Not pronounced 'Fitcht', or something but Fi'h'te) the father of modern neo-nazism. That claim is just silly. Why not simply nazism but neo-nazism? Those are different people from different cultural eras. The Prussian educational system might well be conducive to creating a law and order mentality that benefited Hitler's rise but it totally forgets the Weimar era in Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

The Weimar Republic during its heyday in the 1920th saw all kinds of liberal reforms, art and culture flourished as never before and it was in many respects truly 'avant garde'. Apparently the same education system that brought Hitler to power was also capable of creating a cultural renaissance. therefore I think the picture is one sided.

That does not mean I disagree with your basic tenet, that education is too much aimed at creating output in the sense of unquestioning students that have merely mastered skills. I am frequently at odds with the educational professionals that want for me to create students who master a certain skill or other and who through a system of continuous self discipline, strive for excellence which mean mastery of their narrow field. I take a different approach, namely an argumentative spirit, there are no or not many right or wrong answers, but there is argument and argumentation is a joust, a challenge. I think that is why you also felt attacked by me.

Anyway I think there is more than meets the eye. We need a new type of education, one that moves towards questioning and investigation and towards interdisciplinarity instead of specialization. More and more it becomes clear we need to see problems not in specialistic isolation but in a holistic way, leaving space for uncertainty and complexity. It will ask a lot of us, because the old model is the one we use still even thought it may well be out dated. In that we can shake hands (if the pandemic would not prevent it...)

I have to say, your post-quality ratio is truly impressive.

Nearly every post you make is full of extremely interesting, well thought out information.

I don't think that it's rational to believe that not preserving the good is somehow not problematic. — DA671

Rational is another slippery use of language. Why isn't it "rational"? I explained how it correlates to no actual person experiencing deprivation of happiness (no collateral damage to a person) and thus I think is "rational".

If someone exists, they can be happy. My point is that not creating a person does not create the opportunity of an immense good for a person (since they don't exist). — DA671

And that loss matters to whom?

However, creating them can also lead to goods, even if there would be negatives. — DA671

And right there is the very step that I am questioning is "good" and indeed think is not ethical.

I believe that the moral choice is to minimise harms and to increase the goods. — DA671

That is irrelevant in the procreational choice. Perhaps as a heuristic after birth, sure. But no one is obligated to create "goods" (since no one exists to be deprived) and certainly it is wrong to unnecessarily create inescapable, non-trivial harm for others, de novo/ex nihilo.

Also, I don't think that creating valuable lives has much to do with causing harm. — DA671

Not on its own. I said that creating "good" comes with the collateral damage of suffering, and that is a problem for your ethical argument.

I don't think that the harms is good, and I certainly hope that we had better options for people to find a graceful exit. — DA671

Or more ethically, we shouldn't put people in a bind whereby that need for a graceful exit are the choices one is put in, but this is exactly what procreation does ("deal with it" or "comply or die").

Nevertheless, I don't think that one should decide to arbitrarily impose a pessimistic view that leads to the cessation of all that matters. — DA671

But the point is if no one is born, no one is imposing anything on anyone. Not true if someone is born.

Love, beauty, and the pursuit of knowledge matter to a lot of people—definitely a lot more than a "game" — DA671

Doesn't matter if not born in the first place.

and it isn't fair to pull the plug on the basis of a perspective that's not true for billions of people, many of whom deeply value their lives in spite of the existence of harms. — DA671

People not born, don't care if they aren't born. This is all, literally, nonsense. You are not obligated to create new people that experience happiness.. It would certainly be a misjudgment to create people that experience bad things, even if your goal was for them to experience happiness.

"Oh yeah, I can tell that you have deluded yourself into loving your life even though you've suffered a lot, but I don't think that your life needs to be created (if it didn't exist), so it's still acceptable if you didn't exist at all (yet it's obligatory to prevent negatives that don't lead to a tangible better outcome for an actual person, which means the "good" coming from that prevention is an abstract one). — DA671

No, that is not it. Rather, if you are already born, doesn't apply.. So for a future person, no person will exist to be harmed, and no person exists to be deprived of happiness either. Don't convolute the point by mixing in people who exist already.

