That one shouldn't be born because life isn't harm-free.
— Xtrix

Why are you expressing it like that? It's not about you - the one who has been born. You don't have an obligation not to have been born - how would you discharge that? Go back to when you didn't exist and stop yourself coming into being? — Bartricks

Well I don't fault my parents for having me, either. I guess that's more relevant. In fact I owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing me into this wonderful world, even though the price of admission is also suffering and death.

It's not about you either, incidentally. But out of curiosity, do you fault your parents for bringing you into the world? But your argument, you should.

What I am arguing is that procreative acts - which are not performed by the one who is created by them - subject an innocent person to a shit load of undeserved harm and that generates moral reason not to perform such acts. — Bartricks

Yes, I know. So don't have kids -- that's your choice. What I'm saying is that some kind of "logic" doesn't dictate this, it's a personal matter which largely depends on whether or not you believe life is worth living. This is why I keep mentioning pessimism. But I respect that point of view -- it's consistent. As I said before, many Buddhists hold this view and I hold them in high respect.

The conclusion is that procreative acts are wrong - default wrong - because they create massive injustices: they create an innocent person - a person who deserves a happy harm-free life - and do not provide the innocent person with what they deserve. SO, they create injustice: they make the world a more unjust place. — Bartricks

Why do they deserve that which is impossible? Do they not deserve joy as well, and to be part of a beautiful and wonderful world despite their being death and some pain? Isn't it equally relevant to say "innocent unborn beings deserve the chance to experience joys"? In that case, not having kids is immoral. Now I'm not arguing that, but it could be argued just as consistently.

Again -- it's a personal choice based on a personal view about the world. If you think that because life is not harm-free we should not consciously choose to reproduce, then you're saying, essentially, that life is a mistake. Why? Because, again, life inevitably involves suffering.

So essentially the argument rests on this perspective: because there is suffering, life is bad.

But what if life is an ultimate good, despite there being suffering?

We're all born innocent. So, according to you, none of us deserve harm. Right?
— Xtrix

Not when we're born, no. — Bartricks

OK, sure. But most babies are born crying out of the womb. It's not the most pleasant process. So right away there's harm -- in fact a traumatic experience. But that's the price of admission to this wonderful world.

One could argue that every innocent "deserves" to be part of this wonderful world and to experience joy, and to deprive them of that is immoral.

Unless of course you don't think it's a wonderful world...which is why I mentioned pessimism.

We are default obliged not to create undeserved harm, yes? If doing x will create some undeserved harm, then we have moral reason not to do x, other things being equal. — Bartricks

And what of joy? Why so much emphasis on harm?

Again, what do you mean by harm? Pain? Suffering of any kind? Something more specific?

Procreative acts subject an innocent person to undeserved suffering - shit loads of it. Thus we have moral reason not to perform those acts, other things being equal. That just follows as a matter of logic.

Do you disagree with any of that? — Bartricks

Indeed I do. What part? The part about suffering.

Nothing is "deserved" or "not deserved," those terms are ambiguous. Do kids "deserve" to be born or not is the better question.

The question is whether life is worth living even though there is suffering. If the answer is yes, then it's perfectly fine to have kids if one chooses to. If the answer is no, then the human species should become extinct -- yes? Which I'm not saying is illogical -- it's logical if you accept the premise, as the Buddhists do, that life is suffering and suffering should be eliminated.

Relevance? You've CONFIRMED one of my premises. Which one are you challenging? — Bartricks

That one shouldn't be born because life isn't harm-free.

What follows is that all the harm mentioned in 3 is undeserved. — Bartricks

You posted this with the title "A New Argument for Antinatalism." I assumed that you want to say more than simply "harm is undeserved."

But OK, have it your way. What I'm challenging, then, is (2). This is why I made it personal -- which you claim is irrelevant. I was innocent at birth too, and I'm very glad to part of life -- which, yes, hasn't been harm-free. Whether I "deserved" any harm or not is incoherent -- harm is a part of life. Joy is too. Do I "deserve" joy?

Again -- what's so awful about "harm"? What do you mean by "harm"? Abuse? Torture?

I was born innocent too. There have been many harms in my life — like with any life. But I love life and continue to prefer being here to the alternative. I’m glad I got the opportunity. I still had to think about having kids — but not using the fact that they will not live a harm-free life as a criterion.
— Xtrix

How does any of that address anything in my OP? Your first line just confirms one of my premises. The rest is entirely irrelevant. — Bartricks

It's not irrelevant. You're making an argument that innocent people don't deserve harm. Fine.

