Throwing more people into the world is just enacting a political agenda. Someone just "MUST" experience this world. Why should they? Any answer to this is your ego transubstantiated to be manifested as someone else's life and inevitably, suffering.

To be or not to be. Not to be. Not to be in the first place. It's too late for us.

But why make Frankenstein go through it in the first place? Careless and didn’t think it through.

So, then it’s justifiable to harm someone (sociopath/potential parent), even cause greater harm to that person, if it prevents that person from unnecessarily harming others (sociopath’s victims/children)? Is that right? I feel like I have to be missing something, because if that’s the case then you are justified in physically intervening in order to prevent childbirth, which essentially justifies eugenics. It also means the same for other scenarios; preventing a doctor from giving a vaccine, the use of lethal force for petty crimes like shoplifting, etc. But maybe that is what you mean? As long as you’re preventing someone from harming someone else your actions, regardless of severity, are justified. — Pinprick

Oh right, I didn’t think I had to bring up the idea of consent and ameliorating greater harms with lesser harms but doing that now.

Also, why is it we can even have this debate of suffering or life in the first place. A straetegy for antiAN is to pretend that there isn’t even a debate to be had. Yet here it is proven as I type. How it that we can even question what is going on? We are not like other animals in that sense. But this very conversation belies a constant evaluation and struggle of justifications. We need reasons and those reasons are never justified with simply. “Well we tend to think this way”. We change our minds, find different reasons, etc. Simply using circular reasoning of “its right because we do this” doesn’t fit in this open system of ours.

I have a theory that what made the Jewish religion "innovative" was its connecting ethical standards with a deity's mandate. From what I've seen other religions didn't really tie morality with the deities so much as mytho-history, tribal identity, aspects of life, etc. Gods beforehand were more capricious. Demands of sacrifice and ritual but not much in the way of systematic behavior.

When Greek philosophy became more about systems (lets say starting with Pythagorianism and moving through with things like Stoicism and Neoplatonism), it seemed to have the standards but really it seemed to be about conforming to an abstract natural "way" or simply "best practice" rather than a mandate tied to a deity.

My point is that bringing about enlightenment does prevent harm (the enlightened person will no doubt experience less harm since he’s enlightened, no?), yet you’re unwilling to cause harm (by putting him in crutches) to bring about this reduction of harm (enlightenment). Yet with AN you’re willing to cause harm in order to prevent future potential harm. I think you said something to the effect that the harm you cause someone in order to prevent a greater harm is a necessary harm. Since you make a moral distinction between these two events, I’m asking you why. Not being a crass utilitarian isn’t an answer. It still doesn’t explain what specifically about these two cases warrants them to be approached differently. — Pinprick

Let's take an extreme example of what your logic is saying. There is a sociopath that is really messed up. And that sociopath feels tremendous loss at not pursuing his preference for bad stuff. He is depressed, his whole life is affected negatively. He can't sleep at night, he cries a lot. That's okay, cause that sociopath's doing bad X is prevented. Not being able to pursue bad x is not a grounds to allow bad x. This is what I mean by crass utilitarianism. Besides the fact that these sufferings are not equivalent. EVEN if you found out the sadness of the sociopath is actually greater than the pain he would pursue (he's not a complete monster let's say), then he should not pursue it. That is ridiculous and not right.

So what is the key here? It's being done to other people. The sociopath can be masochistic as he wants (though I would advise he get help), but not as sadistic as he wants.

Now granted, this is an extreme and not like the scenario in a crucial way that the sociopath is intending violence. However, I don't see a material difference in knowing that bad will happen to someone else, but pursuing it anyways because it makes you happy, even if one hopes the bad is not too great, or perhaps simply tries to ignore all the possibilities for bad that will incur. Ignoring known bads, discounting unknown bads, is not a great response to, "Sure I will allow this to happen to that other person".

Is it your position that parents have wronged their children? That's a simple yes or no question.

If the answer is 'yes', how do you square that with our moral intuitions? — Srap Tasmaner

I don't focus on blame. Let's say you've been eating meat your whole life and then you become vegan. Should you focus on what you did prior? What you say is more about blame, and I think that's not really the aim of AN. But to answer your question more directly, many sensitive existentialist types, don't necessarily blame their parents, but life itself, the circumstances by which the negatives ensue. This is why there is existential literature going back to ancient empires. I don't think we learn how to blame things by intuition as much as habit. We usually look for the most immediate cause. Again, AN isn't there to point blame at people, just recognize what is going on and to prevent the harms onto a future person.

no it literally benefits no one. So how is it "good". — khaled

You’re falling for the tree falls in the woods idea. All you need is an agent who knows that preventing harm is good. The person who would benefit need not exist, just someone. If no one exists, ethics itself obviously ceases to matter anyways so is a moot point.

Suspend these laws and cover up traffic lights and signs. Whoever dies while the traffic light was red (but the driver couldn't see it) is the person who would benefit form traffic laws. — khaled

But yet notice we don’t need to actually make this bad scenario happen to know someone would be harmed, and we have prevented that someone from the harm.

But in the case of birth, not having a child that would suffer benefits no one. It's not even a matter of "we can't tell who it benefits" no it literally benefits no one. So how is it "good".

"Good" in the asymmetry is defined as "good for someone" in each quadrant except the one causing the asymmetry. There, it is defined as a "better state of affairs than the alternative". That's why the asymmetry makes no sense. And why I never believed it even as an AN. — khaled

It simply falls to the axiom that prevented bad is always good, where prevented good is only relatively bad. The weight is there from the beginning with intuitions about the goodness of prevented bads and the neutrality of prevented goods. HOWEVER, there DOES have to be an agent to recognize this. If you don't believe this to begin with, then it is correct that the asymmetry will not follow.

So your problem seems to not be purely with how long the imposition lasts or how badly it can go, since both of those variables are the same in the real world and in world X. So those two variables are insufficient, as here is an example where they make something that seems fine to you wrong. So you tell me, what difference between the real world and world X makes having kids in world X fine but having kids in the real world wrong? — khaled

I don't think it's fine. Read last post again about treadmill.

It does, but you said it's not wrong to impose. If I had to guess, it's because said strife is very easy to escape (snap of a finger). That seems to be the variable you're missing. It's not just about duration and amount of suffering, but how easy it is to escape said suffering. — khaled

I mean, yes but the challenges and escape are part of it. If snapping fingers becomes the sticking point, we got a problem. If literally no one has a problem snapping their fingers, then perhaps it's permissible. Not this world though, so I don't see where that would lead us except to confirm, "Yep that world is not this world".

The "at least you're not living in X" argument is used to tell you to quit complaining. I am not saying something like that. I'm giving an example to illustrate that you care about more than just whether or not the suffering is unnecessary or how long it's imposed for.

