I don't but that doesn't matter. That's what's so convincing about antinatalism to me. ALL THE WORLDS A through Z WILL include some suffering (except for one world and its permutations which we sure as heck aren't living in). And in ALL THE WORLDS A thorough Z that suffering WILL start at birth. Birth will ALWAYS be a partial cause in EVERY instance of suffering. Although it might not be the most direct cause, it being a partial cause in EVERY SINGLE CASE adds up to quite the atrocity. — khaled

Great point!

The reason it matters to me is, as I said, that my view doesn't ignore other persons' opinions. Most people don't think that only suffering matters, and most aren't so miserable that suffering greatly outweighs everything else. My view takes other persons' opinions into account. You don't have to do that, of course. There's not a right or wrong way to formulate an ethical view. I'm just telling you how I formulate mine on this particular issue. — Terrapin Station

Let's look at this..

The reason it matters to me is, as I said, that my view doesn't ignore other persons' opinions. Most people don't think that only suffering matters, and most aren't so miserable that suffering greatly outweighs everything else. — Terrapin Station

So two things here:
1) If you notice a couple posts back I asked if you were the "arbiter" of what is good. In other words, it seems like natalists think that parents think that they are deciding on behalf of humanity what humanity needs and wants- the ultimate politicians on behalf of the unborn and existence.

This to me, is the height of hubris- to think that new people in some way should be brought into existence, because another person decided this must take place for another person and they are the persons who must do this thing. But as I've said many times now, putting someone into XYZ negative circumstances and challenges because the parents want to see some sort of agenda take place for the child (prior to its existence), is putting some agenda above the child. If I made you go through an obstacle course that was not too dissimilar to life, and you eventually identified with the challenges of that course, or maybe experienced many negative aspects but self-reported "Oh, the obstacle course is a mixed bag, but I'm glad someone put me through it", it is still wrong to do this to someone else. That is the gist of it.

Also, the tremendous collateral damage to someone who might dare to report that life is not great. What about them? Too bad? Things MUST get done?

My view takes other persons' opinions into account. You don't have to do that, of course. There's not a right or wrong way to formulate an ethical view. I'm just telling you how I formulate mine on this particular issue. — Terrapin Station

At the procreational decision level, any moral consideration should take into account the asymmetry of preventing ALL harm and depriving no future person of any actual good. That is all we are saying. To try to pretzel the logic so that it is permissible to procreate because there is some existential democracy and the parent is the arbiter of this democracy, is playing with other people's lives for the sake of an agenda that is not the child's. Being that life is all people know once born, of course they will eventually identify with it, and of course they would be bewildered or scared of any alternative- namely non-existence. But, this is not about post-birth, but prior to birth when the asymmetry is present.

The point remains that to know this, we'd need data about persons' evaluations at the two different time periods in question--the (1) scenario in my post above.

If we had the data in question, and it suggested what you're hoping/claiming it would suggest, we'd also need an argument as to why the evaluation at time T1 has precedence over the evaluation at time T2, rather than those simply being two different evaluations, where it's not the case that one is correct and the other is incorrect. — Terrapin Station

All I'm saying is self-reports don't necessarily tell the whole picture of what's going on. But, as I said to you, this empirical data, doesn't even matter to the argument. I know shocking, since that is what you will use..

Most people will self-report they want to be born, therefore it is is permissible to have children in mitigating economic household circumstances, is about as far as your argument goes, correct?

Ok.. sure. You definitely have to go deeper than the "overall" summed evaluation someone gives you is the point. Thus, "life is good" is often wrought with internal biases that distort events of the time versus remembered. Also, I think the question itself is biased, as it really doesn't allow for nuance and will go with the response that aligns most with societal cues.

Okay, but the only way we can know that is by the person (a)stating that experience F was negative in their evaluation, while experience G was positive, then (b) them recalling experience G in much more detail than experience F.

That tells us nothing about "reporting more positively than actual lived moments day to day." — Terrapin Station

Um, what you stated was the same thing.

So first, that's about accuracy of recall. — Terrapin Station

Right..so restating what I said.

What would it have to do with a claim that you know better than other people (per their reports) whether they've have positive or negative experiences? — Terrapin Station

I'm not saying I know better, but that people reporting positive overall evaluations, often don't recall accurately their bad experiences when making those evaluations.

What? You're saying you know their actual experiences better than what they're reporting as their experiences? — Terrapin Station

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle
Real phenomena.

More like I'm saying, people don't even know that they have a tendency for selective positive recall.

