Yeah, but then we're right back to square one. Affecting is a very broad term, which is why the claim that creating someone "affects" them is plausible. This is no longer the case when we use more concrete terms like imposing or causing conditions of harm. The whole causation argument has been done to death, as has the imposition one. — Echarmion
These are, like all paradoxes, caused by modes of thinking, which can be rejected. But the anti-natalist solution seems to be to instead find the one who is responsible for the paradox, and ask them to fix it. Blaming your parents for something they did not do - indeed cannot do. — Echarmion
I know from my own experience of human embodiment that there are significant burdens involved. — Inyenzi
why create another human body with perpetual needs that must endlessly be strove against, and only for this person to die in the end regardless? — Inyenzi
the joys of eating are predicated upon having a stomach — Inyenzi
the source of this food is rooted in harm (eg, someone must labour to produce the food, bring it to market, in many cases horrific animal harm and cruelty being involved). — Inyenzi
To justify creating a body with a stomach, by pointing out how good it is to feed it, strikes me as absurd. — Inyenzi
Better to just not create the deficiency in the first place, to not create a body with a need for food. — Inyenzi
Again.. way too many words for something you probably knew. — schopenhauer1
It is simply asking not to create this deprivation or deprivation-states. — schopenhauer1
there are a lot of great things to enjoy in life. Most people seem to agree — Isaac
Yeah, likewise. The arguments have been done to death. The problems with your arguments are very obvious to me, but you either cannot or do not want to see them. — Echarmion
But that's such a weird request. Deprivation is a human mental category. It's not a physical description but a value judgement. It's not your parents that think of all life as deprivation. It's you. — Echarmion
Why is it everyone couches disagreement as the other side not 'understanding'? — Isaac
So definitions aside, I don't see what difference there is. It might well be your responsibility to ensure I'm suited — Isaac
Is absolutely evidently insufficient. Driving is a risky undertaking. You risk harming others in doing so, that much is unarguable. — Isaac
And as Benkei has pointed out, the odds of causing net harm to a future person are pretty low. — Isaac
I've also stated that other people may decide differently. — Benkei
You claim that the "chance of bad outcome" needs to be near 100% for having children to start to be considered wrong.
— khaled
Yup. That's my personal moral intuition — Benkei
And you claim at the same time that putting the bar at >0% is wrong. On what basis?
I never said that. I said the question doesn't pertain to reality and as such the question is moot — Benkei
all is what I would require as a standard before I'd even consider inflicting human embodiment upon another person. — Inyenzi
the pronatalist/antinatalist position starts and ends with a question of what kind of man/woman one aspires to be. — Inyenzi
Do I inflict a burden where it need not exist, or don't I? — Inyenzi
Do I have the self-discipline to deny my biological programming, or don't I? — Inyenzi
Do I aspire to do what is moral, or to simply indulge my base instincts to breed like every other mammal? — Inyenzi
I imagine the vast majority of antinatalist/pronatalist debates on this forum are in reality debates between those with children and those without. — Inyenzi
The antinatalist simply requires a higher standard for the creation of life that another human body must deal with — Inyenzi
Do I aspire to do what is moral, or to simply indulge my base instincts to breed like every other mammal? What kind of person do I want to be, and what kind of self-discipline is required to achieve it? — Inyenzi
It doesn't matter what we think, it is the mode of existing as a human being embodied in the world. You don't have to make a judgement as you are being deprived. You are just deprived. — schopenhauer1
I think this is avoiding the question. Clearly "deprived" isn't the name of a fundamental force in the universe. Whether one sees all existence as deprivation, or sees individual cases of deprivation that can be solved is a question of perspective. — Echarmion
What you said wasn't disagreement, you were refuting a misunderstanding of the argument. I am not arguing that there is a person who is benefited by antinatalism, or that there is someone who is harmed by birth (although suffering does result from it). And yet everyone here just keeps refuting the same 2 arguments, even though I'm not (and no one is really) making them. — khaled
In what world? If I was your parent and you had some important interview or something maybe :rofl: But other than that, I don't see why I would have a responsibility to keep a stranger suited. Didn't cross my mind. — khaled
And NOT driving is also very bad because then I can't work. So my job is to get good enough at driving that the harm done to me due to not being able to work starts to be comparable (hopefully less) than the "expected value" of harm I can cause. — khaled
The difference is, in the case of a future person, the amount of "harm" I alleviate from myself by having a child is insignificant to the amount I cause by having one. — khaled
I just don't get the idea that we want to make other people deal with any kind of thing. — schopenhauer1
But I don't necessarily have to subscribe to that kind of metaphysics to get the point. Being alive entails essentially being de facto forced into deprivations of the survival, comfort, entertainment varieties. — schopenhauer1
I just don't get the idea that we want to make other people deal with any kind of thing. The natalists response is to, again, "deal with it" or "go kill yourself". I just don't find that acceptable. — schopenhauer1
The analogy wasn't necessarily aimed at you. — Isaac
For fuck's sake, it was an analogy and hopefully you knew perfectly well it was an analogy when you wrote it, otherwise it was mindnumbingly stupid thing to write. To make the analogy correct, we'd have to add that there are situations where it is your responsibility to buy me a suit. — Isaac
