The "problem" with pessimism (life is essentially bad) is, in my view, that it lives in a state of contradiction. If life is bad, then suicide looks like the only consistent and heroic move. — who
It's not that suffering-management is bad, but Stoicism's response ends here. It stops short of proposing ways to prevent suffering from occurring in the first place. — OglopTo
Why should anyone take seriously this absurd reasoning? It's like offering the so-called solution of cutting off your hand to prevent getting a splinter, then having the gall to criticise other solutions for being imperfect. If it's not jumping to this extreme, it's some lame appeal to art. — Sapientia
essimism might be described as a negative emotional or presumptive reaction — VagabondSpectre
First, I don't think that the complexity of human life and suffering can be captured by the simple splinter analogy you gave. For one, I think that we both agree that one's hand obviously serves a purpose and it isn't worthwhile to cut off one's hand for the mere reason of a possibility of getting a splinter. — OglopTo
On the other hand, there is no unanimous agreement on the (cosmic) purpose served by a new being so you can't help people from arguing that it is not worthwhile to subject additional beings to inevitable suffering for this vague/unknown purpose. The motivation is born out of compassion and I think it is quite hurtful if you just call names without providing adequate alternatives yourself. — OglopTo
I'm simply arguing against these arguments because I disagree with them. — Sapientia
I feel like I should point out the great costs to humanity their proposal would cause — Sapientia
What do you want from me? Some miraculous cure for suffering? — Sapientia
It's OK to disagree but I think it is quite counter-productive to just call names. It would have been better if you shared the reason why you disagree. You can say that it's a personal preference and I would be OK with that. — OglopTo
I feel like I should point out the great costs to humanity their proposal would cause. — Sapientia
And this is exactly one of the reasons why one ought to question the 'practice' of procreation.
It's 'instrumentalizing' new people for one's/societies' ideologies, ad infinitum. In blunter terms, "it's OK for them to be subjected to suffering because it's for <insert ideology here> sake". Hence the question, — OglopTo
Can you give a non-selfish reason for promoting procreation? — OglopTo
I think there is already a concensus that suffering is inevitable in human existence. — OglopTo
The question with procreation is, why would you want to create another batch of beings-who-will-inevitably-suffer? Right now, I can only think of instrumental reasons, e.g. for the sake of X ideology. — OglopTo
new, frightening, wonderful and countless other emotions. — Sapientia
I didn't just call names, though, did I? — Sapientia
So why does this tragicomedy have to be carried out in the first place? Why must there be someone to live out the "journey"? This seems like a hidden is-ought fallacy: because people live a mixed tragicomedy life of good/bad this must be carried out by future generations. — schopenhauer1
Add to this the idea that we posses an overabundance of consciousness whereby we must try to forget that existence itself is simply instrumental striving-for-nothing (ya know- planet spins, sun goes up and down, we are always in a state of unrest and deprivation: we must kill time and survive by trying to get at any cultural/survival/entertainment goal we are lacking at any given time, all the while using mechanisms of distraction and achoring to try to cope.) — schopenhauer1
Even if we see our condition for the vain striving that it is (when seen in its pure form), it does not stop the Will from willing. — schopenhauer1
Not only this, but all the instrumentality plays out whilst experiencing varying degrees of intrusive and unwanted pain. Thus instrumentality at the core of our existence and unwanted pain eating away at the contingencies of our existence are thus two type of suffering that exist for the human animal. — schopenhauer1
But supposedly certain schools of thought have a solution! We can 'overcome' our suffering by diminishing our own bad habits so as to live in accordance with Natural Reason. In this advanced mindset, we simply accept life in order to bare through it to the point of not even thinking about the suffering as suffering.. If we can build a warrior mindsets that can withstand bad, or not even look at the situation as bad, we can henceforth conquer the bad. Thus, the story goes, the "saintly" methodology of those who have cultivated virtuous lives will show the rest of humanity by virtue of their virtue the veracity of this mode of thought through diligent self-restraint, discipline, and practice. The true warrior Way is manifested as the adherent increases his power to master his own mind and become indifferent to that which unnecessarily causes pain. Overtime, that which seemed harmful to the warrior will not even be considered a harm. The long, arduous path of the disciplined saint will be deemed worth the effort, as towards the end equanimity of mind and the cultivated judgement of a good character will ensue... Or so the pipe dream ideal goes.
Why someone has to go through this warrior path of the disciplined virtuous saint in the first place is not explained other than it is good in and of itself which is of course begging the question. Rather, it does nothing to counter the many examples here of how people suffer, how people have to go through this "saintly" path in the first place just to get to a place so that harm supposedly makes little impact on a person.. All this work to "overcome' when it could have simply been avoided. The much more elegant and justified answer is antinatalism. There is no arduous journey to have to master, there is no unwanted pain, there is no instrumentality (whether just living it, (or even worse) the self-awareness of it.. ). — schopenhauer1
From your reply, I get the following:
1. There is value in human existence and its perpetuation, hence, human extinction should be avoided.
2. Offspring give parents joy. Parents want their offspring to experience joy.
3. You're glad to have been born, even if it was born out of selfish reasons. — OglopTo
You see no harm in creating a new being. — OglopTo
(1) I want a child because of <insert selfish reason here>. — OglopTo
(2) I want to bring new beings who will experience joy.