Just an observer. You must think it's possible to observe this stuff, via reports from people, otherwise what in the world would you be addressing? — Terrapin Station

Besides the fact that people report more positively than actual lived moments day to day, besides the fact that people often identify with that which makes them.suffer, knowing nothing but what they are already used to, and fearing death...Focusing just on people who report negatively..there is a huge cost in creating unhappy person. Harm was created for that person. There is no cost to someone else, by not creating happy person.

However, I dont even buy this line of reasoning. Rather, as I've stated many times before, it's the fact that people are harmed in the first place, not their self report of those challenges. A gain, I use the analogy of the obstacle course, foisting an obstacle course on someone else because you enjoy watching them navigate it, and the only way out is suicide, is wrong EVEN if the victim eventually finds meaning in or identified positively with the obstacle course. Forcing challenges for someone else, when no challenges needed to be faced by literally anyone, is never right.

Good to know that we'll be keeping things succinct and focused. — Terrapin Station

Well if that's code for focusing on red herrings, nope.

So starting with this, my view doesn't ignore other persons' opinions. Most people don't think that only suffering matters, and most aren't so miserable that suffering greatly outweighs everything else. — Terrapin Station

So you're the arbiter and interpreter of what most people think?

Every sentence in your post has something that needs to be addressed, so I'm not going to do it all at once. One thing at a time. — Terrapin Station

Ha, same for you

If you were to put it that way, the only counter to it would be for someone like me to note that I don't feel the same way about suffering that you do. I don't feel that it's the only thing that matters and/or I don't feel that it outweighs other things to an extent to suggest avoiding it altogether. — Terrapin Station

Even with your very callous and indifferent way of looking at suffering (for how other people may experience it versus you, let's say), YOUR decision is affecting SOMEONE else, not just your own life. That is the major difference, you often seem to bypass. You seem to think that the parent's projection is the child's experience. Of course, you and I know it is not. You can do the ad populum thing, but even a small percentage of people who don't want to go through life were brought tremendous collateral damage in their own perspective. The antinatalist is saying that no one is actually deprived of anything prior to birth, so there wouldn't be "losing out" for an actual person. No one is kept "hostage" from being born, so to say.

If I think something is a problem, it is because of a specific scenario, a specific set of properties that obtain in that situation, and for me, I also like to significantly "err" on the side of permissibility, so that some things I only see as a problem if they're severe enough--which is why I don't think that any physical violation is an issue if it doesn't have lingering--at least a few days--non-microscopically-observable (physical) effects for example. — Terrapin Station

I think this is dubious. We know that life can contain various amounts of harm to someone, much of it unforeseen as to the amounts and kinds. Even if you don't believe in the structural suffering like "Dukka" that @Inyenzibrought up, and we are just going by crass utilitarian versions of what is defined as "harm" (usually immediately experienced physical or psychological harm), you do not know how much that would be or what their experience of it, or their subjective view of it would be. We know that it is not yours, and that you can't program the person to be like yours, even if you think you can sufficiently "educate" and "habituate" them to your view of it. That is the height of hubris as well.

The major point in all this is that life is the pre-condition, the platform for all this suffering to take place. We are just saying it is good to take away the platform, and that any reason to go ahead and procreate above and beyond that is putting an agenda above a person's experience of suffering, which is using someone to fulfill that agenda while not considering the harm foisted upon that potential person.

I did that in the last post.

You would be applying it to specific instances, when at the procreational decision-making level, it prevents ALL harm for a future life. Again, self-evident that being born causes harm, and procreation causes people to be born. — schopenhauer1

And that you use "cause" in a manner different than I do doesn't make my usage flawed. As for "reductive," that would need to be defined better and why it's supposed to be negative would need to be supported. — Terrapin Station

No it would make it a huge category error. You would be applying it to specific instances, when at the procreational decision-making level, it prevents ALL harm for a future life. Again, self-evident that being born causes harm, and procreation causes people to be born.

? It was a yes or no question. And the answer, given good reading comprehension, should have been "no. — Terrapin Station

One of your bad arguments is the "suffering of parent" for not begetting someone else that would be harmed argument, yes.

After all, there is no other way for a universe to be perceived. It can't be seen or experienced but it's within the reaches of thought surely. — Razorback kitten

Conceptualuzations of the universe and the universe are two different things. To take the perspective of the universe is to jump over the impossible. Conceive all you want but at the end of the day that is all it is when you are contemplating the universe as a whole. We can only conceive of the universe in a very specific way. We see things from the human scale, physically and metaphorically.

I think it's important to recognize that when we conceptualize and imagine universes, we always keep a human point of view on it. What we cannot do is get the view from "somewhere else" or "everywhere" or "nowhere". None of these views are amenable to us, thus views of all existence are not amenable to us, other than our own conceptualizations.