If it's obligatory to prevent harms that nobody was desperate to avoid in the void, I believe that it is also necessary to ensure that the good in the world is conserved. — DA671

Separate point, so irrelevant to the argument.

Still, I am sorry if my comments came off as being callous towards the reality of suffering. As someone who has struggled with illnesses for much of my younger years, I am aware of the fact that it is a grim reality that isn't addressed properly, particularly in a self-centred society. I advocate for a liberal RTD (along with transhumanism) because I do want the harms to end, and I am hopeful that, provided we work together, we can eliminate most forms of extreme suffering. — DA671

Cool. I'm glad you are understanding of the suffering, and are for trying to reduce it. I just think there is no reason to start it for another person, especially in light of no collateral damage to that person for not starting it, and that "good and value" don't exist as an independent entity that needs to be "fed" by the pain of yet more humans.

Rural America is rife with ignorance and superstition, dull-mindedness, racial tension, religious prejudice and a tendency to be cowed by celebrity mystique: the antithesis of Enlightenment values — ZzzoneiroCosm

Do you live there? You must to have witnessed this horror. :scream:

@Manuel Thanks Manuel for letting me know you experience it! That is real cool, cheers :cool:

Do you live there? You must to have witnessed this horror. :scream: — jgill

I've lived there off and on for the last thirty years.

Because I don't find the position to be particularly rational due to its application of arbitrary double standards pertaining to happiness and suffering, though you're free to think it is. I didn't intend to use it disparagingly, so I apologise if I came off as being rude.

I also explained that nobody in inexistence is craving s prevention of all life. However, if it can still be good to prevent all harms, it's also bad to prevent all happiness, irrespective of whether or not there is a conscious feeling of deprivation.

The prevented suffering also doesn't "matter" to anybody and doesn't fill anybody with relief. However, when one can say that preventing harm is good, I don't think that it's reasonable to believe that it wouldn't be bad to prevent all the goods.

It is unethical to prevent goods in order to bring about "prevention".

And that right there is the crux of the issue— I don't think that it makes sense to say that the absence of harms is good even though it doesn't actually lead to a benefit for anybody (except in an abstract sense), but the lack of good isn't problematic. It's certainly good to focus on reducing suffering for existing people since that's usually sufficient for them to live decent lives. However, in the case of creating people, I think that it can be good to create potential happiness.

I never said it didn't. However, if one believes that not creating a person is good due to prevented harms, it's also unimaginably bad due to all the prevented goods. All the valuable lives cannot be relegated to being collateral damage (and yes, it would indeed be bad to prevent the good if it's good to prevent the harms).

There's also "thank you for this single opportunity of experiencing joy, which, despite being precious and fragile, has been a source of inimitable value". The right is still necessary, but it isn't sensible to think that bestowing the ethereal positives is unnecessary or worthless; it most definitely isn't.

I don't think that creating anybody involves imposing something, but even if it does, I would consider the lack of bestowal of goods to be justifiable. The point is that if you believe that it's better to prevent all the negatives, it's also worse to prevent all the positives.

The absence of suffering also doesn't matter (and is therefore not a solution) for the nonexistent beings in the void, by the same token. If the lack of harm is still preferable in an instrumental/abstract sense, the lack of goods is certainly a problem.

Semantical obfuscation seems to be in play here, I am afraid. I don't think that one should be obligated to create beings since there are both practical limitations and long-term societal impacts to consider. Nevertheless, it's irrational to suggest that bringing about the absence of all harms that nobody is desperate to avoid is an obligation, yet it isn't fundamentally problematic to also lead to the cessation of innumerable goods. It wouldn't be particularly nice to prevent all happiness, even if your intentions were to just stop the possibility of harm.

The truth is not convolution. The reality is that universal antinatalism does imply that even if a person would have a deeply meaningful life and would cherish their existence (and hope to relive it), it supposedly would not be good to create them, which is something that seems patently absurd to me. But I digress—the reality is that there's it's unreasonable to consider the lack of harm to be preferable whilst failing to see that the positives will also always matter.

The pertinent point, but that's fine.

