The idea is that you'd have to do that in order for the stance/argument to hold water and be consistent, tenable, coherent, etc. It's up to you whether you want to bother with that work or not, but the consistency problems remain if you don't do the work. It's to your benefit. I'm just pointing out problems/objections. — Terrapin Station

Excuse my language, but give me a fuckn break. I've done the work thousands of times over on this forum and the previous one. Don't lecture me on not doing the work because I am now seeing a pattern in how you post and see it isn't productive discussions that come forth. YOU must do the work of being a more charitable poster as well buddy.

It's just up to you. If you want to ignore the issue, cool. I pointed it out to you, but you can just ignore it if you like. I don't know why you'd not want to try to make the argument unassailable, but okay.

It's just up to you. If you want to ignore the issue, cool. I pointed it out to you, but you can just ignore it if you like. I don't know why you'd not want to try to make the argument unassailable, but okay. — Terrapin Station

It isn't just about defending my argument. there has to be something that actually comes out of it. If you want to help me make my argument stronger, and walk with me through a dialectic process of discovery and see where it takes me, that's one thing. Some posters are good at that. They disagree with my position, but are not disagreeable. You are the opposite. You are simply burn, burn, burn. Notice, I'm not saying you make any good points. Nor that you "got me". Rather, the tone, tenor, and general attitude you present in your posts is simply that of destruction and aggravation, so there is no reason to cause more suffering and bother with that for me. Again, it's not aggravating because you make any good points, nor is it the case I'm trying to "dodge" some really great insights that you have.

I thought we did walk through this, though:

People can evaluate anything as good or bad, where that's akin to yaying or booing the thing in question. This can including booing (saying it's bad) the fact that we're not producing (more) people, booing the absence of good those potential people might have experienced, etc.

Booing is a negative reaction. One boos because one doesn't like something. One isn't comfortable with it, doesn't desire it, isn't satisfied, etc.

My impression was that you considered any dissatisfaction, uncomfortableness, etc., to be "suffering."

You said you do not. So we need to clarify just what negative emotions/reactions/assessments count as "suffering," if evaluating something as bad/booing it doesn't count.

Again, I'm not engaging further, unless you agree to not be disagreeable, and engage with good intentions rather than simply contention mode. Otherwise, again, no use, no matter how compelling you make your posts. I am only doing this with you, because I know the history I have when engaging you. It's like engaging with someone with a personality disorder and you keep getting aggravating replies to everything.. You keep thinking it's you when it is really th e person who has the personality disorder making you crazy. So agree first to not be such a disagreeable poster..while still disagreeing and maybe we can engage further.

Life is the big old monster that is the basis of all else- including suffering. Not being born hurts literally no one. We should all be against procreation. It is what causes the suffering. I don't equate suffering itself with procreation, we all know that procreation inevitably leads to suffering. The great human project can be that which unites us against the principle of procreating more life. This can be our great cause. It is an inversion of the usual trope that life is always good- including the pain. Humanity can finally say, "ENOUGH!" and do something about it, by non-action - that is to simply not have future people. — schopenhauer1

Your title is a joke, I take it? And this is just you venting? Would it not be more productive to create a discussion where you can show that you're dealing with the wealth of criticism that you've amassed? Or at least some of the key points from it?

I mean, this is pretty ridiculous. Calling life a "big old monster"? Haven't we spoken about loaded language before? (I know we have).

?

Your title? Of the discussion?

It's a close call between "It is life itself that we can all unite against" and "With luck, the last thread on abortion" for most comically ironic.

Oh

It isn't gonna happen - that glorious moment where the final fertile person agrees to forego procreation. It's not a realistic cause - its a fantasy. So what ought the antinalist do in the face of that fact? — csalisbury

Learn a valuable lesson? But what if they just can't? What if they're immune to good sense? Keep trying to get through until we're all sick to death, and then we all die of exasperation, and the anti-natalist gets what he wants?