Was the comment about whether there is suffering when people don't have children an argument against antinatalism? — Terrapin Station

That's one of them. The other one is this whole cause thing. It is self-evident that being born is the one condition that allows for all other suffering. It is a category error to say non-existing children are suffering. It's nonsensical rather.But guess what? Existing people will be harmed. What causes someone to get born, to exist? Procreation.

But again, you know this. You can dance around and twist your arguments as much as you want to make it not the case, but indeed it is the case:

Being born allows for ALL suffering>>>> procreation leads to being born in the first place. You can't twist your reasoning enough to get out of this fact.

You are assuming things like 'there is no God' 'there is no value in sentient beings per se' 'people's current interests in the future of the species are wrongheaded and need not be considered' 'the urge to procreate causes not harm if it is inhibited' 'reincarnation is not the case, there are no souls in line, so to speak ' 'precreation is natural and good' and likely many other values, some rather mundane, others involving belief systems other than yours. — Coben

All of these things would then assume that people are to be used (for reincarnation, for spiritual entities, for future of humanity as a whole, etc.). Why individuals suffering should be started for a third-party cause, is never stated. Creating the conditions for harm for other people, because they need to do XYZ things, is creating people for someone else's agenda. Why make people for a third-party's agenda? That seems wrong as well. Again, an analogy would be setting up an obstacle course (i.e. the challenges of life) and forcing people to participate in it. The only option they have to get out is to kill themselves. You have to deal with the obstacle course, because I want you to. You will suffer, but hey, I believe you will get so much out of going through the obstacle course. Something is not right about that. Making someone go through challenges, that did not exist in the first place to need those challenges, even if the person identifies with those challenges (like a slave who doesn't realize his persecution), should make one pause.

@Terrapin Station
Exactly.

That's only an argument against the claim that no one is harmed or no one suffers just in case someone is pressured or forced into not having kids, when they want to have kids. — Terrapin Station

Someone suffering by not creating the causes or conditions that will occasion all other suffering for/ on behalf of another person makes no sense to qualify. I never said suffering alone is the only thing that matters. I usually frame it as causing suffering on behalf of another person. That is what is happening by having children, and you know it. You are lost in your own red herrings, that you have no argument against the actual antinatalist claims. That is what this thread is about. It's about consent in regards to the procreational decision. It's about causing (the conditions for) someone else's suffering, and not piecemeal in a case-by-case basis (after birth) but ALL suffering. All suffering for a future person can be prevented uniquely in the procreational decision. All suffering is experienced from being born in the first place. If you don't understand that being self-evident, I would just say you are just showing how much sophistry your many years in philosophy has afforded you.

However they will suffer and it will be experiened by them as harm. And this would be, if antinatalists were successful, an effect of your polemic, and one which might be, since you are fallible humans, based on values that are not prioritized correctly or the wrong ones, or based on some incorrect reasonsing, or based on false metaphysics.

But you take that risk because you are pretty dman sure you are right.

Which is what everyone does regarding their values.

You however seem to think you are taking no risks of causing harm on those who did not ask for it.

I think that is very confused. It would have to mean you assume you cannot possibly be mistaken and so risks are being taken. I don't know where this idea of your infallibility comes from. But we've covered this ground. — Coben

Again, my answer to this is that if pro-natalists are right, suffering will ensue for someone else- will be created wholesale for someone else. If antitnatalists are right, no new person will suffer anything. There is no "risk" in the antinatalist outcome, other then no people existing. But, what does that matter to anyone, literally?

I'm going to address some arguments for antinatalism that were mentioned in the beginning of this thread. — leo

Interesting that khaled gave you a huge response, but you direct the post at me. Alrighty then, I'll answer you.

This argument assumes that avoiding harm is more important than having positive experiences, which many don't agree with. Also it doesn't take into account the fact that would-be parents are often deprived and harmed from not having a child. — leo

What it is saying is that in the case of the procreational decision, no collateral damage of harm is done to someone else. Yes, at that point, all that matters is that harm is not foisted on someone else. Any other justification is using the child for the parent's agenda of XYZ projected reasons (on behalf of the child). The child will not be deprived, literally, of anything prior to birth. This brigs us to the bad argument of suffering of the parent for not having a child, the same thing that @Terrapin Station uses. If I was to put you in an obstacle course that you could not get off of unless you commit suicide, because putting people in various challenges and obstacle courses makes me happy, and maybe I think you will really like it, or get meaning from it, or whatever, it still doesn't make it right for me to put you in that obstacle course because I suffer less from doing so. That's just one of many examples I can use.

Many people don't see their life as being in "a constantly deprived state", they would rather describe it as full of experiences and feelings, so I don't agree that life is being in a constantly deprived state. — leo

Sure, you can say whatever happy fluffy things you want, you still need and want all day long. It's part of human life. Experiences and feelings are part of life too, but much of those experiences are feelings of need and want- even if just to be in some positive state (get there, maintain it, hope for it, etc.).