And is "snapping fingers is equivalent to what we do here" supposed to indicate that it's wrong to have kids under those circumstances?

I keep telling you, that by these examples I'm not trying to say "This imposition is fine so having kids is fine". So could you stop interpreting it that way? It's getting tiring repeating that "No, I am not implying that this imposition is fine therefore having kids is fine" every time. — khaled

Only if snapping fingers becomes the new threshold. As I said previously with hedonic treadmill.. If in this world, a challenge to us is like the relative challenge of snapping fingers to them, it's the same thing. Can it be judged as too much by someone? If so, why? All of a sudden it becomes more like our world.

So in other words, if all that happens is new problems coalesce around snapping fingers, the "set of challenges" of this world just gets repeated as a "set of challenges" in that world. However, if in some absolute sense, all negative feelings, experience, judgement went away towards snapping of fingers, then it would be permissible, but at that point we are no longer at the realm of the current human condition. It would be more like being on autopilot, where negatives don't even exist.

Are you trying to ask what it would take to be permissible? Or are you asking why it isn't currently right/just now? I think I gave a pretty good list.. Inescapable without dire consequences, unnecessary to start the conditions for negatives for that person who will be the recipient of negatives, set of challenges, judgement of negatives in the first place, that only humans are really capable of through linguistic self-reflective abilities. All of this is overlooking the dignity of the person to "get an agenda done" for that person. Wrong in my estimate.

Yes. And you think so too for the Utopia example and surprise parties. Neither are needed impositions. The disagreement here is about the size of the “baggage” — khaled

Perhaps.. but I can also argue that who needs gifts prior to being born? No one. And this goes to that asymmetry you hate. Positives aren't needed for any one. What's important is the baggage is given to no one, this is good (from the assumption that an agent exists in the first place not the meta tree falls in the woods perspective).

Even if they would want you to? Ok. Now why should we think so? You want to convince others if this so how would you go about doing that? — khaled

Get them to at least question why they would want to start all the negatives of life onto a person and really make them understand what those negatives do and can entail. Why should anything be more important than not making someone unnecessarily suffer? How it hat moral? To me there is just something about creating unnecessary suffering that is wrong, full stop. As you know, at some point it just stops at certain axioms that you try to make an emotional appeal for understanding. In ethics, unlike experimental sciences, you can't go much further, nor can you EXPECT it to go further.

But you’re going back to the standard definition of utopia, not the example I gave. Let’s call it world X then. It’s a world where you can remove all suffering at the snap of a finger. But you will suffer all the same if you refuse to snap your finger. And there is no way of escaping easily (euthanasia). Would it be fine to have kids in world X? — khaled

What do you think? Does it hold up to my philosophy? I can't say since I don't have full understanding of all this world entails. I know this world.

It DOES fit what you’re saying. It’s an example where the condition for something being wrong is satisfied yet you don’t think the thing is wrong. Showing that the conditions you set out for making something wrong are insufficient. — khaled

If the utopia involves strife, this too is wrong to impose. Do people ever experience strife? Can anyone judge it as not great? How so? then it's just hedonic treadmill hyper version of this world.. Snapping of fingers is equivalent now to what we do here.. It's all moved up a level. It's really the whole "At least you're not living in X" argument rehashed.. See, you're not starving in the third world, thus life must not be that bad.. Old school comparison switcheroo psychologically. Nothing new here to see.

No. I deny that life can be characterized as a series of negative experiences as you imply. — khaled

Not contiguous, interspersed, though there systemically speaking it's an overall thing too but that's a more in depth thing that would require its own topic.

You’re willing to go to what most consider extreme measures to prevent harming a future person, even if it means harming a living person to do so. And that’s meant to be just a statement of fact. I’m not judging whether or not that’s morally permissible. — Pinprick

I am not harming anyone nor doing anything extreme. I am not forcing anyone to do anything. Where are these extreme measures?

The contradiction I see is that in this instance you’re fine with causing harm because you see it as justified, necessary perhaps, but not willing to harm someone in order to bring about enlightenment (which is presumed to decrease/prevent suffering as well). — Pinprick

I didn't say bring about enlightenment, simply prevent harm.

Why is it ok to harm one, but not the other? The outcome is the at least comparable. Admittedly the enlightened person will not be able to completely eliminate suffering, but then we’re splitting hairs on how much suffering needs to be prevented to make it ok to cause harm to prevent it. Either the ends justify the means, or they don’t, right? If you’re going to make exceptions, then you need to explain why the particular case of AN warrants that, when other, very similar as I see it, cases do not. — Pinprick

This all assumes I'm some kind of crass utilitarian. I am not. My ethics is based on the dignity of the person being harmed. In one case you already exist.. It's too late. In the other, you are creating wholesale, harm onto someone else, unnecessarily. Just because you exist, doesn't mean you should do whatever you want to make you feel better or because you think it balances some utilitarian balance of pain (which I think is not equal even in that accounting of things).

I don't think I agree with it on everything, but I've always found pessimism in the philosophical sense to be an interesting tradition. Might I ask how you came to those conclusions? I don't want to psychoanalyze or troll, I'm just generally interested. You don't have to answer if it's too personal either. It's not like Schopenhauer is very popular, even for his own time — Albero

Life has suffering. There is systemic and contingent forms. This seems to lead to some conclusions.

Well, it’s not really about who/what is being used, it’s about how you justify your actions.

But, if you insist, then whomever you’re trying to convince not to have children is being used to further your agenda. Your success in doing so creates the potential for harm. — Pinprick

But they're not used. If I gave them no choice and forced them, then I am using them. Contra @khaled even, if I forced them into my agenda and they series of inescapable negatives, and it was unnecessary for me to do that, and even if they said it was worthwhile, that would indeed still be using them, or at least overlooking their dignity. But I am not. I am not a crass consequentialist, so your argument doesn't apply to me as I see it presented.

No the point isn’t to say “getting pricked by a pin is fine so having kids is fine”. The point is to show that “someone could hate it” is not sufficient reason to make an imposition wrong. For that would make every imposition wrong. — khaled

But if there's no person beforehand to need an imposition, is that even right to impose with all the baggage we know is it can entail? In other words, it goes right back to "Don't cause unnecessary negatives".

At every point. I don’t believe there is a scenario where someone can find something worthwhile and it be wrong to impose on them. It’s fine to have a happy slave. — khaled

Then here is where our axioms are just at odds. I don't believe it's right to start negatives for someone else unnecessarily when the consequences are inescapable, it's lifelong, and there's not much other choice but to go with it or dire consequences.

Yes. And if they change their mind that would also be a post facto report. — khaled

Right, so I don't think they are a basis for this particular circumstance if starting negatives for someone else is unnecessary and that indeed is your ethic.

