Are we the individual, here to carry out some Protestant Work Ethic ethos? In more general terms, are we here to maintain institutions? To consume, to work, to live in a country is to maintain its institutions. Are we the maintenance crew of some sort of institutional perpetuation. — schopenhauer1

You may not care, but the Protestant Work Ethic (as conceived by Luther) is that all work is holy and in the service of God and one another. Capitalism certainly doesn't give a rat's ass about work being holy, but it took over the PWE for it's own purposes.

On the topic of what we are here for, Jesus the Primo Protestant said

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’"

From a Christian POV (Protestant or Catholic) that is what we are here for.

As for the Protest Work Ethic, what the Protestant agitator himself (Luther) said was:

…the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks…all works are measured before God by faith alone.

All work is holy work, and it is through our work that we care for each other--love one another.

This is ONE VIEW of why we are here. I recommend it only to the extent that it beats whatever you've got.

As for the Protest Work Ethic, what the Protestant agitator himself (Luther) said was:

…the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks…all works are measured before God by faith alone.

All work is holy work, and it is through our work that we care for each other--love one another.

This is ONE VIEW of why we are here. I recommend it only to the extent that it beats whatever you've got. — Bitter Crank

The context of this was to ask why we perpetuate institutions. Cavacava mentioned the Protestant Work Ethic. I explained how this is not self-justifying. In the common interpretation of the Protestant Work Ethic (one less close to its origins perhaps as you point out), it is simply about working for the sake of work. This is about as appealing and self-justifying as surviving for the sake of surviving. It is NOT self-justifying and does NOT address why it is good to perpetuate these institutions, especially with negative experiences involved in both related activities of work and survival.

Your interpretation of the Protestant Work Ethic that you provided which is that we work to care for each other, is also not self-justifying. It is merely a mode of survival. I would say it's better than stomp on your neighbor to get ahead or simply "work for the sake of work", but it is still not answering the question of why perpetuate institutions through which we work to care for each other in the first place?

Your interpretation runs into other problems as well. Care or love for each other is a tricky thing anyways.. People's idiosyncratic personalities can make "caring" look very different. If someone was an asshole to me, but fed me.. I wouldn't know how to take that. Are they actually caring for me? How can people even begin to care for people in the way they want to be treated if their own version of how they want to be treated is way off? Someone raised in a "tough love" environment and directs people like a bully may think they are caring. Besides, the institutions THEMSELVES may force otherwise "nice" agreeable people to act like assholes due to the context of their position or how they have to work with others. Again, we are harmed by these institutions that we perpetuate.

We can all agree that material goods are good.. but we are forced into relations with people who don't necessarily have our view of how relations with others should work or simply have to act a certain way in order to conform to the institution.. We all may agree that it is not good for people to go hungry and be completely destitute. However, it is the actual minutiae of working with different personality types that strains human relations. This is compounded with the fact that often times we cannot get away from these negative relations since society demands of us to keep its institutions going and thus work with all different sorts and in negative scenarios that make life not that enjoyable.

Anyways, the bigger question is why perpetuate the cycle of work in the first place? If you say through it we care for each other, then why are we working so that through it we care for each other in the first place? It does not seem self-justifying. In fact, through work, often times I am confronted with why humans are not that great.. even if somehow the end result means an increased welfare from the product/service. What makes dealing with other people's negative idiosyncrasies through the forced institutions of life worth it? Why do we agree to continue being the maintenance crew on for the institutions and perpetuate them?

We are beings that are never satisfied for long, frequently harmed, and we keep institutions going that help us survive and keep our complex mind entertained . We are the maintenance crew for these institutions. We maintain these institutions simply to maintain them, just as we survive to survive.. But that is not a justification of why we continue to do it.

Your interpretation of the Protestant Work Ethic that you provided — schopenhauer1

I was just trying to fill in background on "the Protestant work ethic". "All work is holy" is better than "work or die", but Luther (b. 1483) preceded the full realization of the industrial revolution and capitalism. He didn't have a theology of alienation of labor (which Marx provided). Our experience of alienated labor is not Luther's 15th-16th century experience.