Whether a particular experience is seen as a "challenge to overcome" or a "burden to deal with" is subjective. When you enjoy what you do, you don't see it as a challenge or a burden, it's when you don't enjoy what you do that you see it that way.

So again, you're focusing on the negative part (the unenjoyed experiences), and not the positive part (the enjoyed experiences). Whether you confer more weight to the negative part is a subjective view, not an objective one.

I could equally make the opposite argument and say that life presents wonders and joy. When putting a new person into the world, you are creating a situation where they will experience wonders and joy, ... — leo

Again, no one NEEDS to experience anything. Any negative experiences can be avoided, and ALL collateral damage, by simply preventing birth. That is a fact. No one is obligated to have make people with good experiences, but it seems to me, at the level of the procreational decision, it is best to prevent ALL harm. I am not the arbiter, a force that must bring happy experiences into the world. But I can certainly be a non-starter for someone else's negative experiences.

Again, you don't know how much wonder and joy there will be in life for a certain person. I think we can agree that a given person can see their life as a net positive or as a net negative. You're not saying why it is more important to avoid a potential net negative than it is to create a potential net positive. Especially if the parents believe that they can give a happy life to their child.

This is not to say that people should have as many babies as possible, if the would-be parents feel like they couldn't take care of one or couldn't make him/her happy then better not to have one. — leo

Again, we are not obligated to create positive experiences at the procreational level, since no actual person will be affected. I think creating ANY negative experiences for someone else at that time, is bad being that the alternative is literally NO deprivation for that person who was not created. Being that life has more than trivial harm, that ANY is way more than just stubbed-toes... Also, to create challenges for someone else, because they may identify with the challenges, is not right. Go back to my obstacle course analogy. Nothing needs to happen for anyone PRIOR to their birth. It is simply the parents' agenda (to see their child have XYZ experiences). They think they should reasonable make decisions that affect other people, because they have a projected agenda for that person. Rather, don't have children, and let sleeping dogs lie. No harm ensues, no one is deprived. Win/win.

Yes this is a problem, but it's separate from antinatalism. We are educated to become efficient cogs in a great industrial machine that progressively destroys nature and other species and cultures, and that's a huge problem, and a source of great suffering. Does that mean that to solve this problem the whole of humanity has to be thrown away and go extinct? No, some individuals are much more responsible for this state of affairs than others. That's what I see as the important fight, changing course, elevate consciousnesses, make people see this state of affairs and rise against it, against those who are responsible for it, for a great part of the suffering that antinatalists and people around the world experience, that's the important fight, not convincing people that life is fundamentally horrible and that it's better to put an end to it all, because then those who are destroying humanity and the world will have won and we will have lost. — leo

Once the technology is created, we simply become growers and maintainers of the technology. We become minutia mongers. But please, lets have more people that must participate in this as employees. We must make more workers... People don't intend to do this, but of course, that is where they are heading when they are born. Otherwise they are just the financial class that underrides everyone else's work, or the underclass, a hermit/monk slowly dying, or commits suicide to escape it. But we put people into this position of complying by being good employees, or the other less optimal options.

Right on :up: . You get the absurdity of Terrapin Station's argument, and understand the AN argument, just as well. I don't understand why he can't.

So suffering is not qualified by "suffering that comes from.creating all harmful experiences for someone else?"

Yes, suffering by not using ANOTHER person's life that will cause all other instances of harm for that person, is irrelevant as it is suffering had from not playing with someone else's life.

From conversations with you previously, you count frustrated/unmet desires, especially where that causes emotional distress, as suffering, right?

Otherwise a lot of what you're classifying as suffering for offspring wouldn't count as suffering. — Terrapin Station

Frustrated because you aren't doing something that causes a life that contains harm for another person? I am okay, letting that person stay frustrated by not putting another person into that.

That fits their single criterion of no harm can be risked for another, no life with suffering unless it is chose. Nothing else could possibly outweigh or counter that. It is the only risk. Other values about life and living and interests and participating in long term goals and achievement and the current suffering this would create in the last humans, mean nothing to them. They are of no value. Their value is, apparantly, the objective value that supercedes all other values, despite the vast majority contradicting this value in the way they choose to live despite suffering, despite the anti-natalists who find life not worth living but keep doing it. I know, I know, they don't want to hurt their relatives and loved ones. How conveniently empathetic all of a sudden. — Coben

Never existing and suicide are not the same. In fact, that is another pro-antinatalist argument. Either live out life, or kill yourself is pretty damn callous... but those are people's choices..If you don't like life, figure out how to cope. Yep, sounds great. Also, it makes no logical sense to CREATE people from NOTHING just so they can HAVE goals that they DIDN'T NEED in the first place. Putting an agenda like "long term goals and achievement" above considerations of preventing ALL harm (with no cost to the future child), makes no sense is using the child for an agenda. They have to have XYZ experiences because someone else projected this to be what has to happen for them.