You think it’s good sometimes (being born in a utopia will last a lifetime and be inescapable) so let’s not question things we agree on. — khaled

But we don't because I didn't agree to your definition of utopia for reasons I stated in earlier posts. Utopia would simply not have negatives, but I also explained how it's almost impossible to conceptualize. It would be like being everything or nothing I guess.

Again insufficient. What you’re saying here is that it’s wrong to start harms especially when someone will miss out. Using just that qualification, having a surprise party would be wrong. Yes I am aware it is very different from life. The point is, the above standard is insufficient to tell right and wrong. You need to add more conditions. — khaled

But you admit that the analogy doesn't fit, so why would I agree that this somehow negates what I'm saying? If your gift was a lifetime of challenges to overcome lest dire consequences, then let's talk.

Once you have a set of conditions that make the statement “Acts that *insert conditions here* are wrong” true such that it isolates only what you actually think is wrong then you’d have a consistent case. You’d still need to convince people why they should abide by those conditions, but so far I haven’t seen what that full set of conditions is. The only time I’ve seen it it was something like “a lifetime of negative experiences” which doesn’t seem to apply to life, you need to show that life actually falls under that category. — khaled

A lifetime of all negative experiences that you experience, is what I mean by that. Do you deny that negative experiences exist in life (unless something like a life that lasts a very short amount of time maybe)?

No harm there lurking..It would just be nice to hear other views that aren’t just outright hostile or trolling.
As far as virtue ethics, how would you formulate that?

This though is not nuanced and dynamic enough. Is life really a pinprick? There are multi various ways in which people have negative experiences. The question really becomes, at what point does it matter if people report it’s worthwhile that you are not doing something right by the allowing of the negatives? And what if someone changes their minds at a particular time? Circumstances change. Ask someone in s good mood and a bad mood (or good experiences vs. going through bad experiences) and you get varying responses. In other words, is it justified in all situations to base ethics on post facto reports? @_db was mentioning the pre birth post birth distinction of worthwhile. Why should starting negatives (lifetime, inescapable) be good ever? It’s not instrumental here, it’s starting bads for someone else in an absolute sense (unnecessary). Since we get the doubly good outcome, that no one loses out (either), it would seem to be weighted to prevent the negatives, no matter what. @Albero do you agree? Have a different take or objection?

I'm going to direct that to @khaled since he's the one who is claiming this.

Life. I thought you were characterizing life purely as negative. — khaled

Not purely, negative X is all negative experiences.

Honestly I’d like to see other ANs debate here. Don’t at least you want to see arguments from others or are you fine hearing the same perspective? I’m flattered if just me. @Albero you like to see others debate. Can you add anything? Are you willing to contribute past a couple posts on the matter?

wait, what is “it” here? I said starting negative X..meaning here all negatives in a lifetime. You are denying negatives exist now??

Yes, but the argument is that if someone says it is worthwhile, negative X is ok to start on their behalf, even if it was unnecessary (didn't need to ameliorate a greater harm for that person). @khaled says this for example.

But, if you insist, then whomever you’re trying to convince not to have children is being used to further your agenda. Your success in doing so creates the potential for harm. — Pinprick

How are they being used? Did I force them? Can they choose another option? Can they walk away? Also it’s about not allowing an injustice to incur, from that perspective, that someone is sad an injustice is being prevented, doesn’t magically justify the injustice. Should I respect the sadness of preventing a bully from enjoying their bullying?

Vegans always face this. To them, it is unjust to kill and hence eat animals for consumption. If someone says they are sad for not eating meat, does that justify the injustice in the eyes of the vegan?

How does it not? Your justification for AN rests on a potential future event; an end. It regards taking action now (the means) to prevent a certain end justifiable. IOW’s the end is so horrible that it justifies taking action now to prevent it. — Pinprick

So “who” is being used as a means here? An event?

If so, AN appears to violate that premise. The end (a life of essentially unknown potential for pleasure/suffering) is used to justify the means (not procreating). — Pinprick

But it doesn’t.

Excuse me, but if no person exists to miss out on the goods of life, why is that immoral if no one exists to be deprived? How is missed goods immoral, especially if there is no actual person deprived thus? However by carrying out birth, SOMEONE will suffer, there the moral issue lies. Indeed, procreating forces the hand for someone not procreating literally forced no ones hand. — schopenhauer1

Something I have been ruminating on a lot recently are the hoops and ladders that people will go through to justify things. — _db

Very true.

The fact that it is so difficult to give a simple and decent argument against antinatalism is prima facie evidence that antinatalism is correct. Like come on, we've had countless threads on this topic, that if it were false, you'd think by now that somebody would have finally vanquished the idea. Yet here we are.

People cobble together these bizarre rationalizations for things that are not rational. The responses we keep hearing against antinatalism seem to me to be fundamentally nothing more than post hoc justifications for emotional attachments to things that would go away if everyone stopped having kids. — _db

Yes, I agree. So the newest post hoc justification is the idea of "worthwhile". I'd like to know your response to that argument. So the argument goes something akin to this:

"Let us say that we can quantify negatives in some way , and a certain percentage of experiences can be considered negative (I call this contingent suffering). Let us also say there are a set of challenges one must overcome lest dire consequences (more of a systemic type suffering)....It is permissible (or justified) to unnecessarily cause (wholesale) the condition onto another whereby all the negative experiences of life ensue and whereby one is put in a position of being in a game of overcoming a set of challenges, lest dire conditions, as long as the person being affected reports that the negatives are worthwhile".

That is the current debate basically.

And one thing that could happen is that that future person might live a more dignified life than you, and certainly a more dignified life than you imagine they could have. And this is a possibility that you're not only willing to cast away, no, you think it's a must to do so. — baker

And I ask again,

Excuse me, but if no person exists to miss out on the goods of life, why is that immoral if no one exists to be deprived? How is missed goods immoral, especially if there is no actual person deprived thus? However by carrying out birth, SOMEONE will suffer, there the moral issue lies. Indeed, procreating forces the hand for someone not procreating literally forced no ones hand. — schopenhauer1

Exactly. The concern for on the diginity of those who will never be makes for a nonexistent concern for on the diginity. It's like caring about the dignitiy of a character in a novel. — baker

No. It’s caring about not causing harm in a future person. Not hard to tell the distinction between an event that could happen and one that could never happen. In this case you are preventing what could happen.

Sure, any particular reason?

You don't respect someone's dignity by deciding for them whether their life, and whatever they find of value in it, is worth the suffering they endure for it. — Srap Tasmaner

Excuse me, but if no person exists to miss out on the goods of life, why is that immoral if no one exists to be deprived? How is missed goods immoral, especially if there is no actual person deprived thus? However by carrying out birth, SOMEONE will suffer, there the moral issue lies. Indeed, procreating forces the hand for someone not procreating literally forced no ones hand.