Or maybe just ignore them, or poke fun at them. Basically, do whatever we like and move on. Same time again next week? I wonder what he'll call the next discussion on essentially the same topic yet again. This one is going to be hard to beat. How about, "Groundhog Day"?

Learn a valuable lesson? But what if they just can't? What if they're immune to good sense? Keep trying to get through until we're all sick to death, and then we all die of exasperation, and the anti-natalist gets what he wants?

Or maybe just ignore them, or poke fun at them. Basically, do whatever we like and move on. Same time again next week? I wonder what he'll call the next discussion on essentially the same topic yet again. This one is going to be hard to beat. How about, "Groundhog Day"? — S

Each variation provides a different perspective though. No one stays on queue (cue) though.

This was meant to be about bringing people together in the understanding that we can solve the problem of suffering. It becomes communal and therapeutic.

Each variation provides a different perspective though. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, sure. In this one, you called life "an old monster". In your other one, you probably called it something else, like "a terrible nightmare". And in the one before that, you probably called it something like "an insufferable hell".

This was meant to be about bringing people together in the understanding that we can solve the problem of suffering. It becomes communal and therapeutic. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, bringing everyone together in our mutual antagonism of life itself. Please tell me you see the comic irony in that.

Come on, guys! Let's all hold hands and work towards our own extinction! There's no "I" in team!

The asymmetry makes sense to me, because harm requires a victim. If everyone were to immediately start practicing contraception or abstinence, no one would be harmed by that.

But the Antinatalist goal has a practical problem:

I know people who don't want to bring someone into a societal-world like this one. Fortunately one of them is my girlfriend's daughter. I wouldn't want to either. What if everyone on every inhabited planet in every universe felt that way? No one would ever be born in a bad-society.

The problem:

The judgment, consideration, ethical-ness, caringness, altlurusim, unselfishness, etc. needed for such a choice is exactly what is mostly missing in a bad society. The societal worlds that most need large-scale Antinatalism are the very ones that wouldn't have it.

Michael Ossipoff

10 M

Yeah, bringing everyone together in our mutual antagonism of life itself. Please tell me you see the comic irony in that.

Come on, guys! Let's all hold hands and work towards our own extinction! There's no "I" in team! — S

Of course I do.. I think it's poetic like a MAD comic :D

Of course I do.. I think it's poetic like a MAD comic :D — schopenhauer1

It also calls to mind canto VII of the Inferno. Here's John Ciardi's gloss on the "sullen" in the fifth circle:

Virgil also points out to Dante certain bubbles rising from the slime and informs
him that below that mud lie entombed the souls of the Sullen[...]in death they are buried
forever below the stinking waters of the Styx, gargling the words of an endless chant in a grotesque parody of singing a hymn. — Ciardi

On a more sympathetic note, you might find the section on the "otukungurua" in Gravity's Rainbow interesting

Again, I'm not engaging further, unless you agree to not be disagreeable, and engage with good intentions rather than simply contention mode. Otherwise, again, no use, no matter how compelling you make your posts. I am only doing this with you, because I know the history I have when engaging you. It's like engaging with someone with a personality disorder and you keep getting aggravating replies to everything.. You keep thinking it's you when it is really th e person who has the personality disorder making you crazy. So agree first to not be such a disagreeable poster..while still disagreeing and maybe we can engage further. — schopenhauer1

The problem is that I'm not trying to be disagreeable, so I wouldn't know how to not be that way if that's the way I'm coming across. I'd have to post in a way that's "not me," a way that feels "fake"/dishonest to me, but I wouldn't even know how to start, because I dont know what, exactly, is coming across as disagreeable or why it's coming across that way.

True, it can be hard to change one's personality, online or otherwise. I don't know. The art of disagreeing without being disagreeable or contentious can be hard. Here is something I found in a quick search (mind you I have no idea about this website..just a simple search about disagree vs. disagreeable). Perhaps this can give you some ideas.