Irrelevant in the case of the procreational decision. — schopenhauer1

But those comments had nothing at all to do with "procreational decisions" and there was never any claim that they did have anything to do with that. That seems to be a reading comprehension issue on your end rather. — Terrapin Station

Right, the antinatalism argument is at the procreation level, and you are arguing from some post-birth perspective about consent. Not the same.

This statement is false. The damage doesn't have to be for someone else. The damage is for the person who wants to procreate but doesn't because they're pressured or forced not to. — Terrapin Station

Actually response above is a very good rebuttal to your comment. Not only his ideas, but add to that, one is "damage" from not doing anything TO someone else, and one will lead to negative consequences for someone else. That is the major problem with your thesis there.

Explain why it's shoddy in your view rather than just making the accusation. — Terrapin Station

Your bad arguments about "causally-pegging" something for one. Irrelevant in the case of the procreational decision. It's simply a red herring... quick sand of pettifoggery.

The parents "feelings" matters not in regards to starting SOMEONE ELSE'S life.
— schopenhauer1

What does this have to do with whether they're suffering, harmed, etc.? — Terrapin Station

"This" meaning: SOMEONE ELSE'S life? Because it is about starting a life that contains harm for someone else. There is no damage done to another person by not procreating. You don't get to cause a life that contains harm on someone else's behalf, because you will feel bad that you don't get what you want. I don't have to show how harm will be causally pegged to a life either (I really hate that term..sounds dirty anyways). You just have to know that life contains harm, period.

My goal is to get you folks to reason better, to not forward crappy arguments, etc. — Terrapin Station

Ironically, you are doing this by posing shoddy argumentation. So, there's that.

So "no loss to an actual person" is false.

Aside from that, there's no reason to only care about the harm side of the equation and not the benefit side of the equation. — Terrapin Station

The parents "feelings" matters not in regards to starting SOMEONE ELSE'S life. You've already been given analogies by others. You know what the response is going to be to that bad objection. You also know that by "actual person" I meant the person who might be born from a parent if they decided to procreate. "That" person does not exist to be deprived. Notice the "quotes". To not notice that is lawyerly holding patterns and advancing nothing but bad sophistry.

Ok, that's good. I just know how these go sometimes. They eventually just lead to frustration as one side may not be trying to actually get anywhere.

I wouldn't indulge Terrapin Station with his absurd consent rabbit hole. He likes to get conversations on a holding pattern loop. It reminds me of a lawyer's trick- poor philosophy, all sophistry. I've already given him the main argument- no loss to an actual person, but harm was prevented. No agenda was had on behalf of another person.hes just going to keep denying that consent matters for babies, etc etc.

If you see negative experiences as what has to be eliminated, why don't you kill everyone? That would be more effective. You may convince a few people not to have children, but there are still billions having children — leo

That's a strawman and classic trope against AN. AN is not promortalist. Decisions regarding birth are different than decisions about continuing to exist. One major difference is the asymmetry in respect to no actual person being deprived of good before birth while no person will exist to experience harm (which is good, even if no one exists to know this).

To overlook anything but harm to future person at procreational decision would be using child for an agenda. The child did non exist beforehand to even need the XYZ experiences that supposedly make it good for the child to be created in the first place.

What is the case however, is ALL harm can be prevented with NO COST to an ACTUAL person. No one would actually exist to be deprived of anything...only the parents imaginary projected vision of loss.

You do for it to be causally-peggable, because that's what that term refers to. — Terrapin Station

Legal definitions dont need to apply here. That is one definition. Antinatism is clearly about decisions made at the procreational level. That is to say, suffering at the wholesale level, not the piecemeal.

I dont have to show how every connection leads to birth. By definition, all forms of suffering come from being alive in the first place. If you want to refute the self evidence of that, despite what you know to be true, and die on your absurd molehill of bad reasoning related to "not being able to do d all causes leading back to birth" then be my guest. That would certainly be ridiculous though and not worth replying to.

Antinatalism simply pegs all forms of suffering to being born. It is a KNOWN that life contains various amounts and varieties of suffering and negative experiences. All suffering can be prevented with no a ACTUAL person being deprived. Win/win.

Okay, but what would that have to do with anything I'm talking about? — Terrapin Station

The same with khaled, all their arguments can be subsumed in the one I just gave. It can be characterized in a way that still takes your objection into consideration, and as stated earlier, makes a powerful argument with that objection at the core of its logic.