Do people who can read regret having the ability? There may be one, now and then; I can imagine someone having a spiritual objection to symbolism of all sorts, to language as such. But overwhelmingly people who can read are glad they can, and people who can't read desperately want to. And overwhelmingly people who can read were taught to read because someone else decided for them, when they were young, but that decision has this specific form: you will think later that it was worth the trouble of learning. I don't teach a kid to read because I think it will be worth it; it's not a case of inflicting this suffering on them "for their own good", as I judge it, but because I believe they will think, later, when they're able, that it's worthwhile. It's still their feelings that matter. If I don't teach them to read, on the chance they'll wish I hadn't, I cut them off from countless opportunities for experience they might value deeply, I constrain the possibilities of their life cruelly. — Srap Tasmaner

So I agree with all of this because they are already born. Why did you ignore all my posts describing the need to amerlioate greater with lesser suffering once people are already born vs creating suffering wholesale for someone else unnecessarily and inescapable.

We don't. This whole line of reasoning is patently false. No one justifies everything they do. No one thinks they need to justify everything they do. In fact, there's something a lot of people do unthinkingly that you want to convince them they should stop doing unthinkingly and try to justify. You have this so backwards, it's bizarre. — Srap Tasmaner

Ridiculous and false. When you go to work it’s not instinct it’s decision. Supermarket. Write on philosophy forum etc. Unless you are a p zombie, you do internalize things, even if it’s habit.

Yeah, we can, and we do, all the time. We do some stuff other animals don't, but we're still animals the whole time and we still reproduce just like animals, without justifying this behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

Who said I said we weren’t animals? In my last post I discussed the difference between animal and human condition. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

But not to consider you at all, in fact to refuse categorically to consider how you will feel about my actions, is not to grant you a status equal to my own as a fellow moral agent deserving such consideration, is, in short, not to treat you as a person. — Srap Tasmaner

And this is almost exactly the reasoning behind my moral standard in antinatalism. I wrap it all up in the term "dignity". However, where I think giving gifts someone will like is not necessarily moral, I think preventing suffering when one is able, is. By NOT preventing the future person's suffering, one is overlooking the dignity of the person being born. Their suffering is overlooked for other considerations.. Anything that is not suffering (other considerations.. "this will be "good" for them") is simply not moral but other things. It is wanting to see a political agenda (a life being carried out and overcoming all the entailed challenges) and this can be characterized as paternalistic. Either way, the dignity is violated, despite any good consequences.

What makes the negatives especially so bad? All the contingent and systemic harms:
Contingent harms are things likely to happen but are not entailed in a given life including:
1) Individual people's wills and group's will.. Constant jockeying for power plays on when, what, where, hows, social status, social recognition, approval, respect

2) Impersonal wills... Institutions whose management and bottom-line dictate when, what, where.. ranging from oppressive dictatorships to the grind of organizational bureaucracies in liberal democracies.

3) Cultural necessities.. clean-up, maintain, tidy, consume, hygiene

4) Existential boundaries...boredom/ennui, loneliness, generalized anxiety, guilt

5) Survival boundaries..hunger, health, warmth

6) Being exposed to stressful/annoying/harmful environments and people

7) Accidents, natural disasters, nature's indifference (e.g. bear attacks, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, etc.).

8) Diseases, illness, disabilities, including mental health issues (neurosis/psychosis/phobias/psychosomaticism/anxiety disorders/personality disorders/mood disorders)..

9) Bad/regretful decisions

10) Unfortunate circumstances

11) After-the-fact justifications that everything is either a learning experience or a tragic-comedy.

12) The good things are never as good as they seem

13) How fleeting happy things are once you experience them

14) How easy it is for novelty to wear off

15) The constant need for more experiences, including austerity experiences that are supposed to minimize excess wants (meditation, barebones living, "slumming it").

16) How easy it is to have negative human interaction, even after positive human interaction

17) Craving and striving for more entertainment and "flow" experiences

18) Instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice.

19) Any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers

20) The classic (overused) examples of war and famine

21) The grass is always greener syndrome that makes one feel restless and never satisfied

22) The need for some to find solace in subduing natural emotions in philosophies that mitigate emotional responses (i.e. Stoicism) and generally having to retreat to some program of habit-breaking (therapy, positive psychology exercises, visualizations, meditations, retreats, self-help, etc. etc.)

23) Insomnia, anything related to causing insomnia

24) Inconsiderate people

25) The carrot and stick of hope.. anticipation that may lead to disappointment..unsubstantiated Pollyanna predictions that we are tricked into by optimistic bias despite experiences otherwise

26) Addiction

etc. etc. etc. ...

1) Systemic suffering includes:
Having to conform to/play a game (like our economic one) that one cannot escape, that one could never have created, and have dire consequences for leaving (death, starvation).

2)Having constant dissatisfactions that can never be full met (the lack game).

3) Human condition as I described above:
Why do humans need to constantly justify their actions? The fact seems to be that we can evaluate and judge life, work, what we are doing at any given time. We don't just do things in a mode of "unthinking" but need reasons, justifications, evaluations, weighing things. This is the feature of being an animal that has evolved (with?) linguistic adaptations. We can't "just be" in the world like other animals. So there is something about being the human animal itself that in a way displaces us from the world, exiles us, in a way no other earthly creature is. The natural world has created us, but we do not seem in the same way "at home" in it in the very fact that since the start of civilizations (and probably since we've had the ability to self-evaluate and use language), we can judge the very process of living itself (or at least aspects in it) and we can judge any action as negative. We don't just experience the negative, but evaluate it, judge it, know it. We can try to pretend we can outwit ourselves, but it is really part of our psyche.. even the "overcoming" of "judging" is itself something that we have to do as an effort, not as an instinct.. So anyways, this is not tangential to the point that there is a "human condition" that is apart from perhaps the more primary/common "animal condition".

The substance of what's in systemic and contingent suffering/harms can be debated but its existence cannot be denied so easily. It is these especially that one is overlooking by not preventing a future person's birth. Anything on the ledger of "good" that is also being prevented, is not immoral to prevent, but neutral. Dignity violation (in the case of people who could be born if you do a certain act), is in the realm of preventing HARMS and NOT preventing goods.

You could say I must have children because they'll be glad I did; I could say you must not because they won't be. Is one of us right? — Srap Tasmaner

So my point in the last post is that I don't think post-facto estimations of "worthwhile" reports justifies putting someone through negative experiences in the first place.

