If you don't agree with the idea just say you disagree with it and don't try to use the term in your own personal way and tell people that you agree with it because that would just be very confusing. — BitconnectCarlos

Fine, I'm using it in my own way. I'll let you call it anything you want it helps you move past this god awful semantic argument.

It would be like if I kept telling people that I believed in democracy and the democratic process but my own personal ideas of democracy were completely different than what the term is generally recognized as. — BitconnectCarlos

Right right, cause it's that far off. Again, suggest any change to the name you want. I'll call it X and Y. I don't care.

The guy would be violating NAP by pushing the person out of the way. NAP is a deontological principle so it does not care about consequences. You are not allowed under NAP to use direct physical force on someone without their consent. Agree with it or not, that is what the NAP states. — BitconnectCarlos

Again, Non-harm principle or call it the Blurpet principle.. if you want still abides. And sometimes if you do see someone's autonomy will be destroyed you act on it. I also admit (and have repeatedly elsewhere), that the world is not perfect and that these laws will NEVER be able to be followed in the intra-worldly affairs of life. It's not that the ideals are bad.. Yeah, no one should ever force anyone. No one should ever harm anyone, it is that the world is inherently messy and we will ALWAYS be violating one of those principles at some point. It's even worse if we look at ethics subjectively, where each person is their own judge of what is right or wrong. In that case, we are always guaranteed to violate some ethical principle.

It comes down to the standards of philosophy and good writing. Trust me, I wasted four years of my life on this and a pretty penny. A decent proportion of any philosophy paper will be allocated to just explaining the original author's ideas just to ensure that you understand it and to avoid the issue of using your own personal understanding of it. — BitconnectCarlos

Your new understanding of the NHP has very authoritarian implications. If my fundamental principle is just preventing harm from befalling others then we're talking an extreme amount of paternalism and placing safety first and foremost. I don't want you to trip on the street maybe I should force you to wear kneepads and a helmut. I don't know what "unnecessary harm" is here and how it compares to "necessary harm" so I'm just trying to prevent harm. — BitconnectCarlos

That is a good question, but again, in the intra-wordly affairs NOTHING is black-or-white really. My definition of when it would be used in such a way that by inaction you are doing wrong, is a clear and present danger when it is clear by inaction the person will get harmed. Clearly you aren't respecting individual there, as you know that something will become injurious to that person. Is that unclear as to when to follow the NHP vs. NAP? Yep, so is the intra-wordly messy scenario of the daily life. The only perfect time to prevent all harm and all force is procreation. Period. Now, as far as preventative harm for individuals as you implied, that depends. If you OWNED a skatepark and knew people often get injured without kneepads. If it's your property and you put up a sign saying, no customers can skate without kneepads, nothing wrong with that. However, if you forced a fully autonomous adult into buying knee pads, that would be a clear violation. Or, because you thought going to X church was good for someone, you were going to kidnap them into attending. That would be bad. Or because you think that life is about doing, X, Y, Z you think everyone else should do X, Y, Z that would be bad. As you can see, in the argument about procreation, X, Y, Z agenda for a child does not override the fact that by procreating you're forcing and causing conditions of all future harms, for that child. That would be perfectly preventing it.

So I will always admit that in the intra-wordly affairs of already being born, we will NEVER be able to perfectly conform to the NAP and NHP (or whatever you want to call my version). However, we can try to approximate with our best judgements. I will claim that the only way to perfectly not violate these principles (and follow a negative ethics in general perfectly) is to prevent procreation. Now, if you want to "work" with me on this thread to come up with a nice heuristics on how to apply my versions of NAP and NHP, I'm all for it. But the major claim here is that indeed someone's paternalistic understanding of what is good for someone "happiness, religion, self-actualization, civilization, school", should never be foisted on people IF POSSIBLE. Even worse if the decision might cause some actual harm to the person, but you still think it is best they do X, Y, Z agenda you had for them. Now, you see how this is perfectly prevented in the case of birth. I also explained why even after birth (the imperfect scenario of always violating something for someone else at some point), that autonomy must be part of the equation (thus removing the possible objection of making decisions for children, elderly, coma patients, and other such scenarios). Thus, keep all this in mind.

Ok, so if my government pushes me to round up and execute Jews in ditches that's just a political thing and I have no moral culpability in that. Ok. — BitconnectCarlos

I take the Rawls Veil of Ignorance approach. Here is a summary of his argument:

is based upon the following thought experiment: people making political decisions imagine that they know nothing about the particular talents, abilities, tastes, social class, and positions they will have within a social order. When such parties are selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society in which they will live, this "veil of ignorance" prevents them from knowing who will receive a given distribution of rights, positions, and resources in that society. For example, for a proposed society in which 50% of the population is kept in slavery, it follows that on entering the new society there is a 50% likelihood that the participant would be a slave. The idea is that parties subject to the veil of ignorance will make choices based upon moral considerations, since they will not be able to act on their class interest.

As Rawls put it, "no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like".[3] The idea of the thought experiment is to render obsolete those personal considerations that are morally irrelevant to the justice or injustice of principles meant to allocate the benefits of social cooperation.] — Wikipedia article on Veil of Ignorance

Thus, just because I don't think that political theory is completely based on the same groundwork as personal ethics, does not mean that political decisions can just run roughshod over people's humanity and rights. What I mean by this is that while it is mainly the duty of government to ensure people's rights are not violated by others and the government (property, physical space, life, free choice, free speech, etc.), it can also include things by which personal ethics might not need to take into account. Where personal ethics is about recognizing people's humanity, government is at a macro-level (even if within a small community) government can into account communitarian ideas such that if one were born in a certain class/position/state of being, one might be able to access resources just the same as someone from another class/position/state of being.

I will say, when choosing to birth someone, you are making a political decision for someone else, that is to say, the parent is de facto saying, "the way of life of X society is what I want for this child" (even if that's not stated directly by the parent), and this is actually wrong. Prior to birth, there is a perfect point whereby someone can prevent a force and harm to a future individual. A political decision to enter X society is NOT made for that individual (by NOT birthing them). AFTER birth, the only way out is suicide. ANY social setup is thus contrived (libertarian type society or communitarian "liberal" type society, or anywhere in between). This social setup has to account for the fact that AFTER birth, people will have interests and goals and pains and sufferings and the like (barring suicide). AFTER birth, you can start thinking in terms of maximization of the ability to achieve goods on a communitarian level. To be fair, in the end, all of it is contrived and post-facto making up for the fact that the decision of being birthed into society was ALREADY made up for the individual person (by being birthed in the first place). ALSO, keep in mind, society is PRE-MADE (that is to say PRIOR to the birth of the child), and thus whether completely libertarian capitalist, mixed economy, or full-on socialist does not matter as historical circumstances (or as existential philosophy states, "situatedness") of the human is already there PRIOR to the person's birth. Thus no system ever conforms to a person's preference for how society SHOULD be, it only operates in a historical development mixed with institutions that are cemented to various degrees through tradition. Even violent revolutions in the end, bring about minor changes, usually to the scope of who gets to access institutions (that are still prior and separate from each individual's preferences of how a society should be set up in their own eyes). So after all this, if the situated institutions of a society then enforce something that is AGAINST one's own principles (the NAP and NHP), then one certainly has no obligation to override personal ethics for societal dictates. Thus, stating that ethics and political functioning work on different principles does not mean that the social overrides the personal, only stating that by mere functioning, they are different spheres of activity that don't have a 1:1 correspondence, necessarily. That is to say, personal ethics is always in play, no matter what is going on. Can a government promote education, science, and health care through "forcible" taxation? I think yes. If we look at the alternative, someone is ALREADY forced into existence, and thus if they do not have access to public education, health care, and perhaps certain scientific advancements only garnered through public collection, what then? What does that look like? Just a meaner version for those not equipped already to gain access to those things. But, can an individual force someone to promote education, science, and health care through forcible means like extortion? I think no.