Who? Andrew? khaled?

And if they're talking about that--"other people have different considerations and evaluations of life," then they're not talking about anything that I've been talking about. Do they not understand what I'm talking about? — Terrapin Station

In this case, Andrew. Your current conversation with him.

I think he means that other people have different considerations and evaluations of life. Not knowing what those considerations are beforehand, abstaining from procreating is violating no actual person's sense of consideration or evaluations. No actual person loses out from not being born. But having someone who is then unduly harmed, or has a negative self-report will have collateral damage enacted on them from the decision. The inaction of not procreating would simply prevent any and all collateral damage from ensuing. It also does not create its own collateral damage of depriving someone, as there is no person to feel that deprivation in the first place. I see the logic as about the same if characterized in this way. It can all be added on to the same argument, essentially- even if andrew4handel might not quite be articulating it that way, i believe it to be in the realm of what he is talking about.

I am arguing that your case others should value risk of harm above all else is not justified, for a variety of reasons. — Coben

A variety of reasons, which I refuted by demonstrating it is putting the agenda of the parent's outcome for the child at a premium over and above harm done to the child which is wrong due to playing with someone else's life so that a parent's agenda/vision for that child's life can be carried out in some way.

For you. That's your values. Ones not shared by many, so not universal, and nothing you have said justified one must view it your way. I see nothing objective. That's the way you want us to view it. — Coben

I never said it is "objective", other than the ironclad logic of not causing harm, and having no collateral damage for non-existing people. At the end of the day, if not causing unnecessary suffering (with no cost to any actual person) does not matter to you, and playing with other people's lives so that they can carry out an agenda of the parents (as there is no one with an agenda beforehand) does not seem unethical to you, then I can only keep on giving you examples and appealing to your emotions. That is why ethics is in the realm of debate and ideas. Same goes with ethical ideas like veganism. They are not held by everyone, but it is certainly in the realm of debate and idea-exchange. No one can provide an airtight anything in this, only present the case and offer reasonable explanations as to why the position is a basis for ethical action.

I disagree. There is the rest of the family and anyone who cares about people who want kids. This is a core desire of many people, most. Then if everyone follows antinatalism, there are no future generations, which means anyone who wants to leave a legacy: scientists, artists, etc., cannot leave it. That would lead to a lot of feelings of meaninglessness, depression, etc. Then anyone who feels part of some long line of humans accomplishing, exploring creating, even if they themselves are not specifically adding directly to the legacy, these will also feel depressed in large numbers. So if you are effective you are causing harm. — Coben

Now this response is totally unethical to me. This is precisely what I am talking about in terms of using people for the agenda of others. Now, people's lives are to be used for building legacies for the already-existing. Well, it's just too bad for them that they don't get to use people for their benefit and agenda. Guess what cost this has for the unborn? NOTHING. Why? No actual person exists to be deprived.

Your value. And one not shared by other people — Coben

You overlook the very point, harm is prevented, with no actual loss to an actual person. However, by procreating, definite negative will befall an actual person. That is why, in the procreational world, where no one NEEDS anything (like love, accomplishment, pleasure, virtuous character, etc.) the only logic that makes sense is don't create collateral damage of putting people in a world with the possibility and inevitability of harm.

Apriori logic? In any case, I never said that or assumed it. I am saying that the very people who harm you are trying to prevent in the vast majority will not, if they come to existence, share your values. I am not saying you are harming them. I am saying that the people you want not to experience harm would not if they came to life share your values. — Coben

Matters not. If someone does not live to realize a certain set of values or experiences, there is no actual loss to an actual person. What does occur, however, is no actual person will suffer.

You are imposing your values on others who are alive and presuming what is of value to be prevented for potential others. It does them no harm, since they are not yet, but it is absurd since they are merely your values and not those you want to protect's values. — Coben

My values does NO HARM to ANYONE. Yours will inevitably cause harm. If harm doesn't matter to you, I can accuse you of mild sadism, and using others for selfish gain (even if the selfish gain is based on some sort of altruism for something that you want to live out an agenda.. which ironically would not need to take place, if the child wasn't born in the first place to need to have to live out). But again, I can only provide arguments. If I told you that I "know" the things-in-themselves, that would be pretty absurd right? But I can provide arguments for what the possibilities can be. There is no ironclad anything in philosophical debates. What I do know is new, foreign-sounding ideas are usually reviled at first being against people's enculturated sensibilities, then often violently opposed, and then (sometimes) considered as self-evident (pace Schopenhauer).