If I'm buying you a gift, I subordinate my tastes to yours: the question is not whether I would like this, or whether I think you *should* like this, but whether I think you will. With potential children, we have plenty of reason to expect they will think life worthwhile. — Srap Tasmaner

But it isn't just a straightforward gift, which is why I denied the validity of khaled's surprise party argument. It would have to be a gift where you had to overcome a set of inescapable challenges, and contingent harms.. I don't think any other type of "gift" works that way.

Reversing that: if we're right thinking, against the odds, that our children wouldn't think life worth it, then we've spared them that experience; if we're wrong, and they would've thought life worth it, we needn't feel guilty because by not existing they don't experience missing out. — Srap Tasmaner

True about the asymmetry. Simply speaking, no one misses out, period. Yet no one experiences negative experiences. Win/Win.

Ok. But does Z get to cause X to alleviate Y if Y>X? That's what I'm asking (for the third time). — khaled

First off, you discount the pain of what happens when one does NOT like aspects of the game, whether or not someone reports "The game was worthwhile". What these setbacks/negatives/pains/harms/sufferings comprise of is what it is, and it is not good. Is starting a series of these plethora of negatives upon someone else good? I think no. It is not right to do to someone whether or not they report that it was worth their while.

That's what it means by definition... You ever heard someone say "It was worthwhile and fulfilling, but I wish I never did it"? Worthwhile literally means that the negative experiences were worth it.

Definition according to google: worth the time, money, or effort spent; of value or importance. — khaled

Ok, but when in a position to not start someone else's set of harms, I just don't think post-facto justifications like "it was worthwhile" justify actually starting those set of harms for someone else. Haven't we acknowledged from previous threads, that this is one of the main dividing lines where we both will not budge? Unless one of us concedes this axiomatic point, the rest is pretty moot.

A report. On whether or not the project was worth it despite the pain. Or on whether or not it is mostly comprised of negative or positive experiences. Depends on who you're talking to. — khaled

Again, moot if we are discussing whether starting someone else's set of harms is justified in the first place. And of course this will just make you retreat to the one aspect to all aspects one-to-set disanalogy of the surprise party right? But maybe you will be more creative or just drop it, as it doesn't work.

But it doesn't comprise only one aspect, it comprises most at the same time. But when we look at all of them combined it spells something like "Do not cause hellish suffering for a lifetime on someone else" which is perfectly reasonable, now you need to show that life will likely be hellish suffering for this or that child. — khaled

I think we are weighing negative and positive much differently. To me, creating pain is more paramount than providing pleasure. No one is obliged to provide pleasure for others, but certainly preventing pain is more important (unless ameliorating, but that is post-facto dealing with consequences of putting someone into this world, not the chief arbiter of starting it wholesale for them).

I am willing to say that if the world was a legitimate utopia I wouldn't have objections. But in THIS world, it is not a utopia, because there is suffering in this world in numerous ways.. both systemic and contingent (see my profile quote for my definitions of these). Someone said earlier that we couldn't even imagine a world without these kinds of suffering. And this is true! We certainly cannot imagine it. That's why I asked about your conception. As for your snapping fingers examples, as long as you accept that pain can be considered any subjective negative state, this becomes the new bar.

So this goes back to our major difference- is it right to knowingly put someone in a position experience a lifetime set of painful experiences (when it didn't have to take place to begin with) even if post-facto they MAY say it was worthwhile? Again, I say this is not right. It is enacting a political agenda- the pain-filled program must continue, and this overrides considerations of starting pain for someone else. Again, you are not able to answer why considerations of pain are justified by worthwhile reports.

"This starts another persons condition for a set of negative experiences" is insufficient, and so to get you to show your ridiculous position by requiring you to use the whole list. — khaled

A set of negative experiences that comprises life is not a surprise party, so no, I am not letting you make that rhetorical summersault and pretend it is valid.. Sorry.

And I can list a litany of positive or worthwhile ones. — khaled

Ah, but again, another dividing line either of us are going to budge on. I think that enacting positive experiences for someone else is not a requirement, and especially so if they don't even exist. However, preventing future suffering for what will be someone who will be the recipient of this suffering is more morally relevant. Preventing unnecessary pain is just morally relevant, and creating happiness is not, especially when the possible person in question doesn't even exist to be deprived of anything. What matters is someone could have suffered, but didn't. We did not create a lifetime set of negative experiences. Who (literally) cares that a lifetime set of possible happy experiences did not ensue? And I don't think other people's pain of not seeing a political agenda of someone being born is a valid reason for thus creating the set of negative experiences.

"Life is all of the above at the same time, and that's wrong to impose" I'll disagree with the second half (utopia example), it's hard to disagree with the first. — khaled

But is it then utopia? The bar has just moved.. Hedonic treadmill, etc. You are just going to keep changing the circumstances, because the kind of utopia without suffering is hard to even conceptualize. It's almost like "just being" or "not being" or something like that.. but then if you admit to that, you wouldn't have a bunch of parlor games to play, so we can start doing variations of the current situation but in various gradations. Think about it, if your game was a utopia, subjective views of harm would not even be in the picture.. This isn't even the human condition, which I brought up towards the end of the last post, and you haven't quite put together yet where I was getting at.

"Life is comprised of a lifetime of hellish suffering with no escape and we're all doomed, and those are always wrong to impose" I'll disagree with the first half, it's hard to disagree with the second. — khaled

I mean, for some people it is actually a hellish suffering, so from the (easier) statistical point of view, we can say there are possibly enough people that experience this to not enact this for someone else.. However, I am not going to use that argument here. Rather, it is more axiomatic. That is to say "Life is comprised of a lifetime of hellish suffering with no escape and we're all doomed, and those are always wrong to impose". Again, one of our dividing lines. I don't think it has to be hellish suffering to not start for someone else.

Because you are trying to convince others that disagree with your judgement that their judgement is wrong and your is correct. You need evidence to do so. Your judgement is that life is mostly comprised of negative experiences, and that those experiences are not worth it and so do not justify existing. Basically everyone disagrees with one or both parts. You think they're wrong and want to convince them of that. You need evidence. — khaled

No, you were misreading my intent in asking that. Rather, I meant it rhetorically. Why do humans need to constantly justify their actions? The fact seems to be that we can evaluate and judge life, work, what we are doing at any given time. We don't just do things in a mode of "unthinking" but need reasons, justifications, evaluations, weighing things. This is the feature of being an animal that has evolved (with?) linguistic adaptations. We can't "just be" in the world like other animals. So there is something about being the human animal itself that in a way displaces us from the world, exiles us, in a way no other earthly creature is. The natural world has created us, but we do not seem in the same way "at home" in it in the very fact that since the start of civilizations (and probably since we've had the ability to self-evaluate and use language), we can judge the very process of living itself (or at least aspects in it) and we can judge any action as negative. We don't just experience the negative, but evaluate it, judge it, know it. We can try to pretend we can outwit ourselves, but it is really part of our psyche.. even the "overcoming" of "judging" is itself something that we have to do as an effort, not as an instinct.. So anyways, this is not tangential to the point that there is a "human condition" that is apart from perhaps the more primary/common "animal condition".