For some, every statement seems to be an invitation to do battle under the guise of playing “Devil’s advocate”, and that grows tiresome after it becomes habitual instead of thoughtful. (Someone recently wrote a great post about the downside of Devil’s Advocacy, but I’ll be darned if I can find it. Drop a link in the comments if you have it). It’s as if dissention is a badge of honor, that agreeing with someone means you’re nothing more than a lemming, and that being argumentative is the only way to prove that you have something valuable to say because you aren’t following the herd.

Walking away from disagreement that’s fruitless doesn’t mean we don’t respect the importance and the reality of diversity of thought. It’s a choice to entertain it in a less combative environment.

My good friend and intellectual sparring partner Matt Ridings is adept at disagreeing with things without being disagreeable, and he’s taught me plenty. So is my co-author Tamsen McMahon (and I deeply admire the temperance with which she greets the world at large). Julien Smith is brilliant at challenging my assumptions and perceptions while never making me feel attacked, inferior, or condescended. All of those make for great discussion, for self reflection, for great intellectual food for thought.

There is a difference, my friends, between disagreeing, and being disagreeable. Have you felt this? Do you see the difference? And how can we all be more conscious of which we’re doing? — https://ambernaslund.com/disagreement-vs-disagreeable/

This was meant to be about bringing people together in the understanding that we can solve the problem of suffering. — schopenhauer1

It can't do that because nobody has that understanding. We all know that the urge to procreate is far too strong for a movement against it to ever be successful in persuading everybody to have no offspring.

So no matter how fervently an antinatalist might believe, and evangelise their message, that procreation is immoral, they will never succeed. New people will continue to be born as long as the world remains habitable by large numbers of humans, and those new people will encounter suffering (as well as joy and a whole host of other experiences).

On a more sympathetic note, you might find the section on the "otukungurua" in Gravity's Rainbow interesting — csalisbury

Interesting.. I read a little of some passages from Gravity's Rainbow in a Google search.. Interesting. What I saw, the Herero were choosing not to procreate and die off rather than live in their conditions. But, I'm probably missing a lot of the context being that I just read a small part.

It can't do that because nobody has that understanding. We all know that the urge to procreate is far too strong for a movement against it to ever be successful in persuading everybody to have no offspring. — andrewk

But what does this urge "feel" like? What does it spring from?

So no matter how fervently an antinatalist might believe, and evangelise their message, that procreation is immoral, they will never succeed. New people will continue to be born as long as the world remains habitable by large numbers of humans, and those new people will encounter suffering (as well as joy and a whole host of other experiences). — andrewk

I agree that thinking of life holistically, and questioning whether to put people in it is not very popular. Why do you think that is?

The asymmetry which is a big part of Benatar's antinatalist argument is that absense of "good" is not "bad" unless there is an actual person to be deprived of that good. However, asymmetrically, abscense of bad is good, even if there is no actual person to enjoy this good. — schopenhauer1

Interesting perspective. However, it's a bit too authoritarian in my taste to tell people what is good or bad. What makes things good or bad? Well, that's the opinions people hold about things. If everyone agreed murder isn't bad, it wouldn't be. In fact, groups of people throughout history have decided that murder is sometimes good and have performed it on numerous occasions for various reasons. Giving any one person/group the power to decide what is worth pain seems like a bit of a dangerous thing to do, considering that people are very easily corrupted. Even if everyone agreed that being a parent was morally wrong, could we rely on the people enforcing that to not value their own comfort over the comfort of the newly born? The only way I see antinatalism being a foolproof and valid argument is under two conditions, one being that everyone agrees that making new people is wrong, and the second being that we had a mechanism of destroying all life on the planet simultaneously without fail. (After all, if we don't get everything, beings could be born and suffer again) I don't think either of those criteria is met right now, and they may never be.

However, if they ever are, and we decide to act on this line of reasoning, you will then become right. Until then, I would guess that every culture on Earth would generally disagree.

