• schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Premise: Making people work is immoral.

    When alive, we must make others work or we die. Sure, a few people might be able to scrounge a living as a hermit off somewhere making everything themselves in some survivor man way, but for the most part, we need other humans to survive. However, for the most part, we need people to "do their part" in making society function- whether by an invisible hand, tradition, or the iron fist of a dictatorship. So, in a market economy, we force each other to work by having demands. Consumption needs production. Producers need consumers, and so on. Once a human is born, they are just added to more demand and supply. There is no escaping making others work really (unless the hermit scenario) if we are to live as humans usually do (in a society, that is). Therefore we are always making others put forth more energy so that they can sustain our demands and others are making us put forth energy so as to sustain their demands.

    However, not having new humans eliminates this dilemma of being forced into working for others demands (and vice versa). Thus antinatalism prevents people from having to work. No need for need if there is no one to need.
  • VagabondSpectre
    1.9k
    Tis better to have lived and worked than never to have lived at all.
  • BC
    13.5k
    Life, society, is one big quid pro quo, a grand "asinus fricat asinus (which auto correct just rendered "frigate sinus frigate") meaning, one jackass rubs another, or manos lavam manos--one hand washes the other. You work for someone else's needs, someone else works for your needs. That's how life works, from bacteria up to Schopenhauer.

    People would like working for each other's needs more if we could get rid of the invisible hand in the iron glove concealed in an economics textbook.

    As for your solution, it's a "one solution to all problems" solution, no matter what the problem is. "Let's all just die out and then every problem will be resolved by our absence. Except, of course, the problem that this creates for those who rather liked being alive -- despite all the deplorably dangerous disasters to which we are positively prone. Nobody thinks it's a perfect world, but a lot of people like it, and your "reprehensible reproduction rigamarole" just isn't appealing to most people.

    Most people get your theory that life can be quite unpleasant. Yours is not an original insight. You are unique in being as persistent as you are in pursuing your proposals to cease and desist.
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k
    What is the most common sexually-transmitted disease?

    Birth.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Creating work for people is much different than making people work. In an ideal socialistic => anarchistic society, work is not "negative", at least not any more negative than anything else. It's not something you're "enslaved" to. You work and enjoy the work, instead of being completely exhausted by it.

    A symptom, I think, of the increasing shittiness of capitalistic society is the alarming degradation of aesthetics to something that is merely consumed, "force fed" into us. People don't go to movies, or listen to music, to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of it, they go the theaters or buy the next album as a means of escaping or distracting themselves. Watching movies with a deep or ambiguous messages, and unique cinematography, or spending an hour listening to a classical piece, is too hard for the working class.

    Life isn't great but it's made intolerable through capitalism.

    What is the most common sexually-transmitted disease?

    Birth.
    Michael Ossipoff

    More like life.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    However, not having new humans eliminates this dilemma of being forced into working for others demands (and vice versa). Thus antinatalism prevents people from having to work. No need for need if there is no one to need.schopenhauer1

    I'm with Bitter Crank -

    We're not making you or anyone else work except slaves and prisoners. If you don't want to work, go ahead and starve to death. Most of us work because we want to live and have reasonably happy lives. In order to do that, we have to trade our work. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with our current economic system, but that's a whole different issue.
  • Buxtebuddha
    1.7k
    I'm a dumb male, so I usually create more work for myself. I think I'm doing it wrong.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    I'm a dumb male, so I usually create more work for myself. I think I'm doing it wrong.Buxtebuddha

    You're so cute, I just want to pinch your cheek or give you a hug. @ArguingWAristotleTiff says I should. Where do you live?
  • Buxtebuddha
    1.7k
    You can pinch my butt cheek if you'd like.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    You can pinch my butt cheek if you'd like.Buxtebuddha

    Yeah...well.... no.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    You work for someone else's needs, someone else works for your needs. That's how life works, from bacteria up to Schopenhauer.Bitter Crank

    Yet we measly humans can choose to not perpetuate it, that is where the difference is between bacteria and the rest.

    People would like working for each other's needs more if we could get rid of the invisible hand in the iron glove concealed in an economics textbook.Bitter Crank

    How so?

    As for your solution, it's a "one solution to all problems" solution, no matter what the problem is. "Let's all just die out and then every problem will be resolved by our absence. Except, of course, the problem that this creates for those who rather liked being alive -- despite all the deplorably dangerous disasters to which we are positively prone. Nobody thinks it's a perfect world, but a lot of people like it, and your "reprehensible reproduction rigamarole" just isn't appealing to most people.Bitter Crank

    What is it they like so much? All this energy leading to disappointment, suffering harm.. All for a bit of pleasure. What a short-sighted vision this happiness principle is.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    What is the most common sexually-transmitted disease?