That might seem strange because, going by this forum, people seem to think philosophy is almost entirely a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with someone else, or with some statement, or with some argument. — Srap Tasmaner

It does seem that way. Philosophy to some just means debate.

It's because antinatalism operates out of such bad faith about existence that it isn't and cannot be persuasive.


On the other hand, Buddhism operates on the premise that despite all the misery, the universe does offer a viable path out of suffering. So Buddhism operates out of good faith. — baker

Ok, so people peddle in hope-mongering. Buddhism, like all religions offer this. I can agree with that. No one likes the idea of no hope.

Why start the game for someone else to play to begin with? If nothing existed, what is wrong with nothing? Is it just that people conflate that with some sort of darkness or something and this makes them sad and anxioius?

It comes down to whether or not harming someone to alleviate harm from someone else is ethical which you still haven't answered. You could easily argue that having children is necessary harm depending on how you actually answer the question.... — khaled

Causing harm en toto, to alleviate your already existing suffering is what I'm against.

There is no X that suffers anything.
There is a Y that suffers something.
That does NOT mean Y gets to now have an X that will suffer something to alleviate Y suffering something. I don't see how that kind of creation of bad for someone else makes a right.
And I know you will simply go to people born to be blood donors or something like that..

Rather,
If X already suffers something
Y knows that X can be alleviated, and Y is the caretaker of X, then Y can allow a smaller suffering for the benefit of greater.
There are still contingencies like Y cannot do this for adult X, without consent, unless an immediate danger etc. It's all about respecting the dignity of the individual.

This does not give license to crass utilitarian where Y can harm X because there is a vague, unknown possible good (i.e. butterfly effect).

I think it's perfectly fine to bring in people to the game you describe and I already stated my standard clearly:

"It's fine to impose something on someone when it is very likely they will find it worthwhile (among other cases that are irrelevant here)" — khaled

Why does worthwhile trump negative experiences? Who gives you a right to start another persons condition for a set of negative experiences?

Oh, so "life is mostly good" is very abstract and difficult to understand but:

is a literally a lifetime of a set of negative experiences
— schopenhauer1

Is immediately obvious and clear. — khaled

Yes actually, I can list a litany of negative experiences. But "life is mostly good" is not a litany of anything, but an overall judgement laid over everything. But again, I was looking for clarity of the statement, (is it a list of things, an attitude, a report) and if it's a report, what is it reporting on?

You cite A as the property that make an imposition bad, and A is present in having kids, so having kids is bad. I reply with a situation where A is the case, but you think the imposition is not bad. You respond by "that situation is not like life at all, life also has B!" (after realizing that "life isn't A enough!" is going nowhere and takes away objectivity from your position) So I respond with a situation where B and A are the case yet you think it's fine. You respond by "that situation is not like life at all, life also has C!" and so on. But when we examine the whole set of properties that make an imposition bad for you, they are actually pretty reasonable. — khaled

So yeah this is precisely your problem. Analogies of everything that comprises a set to only one aspect of the set doesn't work, except as a parlor trick. That's my whole contention with this line of argument. Without it though, you don't have much of a defense, and hence your constant insistence that this must be a valid reasoning. Most analogies are apples to apples.. That is one aspect to another aspect.. not a set of all aspects to one aspect. That is false analogizing.

So why this clinical, bit by bit approach, where you pretend that one or two variables are the end all be all of what makes an imposition wrong? Why not just spill out the whole list? Well, because it sounds ridiculous! The whole list basically reads: "It's wrong to impose a lifetime of hellish suffering on someone" which is perfectly reasonable of course. Everyone agrees with that, but they don't think life is such hellish suffering, that's ridiculous. You realize that trying to convince them that life is hellish suffering doesn't work, so instead you try to pretend to follow some simplistic moral standard such as "Actions that are A and B are wrong". So when I show that you don't actually follow that simplistic standard, you have to revert back to the full set which is:

a lifetime worth of X negative things otherwise dire consequences happen.
— schopenhauer1

is wrong to impose. That's what you see life as. Life is purely just negative experience after negative experience with the sweet release of death being the only cure. A "Sexually transmitted terminal disease" and no more as the memes would have it. But when I try to ask you what evidence you have for thinking this, you cannot provide.

So your problem is, when you cite a standard it either:

1- Contradicts your other beliefs by not being sufficiently specific in scope and resulting in things you think are right coming out wrong

2- Is unlike life and so doesn't actually say anything about childbirth.

Of course, you think it's like life, but you don't want to say this, because you know it sounds ridiculous to everyone else. So instead you prefer to have (1) be the case rather than reveal that really, the only reason you're AN, is because you find life: "a lifetime worth of X negative things otherwise dire consequences happen". Yours isn't a rational argument, it's purely emotional, as the claim that life is like this is completely unsubstantiated and there is mountains of evidence against it, yet you believe it. I find it hard to believe that comes from rational consideration. — khaled

So the problem with all of this is we are an animal that can judge things.. I can judge work as an X harm if it is imposed on an individual.. Other animals don't do that, you see. How is it that as a product of the natural world, I have the ability to judge a function of keeping myself alive wrong? Why do I even need evidence at all? What is going on here? Something else is going on in the human condition that doesn't just allow for, "I mostly like life". Nothing would need to be said, judged, etc.. It would just be a state of being. But we are not in that state of being. We are not in that sublime repose or way of living.

"You can harm people when it alleviates more harm" is a perfect example of crass utilitarianism.... But no, crass utilitarianism is bad because....reasons. — khaled

Look at the context of what I was replying to. Otherwise stop trying to use this. It's not crass utilitarian either. It is caring for the person. As much due care is taken as you can in that case. Unfortunately, more cannot be taken because that window was gone. By NOT doing ameliorations, you are doing the opposite.

I'll take this as a "no" you can't harm someone to ameliorate greater harm form someone else. Now you have problems with the sleeping lifeguard again. You can't wake up the sleeping lifeguard to save a drowning person by this formulation. So again, a terrible standard for you that contradicts your beliefs. — khaled

No, why am I explaining this yet again? It is unnecessary to cause harm in the first place, but once born you can ameliorate greater for lesser harms. One case no suffering has to take place. The other, the person has no choice but ameliorate if you respect the person as someone worth ethical matters (aka you don't neglect them). Of course, no worry of neglect or undue care if someone isn't born in the first place, but that's the truism I am constantly reexplaining.

A world where at the snap of your fingers (or a similarly easy activity if you're disabled) any suffering will go away. Also there is no euthanasia option, you cannot leave the game, and refusal to snap your fingers will subject you to suffering exactly as it would IRL.