We're all born innocent. So, according to you, none of us deserve harm. Right?

So none of us should have been born. Why? Because "harm" is simply a part of life. It's impossible to imagine a life without harm of any kind.

So it was a mistake on our parents part, just as it would be a mistake on our part to have kids. It's an immoral act.

Where have I misunderstood?

I didn't make that argument, nor did I say you made that argument. I'll quote myself:

What’s so terrible about suffering and harm and pain? — Xtrix

This is addressing your argument.

All people (including me, as mentioned above) were born innocent. All people suffer in life to some degree. Suffering is part of life. Pain is part of life.

So the argument goes:

(1) All people are born innocent.
(2) Innocent people deserve no harm (which perhaps you can define further, but I view as "suffering").
(3) Life inevitably includes harm/suffering.
(4) Thus, bringing innocent lives into the world when you know they will suffer is unjust/morally wrong.

If you mean something different when you say "harm," fine -- but that needs clarification.

What I'm saying is that this entire argument rests on a pessimistic view of life. Suffering doesn't refute life.

They deserve an entirely harm-free happy life. — Bartricks

I was born innocent too. There have been many harms in my life — like with any life. But I love life and continue to prefer being here to the alternative. I’m glad I got the opportunity. I still had to think about having kids — but not using the fact that they will not live a harm-free life as a criterion.

What’s so terrible about suffering and harm and pain? It’s part of life, and without it there’d be pure boredom.

I’m glad I was born, and glad I’ve been lucky enough to experience some pain and suffering — but also joy and pleasure.

Your position betrays a pessimistic view of life. I’m not sure if using pessimism to justify not having children is all that new, incidentally.

If you only knew how much this sentence characterizes the state of modern humanity. — schopenhauer1

Actually it does, yes, since reducing everything to computers — including the human mind— and the human being to a machine is a pretty good characterization of “modern humanity.”

question without real value or use --for me, of course-- the answer to which is more than obvious — Alkis Piskas

If the answer is obvious, you’re already wrong.

I have to say that I was never much impressed with the Tractatus. The very first proposition, that the “world is everything that is the case” is fine, but immediately starts going into “facts.”

Facts are interpretations based on human perceptions and perspectives and, more importantly, are a product of a certain mode of experience— one where we’re looking at the world in an entirely different way than we are in our average state of habit. Who gives a damn about “facts” when you’re late for work or in love?

So much time spent on “facts.” Just more of the analytic tradition which wants to ultimately reduce everything to logic and mathematics (it’s the influence of science). Not relevant, and not even that interesting. Useful in developing computers, I suppose.

I think we all agree as human beings, with few exceptions, that it would be nice if the species survived and that our kids and grandkids had a habitable world. We also agree that there's a lot of people in the world, that there will be even more in the future, and that we have finite resources -- metals, oil, gas, etc. Only so much land, so much potable water, so many trees, etc.

Given that simple commonality, we can achieve a lot. We have the solutions, too. They're right there. We don't even have to sacrifice all that much. Public transportation, electric cars, heat pumps, electric lawnmowers, solar panels, less meat consumption, etc. etc. A more sustainable world is possible.

So what is getting in the way? There are no simple answers, but there are a range possibilities which vary in importance and explanatory power.

One is cost. Another is feasibility of scale. A big one is the profit-motive, and the fact that those in power want to keep their power (and status). Another is a failure of vision and values, a kind of nihilism and short-term thinking that's infected the minds of those in power -- both in business and in government. Yet another is the force of habit, the "This is how it's always been done" syndrome. Lastly, and not exhaustively, is the melding of governments with corporations to the point where you cannot distinguish one from the other.

So depending on how we prioritize these obstacles, we can formulate where we want to direct our civic energies. For me, it's the state and local level in the US. Not simply changing my own lifestyle, as has been promulgated by the fossil fuel industry, but building solidarity and community. I include in this, of course, unionizing. Which seems far removed from climate change, but it isn't. If more workers are unionized, they can create a crisis both for the employers and for the politicians. Strong unions are what tilted the scales in the 1930s, and it has that potential to do so again. It's one of the most powerful weapons the majority of Americans (who are wage-workers, blue or white collar; working or middle class) -- the bottom 80 or 90% -- have to truly fight back against the corporate takeover of government. Not simply protesting -- although that's important. Not voting -- although that's important. Not even mobilizing.

