You make it seem like everyone's daily life is one of transforming earth into a possible paradise. No. Collective achievements are not daily life. Naming off things like indoor plumbing and air conditioning do not make life thus utopia. Pointing to some future time of things being utopia due to technological innovations would also miss the point of necessary suffering involved in the human animal. Contingent sufferings, as things that I've listed, are not going to end any time soon either — schopenhauer1
I don't think anyone is exempt from knowing their situation and then having to keep going. — schopenhauer1
Rather, we can know we dislike a situation, but know we have to do it.
We have evolved this consciousness which in turn can resent any moment. — schopenhauer1
Yes, overcoming them is not going to be easy but, the what matters is it's not an impossibility. — TheMadFool
However, technology will, with some amount of luck and a whole lot of sweat and toil, make our pain sensory apparatus obsolete. Just as our vermiform appendix is a vestigial organ serving only to remind us of our herbivorous ancestry, our nociceptive system will become nothing more than a curiosity to our descendants. — TheMadFool
But I suppose it's what you mean by "knowing their situation," .. What do you mean by this?
Even so, animals are capable of feeling distress, mistreatment, agony, and so forth. They are capable of "disliking every moment," like the human. Unless you mean something beyond this in a higher degree, which is why I posed there are humans that lapse out of these degrees and function at lower levels than others, or not at all. They would be "exempt". — Cobra
Necessary suffering. People are not to be used as bridges for your idea of a possible future utopia. Utopia means nowhere. The point was that it doesn't exist anyways. — schopenhauer1
Again, people aren't to be used for future schemes. But necessary suffering doesn't go away unless we are no longer self-conscious beings. We are beings that need to survive, get more comfortable, and entertain ourselves. In short, we are dissatisfied to some extent at almost every moment, and know of this disutility, by way of trying to change it. Necessary suffering doesn't just go away in your year 2300 scenario. Besides which, it seems like we seem to be going the opposite way than a utopia, even if we were to indulge your sci-fi tendencies. But that is a different topic for a different thread.. global warming, pandemics, pollution, overpopulation, etc. etc. — schopenhauer1
I agree, we're the kind who never are satisfied - contentment is a word that fails to describe any one in the entire history of humanity. However, this major issue shouldn't hold us back from fixing the minor problems, right? There's the phrase "to settle for..." and we should appreciate its underlying spirit. — TheMadFool
However, technology will, with some amount of luck and a whole lot of sweat and toil, make our pain sensory apparatus obsolete. — TheMadFool
I don't think anyone is exempt from knowing their situation and then having to keep going. — schopenhauer1
Antinatalism, anyone? — Bird-Up
We are addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, yet we admire the ignorant. I suppose we are conflicted, to say the least. — Bird-Up
We are never fully satisfied, and constantly in need and want. We can't stay long in boredom. We need to be entertained. We strive, struggle, deal with in complex social arrangements to maneuver. We can know every moment that we need to get something done, or something is not satisfying, or simply life itself is empty. — schopenhauer1
Yet, we keep putting more people into it. — schopenhauer1
We are the animal that knows our situation. — schopenhauer1
Wait until you hear of Efilism.Antinatalism, anyone? — Bird-Up
I would agree that humans will eventually escape the limits of their own suffering. As long as we strive to master our own bodies, sooner or later, we will flip the pain switch into the "off" position. It would be hard to imagine a scenario in which we could resist doing so. This would apply to both physical and psychological pain.
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So such pursuits would not be relevant to the discussion of today's suffering; even if the realization that suffering will someday cease, brings a sense of comfort with it. — Bird-Up
“constantly in need and want” – a definition of life.
Do you remember one moment where you didn’t needed or wanted anything?
If so (and that’s a very big ‘If’) how long did it last?
And how long did and does the opposite state last, constant need and want?
Is being in a state constantly deprived of whatever things there are, a good state of being – or a bad one? — Zn0n
“Life is empty” is a great existential-nihilist statement, though from a perspective of pessimism I think one could even say it is worse than empty, because suffering isn’t nothing, it’s negative – to adapt the picture, one could say life isn’t just an empty room, it is a sewer. — Zn0n
I surely won’t, and I think we should be more exact on this.
There really is no single entity called ‘the human race’ but only a bunch of individuals and saying things like “humans rape, murder, birth” is this fuzzy, collectivist mindset, especially if you (semantically) identify with this collective ("we").
I don’t. And many others neither (and then there are many who do the right thing for completely wrong reasons or even accidentally).