If you let a disease take its course that's not aggression. If I force you to do something like get a vaccination that would qualify as aggression. This distinction is important to liberal/libertarian thought. — BitconnectCarlos

I will give you that. Thus I said that the negative principles are about weighing harm vs. aggression. I also admitted in this thread that the perfect ethical decision that follows the NAP and NHP would be to NOT procreate. After birth, one has to judge what when to use what. My rule was to always apply NHP first. Is it likely my action will cause harm to others? If so, then don't do that action. So if by not vaccinating, everyone around me will get Ebola, then yeah, I'd say that action would cause significant harm. Is it known that Ebola has a high chance to kill many people? Will that violate those people's autonomy (thus violating the NAP?)? If so, then in self-defense, people can vaccinate that hold-out for violating other people's autonomy. In a way it IS self-defense as Ebola is known to be highly contagious and very fatal. If a car was hanging off a precipice and about to fall on someone's head below the cliff, and a guy pushes the unknowing victims out of the way, he is not violating the NAP, as he is preventing known harm to occur, thus recognizing that person's autonomy which is about to be squashed. If after preventing the clear and present harm to the individual, the hero then kidnapped the victim and made them played a game that he thinks is good for them, that person is unnecessarily violating the NAP. The victim's autonomy was not being violated (or was not about to be violated), this was purely because the person thought it was best for that victim to play this game. Thus someone who was perfectly autonomous and had choices and the ability to feel pain was forced into a situation whereby they did were not able to make a choice, and possibly was put in danger if the game itself was dangerous.

...because we're focusing on the NAP? Honestly, I'm not here to beat you or destroy all of your arguments. Your tone suggests your getting defensive when the only reason I engaged you was to exchange ideas. I don't care who "wins" here. I don't care about winning internet arguments. For the record I find the non-harm principle much less problematic than NAP so.... one point for you? — BitconnectCarlos

I'm not getting defensive, it is just that it looks like you haven't read all the posts in this thread so it is sort of re-arguing and perhaps you are not seeing the full argument as it has developed over the course of the thread I realize people don't have time for that or may just want to focus on the OP, so that is why I am taking time to answer your questions here rather than say, "read the thread!" or be dismissive. I don't like when people do that to me, so I'm trying not to do the same. But I will say, that both the NHP and NAP work in tandem and it revolves around autonomy. Is someone's autonomy about to be violated? Is a clear and present harm about to ensue by this course of action? It is not about NOT acting as much as minimizing harm and minimizing force.

You're not understanding the NHP either. The NHP is concerned with constricting the actions of individuals to ones which don't harm others. It seeks to demarcate the proper limits of government. If we just take it to mean preventing harm in general from any source it takes on a very, very different meaning.

I don't mean to be mean here. I don't care about winning. I'm just trying to clarify. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, I never meant for this to be about political actions. So, this is a straw man or red herring. You are the one bringing in ideas of government. You seem to use preconceived ideas of what concepts should mean that I have stated pretty clearly in how I am using them, and then saying that I am not conforming to your preconceived ideas that you have. That may be from not reading the thread fully. It may be to make an argument where there is none. However, I have defined the terms throughout the thread as far as I see. I certainly have tried to do so in answering you in this post, if that was not clear. What I think we should stop doing is saying that "X past person used this term this way. You are using this term that way. Why are you not following X past person's way of using the term? Thus your argument is somehow wrong." That would not be productive.

Even if we were to allow the NAP to say that it is okay to not get vaccinated, the NHP would still be in force that we shouldn't allow for the conditions of others to be unnecessarily harmed if we can prevent it. That is my main point.

In the world of being already-born, we have to make a trade off sometimes, the NHP and NAP are at various times employed. It is never clear which should be, only personal judgement really. The only time when it is objectively clear that BOTH the NHP and NAP will NOT be violated would be the case of antinatalism which 100% guarantees both that a person won't be forced and will not be harmed (for a lifetime in fact).

Lets take the case of an extremely contagious bio-chemical hazard or disease where we have the vaccination, but some people are refusing to be vaccinated for ideological reasons. It's a serious national security issue. And yes, we would be coercing these people if we made vaccination mandatory. If the choice is basically between mandatory vaccination or likely extinction which one do you choose?

There's no sharp distinction between the ethical and the political. Political decisions are made by people, by individuals. If I grab you and forcibly vaccinate you... I have coerced you and violated your autonomy even if I was acting as an agent of the state. I think national security is my biggest objection here. — BitconnectCarlos

First, I think you can make sharp distinctions between government and individual ethics. This is why I'd never call myself a "libertarian". Second, how is it NOT aggressive to allow a deadly disease proliferate?

Edit: OH Also, you COMPLETELY left out my other principle that of NON-HARM!!

I can't jump from "I generally respect this principle" to "we need to abide by this principle in every possible circumstance." — BitconnectCarlos

Unless you are trying to straw man my argument, by mischaracterizing it, why wouldn't you abide by the non-aggression principle? I've already said how it wouldn't apply to self-defense, as one's own autonomy is being violated. I've already said how it wouldn't apply to dementia cases, children, coma patients, and others who would have no autonomy. It wouldn't apply to something like a game like a boxing match, where the parties involved autonomously agree to the terms of the aggression. So in what way would my version of the NAP not be applicable? Remember, I am talking ethics, not politics.

I feel like you're channeling Kant here, but Kant's idea of autonomy isn't a purely negative, libertarian idea of the subject. I don't think you can go from Kant's idea of autonomy directly to NAP (or at least I haven't seen it). It has been a while since I've picked up Kant, but I do remember that for Kant autonomy was intimately connected with rationality and to basically be bound by one's own laws. I believe he views rationality as a precondition for a free will.

An example I think of - and I don't ever explicitly recall Kant using it - is, say, that of gaming addict or a drug addict. I remember reading an article about a Korean guy in a gaming cafe who gamed for 72 hours and then dropped dead. Under the libertarian definition he had his freedom, but no way was this person driven by their rationality so I think Kant would say he was unfree. I'm happy to discuss this topic further.