Easy road? save the little ad homs. And seriously why would someone who presents preventing harm as the only value use an ad hom? Hypocrite. I am well aware of the vast ways one can suffer being alive and I am also aware that people can delude themselves. But again, you assume that harm is the only criterion we should use when making decisions. And two, just because it can be the case that people are deluded, who are you to decide that that possibility means homo sapiens should end`? That your values should reign and that you are in a position to evaluate the lives of others. What if you are deluded in your calculations`? You are being vastly more presumptuous than any single parent who decides to have a child. You are universalizing your priorities and your value. A value you cannot live up to yourself. — Coben

My value will lead to no harm to another person- playing with their life for my vision of an agenda that I want to see (at the least a new person born, at the most, a new person born that SHOULD have XYZ experiences). The kicker you can never jump over, and unfortunately for you, is irrefutable, is that no actual person exists to lose out, only a projection of a possible person in a parent's imagination. As the saying goes- no harm, no foul. Also, let sleeping dogs lie.

You just have a value. Like someone who hates butterscotch icecream. In a variety of ways you keep saying that we must prevent harm to anyone at all costs, period. That's your opinion. And I suppose that's what apriori logic means to you. You know it, so you state it. — Coben

No, a priori means in this case, it is based on non-empirical basis. You may not think it is important, but the logic is sound- something that does not exist is not deprived of any goods. Something that does not exist is not harmed, which is good. But no, it is not like butterscotch ice cream because, butterscotch ice cream has no affect for someone else, harmful or otherwise. By procreating someone, you are incurring for someone else a whole life time of possible and inevitable suffering (and I think collateral damage).

But you are also a human, and also potentially fallible, right. You know that right. And as I said above, you are now taking the risk that you will effectively spread a value as the value, but you are wrong about that.

I get it. You can't imagine how. But that's the point. Fallible humans often cannot imagine how they could be wrong.

You are taking a risk your ideas are wrong. And the ulitmate risk you anti-natalists are taking is that you convince people to agree with you, homo sapiens ends this generation

and you were wrong.

And actually what you did was a horrible mistake.

Because we fallible humans might be wrong about something. — Coben

I am fine with the idea that no new person will have to endure suffering, overcome challenges of life, and also know that there is no actual person deprived of anything. Win, win. Nothing matters to nothing (non-existing things).

Now because I know life involves risk regardless of what I do. My action, my inaction, my ideas, might lead to harming people alive or not alive yet. I know this. And yet I continue to live and try to both make things better and reduce harm. I take the risk that my total contribution will not be postive. — Coben

Yet you can WHOLESALE PREVENT ALL SUFFERING by not having a kid. Part of the structural suffering too is that once born, we will inevitably not only be effected/affected by suffering but also effect/affect suffering for others. It is inevitable. All of it can be prevented (with no cost to an actual person who is deprived of good).

But you, since you think one should not risk anything are being a hypocrite. Both in your daily life, since you risk harming others born and not born, jsut walking down the street. And certainly arguing the end of the species, since, despite your inability to consider it, you might be wrong about what one should value. What you consider objective values might be wrong, even though you can't see it. Unless you are claiming omnsicience. Yet you take these risks.

It's hypocrisy — Coben

See what I said above.. This is just another reason people shouldn't be born, people inevitably will cause others to suffer.

No explanation why your value is objective.
No explanation how you live up to the rule of not risking harm.
No explanation why your way of evaluating value should apply to people who in the vast majority disagree with you.
Repetition of your apriori.

It's not a case.

You'e expressed an opinion, in a variety of paraphrases.

And you want to impose that opinion on all human life.

I am sure you are capable of paraphrasing your opinion in yet more ways, but I don't have interest in reading more and the ad hom was the icing on a cake I won't eat.

Take care. — Coben

I must say, you thinking that was an ad hom, is a bit unfair and taken the wrong way. The hard road and easy road was a way for me to say that I can try to give you a bunch of empirical evidence, which I have already sufficiently provided in abundance in thousands of posts (go look), or I can go back to a priori logical asymmetry which is simply easier to use for the purpose of posting for small debates like this that don't last a lifetime.

Anyways, putting another person in a lifetime of known harms and collateral damage, and using others for your agenda (whether the person born later identifies with life or your agenda matters not), and creating challenges that THEN have to be overcome (as life inherently has challenges that individuals must overcome), is the height of presumption in my opinion. Thinking that other people SHOULD have to navigate and deal with life, because another person's evaluation and projection of life, is the HEIGHT of presumption. The very presumption that you assume I have for other people leads to NO collateral damage and harm. However, other forms of presumption will ALWAYS lead to collateral damage and harm.