If this is your reasoning, it is necessary to explain why we need to have new beings to experience joy. It's not like we need to have X billion enlightened people before life ceases in the universe and then its mission accomplished. — OglopTo
(3) There is inherent value in human existence, so extinction must be avoided. — OglopTo
(4) I'm glad I'm born and I see no harm in creating new beings — OglopTo
I think this is also selfish in the sense that you are projecting your (potentially limited, and probably subjective) worldview to a non-existent someone who cannot give his consent beforehand. — OglopTo
If you are truly compassionate for the suffering that this non-existent someone will surely experience, why would you gamble that he will eventually reach a similar worldview? — OglopTo
What is to be gained with this gamble? — OglopTo
If you say that the joy is worth the suffering, are you not imposing your own value-judgment on to someone who may not necessarily agree. — OglopTo
But then again, is it even fair to gamble with someone's life in the first place? — OglopTo
(5) It's just the way things are.
Err... — OglopTo
For starters, given our many discussions on this subject, you should know by now that "must" and "have to" have no place in my view about procreation. — Sapientia
I find it odd or perhaps convenient that you choose to bring up the is-ought issue now, on this particular topic, regarding what you take to be my views, when it is a general problem which applies across the board to virtually anyone... and you are no exception. — Sapientia
Sure, there are varying degrees of pain and suffering that we experience from time to time, and there are also varying degrees of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness and contentedness which we experience from time to time. That's life. I don't somehow jump from that to the absurd conclusion that extinction would be best. — Sapientia
I don't agree with all of that, and it's clear that your intention is to ridicule, but I think that it's still a better alternative to pessimism, especially when coupled with anti-natalism, which is far more ridiculous than stoicism. — Sapientia
1. Presence of suffering in life is not sufficient reason not to procreate. — OglopTo
2. That it is a good thing for new people to get to experience the joys in life is reason enough [to procreate]. — OglopTo
3. There is some value in human existence. More specifically, you place value on a life-well-lived. You deem allowing new beings to experience this as altruistic. — OglopTo
4. Since majority are glad that they are alive, it is likely that the new generation will feel the same way.
5. You believe that life will, more often than not, turn out to be 'worthwhile'. You're willing to gamble that a new life will turn out to be good rather than bad because the odds are in your favor.
6. While you think it isn't advisable, in case of really awful situations, someone's offspring can opt for suicide.
7. That procreation is a one-way contract is a non-issue.
8. [Humanity] will be 'worse off' if it goes extinct. — OglopTo
9. That procreation is 'just the way things are' holds weight in the debate. — OglopTo
Wow. I think that we disagree on almost all of the above that I'm not sure if I can flesh out a detailed response.
So I guess I'll just leave it here for now. :) — OglopTo
I believe I brought this up many times in the past, and OglopTo has just brought it up, presumably independently, again here — schopenhauer1
Except that under my views the "ought" leads to no negative consequences and in your is-ought fallacy it leads to callousness- — schopenhauer1
essentially "The world has a mix of suffering and thus since people are able to deal with it, it is justified for future people to deal with it". — schopenhauer1
(I must make a non-sequiter here and point out that negative consequences does not happen to a species or an ideal, but rather to individuals, so any point about negative consequences to the species or to human experience seems moot and is only lamented by already-existing individuals whose attachment to this idea would subside or at the least would die out with them. To suggest the "pain" of a lost species trumps any individual pain of a future human would be indeed falling into the error of putting an "X" reason for someone else's suffering). — schopenhauer1
But, you presume extinction is a real issue. Antinatalists, by and large are not thinking about "extinction" because they don't think about ethics in species-wide terms when it comes to the consequence of antinatalism. No one would be around to mourn a lost species and the mourning itself is misplaced as, it is the individual suffering which is prevented. You are projecting a future without humans (which will happen anyways) and then retroactively saying that this terror you feel trumps suffering of individuals. This seems misplaced at best. — schopenhauer1
Let's be clear about this: either neither of us are committing an "is-ought fallacy" or we both are. Please stop superficially attempting to make your own position appear to be stronger. — Sapientia
You, on the other hand, appear to have no sympathy for alleviating suffering in order to make the most out of life - which, I shouldn't have to point out, is contrary to seeking the extinction of life. That isn't humanitarian, that's anti-humanity.
In a sick twist, you seem to actually believe that you're on the side of humanity, and that you have compassion on your side, and that you get to take the moral high ground. This couldn't be further from the truth. — Sapientia
I'm talking about humanity as a whole, which is of course composed of numerous individual humans. There is nothing unreasonable about addressing the consequences to humanity. Consider it a shorthand. — Sapientia
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