Also any Kant experts here please let me know if I'm wrong. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, as I've said, I am not specifically channeling Kant. Rationality is used in many ways by many philosophers. I don't use it because I think it has a connotation to it. But anyways, if "rationality" means some sort of "free choice" and thus autonomy, then yes, that may play into what I am talking about here. One of the big things is here is not trying to do something to an individual that will violate non-harm principle,

The question you pose, in the parlance of the tradition, is whether paternalistic imposition of perceived goods on an unknowing or uncooperative other is ever morally justified. — Methinks

Close, there are exceptions I admitted in this thread for reasons of either autonomy being limited or about to be violated (elderly, coma patients, children, self-defense, etc.). In terms of antinatalism, I'm claiming the time of the force and the time of the harm is done at X time birth. THAT is when the person was forced and harmed. But generally, this is correct. A paternalistic imposition of perceived goods on an unknowing or uncooperative other is almost never morally justified. Hence, a parent's agenda to see X thing happen for child should not justify violating the non-aggression and non-harm principle, both of which will be violated at birth.

Methinks you confound positive and negative duties (or freedom) with the inchoate distinction between "positive and negative ethics." After all, the good life entails the avoidance of suffering. — Methinks

You make two statements that don't seem to have much relation with each other. One is an insignificant but noted objection of my semantics (ethics vs.duties), and the other has to do with the good life entails avoiding suffering. Rather, this thread is more about not overriding negative ethics (duties) for a positive ethics (duties). Thus, if you kidnap someone and force them into a game (thus violating the non-aggression rule) because YOU think it is good for them, that would be wrong as you are using a positive ethics to justify violating a negative ethics.

then it's really less about the logic of the systems and more ultimately up to your feelings or intuitions. I wouldn't "weigh" one against the other either; they're competing ideologies and if you believe in one then I think you should disregard the other. I've never heard of the two being reconciled. — BitconnectCarlos

It all follows from the idea of not violating autonomy. You don't assume others want to be harmed or forced. What follows is the NAP and the NHP (non-harm principle). Also, a correlation to this is that by respecting someone's autonomy you aren't using them for an ends. So this happens to fall in line with Kantian ideas, but isn't derived from them. So, there is a difference and in this case, it would not be arbitrarily cherry-picking from systems as you may be implying.

In regard to making the case for one of them, Kant makes the case that his rules are derived from reason itself. It's very ambitious. Naturally, philosophers have a hard-on for this kind of thing so if you buy Kant's case then I figure that kind of settles it... you're a Kantian. Similarly, I remember I debated with someone over the non-aggression principle years ago and they also argued the principle was derived directly from reason. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, what does "reason" mean though? It is a tricky word and hence I avoid it. It is a hypothetical imperative (I am not going to indulge the idea of a CI for the sake of this argument), and the hypothetical imperative is, "If you value an individual's autonomy, and believe that the basis of ethics is a person's individual autonomy, then the NAP and NHP fall naturally from this". So I am not going to use any ambiguous and weasel-words like "reason" which just stands for "my thinking is superior" rather than a real definition of anything meaningful.

The utilitarian case - and it's been some time since I looked into it - is definitely not based around such a strong claim. I think it's more of a mild common sense appeal and then we go from there. I'm not going to make the utilitarian case here - you can find it elsewhere - but ultimately you need to be comparing these two systems more as competing ideologies and less of 'how do we find balance?' — BitconnectCarlos

I don't know where you got this notion at all from this thread, as I have nothing about competing utlitarian and deontological claims in here. My whole premise has been deontological (though I see that you have seen negative ethics as more associated with utilitarian). I don't agree with a utilitarian basis for ethics as I think it does not take into account individuals and their autonomy which is where I see the locus of actual ethics to lie. On the other hand, I can see the usefulness of utilitarian reasoning in other areas of human life, including government policy, but that would be something else and not necessarily ethics proper.

Am I understanding you right? — BitconnectCarlos

More-or-less yes.

Whatever happened, it had to be useful enough to spread in the community. That's a given, otherwise we wouldn't be here -- whatever the story. As to what selective advantage this had, yes those are all good suggestions. — Xtrix

I think this is very plausible. However, I can also envision a more social reason for language origins vs. the purely mental exaptation described by Chomsky. That is not to say I am stepping back completely with the idea of a FLN that is the genetic basis for language but rather that the origins of the FLN could be for social reasons (which translated easily to communication later). I have two scenarios here. The first is the non-exaptation (more amenable to social learning and later communication). The second is more Chomskyean in that it is more purely an exaptation that became selected for in its broad way that eventually led to language.

1) Learning strategies of cultural collaboration pushed language: It could be that goal-directedness is the primary cause for both better social awareness AND better tool-making skills. A chimp can observe, practice, and repeat it seems when making simple tools. Why can't they make more complex tools though? Well the tools they can produce are in the limit of this model of observe, practice, repeat. A capacity for something like Joint Attention (between primary caregiver, let's say or any socially anchored person in the infant's life), can allow for goal-directedness. That is to say, a better capacity for goal-directedness can lead to more complex tool-making. It can also help in understanding complex behaviors and Theory of Mind. Thus, various mutations, and allowances for epigenetic phenomena of interaction between genes/proteins and environment may have contributed to a more focused goal-directed behavior. This push for more goal-directed behavior favored a brain that can perform Merge functions such as in language, math, etc. because it allowed for more robust collaboration. Or conversely, the Merge function helped in creating goal-directedness and robust collaboration.

2) Pattern-recognition strategies: This is non-social specific. That is that somehow, the human animal needed to recognize patterns more easily (perhaps tool-making and social one-upsmanship). A series of quick genetic transitions occurred which allowed a sub-population to better manipulate the environment for complex tool and social awareness. This translated eventually to the linguistic abilities that generate recursion and Merge specifically. Also, with this pattern-recognition, perhaps it was better used for translating memory from working memory into explicit memory.

Again, all speculation here. The first approach would be more in-line with adaptationist approach rather than the strictly Chomskyean "mental space" that happened to translate to language later on. Both are somewhat indirect to the actual fact that language is now used to communicate amongst other things (internal dialogue that helps impose order on the environment).

Ok, just keep in mind when you keep bringing up terms like "maximizing well-being" or "minimizing suffering" you're strongly, strongly hinting towards a utilitarian perspective of things. I've read Kant and he really isn't concerned with happiness or really even minimizing suffering. The NAP also isn't concerned with minimizing suffering. — BitconnectCarlos

It's only Kantian or deontological in the sense that it is about a duty to a principle that considers the person qua person and not as utility to be maximized. Also, importantly (in my conception anyway), it is about not using people as a means. It is a strong version of this, as Kant's principle holds that you should not use people only as a means. However, I think this can be taken further, in that if you like the idea of a new person being born to do X and X (the parent's agenda for the child), yet this will inevitably cause harm to the child (as life has the possibilities for lots and lots of harm), then it is not permissible to force the parent's agenda on the child, as it is violating the non-harm principle (and the autonomous individual as someone who can be harmed and forced).

Ok, all I'm saying here is that negative ethics can be viewed through many different lenses. A negative ethic could be as mild as don't murder or steal from people because it violates their rights. I'm not going to come in and defend the non-aggression or try to reconcile it with birth because it's just not something I've ever really been able to make sense of. As far as I've heard negative ethics are just about getting people NOT to do certain things and we can conceive of that in many different ways. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, I agree with this. In the context of this thread, the argument is that positive ethics should not unduly override negative ethics. That is to say, if I think happiness is about doing X, or some sort of program of habits and thoughts, I should not force someone into it, even if I think it would be good for them.