The context of this was to ask why we perpetuate institutions. — schopenhauer1

It's very basic: Human beings live by culture much more than instinct, and institutions are the means by which we transmit culture across generations. That doesn't mean that every piece of culture is good or that institutions transmit culture only beneficently. We develop bad as well as good elements in our culture, and human-inhabited institutions often twist culture into malignant forms.

We live more by culture than instinct, but instinct is definitely a player. Our bent towards individual self-preservation and enhancement, and our capacity for perfidiousness are one of the major factors in the twisting of culture and institutions into some of the horror shows that we know and love so well. Authoritarian regimes arise, again and again, because some people really like to be Boss and be obeyed, and some people like being bossed. Some institutions operate on S&M principles.

Work, play, eating, sleeping, and so on are not "institutions". They are elements of life. The elements of life (of which all animals partake) are given a particular shape and function in human institutions. All animals (and plants) expend effort to obtain food--work, in other words. But "jobs", "sports", and 3 star restaurants are purely human. The elements of life are given a cultural form, and are perpetuated by institutions, in our species.

So, therefore... we perpetuate institutions as part of our individual and collective efforts to survive.

You are missing the point. It would be your conception that lacks coherence with your perception.

If you see only grey, yet you claim that the world has black structure (and thus a complete lack of white structure) then this is an incoherent claim about the world. Your honest impression doesn't match your professed idea.

If you see only grey — apokrisis

But I never said I see only grey. And I never said the world was black through and through. I said it was structurally negative.

Take, for example, how you presumably see human life as generally positive and worth continuing. That doesn't mean bad things can't happen. And so in the same vein, I see life as generally negative and not worth continuing, but recognize good things when they do happen.

We are beings that are never satisfied for long, frequently harmed, and we keep institutions going that help us survive and keep our complex mind entertained . We are the maintenance crew for these institutions. We maintain these institutions simply to maintain them, just as we survive to survive.. But that is not a justification of why we continue to do it. — schopenhauer1

You say you personally see no purpose. A greater number - those that actually put their back into strengthening those social institutions - certainly do see a purpose. So who are you to call them blind fools?

And as I asked earlier, where's the problem. Those who don't believe can refuse to perpetuate any cooperative system of survival and so remove themselves from the stage. Just doing that in itself will strengthen the identity of the institution that remains.

What you advocate - if it is antinatalism - is voluntary social eugenics. So the irony is that you serve the institutional purpose in seeking to deny it. Suicide is a logical thing to encourage biologically as a way to deal with the diseased or malfunctioning. Cells are built to destruct themselves for this reason - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

So self perpetuation is no evolutionary mystery. Voluntary eugenics can only ensure the strengthened identity of what you claim to detest. You are only making yourself part of the process of institutionalised self perpetuation in trying to promote the self annihilating trope of anti natalism.

If you really want to bring down the system, then what you actually have to do is become a source of constant friction. You must be the silt that gums up the works, the accumulating waste that eventually kills the whole.

So aim for inefficiency, dependency and wasteful consumption if it is the institutions that you want to bring down. Have as many kids as possible and bring them up to be as entropic as they can manage. Hope that they grow fat, useless and deeply in debt, as frictional on society's maintenance system as can be imagined. That way everything will surely fall apart as is the goal.

(Wait, does this sound something like the world we know?)

How can you see grey in a world that is structurally black? What is going on there?

How can you see grey in a world that is structurally black? What is going on there? — apokrisis

I already explained this already, try to keep up.

Yep. Either the grey is an illusion, or the black is a delusion. So pick your poison.

False dichotomy.

This whole white-grey-black thing is an oversimplification. The good parts of life are not illusory (non-existent) themselves (rather, transitory), but they are a source of illusion. They give us the illusion of security, permanence, and meaning; they seem this way when they are not. The man wins the lottery and believes himself to be a happy man, yet less than a week later he will return to the equilibrium and perhaps even be disappointed by how little money he actually gets to keep. Previous good experiences are used as justification for an optimistic prediction of the future, yet curiously bad experiences tend to be marginalized and forgotten. And with the death of God, the secular man is left with nothing but the future to reassure him when his secular theodicy support structure fails to do so.