Pain is also not an entity that requires a sacrifice of happiness at the altar of "prevention". Nobody in nonexistence has a need for preventing everything that would inundate them with relief. But if it can still be good to ensure that future harms don't exist, it's quite apparent that it's unethical to prevent all the positives. The lack of happiness could certainly be considered collateral damage (or much bigger damage, since most people do seem to value their lives) in an abstract sense, just as one might consider the lack of harm to be better.

Thank you for your kind words. Hope you have a nice weekend!

so I apologise if I came off as being rude. — DA671

No that's fine.. It's the stringing together the BS that follows this statement I have a problem with so let's see...

I also explained that nobody in inexistence is craving s prevention of all life. However, if it can still be good to prevent all harms, it's also bad to prevent all happiness, irrespective of whether or not there is a conscious feeling of deprivation. — DA671

So you are not paying attention to my argument. Again, I said:

If no one exists, no one suffers. Put a value on that of what you want (good, bad, neutral). If someone exists, someone suffers. The value part comes in when you as the parent/already existing person processes this and makes an action or inaction from it. So the parent decides that no one will suffer when they could have. My point is, this inaction (to not procreate), has no collateral damage to an actual person (as they are not born). However, an action (procreating) will create collateral damage, as there will actually be a person that suffers, whatever other good that comes from it. I think the moral choice is to prevent that suffering, and am pointing out that there is no collateral damage either. — schopenhauer1

In one scenario collateral damage of suffering occurs, in the other, it does not. The parent makes this choice. I am not taking the view from nowhere, as you are trying to make this out (the void of voided nobodies voiding nowhere).

The prevented suffering also doesn't "matter" to anybody and doesn't fill anybody with relief. However, when one can say that preventing harms is good, I don't think that it's reasonable to believe that it wouldn't be bad to prevent all the goods. — DA671

Again dude, here is the argument again: In one instance no ONE suffers. In the other, someone does. This is a violation of this principle explained eariler:

The basis for this is basically that it is never good to cause unnecessary suffering (in the first place) that is not trivial and inescapable unless extreme measures are taken (like starvation or suicide). It puts people in a bind of comply or die as well (if you don't like the "rules of the life game" you must "deal with it and go fuck yourself if you don't like it"..aka commit suicide). — schopenhauer1

So if you believe in not creating for someone else an inescapable, non-trivial set of harmful experiences (and/or suffering depending on how that is defined), then this would not be good to impose on someone else.

Ans that right there is the crux of the issue— I don't think that it makes sense to say that the absence of harms is good even though it doesn't actually lead to a benefit for anybody (except in an abstract sense), but the lack of good isn't problematic. It's certainly good to focus on reducing suffering for existing people, since that's usually sufficient for them to live decent lives. However, in the case of creating people, I think that it can be good to create potential happiness. — DA671

Again dude, stop trying to turn this argument as a view from nowhere. It is the view of someone making the decision to procreate. Do you want to create a set of inescapable (excepting suicide or death in someone sense) harms on someone else?

I never said it didn't. However, if one believes that not creating a person is good due to prevented harms, it's also unimaginably bad due to all the prevented goods. All the valuable lives cannot be relegated to being collateral damage (and yes, it would indeed be bad to prevent the good if it's good to prevent the harms). — DA671

Huh? To what weird non-entity are we owing happiness to? Who has been besmirched their happiness? That is right... no ONE. And yes, suffering is the collateral damage that goes along with thinking that you are going to create happy experiences.

There's also "thank you for this single opportunity of experiencing joy, which, despite being precious and fragile, has been a source of inimitable value". The right is still necessary, but it isn't sensible to think that bestowing the ethereal positives is unnecessary or worthless; it most definitely isn't. — DA671

"Who" is saying this? No actual person. The void. Your head.

The point is that if you believe that it's better to prevent all the negatives, it's also worse to prevent all the positives. — DA671

There is no justification you have made here, just assertion. There is no principle other than, happiness is something that can be experienced once born. That doesn't just magically resolve the boondogle of the collateral damage problem. It doesn't "cancel out" that suffering was still thus created. It is indeed imposing a lifetime of negative experiences on someone else's behalf. Guess what recourse they have? None. Comply with the program or kill yourself. Real nice.. And please, spare me another argument where you again say, "But happiness exists and therefore all solved".