I feel like you're conceiving of this idea of positive versus negative ethics through a utilitarian lense. And yes, when you perceive of it that way there can definitely be internal contradictions. I'm not a utilitarian and I'm not interested in defending it. Personally, when I think of a negative ethic it's more like the biblical "thou shalt not" or a political rights-based approach which forbids you from clubbing someone over the head as you walk down the street (i.e. acknowledging their rights at the bare minimum.) It doesn't in itself make for a particularly good society, but it does accomplish the bare minimum. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't conceive negative ethics to necessarily be utilitarian. The version I discuss isn't, in fact. If anything it can be characterized as denotological or "Kantian". That is to say, one should respect the autonomy of the individual, in the realm of ethics, such that one does not violate the principle of non-aggression and/or non-harm. Exceptions would only occur if someone's autonomy was being violated or about to be violated. Thus, self-defense is permissible, etc. In the applied ethical realm of procreation, strictly following negative ethics would lead to an antinatalist conclusion. That is to say, by creating a new human, you are violating the non-harm principle (do not create conditions of unnecessary harm for others) and arguably the non-aggression principle (do not force others into conditions, even if you think it is best for them). Again, there are nuances, but it all revolves around taking individual autonomy seriously. Thus, as discussed in this thread, unconscious coma patients, elderly with dementia, and children are states where the individual has limited or no autonomy. However, something like birth will affect someone for a lifetime and in terms of the need to cause harm, is unnecessary.

Thank you. Hardly a "war," though. (For it to be a war, you need an opponent of some kind. StreetlightX is still stuck in intellectual adolescence -- the type that'll call Aristotle an "idiot" for such-and-such a reason. I don't take that seriously.)

But I'm glad my responses prove interesting to the others who are reading this thread -- that was my hope. — Xtrix

I do find this debate fascinating. Language and the evolution of language specifically, has always been a fascinating subject to me. You defend the Chomskyean idea well as to what makes a language a language vs. simply a communication system. It seems Chomsky was trying to connect the idea that the FLN may have been an exaptation that allowed for a number of "mental" capabilities that carried over to language abilities. The implication is that tying the FLN to an origin just in communication would be an error and to "take the bait" of mistaking the consequence for its cause. Tool-making and better social awareness are good candidates to start as, based on the evidence, these two forces were most evident for focus in early humans. I had a thread awhile back about what the origin of human deliberation was. That is to say, our degree of freedom of choices as opposed to ironclad if/then responses (mostly seen in other animals). Deliberative thinking may also have something to do with FLN. What would cause a species to need such a high degree of deliberation, and what would cause such freedom of action? Well the cause might be something like a FLN and the reason for the FLN might be factors such as tool-making and more complex social awareness.

It's always been game over. We just kept breeding and blindly keeping it all going.

Not what I’m saying at all. You have in your head a concept that you think is close to what I’m arguing here, and you’re running with that instead of reading what I’ve actually written. I have never said ‘growth-through-adversity’, and I have never said that life should or ‘must’ be lived by more people - because I don’t believe that it should. Talk about strawman. Take a moment to try and honestly understand what I’ve written before rejecting it based on your own assumptions of what I must be saying simply because I disagree with you on something. — Possibility

But it does amount to growth-through-adversity.. Another model of this. Think your model through and once you start explaining it, oh yeah, it does juts become another case of self-help version of this. You just don't want it characterized like that. And no, you don't have to write it out again in a long paragraph. Collaboration is shorthand for this because I am thinking what these means all the way through. It involves learning through trial-and-error, with other people involved. That amounts to growth-through-adversity. It is its own scheme/model/game however much you want it to not be characterized like that. By putting another person into the world, you are de facto saying, "I want this for the other person, and I am willing to foist it on them".

They’re more afraid: of those who would ‘harm’ them, of bringing ‘harm’ to others, of an unwanted end to their precious existence, of losing loved ones, etc - everything has so much more value, both positive and negative. — Possibility

So this was more about envisioning, the positive ethics that are involved in a large antinatalism community. In effect, there would be collaboration but it would be a collaboration of pessimism. Everyone would recognize the situation, see it for what it is, and concertedly work together to prevent others from dealing with life. The collaboration is in the form of not creating the situation for others and continuing the cycle.

And with the loss of ever more individuals, each individual ‘suffering’ increases in severity for those who remain. How long do you think this antinatalism would last, once an individual recognises there are two options that would most certainly ease this intensity for themselves? Which option do you think would be more attractive? — Possibility

No, harvesting new people to reduce one's own harm would hopefully be understood by this crew as an illusion that self-perpetuates itself :).

So, while I admire the heartfelt motivation, as long as the priority is the individual you will never reduce the qualitative impact of ‘suffering’ in the world - not with antinatalism. And I maintain that it is the ethical perspective that lets you down, not the prescription of ‘don’t procreate’, which I would otherwise support. — Possibility

It would be the ethical prescription to encourage more harm to other people that would be letdown that isn't even considered by the current ideals. There's a blindspot there.

The difference is that you seem to think we should have a different reality. Bear with me while I attempt to understand what you’re proposing here. — Possibility

First off, you're not freakn Yoda or Buddha, or some wise sage, so please stop pretending to be on a perch of wisdom about collaboration vs. my ignorance of reality and focus on the individual. So now that we got that out of the way...

So this universe with optimal conditions could possibly exist, but only within the mind of an individual, and only in absence (or ignorance) of any other form of existence. You’re effectively yearning for oblivion - this is your ‘absolute paradise’.

But let’s say an individual wishes to manifest this ‘absolute paradise’ they have imagined in which to exist. The individual would need to manifest another existence (its absolute paradise) with which to interact. In order to know what to manifest, it must have some idea of what could possibly exist. But if nothing exists except itself, then it cannot know of any other possibility, and so can only manifest another instance of itself, with the potential it perceives within itself. — Possibility

Well of course. AGAIN, you asked me, "Are there any optimal conditions". My answer is effectively, no there is not. I then off-handedly said I guess in theory there can be a universe of paradise. Then you took that off-handed comment to make a huge straw man and/or red herring to try to prove the falsehood of its ever going to be a reality. HENCE, I said "PURELY THEORETICAL". I would never believe it could even be a reality. It would only be a fantasy one can think of.. Like a square circle, etc. I can think of it, but the actual reality of it is itself a contradiction. So, let's not even dwell on it because it's a straw man you set up.

I get that you’d like reality to reflect your own value system - we all would, because that would mean we no longer have to experience prediction error, which we tend to evaluate as ‘bad’ experience. But you’re criticising a reality that you don’t know enough about to even begin to propose an effective alternative. It’s like what Banno refers to here regarding critical thinking without context - like the patient trying to tell a neurosurgeon where he went wrong. It’s ignorance and hubris to think you know better than a reality you don’t even understand. It just smacks of a two year old tantrum, to me. — Possibility

You're putting ideas out there that I didn't say. All I am saying is that do not harm someone by procreating. I don't buy into this beyond good and evil BS, that life "must" be had by yet MORE people so that those individuals can experience "growth-through-adversity". Your collaboration mumbo jumbo is just another version of "growth-through-adversity" schemes to say justify why life should be lived out by yet more people. Next.