As I've already said before, there is nothing incoherent in accepting that life is not worth living yet continuing to live anyway. There's no logical connection here, even if you demand there to be. Existence is absurd. We're seduced into continuing living by some little novelty. The ennui emerges from the constant tension between this and other related realizations and the systematic covering-up of them by society at large. It's madness.

Once you swallow the absurdist pill, you can move on and start to make the best of the situation you're in. The false dichotomy you present is such because it simplifies the matter to suit your agenda. I can accept that happy people exist, no problem. That's not what's at stake, though. What's at stake is the fragile contingency of this happiness, and the looming threat of disorder that oftentimes puts people in situations of suffering above that which they can handle. And, in general, the observation that these people are happy oftentimes only due to a structure of illusions that provide comfort and security. Once you have this realization, it's hard to go back. You've transcended the immanent.

There's also no need to give life or existence "objective" value in the sense you seem to be demanding it be. Life is what it is. However, how it is experienced by those involved in it is inherently value-laden. To be conservative, then: life is bad for those involved, even if it takes a lifetime for them to realize it.

Suicide is a logical thing to encourage biologically as a way to deal with the diseased or malfunctioning. — apokrisis

Antinatalism is never going to be accepted, so the next-best thing is to promote the legalization of assisted suicide for those who aren't satisfied with the lot they were forced to draw in life. But of course that's probably never going to happen, either, because people don't like to have the concept of non-being around in an affirmative society.

So self perpetuation is no evolutionary mystery. Voluntary eugenics can only ensure the strengthened identity of what you claim to detest. You are only making yourself part of the process of institutionalised self perpetuation in trying to promote the self annihilating trope of anti natalism. — apokrisis

That's the sad thing - the world has and always will be inherited by the zombies.

That's the sad thing - the world has and always will be inherited by the zombies. — darthbarracuda

Rubbish. The bar on what counts as being properly human has simply been set impractically high by institutionalised Romanticism. That is the subcontract causing all the problems.

If you expect your life should be Picasso, Einstein and Pele all rolled into one, you might indeed view your lot rather pessimistically.

Or if you expect reality ought to be heavenly bliss, no harm experienced by even a fish, a bacterium, a blade of grass, then again there is this silly belief in a transcendent value that rules from beyond the realm of the immanent.

One has the educated choice of either understanding the real structure of reality or perpetuating various socially institutionalised myths.

So the tropes or Romanticism are fun, even escapist. And also politically useful. They do underpin a certain way of life during a certain time (like right now in the blindly consumptionist West). But nature will always win in the end. It knows what is real in being the definition of reality.

Rubbish. The bar on what counts as being properly human has simply been set impractically high by institutionalised Romanticism. That is the subcontract causing all the problems. — apokrisis

Except your revisionary history leaves out the pessimists of the ancient world...try again I guess.

If you expect your life should be Picasso, Einstein and Pele all rolled into one, you might indeed view your lot rather pessimistically. — apokrisis

I don't expect it to be anything. That's you putting words in my mouth and assuming pessimism is merely a reaction of disillusionment.

I don't expect it to be anything. That's you putting words in my mouth and assuming pessimism is merely a reaction of disillusionment. — darthbarracuda

You have yet to pull words out of your own mouth that would make a coherent case as to how a structurally black world could be quite fun and meaningful in practice.

Your best attempt was to label people who might have a different opinion "the inheriting zombies." Nice.

You have yet to pull words out of your own mouth that would make a coherent case as to how a structurally black world could be quite fun and meaningful in practice. — apokrisis

The point is that it's actually not all that fun or meaningful, but a certain aesthetic can be cultivated in the absurdity alongside the occasional moments of joy and excitation. A world need not be 100% doom and gloom and horror in order to be classified as structurally negative. It could be mediocre, like a B-rated movie that nevertheless has some cool action shots and a steamy sex scene.