The absence of suffering also doesn't matter (and is therefore not a solution) for the nonexistent beings in the void, by the same token. If the lack of harms is still preferable in an instrumental/abstract sense, the lack of goods is certainly a problem. — DA671

This is definitely a slippery slope then. For you, someone has to be born in order to realize the bad. It's from the procreator's perspective, not the void. This is not a "If a tree falls in the forest" argument as someone is existing to determine if they want to create a set of negative experiences on someone else's behalf.. and thinking it through.. Is it right to cause unnecessary suffering on someone because you yourself have a notion of them experiencing happiness as well? You will say, "Yep justified", as if happiness negates causing the bad. It would constantly ignoring the very argument of the antinatalist, that happiness existing for people negates the negatives they must endure.

Nevertheless, it's irrational to suggest that the bringing about the absence of all harms that nobody is desperate to avoid is an obligation — DA671

I mean, let's say I give you a gift you liked and then created a situation whereby other non-wanted experiences happened to you as well as a contingency of the gift.. It doesn't seem like that gift was a gift anymore, but rather a sort of gaslighting burden.. "You get this but, oops watch out for that!! Too bad, that's part of the contingency of my gift fucker!! Oh you don't like it? Kill yourself.. most other people just take it.. now sit back down and take it too!!!"

It wouldn't be particularly nice to prevent all happiness, even if your intentions were to just stop the possibility of harms. — DA671

Again WHO is this not nice to? You are speaking to the void again.

The truth is not convolution. The reality is that universal antinatalism does imply that even if a person would have a deeply meaningful life and would cherish their existence (and hope to relive it), it supposedly would not be good to create them, which is something that seems patently absurd to me. But I digress—the reality is that there's it's unreasonable to consider the lack of harms to be preferable whilst failing to see that the positives will also always matter. — DA671

You are trying to cause some sentimental argument.. (argument from pathos let's say), but you need a person for there to be deprived of this meaning, and you don't have it. Just the void. This is about the decision to procreate.. Not people that are already born. Do you want to be the cause for imposing the conditions whereby other people will suffer? If your answer is, "But, but, but happy experiences!!" Then that is not a good enough threshold to decide you will create the conditions of a lifetime of negative experiences for someone else..

Pain is also not an entity that requires a sacrifice of happiness at the altar of "prevention". Nobody in nonexistence has a need for preventing everything that would inundate them with relief. But if it can still be good to ensure that future harms don't exist, it's quite apparent that it's unethical to prevent all the positives. The lack of happiness could certainly be considered a collateral damage (or a much bigger damage, since most peop — DA671

Thank you for your kind words. Hope you have a nice weekend! — DA671

For the final time hopefully, this is not about the nobodies not existing. This is about not creating a situation for someone else in the first place. It is not unethical to prevent "all the positives". Not creating happiness is neutral if anything. Not creating suffering is where it matters ethically. Nothing existing is nothing existing. Something existing starts harm where there is none, and happiness that is also created doesn't negate this.

Thank you for your kind words. Hope you have a nice weekend! — DA671

Yeah same. Just a tip.. if you want to quote a text, drag your mouse over the text and let go, then click on the quote button that displays. This will create the text in quote form in your reply post.

I am using an Android, so it's a bit difficult for me to quote :p

I fear that it's your argument that lacks reason and clarity.

Once again, you believe that the lack of what you term "collateral damage" is good (presumably, since you do wish to prevent it). My response was that while preventing harm/damage might be good/better, it is not good for anybody to not experience the positive aspects of life. I do not think that this is a particularly difficult point to comprehend, unless, of course, one resorts to employing arbitrary double standards premised upon a flawed framework that does not take the valuable aspects of life into account.

In one scenario, a person can live a happy life. In the other one, they do not. This is a violation of the basic principle that creating and preserving good does matter, just as the reduction of suffering does.

You are intent on only focusing on one side of the coin. I never claimed that any of those things were good. However, meaningful relationships, creativity, and the experience of other positives that are not "trivial" for countless sentient beings do not deserve to be prevented simply because nobody is capable of asking for them before they exist. You would once again say that nobody is deprived from their absence, but this misses the point entirely because, as I have mentioned ad nauseum if the lack of bads can be good sans any conscious feeling of satisfaction, the absence of the goods is necessarily bad.