There is no objective ‘good’ or ‘bad’, no ‘some thing that has to be done’ - there is simply existence and whatever sense we make of it. Your interpretations of how I describe reality will always look like a ‘game’ to you, it seems. But for me, there are no rules except those we make for ourselves or attempt to impose on others. — Possibility

I call bullshit. There are certainly rules that are imposed, forced or de facto (as I've stated). Humans are not in a vacuum. The problem with these self-help philosophies is they always try to sound wiser than what they are.. If you invert the problem so that it is with YOU the individual who has the problem, then it cannot be reality that is off, but YOUR interaction/view/interpretation that is. This thus allows the con game to keep going.. You see, the best people understand how to quietly accept "reality" and they change it by some life-affirming choice.. I don't know joining a Cult of Collaboration, hobby, friends, whatever not-so-novel idea you want to throw out there where the person "realizes" that they can "change" their view and become more at peace with reality.. Yeah, I've heard all this. There is only one way to prevent suffering for another person, that is not putting more people into the world..

What you are allowing (and you will keep denying this, I know), is for people to justify why it is ok to be born in the first place.. because you see in this philosophy of yours and similar ones, it is YOU (the individual who was born), that has a problem and you BETTER learn to adjust or be a miserable pessimist.. You see all problems stem from your ATTITUDE and you if you just CHANGE that so that you can accept the reality.. etc. etc. If someone says that it is the person who was born that was wronged by being brought into existence, that somehow can never be stated. No, that is fine. It is the person who was procreated who is wrong if they don't ACCEPT life's premises, according to these "it's YOUR attitude" philosophies.

Let's take a thought experiment.. let us say antinatalism caught on and a majority of the world thought like an antinatalist. What do you think that would look like?

I'm looking for a model that doesn't entail most of us dying. — unenlightened

I gave you the three outcomes:

Coordinated distribution - Best one..least death
Everyone-for-themselves- Worst one..most death
Hierarchy-of-Access- Not great, leads to extreme inequalities.

If money and labor is completely taken out of the equation, it is all about power at this point. So who has power to access the distribution. How do we provide the best access to distribution? It would have to be some democratic process, similar to a Constitutional Convention. It would require people trust each other and the institution setting it up. Of course, that could be tricky.

Hey, you never addressed my last post!

Proposed solutions based on money and ownership (UBI and socialism/communism) inevitably fail because they continue the social (financial) arrangements that produce the invisible hand. Nothing less than a new conception, (or possibly an old conception) of social relations including the property relation, and the nature of social virtue will suffice to remedy the situation. — unenlightened

You are making a straw man of work-as-virtue. Labor is only virtuous under an economic model. That is it. This doesn't mean value actually is in labor. You are putting in tricky words that are ambiguous like "social virtue". Money works as an incentive. If there are no incentives, you don't need money. The only other forms would be coordinated distribution, piracy and might-makes-right, or some hierarchy whereby those who are closest with the robots get the goods. What else are you looking for?

There is no game: no activity that one engages in for fun or amusement; no form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules; no episode or period of play ending in a final result; no secret and clever plan or trick. — Possibility

You said that but then you said this:

You don’t have to try and figure it out, you don’t have to interact with the world, and you certainly don’t have to learn from your mistakes. — Possibility

There is the game then. Learning from mistakes is part of it. In other threads I've called it "growth-through-adversity" model. Parents think that life is some sort of game of "growing-through-adversity". Thus providing life to another person ensures they play the game of "growth-through-adversity". Or they hope they grow through their adversity and not flounder in adversity. Of course, why putting someone in this "reality" of growth-through-adversity in the first place is not explained.

Why do you say ‘currently’? — Possibility

You asked if there are any optimal conditions. I said there were none currently. In pure theory, there could be a universe that has complete optimal conditions that is tailored for every individual's absolute paradise (and everything can be turned off to suit what one wants at any given time), but that is not this reality as you have noted. We only have this reality. And if you say, we have to "fit" this reality, then that is the game that you deny that it is. No, it's not made by humans, but the way you describe reality (interacting and collaboration.. do it or pay the consequences or whatever your negative consequence is of not following your model), it is indeed something one must try to get a "handle of". There is some technique, some WAY, some thing that has to be done and if one doesn't do it, one suffers from it.. This to me is game-like. One plays by the rules or one doesn't get to benefit from playing the game or winning it. Yes, I know you are going to object to "winning" or "rules" but that is essentially what you are laying out. Even if you deny this, and then repeat your "collaboration" chorus, it doesn't negate what it is amounting to. You can say it differently, but your model is as much a game as the normative models that are around which are about the same.. deal with reality.. here is how.. growth-through-adversity in some fashion or other be it collaboration or anything else.

As manufacturing jobs shrink, service jobs are expanding. However, every servant needs a master, every service needs to be paid for. So for the poor, the hairdresser gets replaced with a DIY trimmer. So the hairdresser becomes poor. Manufacturing is the source, and services are ancillary. A society that is all services and no manufacturing collapses. The economy game stops. See rustbelt in the US, or anywhere North of Manchester in the UK. I'm not the top line economist, but I think this is fairly basic stuff. One can see already that the end of manufacturing is the end of society on a small scale, so it should not take an extraordinary feat of imagination to see the implications as the process continues.

I'm deliberately staying clear of international affairs so as to keep things simple, and obviously some communities and some countries are at a very different stage. But the first principle of economics is 'produce or die.' People are starting to die. — unenlightened

Unenlightened, anything social/societal is a form of ideology. What do you WANT society to threaten (de facto or by force) people to do? Right now, the ideology is one of internationally traded goods/services procured by monetary systems backed by governments. When bearing a child into the world THAT is what the parent wants (whether they explicitly say it or not) for/from the child. Do you think this is what people should be participating in? Is it naturally "edifying" to be a part of the labor force? Again, it is ideology- what outcome people want to see.

So I pose to you, what is it that YOU ideally want to see? People throw around a vapid word called "flourishing". I hope you will be more descriptive than that. If you say, "I want people to make friends, create things, maintain a physically healthy lifestyle, and find a moderate amount of pleasure in various pursuits of entertainment", than I have to question this. The reason is that this is ALREADY the mode by which the current normative socio-economic sphere operates. So, are you just buying into the current mode but WITH full employment and WITHOUT environmental degradation? Is that it? Is that the end goal?

Mass starvation due to robots and having full employment to stave this outcome, implies you are looking for some stability of SOMETHING. But that something is just the current ideology sans certain fringe outcomes from overproduction. What is the good life then supposed to be? I say there never was one and never will be one. If it is about maintaining ideology without these fringe scenarios, we indeed have no reason to live in the first place.

Labour is value; labour is virtue. This is the origin of economics; that a farmer works to improve the land and plant a crop. He invests his labour in the land and has to protect it until the harvest. Hence property.
And hence barter, trade, money. The tool-maker likewise invests his labour to produce the means of production, and hence capital. So the end of labour is the end of the foundation of the economy. But you think you can keep the functions of property and money when the foundation has gone. The Emperor has no clothes; money and property has no meaning or function any more. The working class is already dead. — unenlightened

So with labor gone, social relations would change. Think Star Trek or some other sci-fi scenario or historical one. Hunting-gatherers don't have the same concept of labor, property, and land. It is possible to form human relations without these "foundational" concepts. Economics is not a hard science. The assumptions of economics are not hard facts. I liken economic thinking and theory to willful delusion. If we all believe in "the law of this or that" (place economic "law" here), and enough other people take it to be so, then it must be true. But it isn't. The laws of economics, the "foundational" theories are NOT like gravity, as much as economists want their profession to be taken as hard fact like physics.