I don’t even identify with all living humans as a group and for sure not with this concept of “the human race” as a whole.
Excuse my semantic rant, that was besides the point you made, that life is inherently a bad thing. — Zn0n
You do for sure, but for how long are you really aware, and how many others are similarly aware?
There are quite some inherent human biases that need to be overcome, like the appeal to nature-fallacy (“nature is great because it sometimes looks nice, even though it’s a torturous death-colosseum”) and this brutal naivity in children – getting rid of these two alone is a very painful process to go through, and this is only what comes down to putting some glasses on. — Zn0n
I'm laughing because of the irony. Almost all my discussions center around antinatalism or philosophical pessimism, so thought it was funny you brought it up as if I've never heard of it — schopenhauer1
Wait until you hear of Efilism. — Zn0n
How could you possibly be so optimistic about this?! — Zn0n
@schopenhauer1Humans are the only animal that can really hate any and every moment.
What is so special about humans, as an animal, that they and only they, have the potential to hate every moment? — MSC
I feel a lot of assumptions have been made in your OP, as to our knowledge of the inner emotional lives of animals. — MSC
Yep, I assume animals don't have self-awareness. I can't tell what an animal is feeling, but I know it is not the same type of awareness as human,
Humans are the only animal that can really hate any and every moment. Other animals may feel pain in their own way, but they don't seem to despair of their situation, or not to the full understanding we do, with our linguistic, self-reflective brain. Yes, you can have depressed animals, but not ones that wish they were never born. Not ones that know they don't live in a utopian world. Not ones that can at any moment, hate what they have to do to get by. — schopenhauer1
We certainly are driven by survival, comfort, and entertainment, but we know our own disutility in all these areas. — schopenhauer1
We know it sucks to be very hungry, that we need to make various goals in a complex world to gain items to consume for our survival, comfort, and entertainment. — schopenhauer1
Completely agree.. Don't forget Pollyanna tendencies, and group-think. If people are ridiculed for stating these things enough, it will be "picked up" from the rest of the group to also denigrate those who have this awareness. — schopenhauer1
It's funny you bring up children. I have less empathy than others perhaps on this. Yes, there is naivete, and one can say closer to "animal like' in this but there is a dark side to the child experience. The child is also less aware of how sociopathic he/she can be, not having fully developed brains. So I am not predisposed to provide a rosy view on this period in human development. — schopenhauer1
It is kind of funny to think that this is almost the same reasoning that people used to justify slavery. But it turned out that it was the white man that was ignorant. — Sir2u
That was an inspiring read. So what, functionally speaking, differentiates an Antinatalist from an Efilist? — Bird-Up
Does the Efilist also assert that preexisting life should not be lived? — Bird-Up
That continued existence itself is a crime? — Bird-Up
It seems like Efilism demands suicide, murder, or possibly both. — Bird-Up
Anyone who truly subscribes to Efilism must already be gone. — Bird-Up
What do you mean specifically? Are you saying humanity is more likely to become extinct before they reach that technological milestone? — Bird-Up
Stuff has to get done. You have to do it or externalities will get you. Survival. You feel an itch, you feel cold, you feel bored, you feel dirty, you feel you need an extra item you are missing. Comfort. You are lonely, your mind needs something active. You need to be more "mindful", you need to exercise, you need to go on a vacation, you need to, you need to, you need to. Entertainment. It isn't going away.
I call of this "dealing with". Many people unthinkingly resent much of this but can't make the connection to being born itself. It's just too global. They have been enculturated to think just right near their noses. Hard-nosed realists, pragmatists, etc. But the problem is global. It is getting people to see that it is the problem with life itself. It is existential, not situational. Not circumstantial. It's whack-a-mole. You think you fix the problem, but it is unceasing. It is part of the structure. AND now add all the contingent suffering I mentioned. — schopenhauer1
Antinatalists are assuming, erroneously, the future will be no different from the present or the past. The Problem Of Induction — TheMadFool
Well the discussion was giving off a strong scent of Antinatalism, so I just had to throw the word in there. I'll try to get caught up on those 4,500 other posts when I have the time. Wow, you could have written a book by now! (Maybe you have?) Not bad for a Cardinal with a keyboard. — Bird-Up
There are shades of gray and not black-and-white differences between humans and other animals in cognitive abilities. While animals might not ponder life and death the way humans do, they still may have some sense of self. — MSC
And no, this isn't about having a sense of self like the mirror test or anything like that. — schopenhauer1
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