I thought you had taken that view when you decided for millions of happy people ;)
In all seriousness, the cardinal consideration is not just the harm, as you seem to think. There are also ineffably valuable experiences that do matter, and I would not wish to unfairly prevent their possibility even if I personally did not value my life. I would not wish to forsake the chance of partaking in the genesis of a life that an innocent being would hold deeply adore, particularly when this could be the reality for many people.

To whom do we owe the prevention of suffering? There aren't any souls in the void who would be defenestrated into a state of affairs that would degrade their satisfied state. However, if we still wish to believe that it's good to prevent the harms even if nobody benefits from that action, I do not think it makes sense to think that the lack of goods would not be bad.

I was referring to existing people, including myself. I understand that you might believe in your "head" that it is not significant, but it definitely is.

You are obstinately asserting your position whilst conveniently ignoring consistency and the lived experiences of the billions of sentient beings you care about. For the last time: I do not think that everything is hunky-dory just because happiness exists. There clearly do exist significant harms that need to be reduced. However, that elimination should not come at the cost of preventing innumerable good experiences, many of which persist even in the face of seemingly insuperable odds. Waving them away by focusing on the harms appears to be disingenuous, and I would not be able to accept such a viewpoint. Bestowing an incontrovertibly meaningful life that is precious and rare is not unethical.

Harming existing people is not justified unless it leads to greater happiness for them. There is no need to digress from the pertinent issue here, which is the creation of new people. The lack of harm is good for people as it allows them to live happy lives without issues. I think you are the one who has ignored my point that if it can be good to prevent harms that do nobody in the void is hankering for, it can also be wrong to prevent the goods. I do not think that it is rational to hold unjustifiable double standards here.

That appears to be a rather poor straw man. As I have said before, one need not harm already happy people by creating unnecessary risks unless doing so has a high probability of leading to greater goods. As for those who do not exist, all I can do is to reiterate my aforementioned point, which is that it is irrational to believe that the lack of undesirable experiences is good, but the lack of desirable experiences isn't bad. I can only explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you. I do not think that anybody should kill themselves, and I hope that improvements in healthcare and living standards can prevent the need for taking such a step prematurely. Eventually, of course, it would be beneficial for all beings to be able to find a graceful exit instead of being forced to survive for the sake of some strange idea about the "sanctity of life".

If it isn't "not nice", it is also not nice to prevent all harm. I am merely advocating for rational consistency here. I care about the happiness and suffering of existing people, not necessarily abstract values pertaining to the void.

I thought you did the same with your "kill yourself" comments before. Be that as it may, I don't think I would wish to fall prey to blind pessimistic (or optimistic) sentimentalism that leads to a detrimental outcome for people. You are the one who wants to prevent harms that nobody in the void desires to avoid. Yet, if that is still necessary, then I don't think that creating all love, beauty, and a life permeated with meaning (which often exists even in desperate situations) can be ignored by incessantly talking about harm. I would not be myopic enough to suggest that only the positives matter, but I simply cannot see a logical reason to find the prevention of all good to be ethical.

This has indeed become quite repetitive. Once again, I am only working under a framework that should be consistent. If it is good/ethical to prevent harms that do not lead to a tangible benefit for the people they were putatively prevented for, then it is certainly unethical to not create all positives. For existing beings, it isn't always important to do more than just stopping harm, Howbeit, I do think that it is more logical to understand that nothing is nothing, while something can be astoundingly good, and I do not believe that the harms can negate all of those potent experiences that define the lives of many people.

Thanks for the tip, but I am too poor to employ it effectively. Perks of living in a third world country, I suppose. Still, there's beauty to be found in using a (slightly broken) handheld device!

am using an Android, so it's a bit difficult for me to quote :p — DA671

I use one too. Can't you select the text you want to quote by finger? Keep your finger on the text and select "copy"?

I can select the text but cannot copy it due to the fact that the option does not appear. Maybe I am using an outdated device lol.

Ha! A subversive program! The rebellious little %$%#$!