Certainly, if robots truly took over every aspect of life, there would be foundational changes to the current model. This doesn't mean that this disruption of the normal life, wouldn't give way. The Middle Ages was much different than currently. One can say "capitalism" the way we know it was really 18th-19th century models that have changed since "progressivism" of early 20th century. In the 16th-17th century, you can argue it wasn't even capitalism but mercantilism. Medieval economies were based mainly on feudal relations of peasant to lords with a small but growing merchant class that combined with the central government to form mercantalism eventually. It was agrarian-based.

So true, labor has been the common thread in all these forms, but the forms have changed. Without labor, the economy would be based on other factors that are less about work and more about fairness, justice, human rights, and the like. It's the same thing we debate now but take away the need to work.

Describe to me what ‘optimal conditions’ would be for an ‘individual’ to exist. — Possibility

There are none currently. As you so elucidated.

the world is NOT going to respond the way you expect it to - not because it’s trying to enforce anything on YOU, but because YOU don’t get to decide how it should go. — Possibility

So thus we get to place people in a game in non-optimal conditions for the individual. That is just proving my point about placing people in a game because YOU think that person should play it (i.e. play the collaboration game or whatever you want to call it).

. I know that something exists, and something is aware of existence. How I fit into that is what we’re all trying to figure out by interacting with the world and learning from our mistakes. — Possibility

But intentionally placing people into the game to "figure it out" (real easy words for people who have harder circumstances, but that's a secondary point), and "interacting with the world" and "learning from our mistakes". Why should anyone be put in this game to go through it? Self-justifying circular answers ensue.

What you’re ignoring is that YOU are not the central character of reality. — Possibility

I don't pretend to be reality, just myself and it is the individual who is affected, whatever the hell reality is.

This is victim mentality, or at least a form of ‘learned helplessness’. You’re simply unaware of your capacity for action, and unwilling to explore it when it presents itself. — Possibility

Thus says the person who forces the other person into the game...Blithely ignorant.

These are not ‘forces’ beyond our control. We are ‘complicit’ because these are social concepts that we have formed in our own minds, in the same way that people conceptualised ‘gods’ from interactions with their environment when they failed to detect control. Here’s an article about ‘learned helplessness’ theory you might find interesting. — Possibility

These are forces out of our control. To believe otherwise is overdetermining how much capacity we have not only in the initial conditions of our life and circumstances, but the required effort to change even one thing.

And all of this comes back to the self-contradictory, impractical negative ethics that says contributing to ‘harm’ is not an option. It is ONLY this flawed ethical perspective that positions us as ‘used creatures’. This can be changed, so why do you cling to it? What are you afraid of? — Possibility

Nothing to do with fear. It has to do with circumstances. This is all Pollyanna braggadocio about our capacities to change things. Notice, it is always when we aren't "really" going through shit, or after the shit, or when forecasting the shit that we see life as okie dokie, easily malleable, or other such thing. Or similarly, it is YOU who requires ALL this EFFORT that YOU are not providing to change YOUR world. How dare you (says the person who created the inescapable game for the other person).

I recognise that we cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond. That we DO respond is important - whether we refer to it as ‘rebellion’ or as ‘collaboration’ depends on our awareness of how everything interacts and relates. To do anything effectively, we should begin by maximising our awareness of the current situation and accept it as real - regardless of whether we want it that way. From there, we can be in the best position to effect real and lasting change, because every action is then perceived as an INTERaction, rather than a battle against the ‘forces’ of the universe or society. There is a world of difference between accepting a situation as how it IS and how it should STAY. For me, Rosa Parks’ historical stance on the bus is a perfect example of awareness, connection and collaboration. — Possibility

I already anticipated this response when saying thus, and you just reiterated the error.

In this "acceptance" view (which I deem to be promoted most by social institutions), one accepts the reality of what the situation is more-or-less (minor political tweaks not withstanding on whatever minor political spectrum you are on), and then move forward as a happy warrior. Thus making friends, climbing the mountain of one's own self-actualization, and abiding the day in the normative socio-economic setting is the about as good as it gets.

Yes, yes, acceptance acceptance..Rosa Parks was rebelling against institutional racism. Antinatalism isn't going to be so amenable a rebellion. It is rebellion against being used by life, social institutions, our own instincts, etc. That is way too abstract for a polite gesture of civil disobedience which had a ready-made audience who was on board to use that act to change society. Thus, this is a false equivalency and nowhere near the same matter.

The more we understand what we’ve built and how it sails, the more it can become a ‘collaboration panacea’. — Possibility

Pollyanna self-help stuff.

So your ‘positive ethics’ has no principles for correct action in the real world. You think you’re doing something, but you’re achieving nothing in reality - everything you think you’re doing is happening only in your mind. — Possibility

Wrong assumption- that something "has" to be achieved. It is a circular argument. We must achieve collaboration, to collaborate, to collaborate. You can put anything there though.. civilization to civilization, technology to technology, learn to learn... It's all self-justifying.

It will allways be a part of the equation, the leverage will just be 0 then. Everybody does not automatically have all the goods and services they need... that would only be the case if the owners of the means of production decide it so.

Economic power is a part of let's say "total aggregate power"... and ultimately (no matter how much rules you make) this will allways be the biggest factor in determining who get's to decide. — ChatteringMonkey

So your solution to the possibility of not owning the robots is to give us the ability to work more? I'm just trying to understand your end game.


I meant to answer your assertion here:

I am more addressing those who might wish to rebel against their imminent extinction. I wonder if I need to lay out why socialism is not a solution to all this? — unenlightened

So your solution to the possibility of not owning the robots is to give us the ability to work more? I'm just trying to understand your end game.

People care, because if they are valueless in economic terms, the next step is that they will be no factor in political deliberation, or maybe I should say even less a factor.

So it's not that they should care 'inherently' about the economy, that misses the point, it's because it will have negative consequence for them if they are valueless regardless of them caring about it or not.

Edit: To give an example, one way of weighing on political decision-making for the not-so-rich, is going on a strike. That works some of the time because going on a strike causes economic damage. It gives you a form of economic leverage. Economic value translates into political power, so if you are economic valueless where does that leave you then? — ChatteringMonkey

I see so this is about leverage of economic power. I actually thought that right as I sent my previous post, but still think the post stands on its own :).

First off, the needs of economic an political value would change if there was no need for work and robots did everything, no? Thus, the "leverage" would not even be a part of the equation being everyone has the goods and services they need.

If I like humans and can afford them, I might keep a few as pets, the point is they are valueless to the economy. — unenlightened

But who cares. The economy is an abstraction- not an entity that values or doesn't value. Anyways, if people are mainly valuable by the work they do, someone better find a better way to find meaning in existence because I don't think that was or should ever be how humans are considered "valuable". In fact, it can be argued that humans are used by economic mechanisms of society, not enhanced or given value from it. To believe that humans are bestowed value by their usefulness to the labor-force is to have drunken the Kool-Aid of institutional manipulation. People are needed to keep the whole thing going, and it is in the interests of many to see that happen by having more people do this. People are then nothing but useful tools to be manipulated to maintain this system.