There is some benefit A which carries a risk B to person C. If I'm under no duty to provide benefit A then it is not appropriate to take risk B if I cannot get the consent of person C to do so. IF, however, I'm under some responsibility to provide benefit A and still can't get the consent of person C, I might well take risk B because failing to provide A would be no less of a risk - be an equally morally relevant outcome. — Isaac
The risk that a person might end up displeased with their life is worth taking because not taking it also causes harms. — Isaac
Why are you suddenly only taking into account the harm you alleviate from yourself as the only positive in the balance? — Isaac
I mean.... it was written in response to me. Kind of confusing. — khaled
It is, but I'm just saying that nothing in it implied that I have the responsibility of keeping you suited. But yes there are cases where that could be true. — khaled
don't tell me "harm you alleviate from others" because I could also easily argue that your child will cause a fair share of harm. — khaled
No. It had no notification attached to it, quite deliberately. — Isaac
We can also add to this that in some moral frameworks, it's not unreasonable to assign a duty to members of a community, and as such we would assume this duty of our imaginary child when predicting their opinion. — Isaac
A world with no-one in it is not a good world — Isaac
and (4) would indicate that avoiding those harms via extinction would be self-defeating — Isaac
No. It had no notification attached to it, quite deliberately. — Isaac
Weird, I got one. I've been getting notified by quotes sometimes. — khaled
Idk what their duty would have to do with their opinion of life. Don't see what you're trying to say with 3a — khaled
I'm not after "good worlds" whatever those are. — khaled
It is a fact of the matter that having children produces more suffering than not. — khaled
What's the point of behaving morally, for you? — Isaac
So why would you want to reduce suffering...above all else...seemingly to the complete exclusion of all other considerations? — Isaac
There is some benefit A which carries a risk B to person C. If I'm under no duty to provide benefit A then it is not appropriate to take risk B if I cannot get the consent of person C to do so. IF, however, I'm under some responsibility to provide benefit A and still can't get the consent of person C, I might well take risk B because failing to provide A would be no less of a risk - be an equally morally relevant outcome — Isaac
we instead all have to make the right decisions everyday, with everything. — Echarmion
Because you want an option where you exist, but don't have to deal with it? Isn't that what heaven is? — Echarmion
I think the conclusion is wrong though. Because other people are unhappy, I should be too, thereby increasing unhappiness? Seems to be the wrong way to go about it. Moreover poverty is in decline across the world(...) — Benkei
I have compared this to a Stockholm syndrome scenario. The child becomes grateful to the parent without realising the nature of the relationship and the imposition. — Andrew4Handel
Those are the de facto conditions. That is the game. I don't like to start games for other people. — schopenhauer1
Smug assumptions and conclusions to do on behalf of other people if you ask me. — schopenhauer1
IT doesn't matter if the world that is better doesn't actually exist, it's just not this world. — schopenhauer1
Those are the de facto conditions. That is the game. I don't like to start games for other people.
— schopenhauer1
The whole game thing is an analogy though. Life isn't a game, because games are a part of life. Life just is, no-one decided that this is how human life feels to us. — Echarmion
I don't know what's smug about it. No-one here is claiming that everyone should be happy about their particular lot. But perhaps it seems smug because it throws a wrench into the fantasy of the "perfect" life. — Echarmion
I just have this theory that anti-natalism is a secularised version of heaven. You see all the pain and suffering in the world and look for a metaphysical way out. Some way to fight all the evils at once, without actually having to figure out a solution for anything in particular. — Echarmion
What's the point of behaving morally, for you? — Isaac
Behaving morally. — khaled
Having kids is like buying the suit with your money when I don't have a responsibility to keep you suited. Just with way higher stakes. There is no factor here that I’ve outlined as important that I’m not considering as far as I see. The fact that you tried to sneak in the “extinction bad” thing again without outright saying it (because you know I don’t see it as a worthy goal, but something that has to come out of the morality naturally) suggests that you know this too. — khaled
more smug... Smug, smug, smug, smug... — schopenhauer1
Yep yep yep. smug smug smug.. I get it. You can reinforce it with more smug responses and I'll entertain it. — schopenhauer1
But, someone is being started in life.. and the analogy is that the "game" is one of life or death. You either live the structural and contingent conditions or you die. — schopenhauer1
It's smug to assume people should play the game.. that is to say start the game for other people to play. — schopenhauer1
?Irritatingly pleased with oneself, offensively self-complacent, self-satisfied.
I am characterizing the position that other people need to live life so they can find solutions as a smug argument yes. The word I really mean here is paternalistic. Smug is sort of self-righteous condescension. That would be more like the tone of responses from certain posters here looking to start fights. — schopenhauer1
Why do people have to be put in a circumstance where they have to figure out a solution for anything in particular? — schopenhauer1
For someone who poo poos my analogy about a game, you are sure reiterating it. — schopenhauer1
You can reinforce it with more smug responses and I'll entertain it. Keep your greatest hits coming. — schopenhauer1
'Arguments' and 'responses' are not smug. People are. — Isaac
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