Let's go with that one. — khaled

But you are giving me an example, not an explanation of what makes it a utopia.

But this is a terrible argument. Because it would make surprise parties wrong (you never know, they might absolutely hate them) but they're not wrong, according to you. — khaled

I am tired of answering this disanalogy. Surprise parties aren't life. If you can't figure out why, we are done cause no use arguing with willful ignorance to make rhetorical points. You should lose this one, it's not great. I hesitate to say that because you will probably just pick a worse one cause that's what you do apparently.

You keep coming up with standards for why birth is wrong that also lead to things you think are right being wrong, and it's getting very tiring pointing them out. It would be very helpful if before you post another standard you ask yourself "Can this lead to a contradiction in my beliefs". You'll find it basically always does. Because you're just cycling between 5 or so standards, all of which contradict your beliefs. — khaled

No you pick bad analogies that you think makes the contradiction but doesn't fit the scenario. A life (or lifetime of work) is not X thing (a one time surprise party, a gift, etc). If it was that, I might agree with you and never even make an argument in the first place, because it's so trivial as to make no impetus. But it isn't trivial. You keep saying, "If it's worthwhile, it's okay to do to someone else". But this is the only thing where you can say that a lifetime worth of X negative things otherwise dire consequences happen.. There is no other real analogy to it.. This game is more like I describe. YOU have to address that at least. This "worthwhile" present is not escapable and brings with it a lifetime of X, Y, Z negative experiences. What kind of gift is that, that you know of? Your gift is a lifetime of overcoming challenges.. but don't worry, some of it you will consider "worthwhile".. Guess what? You have no other choice! There is no utopian alternative. There is only a lifetime of forced given. So I don't accept your analogies that are so dissimilar to what I am talking about.

Literally every imposition fits this description to different extents. And you think some impositions are fine. Again, terrible standard. Sigh.... — khaled

But this is more than an instance of imposition.. Which is why your crappy analogies (to try to make your one trick work) doesn't work.

"Your analogies to life are not life itself", excuse me what? I assume you mean that my analogies aren't like life in any way. Prove that. Don't just state it. If any analogous imposition I come up with to life , automatically becomes not analogous when you realize you think it's ok to impose, then you're begging the question. — khaled

No dude, because unless that gift is a literally a lifetime of a set of negative experiences that you cannot get rid of without dire consequences, your analogies are nothing. You can't try to win this argument by simply saying phrases like "prove it" when it is very clear they are so far off from each other and never even met my definitions.

Agreed. Problem is, most people would tell you that life is mostly good with the dislike, annoyance, and negative experiences being the side effect. In other words, life is not like that. You think it is, but have provided no reasoning or evidence for why it is. — khaled

I don't have to prove to you obvious things about the human condition. Life "is mostly good".. what does that even mean? But also, what standard gift ever has these kind of negative side effects? A gift in a category of one, which makes all your other examples disanalogous, as I've been saying over and over.

That would be ameliorating greater harm with lesser harm clearly, so is this wrong or not? — khaled

You are not getting why I used that there. Stop taking it out of context. The reason I said that was that anyone can justify anything in the name of X. Crass utilitarianism isn't a good reason. An unknown "butterfly effect" good outcome that may come of it down the line, means shit in moral terms as a reason for something.

Also, importantly, is this "greater harm" you're ameliorating just a general measure of utility, or must you ameliorate greater harm from the person in question with lesser harm? So would it be wrong to punch someone so that someone else gains enlightenment? Because depending on your answer this:

Prior to birth you can prevent harm, period. Once birth happens, you have to immediately start ameliorating greater harms with lesser harms
— schopenhauer1

May or may not follow. If you think it's fine to harm someone to ameliorate greater harm from someone else, you can argue that having children is already ameliorating greater harms with lesser harms. — khaled

Right, you cannot use someone unnecessarily (see my definition).

So doing this is not morally right and fair? But this also applies to having children in a utopia, which you said you're fine with. So which is it? — khaled

Again, please define to me what is utopia. Start from there and then we can move forward. You haven't defined it.

Agreed, but I don't see where you did so. All you do is cite specific features of life, that are also present in a utopia, or in other impositions you think are fine. — khaled

Again, what is a utopia?

HA, nice switch. First off, I don't see how it's significant what I think counts as a utopia and what doesn't, I'm pretty sure what you mean to ask is: "What to you makes it ok to impose". Answer: "It's fine to impose something on someone when it is very likely they will find it worthwhile (among other cases that are irrelevant here)". You don't like this standard, clearly. And you try to convince me that it's bad somehow. — khaled

So with all of these arguments I can always use the "But you can never know" argument. You can never know if someone will find something worthwhile, or change their minds down the line, or simply have on balance not a great life. You just don't know.. But I am making the harder argument from appeals to justice, not statistical outcomes. Rather, it is unjust to impose anything unnecessarily that involves forms of unwanted, effort, annoyance, suffering, and things that you would not do otherwise if you were to create your own universe. You can call that suffering, lack of autonomy, or what not. Either way, you cannot escape unless dire consequences. Just because something is, doesn't mean it ought.

I don't use my standard when arguing with you, I try to get you to spell out a standard that doesn't lead to ridiculous consequences. So far, every time you've said "Life is X, and X is wrong", X is in common with utopias, or gifts, or other things you consider moral to impose, meaning X isn't a good standard for you. You did this in the last comment too: — khaled

But that's just the thing, you pick analogies which aren't life or in this case work. Life and work are not one long gift or utopia. If someone gave me a gift that lasted a large chunk of life or a whole lifetime, I couldn't get out of it, and it causes severe dislike, annoyance, and negative experience in general.. I wouldn't call that much of a gift, even if some positive came out of it too. Gifts shouldn't cause strife, unwanted challenges. Gifts shouldn't be something where you can't get out of it. If you gave me a gift of punches and my favorite X item. The favorite X item doesn't justify the punches.. Even worse, if you kept getting me items (items to live, to entertain myself).. but you kept punching me, but I can take your program of defending myself against your punches.. That isn't a gift either. And you still haven't defined a utopia..

I said earlier we can judge and think.. In utopia can we judge and think about what is going on? Are we always judging that it is good? No? Why not? Is it utopia subjectively, in some objective way? What? Let me know how you want to define your disanalogy to play the game.

Not a very good standard considering this is also the case in the utopia and you find it ok to impose life there. — khaled

The main argument is thus:

in no other case would people's moral sentiment simply say, "Cause unnecessary suffering for someone else" — schopenhauer1

What is "unnecessary suffering" as opposed to "necessary suffering"? — khaled

Unnecessary is not ameliorating greater harms with lesser harms, but simply causing harm to someone for no reason other than you want to see an outcome take place.