So how "bad" is this non-work scenario? It seems like people inclined to, will focus more on education and understanding rather than doing work for an owner or a state. People's lives aren't dictated by management and no one has to be at a particular place and time to "make the donuts". The end of work, sounds like a much better option. However, being that many tend to be masochistic, they'll just find more work for themselves anyways.

If we are just trying to fill up time by finding more work for ourselves, perhaps we should consider antinatalism. I am being serious. Why are we putting more people into the world to find work for to do in the first place? I'm sure you will say something like "the creative capacity for people to produce something is inherently valuable". Perhaps that is propaganda to get people to do more work though. Maybe people just get bored and would find anything more valuable than languishing in their own ennui. Rather, people are motivated by boredom which is actually instructive that humans lack initial fulfillment in general. Creative work, learning, and engagement with the world is only "inherent' because we are deprived of capacity to be happy merely existing. So it comes from a place of lacking. However, even so, creative work, learning, and engagement does not need to be in the confines of how economic or political system finds it useful. That is just propaganda to think it is so. It is group-think reinforcing itself. In fact, if the current system is defined by how "useful" people are to the economy, that is a strong case for antinatalism as any act that puts another person into the economy would be using them as simply units of labor.

Let me ask you: If the capacity to choose between paths was available, but we lacked the capacity to be aware of that choice (of either the capacity to choose, the range to choose from or the paths available), then who is responsible for the path taken in absence of awareness? — Possibility

People can lack awareness of something. I didn't doubt that. The point was to try to not cause harm. That is all. I am not denying that some people might lack awareness how or who they are harming.

when you take into account everyone’s experience, including that of whoever appears to be responsible for the ‘harm’. Being aware of how actions that contribute to ‘harm’ are positioned in relation to everything else that’s going on from others’ POV reduces the chance of ignorantly contributing to ‘harm’ elsewhere when we respond. There are no isolated or autonomous individuals - every action we initiate is an interaction on many different levels, whether we’re aware of them all or not. It’s not an excuse to be ignorant, but a challenge to be more aware. — Possibility

We will never have perfect awareness of every consequence of our action. Acting in good faith is part of the equation. We are trying not to harm, and gaining more awareness is probably as good as it will get without full knowledge. But if you agree, then again, not having full knowledge doesn't negate the principle itself nor the effort.

Also, I wrote a rather lengthy response to your request for a positive ethics, and was wondering if you had a response to that.

The value of a human being is the product of his labour; such has been the orthodoxy of economics, and it follows that an increase of productivity results in an increase in the value of labour, but the production singularity, whereby not only automation is automated but progress itself is mechanised, mean that already, manufacturing is taking second place to services. Unskilled labour is already valueless; the human body costs more in resources than it can produce. — unenlightened

I cant disagree with you more here if you agree with this "orthodoxy". If value is based on labor, it implies that people are simply looked at as utility units. Why should the end of work constitute a crisis? Are people anything but utility to you?

So Trump wrote a letter to Pelosi today. He says that Impeachment is a very ugly word :lol:. Is that supposed to be written in a four-year old voice? The worst argument yet must have been one he himself actually authored here:

I said to President Zelensky: “I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign. I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America's interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.

Yet you exist and you interact. Whatever the reason, you remain as a walking contradiction to your own principles. And you expect others to believe that your principles reflect the truth? Nope. — Possibility

Benatar brings up the idea of starting an existence versus continuing an existence. Continuing existence has a different threshold than starting one. One example is one might be more reluctant of the idea of bringing a child with a major disability into the world than one would about advocating a person already born with a disability to end their life. That is just one example of the differences there.

I no longer think we should be so afraid of causing what other people think is ‘harm’ that we do nothing. That’s not living. Pain, for instance, isn’t ‘bad’ in itself. It’s prediction error: notification from the system that it requires more energy, attention or effort than was budgeted for. This doesn’t justify inflicting pain on others, but it does mean that sometimes what we initially evaluate as ‘harm’ is not necessarily as harmful as we think. Pain allows us to grow, change, improve and to understand the world better - not so we can just avoid pain or other prediction error, but in order to interact with the world and help others to predict more accurately. Prediction error is just evidence that we haven’t yet perfected this. — Possibility

I am not opposed to if someone wants to cause pain to oneself, but I am opposed causing it for others if possible. That is the difference here. And to justify that because there is always some collateral damage, that therefore everything is contaminated, and thus any harm is permitted is nonsensical.

I think you and I are not so different. It seems that you genuinely want to only do what’s best for everyone, and this is your way of evaluating that. But I’ve learned that it’s better to act and be wrong than to not act at all. We should forgive ourselves and others for errors of ignorance, offer our energy, attention and effort to repair connections when we make mistakes, and recognise the pain, humiliation and loss of prediction error as a sign that we’re learning more about how to interact with the world. This is life. Otherwise we’re all just rocks floating in space.

When people act based on positive ethics, they sometimes make mistakes and they can’t control how the world responds. But if they base their actions on negative ethics, then they don’t act at all. That’s not living, it’s not ‘doing good’ and it’s not autonomy - it’s fear. — Possibility

Existence for the already-born is a tricky business. We are used creatures. Our self-reflective capacities are used by our own human instincts to shit, eat, get bored, find a more comfortable setting, and seek pleasure. We are used by social institutions because social institutions are designed to find a way to take those instincts and self-reflective capacities and manipulate them to produce and consume for the benefit of keeping society going (i.e. labor, consumption, trade, maintenance of personal and industrial commodities and goods, education, family, entertainment purveyors, etc.). We are often used by family and relatives. We are often used by our employers in various ways to get the most work- causing stress. We are de facto forced into these social institutions, knowing that as social creatures, such that being a hermit in the woods, a homeless person in the streets, or a monk in a commune are most likely not viable (are sub-optimal) choices, so the de facto social milieu of the socio-economic normative reality is set. We are used in all sorts of ways. We are complicit, as in turn, we tend to use others and these institutions as well for our needs and wants. Then, on top of this using, there is collateral damage. There are physical and mental illnesses, disasters, accidents, miscalculations, bad decision-making, and all sorts of things that make even the bad "regular" outcome of being used and manipulated into an even worse endeavor.

You can claim that this "using" is collaboration or "mutually beneficial relationships" but at the end of the day, they are de facto forced realities that we accept as necessary. Some (apparently you) go as far as giving some quasi-spiritual significance to these supposed "mutually beneficial relationships". I think this is simply turning a blind eye to what is really going on. The first (and most important) political decision was made for you, that was being born in the first place. Someone else thought you should go through life and be a part of this using process (not their perspective to use someone, but their unintended and unreflective action nonetheless). They had some reason (some X agenda) that this should be so if they weren't just outright negligent (accidental birth). Their decision majorly affecting another person, who must deal with it now.