The judgment, consideration, ethical-ness, caringness, altlurusim, unselfishness, etc. needed for such a choice is exactly what is mostly missing in a bad society. The societal worlds that most need large-scale Antinatalism are the very ones that wouldn't have it. — Michael Ossipoff

This is true. It takes a tremendous amount of altruism and caringness for people to not procreate for the considerations of not making a new person suffer. It also takes a certain understanding of the implications of being born. I think it is not just lack of altruism (which is part of it), but lack of deep analysis.

But what does this urge "feel" like? What does it spring from? — schopenhauer1

For what it feels like, you'd have to ask the people that are having children now. My youngest is aged nineteen, so I can't remember. For where it springs from, I'd say evolution. Species that don't have an inbuilt urge to procreate will be replaced by those that do.

But regardless of whether we can answer either of those questions, we can be sure that the urge is there as a powerful driver in many humans, enough so that it can never be practical to expect all humans to voluntarily resist it.

Interesting.. I read a little of some passages from Gravity's Rainbow in a Google search.. Interesting. What I saw, the Herero were choosing not to procreate and die off rather than live in their conditions. But, I'm probably missing a lot of the context being that I just read a small part. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, in the book its a tribal suicide. The context is pretty complicated & its been a decade since I read it - but as I recall, its something like a mandala of stances toward life, each part of which powers a Rocket (which can be read as death or mystical union or enlightenment or stillness, or gnostic awakening etc. depending). The idea of collective suicide (through ceasing procreation) is one part of the mandala. (I'm probably butchering this though.)

But, back to your OP. Since actually ending procreation is impractical, and since you seem to be putting less emphasis on realizing that goal, and more on mission and community - what about joining a meditation community? To work on stilling your own desire, helping and being helped by others?

I never disagree with someone just to disagree or because I don't want to agree. I'd be happy to agree, but you'd need to say something I agree with. :razz:

I don't believe there's merit to just letting slide things we think are misconceived or in error when we're doing philosophy (or science etc.) Aren't we aiming to "get right what the world is like"? Otherwise what are we doing?

I never disagree with someone just to disagree or because I don't want to agree. I'd be happy to agree, but you'd need to say something I agree with. :razz:

I don't believe there's merit to just letting slide things we think are misconceived or in error when we're doing philosophy (or science etc.) Aren't we aiming to "get right what the world is like"? Otherwise what are we doing? — Terrapin Station

Again, I have no problem with disagreement. It's the way you do it. Have you ever dealt with someone who has a personality disorder? There's a way to do things that don't bring ire. You are irkesome sir. I don't know what else to say. I don't like debating irksome people and I have debated many people who I disagree with and have been frustrated with..but I draw the line at irking.

<shrug> :roll:

But, back to your OP. Since actually ending procreation is impractical, and since you seem to be putting less emphasis on realizing that goal, and more on mission and community - what about joining a meditation community? To work on stilling your own desire, helping and being helped by others? — csalisbury

Well, that is a very Schopenhaurean suggestion, but probably not a life I could live in a dedicated way to. I'm more interested in the "great outdoors" of society and understanding its ends. Micro-decisions like procreation have such profound implications. What is the point of bringing another person into the world? What are we here for in the first place? I wish this was more of a focus rather than, the darned TPS reports.. .This economic system keeping things going, but we don't know what it's going for. Look at modern life. We can have illusions it can be different, but von Hartmann had some interesting insights in this regard- the illusion is that happiness can be had in the present, the hereafter, or a future utopian state. So where does that leave us if indeed he is correct? Pretend, for a minute that he is correct. Where does that leave us?

For what it feels like, you'd have to ask the people that are having children now. My youngest is aged nineteen, so I can't remember. For where it springs from, I'd say evolution. Species that don't have an inbuilt urge to procreate will be replaced by those that do.

But regardless of whether we can answer either of those questions, we can be sure that the urge is there as a powerful driver in many humans, enough so that it can never be practical to expect all humans to voluntarily resist it. — andrewk

I'd like to bring your attention to my response to csalisbury above: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/259599