Your objections continue to miss the mark.

Your best attempt was to label people who might have a different opinion "the inheriting zombies." Nice. — apokrisis

Thanks, I call it as I see it. Those who disagree can either show me where I'm wrong (and I'll gladly take it!), or they can go about their merry way. But for some funny reason, people take it as a personal insult when other people don't like the stuff they do, as if everyone at the party (that nobody was invited to!) has to enjoy it.

Why is this? Why do dissidents have to be forcibly convinced to be optimistic? Why aren't they automatically optimistic, and why can't they just be left alone if optimists don't like them?

You don't have to agree with everything the pessimist says to understand the principle behind antinatalist arguments. Choice. Had I payed for a bad concert, it wouldn't be right for me to complain about its quality. I knew what I was getting into. Not so much for life.

You don't have to agree with everything the pessimist says to understand the principle behind antinatalist arguments. Choice. Had I payed for a bad concert, it wouldn't be right for me to complain about its quality. I knew what I was getting into. Not so much for life. — darthbarracuda

Why must you keep misrepresenting what I say? I'm not arguing for optimism in place of pessimism, but instead pragmatism.

And also you can make your antinatalist choice if you wish. My reply to the OP was about why it would make no difference as that just creates more room for those with a wish to perpetuate their kind.

Why must you keep misrepresenting what I say? I'm not arguing for optimism in place of pessimism, but instead pragmatism. — apokrisis

And once again, optimism and pessimism are comparative terms.

My reply to the OP was about why it would make no difference as that just creates more room for those with a wish to perpetuate their kind. — apokrisis

So your argument against antinatalism is based on a dubious empirical prediction about the consequences of adopting antinatalism in a non-ideal environment?

How does this affect the validity of the antinatalist view?

So your argument against antinatalism is based on a dubious empirical prediction about the consequences of adopting antinatalism in a non-ideal environment? — darthbarracuda

Try and keep different thoughts separate. I was addressing Schop's OP about the "puzzle" of self perpetuating social institutions and noting the irony that antinatalism would only strengthen what it hopes to end. So the actual strategy would have to focus on increasing the structural inefficiency of the social machine.

Stick around, act helpless, be a drag on the rest. Then the whole thing might indeed collapse (only to be reborn much the same - sorry, nature and the second law are relentless like that.)

Stick around, act helpless, be a drag on the rest. Then the whole thing might indeed collapse (only to be reborn much the same - sorry, nature and the second law are relentless like that.) — apokrisis

If you think that's the best course of action for me, then I'm already doing that. Although I try not to be too much of a drag.

Stick around, act helpless, be a drag on the rest. Then the whole thing might indeed collapse (only to be reborn much the same - sorry, nature and the second law are relentless like that.) — apokrisis

This is not a very relevant argument- it does not have an immanent enough impact on the current situation. If we focus on the current situation, then we would care more about how the procreation and the continuing of institutions (which is necessary but harmful to individuals) are affecting humans. If in some impersonal distant future generation, some unknown species has negative experiences (that seems to always correlate with life), then unfortunately it will be their problem. I guess it could be a bonus if we could also predict and prevent future suffering in some far off distant species, but just because we cannot predict this, does not mean that the goal of ending future suffering for the current situation is negated as useless. But, I'm sure you already knew that, you just like having a diet of red herrings :D.

Also, the slipperiness of "nothing" gets entangled in this. When comparing existing vs. not existing at all, what do we get? Well, it is impossible to describe nothingness; it eludes all description. Yes, antinatalists are still doing something to the system, if by subtraction (subtraction of experiencers for the sake of having them not suffer). It is not the fact that something somewhere may suffer, but the idea that one is rebelling- denying that which causes the suffering in the first place.

You focus too much on the efficacy of antinatalism, and not what it provides as consolation- that one can at least do one thing to prevent future suffering. It is a change in perspective. Rather than take for granted that institutions are just "here" we see it as simply a self-perpetuating process; you can call it "The Human Project". This project causes 100% causalities, and 100% fatality, 100% guarantee of harm for all, is something forced on 100% of participants, and is only around due to a viscous circle (surviving to survive, maintaining to maintain, experience to experience).