Now that we are alive, "forced" into dealing with the situation thereof, what do we do? One can commit suicide. That is usually a sub-optimal choice for most. We can keep going through the motions- that is an inevitable choice (that is to say, survival through work, consumption, and trade through the normative socio-economic channels that the current situation provides). One could drink the Kool-Aid and accept the givens and then even "praise them" like so many self-help books try to promote. In this "acceptance" view (which I deem to be promoted most by social institutions), one accepts the reality of what the situation is more-or-less (minor political tweaks not withstanding on whatever minor political spectrum you are on), and then move forward as a happy warrior. Thus making friends, climbing the mountain of one's own self-actualization, and abiding the day in the normative socio-economic setting is the about as good as it gets. I say rebellion is the best stance though. Always realize that one was placed here originally. Always remember that one is being used and is using. Now, I agree that community is part of humanity, and thus communally, I think it can be cathartic to rebel together. So antinatalism is not JUST about preventing harm (negative ethics), but can be a "positive" ethics in rallying against our being used. No, we cannot prevent "existence" itself, but we can recognize what is going on as a community and perhaps with this "rebellious stance" and understanding, we can be kinder and more understanding of each other and our situations. Schopenhauer thought the best stance was recognizing each other as "fellow-sufferers". We are in the same boat- and it isn't a collaboration panacea of bliss. It is rather being used by all sorts of factors and enduring and dealing with life. We can communally understand this and rebel. We can recognize what is going on and prevent others from dealing with as well.

By the way, for those interested in a decent summary of David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, please see this video. It gives the main arguments fairly straightforwardly. And no, the reviewer in the video is not me :).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5zRTd1nf4

What you’re talking about is only preventing harm to your own progeny - not preventing ALL harm. That’s hardly the same thing. In fact, it barely rates a mention in terms of preventing ALL harm. What are you hoping to achieve? An end to existence? — Possibility

So you take my words out of context now. ALL harm onto another person that would be harmed otherwise. Period. The goal is not end of existence. The goal is not causing any harm to another person. This does not happen by not procreating.

I’m aware of this. But you are not preventing harm for another person by denying their existence, because that ‘person’ does not exist. So you’re not doing any ‘good’ here. You are not doing anything, so how can you be an agent? You’re denying possibilities because you believe the cost is too high. That’s your prerogative, but rest assured the universe will continue to exist without your involvement. ‘Harm’ and ‘force’ will still be experienced, as a result of the inevitable interaction between ignorant and isolated, ‘individual’ will. We have the capacity to change that, but we have to recognise our capacity as an agent, and then do something with it.

Negative ethics on its own is about denying agency, which kind of defeats the purpose. You cannot do or be ‘good’ by refusing to do or be anything in relation to existence. — Possibility

No, you are doing "good" because you are not causing harm. Not causing harm is always good. You can be doing good by NOT doing anything. I am not asking people to be salvation for existence itself. In fact, that is a category error. I agree that existence will exist. The ethic isn't about that though. It is about preventing harm when one can. Not procreating perfectly prevents all harm for another person who might otherwise be harmed.

THIS is my problem. We don’t know this at all. Harm continues to occur regardless of procreation - I’m not even sure what gives you this idea. You’ll have to explain. — Possibility

ALL harm for any future progeny can be prevented. Unless you don't have a concept of a future or a person that CAN be born into that future, I don't see what explanation you need. Again, morality is at the margins- that is to say, what people as agents can actually do. Of course, being that morality is not a big utilitarian "greatest good" game, what you can acutally "do" is not about greatest good, but not using people for some outcome you want to see. That is to say, not using people for YOUR or some other entity's agenda.

People decide to have a child for all sorts of reasons - but most of them stem from the fearful realisation that individual autonomy is either not a priority or not possible. Anyone still striving for individual autonomy as a priority has no reason to procreate, sure - but that striving becomes a Sisyphean effort. Most people eventually recognise through prediction error that the world doesn’t work like that, and they adjust their conceptual system to better suit reality. Procreation is often a key coping mechanism at this point. But beyond our fear is the realisation that procreation is a feeble, half-assed effort to wrestle some form of relevance from our ‘individual’ participation in existence, and that we are capable of much more effective participation in far more collaborative achievements than simply creating another individual. — Possibility

Okay, you seem to be yourself very conflicted. I don't know what to say to that. I agree with your sentiments that people can collaborate in other ways. Yet you somehow justify procreation through some odd "recognition of reality" that you seem to be railing against at the same time. Again, I don't know what you're trying to prove here other than people procreate and that somehow they are "justified" but for some obtuse reason of "existence" or some such thing.

The way I see it, you’re trying to convince parents to act against the possibility of a child - to do what they can to prevent the potential existence of another individual, because this is the only way you can see to effectively act against the possibility of harm. I’m okay with this, but it has nothing to do with any moral act of a parent against their actual child prior to the existence of that child. — Possibility

I am okay with that. Preventing harm to someone is all that matters. Anything else is rhetorical nonsense and is trying to find strawmen and red herrings for the sake of argument. We all know ALL harm can be prevented by simply not procreating. As you noticed, no actual person is "deprived" because there is no actual person who exists to be deprived. So what is your problem? There is none.

They would eventually find a way AND justify it from their perspective - such is human capacity. So you see, your perspective of their morality IS irrelevant in preventing harm. And you’ve even admitted that the moral perspective you’re advocating is impractical and contradictory in reality, so your ethics has nothing to stand on - which is why you’re arguing to prevent individual existence as the only way you can see to effectively prevent harm.

I’m not saying there is nothing we can do to prevent harm any more than you are. You’ve backed yourself into a corner, though. You can’t prevent existence - only individual existence. So your argument that the individual is more important or valuable than existence unravels at this point. — Possibility

It's all about the margins. You are not in charge of existence as a whole, just what you are able to do as an agent. You are able to prevent harm for another person by simply preventing birth. That is all the argument is for. You are overstepping what the argument is even advocating.

No. Bob procreated in order to use the child to bribe his parent not disinherit him. No end doesn't justifies using the child as the means. — 180 Proof

Agreed.

Most antinatalists are not straight-up (and to me insane) "Greatest Good" utilitarians. There is a deontological (Kantian) element of not using people. In fact, there is strong sense in the antinatalist logic that people should not be used for any X reason (society's, the parents, etc.). Morals are at margins- where people actually effect other individuals (or prevent effecting/affecting them in the case of antinatalism).

2. Mary also thinks that life is bad and procreation is prima facie immoral. But, she really wants to have children. She reasons that as long as she donates enough money to Project Prevention that prevents more people from being born than the people that she creates, it is ok for her to have children. — TheHedoMinimalist

They are still affecting a future person's life. That individual should not be used for some greater agenda (or in this case simply the parent's agenda).

For the antinatalists in the forum, do you think that the actions of Bob are justified? What about the actions of Mary? For all the non-antinatalists, do you consider donating to Project Prevention as a good action, a neutral action, or a bad action? — TheHedoMinimalist

I think selective antinatalism is simply eugenics. While, I agree that situational anti-procreation is justified (debilitated drug addicts shouldn't have kids), antinatalism as I see it is mainly about not causing harm or aggression towards a future person. In other words, you can perfectly respect the autonomy of the individual by not enabling conditions of harm for a future person, and by not "forcing their hand" and violating non-aggression by affecting an individual by bringing them into the world in the first place.