1) presumes objective morals. It is simply a fact that one must avoid harm. That is THE CRITERION — Coben

I do not see why an ethics regarding procreation, shouldn't involve harm, being that it is someone else's life that is in question here. In the case of the procreational decision, certain considerations are at play which are not at play when someone is already born. Starting a life has different considerations than continuing or navigating a life already started. The asymmetry in regards to harms vs. goods comes into play when making a decision to start a life.

Once it is seen that no actual person is deprived of anything prior to birth, any premium put on a value other than harm (to experience accomplishment and love, for example) would not matter for anyone but the parent putting a premium on this value being carried out. The actual person that the hopes for these values to be carried out for, is not missing anything- it is simply the parent wanting to see some outcome, and using the child as the vehicle for this outcome. To not consider harm, but rather consider some other value, would be using people to fulfill one's own desires. Harm is the only consideration that matters at this point prior to birth. It can even be characterized as callous and sadistic to overlook harm for any other value, when there is no negative consequence to an actual person prior to birth (except the parent's own desires..but again, the negative affect on the parent, is not an ethical matter so much as playing with other people's lives that de facto will be harmed, which now involves another person's life- and a lifetime of possible collateral damage). No person actually feels loss of not "getting to experience" life's other values of XYZ (love, accomplishment, flow-states, friendships, etc.).

It also seems to run counter to the values most people have, since most people are willing to risk harm to others and also would prefer to live even if their lives include suffering or harm. — Coben

Again, you are ignoring the a priori logic. No one is in a locked room saying "but I could be living!!". All that matters in the procreational decision, due to the glaring asymmetry of negative/positive in respect to people who don't exist, without being sadistic by overlooking harm done to another person, is that you are not bringing a lifetime of the possibility and inevitability of harm to someone. That is to say, that you are not procreating.

But since the odds seem to me enormous that these people will, like people now not share the anti-natalists values, both about having children and also that removing potential harm is the value that trumps all others, there is an inherent disrespect even to the values of those who could come to be. — Coben

So, I could take the harder avenue and provide you theories that people can be harmed by life, but still identify it like a slave who may not mind their situation but is definitely harmed by their situation, but I'll simply take the easy road. I'll refer you to the thousands of posts I've made showing how we are harmed in very particular ways, despite our identifying with the very thing that harms us..

But let's talk the easy road. The easy road is that NO ONE will be deprived of ANYTHING prior to birth. Period. But SOMEONE will be harmed by being born. In light of non-existing people not being deprived of anything, the only consideration that matters here is the the lifetime of collateral damage of undue suffering and collateral damage. And no, there are no "people that want to be born" being put as hostages, as the asymmetry shows to respective non-existing people, they are not actually there to be deprived- nothing is deprived except the regret of the parent projecting a future child.

I can see anti-natalism as a personal choice. I can't see why the anti-natalist values should dominate all other values. — Coben

Because any other value besides harm to a potential child, would be using that child for a parent's X agenda and outcome they want to see carried out by that child. It is in a way playing with someone else's life for your agenda. I will be a broken record on this, because the logic dictates this- no actual person needs anything prior to birth. This is all the parent's agenda at this point- an agenda that most likely won't go the way the parent projected it anyways, and may be potentially very negative for the child at best (and if the child decides life was not worth it, even worse).

And I cannot see how an anti-natalist lives up his or her own philosophy, given that they risk harming others all the time. And since their values may be wrong - if there are objective values - they are risking causing a catastrophy, should they be successful if all future human life never comes into existence. yes, if the only or must value is not causing any harm is objectively GOOD, then preventing all future humans would be ok. But there's a risk you are not right about what is objectively good, but you take that risk and try to change the world. Unless you think you are infallible about such things, why do you get to take such an enormous risk along with all the day to day risks you take around harming others? — Coben

That is the thing, there is no risk with antinatalism. No person actually will be deprived of anything. We are not playing with other people's lives in antinatalism. ANY and ALL risks will ensue if someone is born, however. Once born, other considerations come into play, as the asymmetry of non-existing people is no longer part of the logic. It would be a category error to equate the two as using the same ethical logic in everyday life of those who already exist.

And what anti-natalist is not risking the harm of other people every day? One can certainly avoid driving. But even pedestrians can cause accidents, voting could contribute to the next world war, selling or helping produce a wide range of products could cause harm, buying a wide range of products can and likely does contribute to companies that harm someone. (and these risks are often for those who have not consented, but then, consent is off the table, if both sides agree on that) — Coben

I actually dont think consent is off the table, but that's another argument. Right now, I'm merely establishing how nonexistent people implies something about deprivation, similarly to how consent is claimed to be a category error.

As far as consent being off the table for circumstances where someone already exist, as your examples are, no I dint think it's off the table.

The point is about risking harm on behalf if others. ALL harm can be prevented if no one is born AND no actual person is deprived by not being born.