What is an "unjust position" as opposed to a "just position"? — khaled

Unjust = not based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair. In this case, making someone else play a game they had no hand in creating, cannot escape from without dire consequences, etc. I see life, what is already setup from historical contingency, and specifically in this thread, the economic aspect of it, as unjust to make others play.

All I have to show is THIS world is sufficiently unfair to make others play..
We can say that much of the day must be taken up by this particular game..
That it is not guaranteed that people will like all aspects of this game...
That one cannot just escape the game EASILY (see dire consequences).

You see, my case doesn't have to be X hours, of precision, only show that this game is sufficiently NOT a utopia.

Let's first make this criteria.. What to you makes a utopia.. Then we can move from there. If you don't answer that question, I am not going to move forward.

Separates the "laws for imposing" into two categories. "Laws of imposing after you're born" and "laws of imposing before you're born". This completely destroys your project. You are trying to show that people's "laws of imposing" would preclude birth if applied rigorously. By separating it into two categories you open the door for someone to say: "Every other kind of harm needs justification when the person is born. Not so in this case. Since the person is not born, no justification is needed to do something that could harm them, so yes I am justified in genetically modifyin ma kid to be blind!" With exactly as much validity as your claim above. — khaled

No no.. how do you get that from what I said? Prior to birth you can prevent harm, period. Once birth happens, you have to immediately start ameliorating greater harms with lesser harms.. You don't want to harm the person more than necessary, but to harm them in the first place, is unnecessary.

You claim that the happiness of the person in the position doesn't have much to do with the justice or injustice of imposing that position. So, what's your definition of an unjust position, without reference to what the person in the position thinks of their position? Is it unjust above a certain number of work hours a week? A certain difficulty of work? What's your standard? — khaled

If snapping fingers was equal to today's situation, then certainly that would count.. Are there aspects of the world you would not have wanted to be the case, or are you just doing what is necessary? Of course we de facto do what's necessary.. We must follow the rules. Can you make your own rules? Can you have designed it from the first place nd then played it, tweak it, reverse it? Of course not. Then it's not just..
I can't give you a complete list, but I can give you a sufficient one:
1) Can't create your own rule for the game..
2) We can judge the game (unlike say an animal that kind of just lives out the game).. Our layer of rationalization/language etc. allows judgement etc.
3)

It is not applying justice in an unbiased way. It is not just to cause X negative experience onto someone else UNLESS it is the time honored practice of Y. Do you see how that could be biased? Every other kind of harm is always justified when the person is born, so it's after the fact (schooling, vaccines, punishment for violating something, etc.). Not so in this case. It would seem in no other case would people's moral sentiment simply say, "Cause unnecessary suffering for someone else".. But it gets clouded in this case because, because, becuase, why? — schopenhauer1

What does "unnecessary" mean here? What is "necessary harm"? I thought an example of "necessary harm" is when it prevents an even larger harm on the person in question (what's what I remember your definition was), but you contradict that here: — khaled

Right, but I am talking more about the idea that anything is justified if somehow your feelings about it lead to a positive experience (whether you know it or not). So, sure maybe putting you in crutches makes you feel enlightened down the line, doesn't mean I should put you in crutches.. I am just showing cases where it is clear that ones personal feelings don't align with the injustice.

I find it plausible that we experience our own instinct for self-preservation largely as an attitude that life is fundamentally a good thing. There are of course extreme experiences when we just want it to stop, — Srap Tasmaner

This seems like you are aiming for why people don't commit suicide.. An AN would argue that the threshold for starting someone else's suffering (whether or not a certain predominant attitude towards life prevails) is wrong. The attitude of the person doesn't make the starting of someone else's suffering thus good. Still goes back to the happy slave in an unjust situation.

sometimes the antinatalist claim will align with the purported victim's own feelings or attitudes, and sometimes it won't. — Srap Tasmaner

Happy slave.. If I punch you now, and you get enlightenment from it later, that would be crass utilitarian thinking.. Another way to think about it, is I shouldn't punch people, whatever their later feeling on it is. It is wrong to cause suffering, period (when you don't have to in the first place.. no one existed to need the suffering).

Another option is that the wrong is something like exposure to risk of suffering; in that case, the risk is persistent from the beginning of your life until its end, and you are wronged in this sense every moment you are alive, whether you are suffering at the moment or not. — Srap Tasmaner

Exactly! Now that is closer to the AN view.

What's the point of all this? Twofold. On the one hand, insofar as I incline to any theory of morality, it's based in the moral sentiments, but I don't want to make too much of that, because I don't have much of a theory. On the other hand, most successful moral arguments succeed precisely by arousing the moral sentiments. It's no good telling someone that they should think something is wrong that they don't; you change their view by showing it to them in such a way that they feel it is wrong. (And obviously there's just as little point in telling people how they should feel.) I think this is what you are attempting with your favorite analogy lately, the "forced game": you want to elicit from your audience a feeling that placing someone in such a situation is wrong. — Srap Tasmaner

Can moral sentiments be misleading if they lead to bad conclusions? I think you were closer when it comes to cognitive bias, which you seem to dismiss. It is not applying justice in an unbiased way. It is not just to cause X negative experience onto someone else UNLESS it is the time honored practice of Y. Do you see how that could be biased? Every other kind of harm is always justified when the person is born, so it's after the fact (schooling, vaccines, punishment for violating something, etc.). Not so in this case. It would seem in no other case would people's moral sentiment simply say, "Cause unnecessary suffering for someone else".. But it gets clouded in this case because, because, becuase, why?

Well, you say self-preservation. Self-preservation would be dealing with the self, this is dealing with another, so it's not quite that. I would say it's the sadness of not being able to do X activities related to procreation.. But also because it makes people sad that there would be no X, Y, Z in their future. That seems dystopian.

There is also a political agenda at play. People want to see the way of life they lived (with minor adjustments for future improvements perhaps) carried out. The injustice is, when it has to be carried out, by someone else. Why should they perpetuate your need to see a political agenda enacted in the world?

; in fact, they see the whole point of life in them. — baker

That has nothing to do with AN.. And the resemblance to Buddhism is the life is suffering aspect. Agreed about the solution to the problem. The AN does not usually need karma, reincarnation or similar ideas, unless some kind of metaphor (which just makes it a Western version something similar to cause/effect/contingency). Buddhism, like Pessimism sees the system suffering of desire.. Schopenhauer had some great parallels he mentions in The World as Will and Representation. You should read passages from Book 4. The 8 fold path and such is interesting, but no such prescription except wholesale asceticism, compassion, and aesthetic contemplation is offered by Schop and I believe he thought that only certain character-types will be able to endure the path of asceticism.

Added even more to last post.