    Birth.
    Michael Ossipoff

    Correct
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Creating work for people is much different than making people work. In an ideal socialistic => anarchistic society, work is not "negative", at least not any more negative than anything else. It's not something you're "enslaved" to. You work and enjoy the work, instead of being completely exhausted by it.darthbarracuda

    I just don't see it. Work for what? Sustaining oneself, to work, to sustain, to work, to sustain. We are tragically too self-aware for this scheme- anarchic, communist, mixed economy, capitalist, what have you.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    I just don't see it. Work for what? Sustaining oneself, to work, to sustain, to work, to sustain. We are tragically too self-aware for this scheme- anarchic, communist, mixed economy, capitalist, what have you.schopenhauer1

    No, you are too self-aware for this life. Some of us love the world. For some of us, it is a pleasure to live. Sometimes living is just fun. Please don't project your despair onto the rest of us.
  • T Clark
    13.8k
    What is it they like so much? All this energy leading to disappointment, suffering harm.. All for a bit of pleasure. What a short-sighted vision this happiness principle is.schopenhauer1

    This is pretty pitiful. Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but his is so hideously self-indulgent. Intellectually dishonest.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    This is pretty pitiful. Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but his is so hideously self-indulgent. Intellectually dishonest.T Clark

    Not really.
  • BC
    13.5k
    Watching movies with a deep or ambiguous messages, and unique cinematography, or spending an hour listening to a classical piece, is too hard for the working class.darthbarracuda

    Hey, I came from the working class and I like 'art films' and classical music. Who attends serious films and listens to classical music? All sorts of people -- but it sure isn't limited to the upper crusts of society. (By necessity the big donors to art institutions are all upper class--or filthy rich).

    Why don't more ordinary sods go to the ballet, opera, and symphony? It's too expensive, for one thing. For another, it's offered as elite goods to which only some people are welcome. Put it down where the goats can get at it, and they'll like it.

    When opera and drama were mass entertainments, the masses enjoyed and appreciated them. People like Verdi sometimes gave the musicians the music for an aria he knew would be popular just minutes before the premier of an opera, so that it wouldn't leak and every stevedore would be whistling or singing it in the streets before the opera opened.

    Shakespeare's theater was crowded, with the ground in front of the stage reserved for the cheapest -- SRO tickets. People packed this area, anxious to watch his plays.
  • BC
    13.5k
    People would like working for each other's needs more if we could get rid of the invisible hand in the iron glove concealed in an economics textbook.Bitter Crank

    How so?schopenhauer1

    Work is holy, except when it is alienated, perverted, debased, and made a suffering by capitalism. (It's in Marx--the short Manifesto or the short Value Price and Profit will explain it to you).

    Except where we volunteer our labor because we value the cause, and a scattering of paid jobs which happen to be human, we do not know what unalienated work feels like. But, most of us have had at least a taste of good work, and it tastes good.
  • BC
    13.5k
    Not reallyschopenhauer1

    Really.
  • antinatalautist
    32
    Why do you care about the sufferings of others, especially when these people continue to inform you that they aren't actually suffering?
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Sometimes living is just fun.T Clark

    But many times not.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Except where we volunteer our labor because we value the cause, and a scattering of paid jobs which happen to be human, we do not know what unalienated work feels like. But, most of us have had at least a taste of good work, and it tastes good.Bitter Crank

    I'm not sure causing other people to be born to have goals to fulfill is really good, especially in the light of the fact of contingent harms that will take place.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    Thus antinatalism prevents people from having to work. No need for need if there is no one to need.schopenhauer1
    Work is good, thus antinatalism is bad since it prevents a good.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Work is good, thus antinatalism is bad since it prevents a good.Agustino

    How is making others work good in and of itself other than appeal to some arbitrary divine command theory? It's only good in a hypothetical imperative.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    How is making others work good in and of itself other than appeal to some arbitrary divine command theory? It's only good in a hypothetical imperative.schopenhauer1
    I didn't say making others work, I said work itself is good. Forcing someone to work (like the Nazis did in concentration camps) is not good.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    I didn't say making others work, I said work itself is good. Forcing someone to work (like the Nazis did in concentration camps) is not good.Agustino

    By having people, how is that not forcing them to work de facto? I mean sure, they can always go against their instincts to live, especially when enculturated for a lifetime in a social setting, but that's not going to happen for the majority except the practically non-existent suicidal hermit-ascetic.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    By having people, how is that not forcing them to work de facto? I mean sure, they can always go against their instincts to live, especially when enculturated for a lifetime in a social setting, but that's not going to happen for the majority except the practically non-existent suicidal hermit-ascetic.schopenhauer1
    Boring.

    Simply because there are distinctions between forcing someone and not forcing someone. If I don't put a gun to their head, or take a whip and threaten to whip them if they don't work, then I'm not forcing them.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    Boring.

    Simply because there are distinctions between forcing someone and not forcing someone. If I don't put a gun to their head, or take a whip and threaten to whip them if they don't work, then I'm not forcing them.
    Agustino

    I don't think so. It's pretty basic that by having a child, that child is going to have to find a way to maintain its survival in a social setting- aka work. It is not like it is so far removed- it is very much wrapped into what it means for the child to live its life out.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    I don't think so. It's pretty basic that by having a child, that child is going to have to find a way to maintain its survival in a social setting- aka work. It is not like it is so far removed- it is very much wrapped into what it means for the child to live its life out.schopenhauer1
    Sure, I don't see that it's a problem. Again, work is good. I'm not putting a gun to their head to work. So I'm not forcing them to do anything. I cannot force someone who doesn't yet exist.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.9k
    I'm not putting a gun to their head to work. So I'm not forcing them to do anything. I cannot force someone who doesn't yet exist.Agustino

    By having the child, it is well-known that the child will eventually have to find a way to survive. Having the child, means knowing that the child will have to work to survive. Thus, having a child is forcing the child to eventually have to work to survive. If we look at the fact that humans are animals, and animals that have the same instinct to survive as other animals, not working and starving/dying of exposure seems to not be an option for most.
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