You focus too much on the efficacy of antinatalism, and not what it provides as consolation — schopenhauer1

Yep. I've been pointing out the self-defeating nature of anti-natalism in that it in fact must result in the eugenic strengthening of the pool of willing breeders. So it really blows as a practical philosophy in that sense.

But yes, it is a consoling thought, that antinatalists might inflict their pessimism on everyone they possibly can, but at least not on their own kids. That counts as a small blessing I guess.

This project causes 100% causalities, and 100% fatality, 100% guarantee of harm for all, is something forced on 100% of participants, and is only around due to a viscous circle (surviving to survive, maintaining to maintain, experience to experience). — schopenhauer1

Oh alas, alack. Render the clothes, tear the hair.

I have to laugh as life is interesting because it is complex, both in terms of its responsibilities and its delights. Yet you choose to be as crudely reductionist as possible so as see it as structurally black.

This is the actual philosophical sin here. Mistaking absolutism for profundity.

have to laugh as life is interesting because it is complex, both in terms of its responsibilities and its delights. Yet you choose to be as crudely reductionist as possible so as see it as structurally black.

This is the actual philosophical sin here. Mistaking absolutism for profundity. — apokrisis

Yet you don't address the solution to the problem of the vicious circle.

Yep. I've been pointing out the self-defeating nature of anti-natalism in that it in fact must result in the eugenic strengthening of the pool of willing breeders. So it really blows as a practical philosophy in that sense. — apokrisis

As have I, when I said the zombies will inherit the Earth. But you didn't like that description that much...

Even if antinatalism is pragmatically self-defeating (which I doubt, of course), this does not change the formal, ideal value of it. Non-ideal bullshit shouldn't affect the validity of a formal argument.

But yes, it is a consoling thought, that antinatalists might inflict their pessimism on everyone they possibly can, but at least not on their own kids. That counts as a small blessing I guess. — apokrisis

I don't get it. If you don't like pessimism, and if you don't think pessimism is a "real" philosophy or something, then why are you wasting so much time and energy on what you see to be a failed cause?

I have to laugh as life is interesting because it is complex, both in terms of its responsibilities and its delights. Yet you choose to be as crudely reductionist as possible so as see it as structurally black.

This is the actual philosophical sin here. Mistaking absolutism for profundity. — apokrisis

This hand-waves the issues away by trying to make life seem like a mixed bag of goods and bads. We've been saying it from the start, we are not meant to be happy, we are not meant to be secure. We are meant to survive and survival requires us to suffer. Suffering is the structural integrity of life as experienced by those involved in it, i.e. the phenomenological natural-ontology.

So you're coming from the perspective that being is generally, if not intrinsically, good. Yet when asked to justify this, you must appeal to the ontic complexities of life. Naked being cannot be defended, it must be concealed by appealing to the transitory ontic intra-worldly beings, while systematically obscuring/denying the reality of non-being, i.e. the non-being of being. Being-towards-death.

To affirm being is not to find something about being that is good, but to point fingers at the stuff within being to justify being. Ironically enough, the being that is apparently so good is the same being we have to protect ourselves against.

Yet you don't address the solution to the problem of the vicious circle. — schopenhauer1

Must I keep repeating myself endlessly for your pleasure? Just do some reading on hierarchical organisation.

This hand-waves the issues away by trying to make life seem like a mixed bag of goods and bads. We've been saying it from the start, we are not meant to be happy, we are not meant to be secure. We are meant to survive and survival requires us to suffer. Suffering is the structural integrity of life as experienced by those involved in it, i.e. the phenomenological natural-ontology. — darthbarracuda

Alternatively, we are meant to flourish. Or same thing, flourishing would be what would be meaningful. (Try and deny it.)

So you are simply building your conclusion into your premises, which is why you make such bad arguments.

So you're coming from the perspective that being is generally, if not intrinsically, good. — darthbarracuda

Why do you keep trying to make out that I say things I don't say? Is it because your argument is otherwise so weak?

Even if antinatalism is pragmatically self-defeating (which I doubt, of course)... — darthbarracuda

Hah. I hear your discomfort and note you have no counter-argument on that point. You are promoting a philosophy that is self-defeating in only securing what it hopes to avoid. And that fact exposes a basic failure of analysis.

You are opposing pessimism against optimism. Yet nature is structurally a mixed bag in the end.

Alternatively, we are meant to flourish. Or same thing, flourishing would be what would be meaningful. (Try and deny it.) — apokrisis

Alright, I'll try. We're "meant" to survive in a hostile world, as I've already said. Flourishing is contingent and transitory with no guarantees of success. You can marginalize the failures all you want, this doesn't mean they don't exist or haven't existed for the past countless eons.

Why do you keep trying to make out that I say things I don't say? Is it because your argument is otherwise so weak? — apokrisis

I love anonymous internet belligerence so much.

Whether you said it or not is irrelevant, it is implicit in your position. Affirmation of life; i.e. "it's worth it". It may be a mixed bag under your view, but the contents favor overall positive value. Otherwise there'd be no reason not to be a pessimist.

Hah. I hear your discomfort and note you have no counter-argument on that point. You are promoting a philosophy that is self-defeating in only securing what it hopes to avoid. And that fact exposes a basic failure of analysis. — apokrisis

You didn't even really give much of an argument. Something about antinatalists giving more population room for breeders, or something. Either way, someone gets born. Okay...?

Yet nature is structurally a mixed bag in the end. — apokrisis

Depends on what you mean by nature. I'm clearly not meaning nature by the entirety of existence, as I've already stated as such. If that's what you mean, then my position in accordance to this would be that life is one of the negative bits in the mix.

You can marginalize the failures all you want, this doesn't mean they don't exist or haven't existed for the past countless eons. — darthbarracuda

But you are again straying from nature's own logic. Failure spells non survival. So the ability to persist is definitional of what it is to flourish. That is the actual structure of the world.

It isn't me who marginalises failure. Failure marginalises itself. And thus antinatalism is simply being unwittingly proactive in stepping up to the plate, putting its head on the block sooner rather than later.

Whether you said it or not is irrelevant, — darthbarracuda

When I say I didn't say it, perhaps you ought to take note?

But you are again straying from nature's own logic. Failure spells non survival. So the ability to persist is definitional of what it is to flourish. That is the actual structure of the world. — apokrisis

I would say you're equivocating here and getting dangerously close to the naturalistic fallacy. Being able to live long enough to pass on one's genes is not the only requirement for something to "flourish". Clearly the satisfaction of preferences is an integral part.

One of the pessimistic points, then, would be that the biology of humans and the environment humans live in are not sufficient to maintain a prolonged eudaimonic, flourishing life. We persist not because we enjoy it or because it's good for us to persist, but because we don't really have any other choice. Well. actually, we do have a choice, but it's an unspeakable choice under an affirmative framework.

It isn't me who marginalises failure. Failure marginalises itself. — apokrisis

...victim blaming? Those who can't cope with the demands the universe puts on them are failures...

And thus antinatalism is simply being unwittingly proactive in stepping up to the plate, putting its head on the block sooner rather than later — apokrisis

...but then again, we're only failures under your affirmative framework. If you value being more than non-being, then of course antinatalists are going to be seen as failures. But if you value non-being more than being, or even just a more conservative ethical appreciation of free will, antinatalism could be seen as the height of success. To break out of the cycle of life. That takes real guts.

When I say I didn't say it, perhaps you ought to take note? — apokrisis

And like I said before, you don't have to say something to imply it.

Either you accept we live in a natural world with immanent logic or not.

If we are part of nature, then all that asks of us is a pragmatic response.

Instead you want to make some kind of transcendentally absolute deal out of suffering. The least amount of pain or effort is sufficient reason to wish for non-existence. Which is riidiculous of course.