But true organization. And that can only happen on the ground at the local level. Our obsession with the national news drama distracts us from this, because there's little we can do about it besides vote every 2-4 years. If that's all we do it's exactly like the "solutions" presented to climate change: change your lightbulbs and recycle. In other words, complete nonsense. All while the rich get richer and the planet continues to burn (and people die of opiates, and kids become increasingly obese, and education is de-funded in favor of privatization, etc etc.).

So that's a rant, but it's worth talking about the entirety of this problem and the solutions that are staring us in the faces.

Interesting. There's a lot of things going on technologically that is hopeful. The question -- as always -- is whether we get there in time, and just how much damage has to occur beforehand.

I was just reading about him on Wikipedia. Oddly, recently died on the 4th (perhaps that’s why you mentioned him?).

Anyway — I like some of what the article is citing him as saying:

Bernstein diagnosed a serious issue that affects much of modern philosophy as it oscillates unendingly between two untenable positions; on the one hand, the dogmatic search for absolute truths, and on the other, the conviction that “anything goes” when it comes to the justification of our most cherished beliefs and ideas. According to Bernstein, what underlies this predicament is a deep longing for certainty, the urge “to find some fixed point, some stable rock upon which we can secure our lives against the vicissitudes that constantly threaten us.”[10]

This is what he calls the Cartesian anxiety, a mostly unacknowledged existential fear that seems to lead us ineluctably to a grand Either/Or: “Either there is some support for our being, a fixed foundation for our knowledge, or we cannot escape the forces of darkness that envelop us with madness, with intellectual and moral chaos”.

Although in philosophy this Cartesian anxiety mostly shows up in the discussion of epistemological issues, Bernstein is pointing to something much deeper and universal with this notion, something that permeates almost every aspect of life and has serious ethical and political consequences.

This strikes me as important. It does seem that Descartes has caught us in these endless debates about minds and bodies, subjects and objects, and a search for “truth” in the form of certainty: some permanent, undeniable foundation upon which our lives make sense.

Nietzsche and Heidegger definitely start chipping away at this. Pragmatism does too, to a degree. Freud and Marx have interesting things to say about the world as well, but from very different perspectives altogether. I still say Heidegger is the source, though, even of Bernstein.

I think there’s something to that, yes. I don’t know who Bernstein is, but I bet he read Heidegger.

Ideas exist in the “mindscape.” Physical cats exist in the physical world. — Art48

A lot of Cartesian dualism here— mind/body, subject/object, mental/physical, inside/outside.

Perhaps these categories too are simply part of human thought and perception and do change in time. Differing ways of interpreting the world.

When we’re even contemplating these questions, we’re “in” a type of experiencing (or a “mode of being”) that is quite different from our more common modes of experiencing — the abstract, theoretical, symbolic mode.

If we step back from this symbolic mode — what’s often called “thinking” — and notice thinking as a phenomenon, or “being” in its own right, then the question becomes: who or what is thinking? Who or what is asking these questions about thoughts/abstractions/dreams/words/numbers in the first place, and why?

I think this is very important to do, because we may be questioning on an infinite loop.

an abstract object does not exist in space and time. — Art48

It exists in the human mind, and the human mind is fundamentally temporal — in that things are constantly changing. So while numbers and classes and meanings don’t change the way material objects do — in the case of entropy, say— they still rise and pass in the mind/awareness of the thinker and perceiver.

Abstractions are a kind of being — “entity” as you said. Beings are individuated in the human being.

If you mean an object does not exist in space and time as traditionally understood in physics, then yes I understand your categorization. It’s just good to keep in mind that time (and even space) aren’t always understood in that way. Here again I use Heidegger as a starting point.

At least pollution will be manageable where we're looking, so that will do just fine. — Benkei

What kind of pollution? I was talking about climate change. Greenhouse gases don’t stay within borders, as you know.

Honestly I think you and your family — for the next couple generations at least — will be fine anyway, regardless of going all Grizzly Adams. But that’s a personal choice. Sounds good to me.

I'm now investing my energies in finding a plot of land in France big enough to sustain a family and considering getting a hunting license and learn to shoot at the shooting range. — Benkei

But that will do little good, because the people in power — the wealthy, politicians — make decisions that affect us all, wherever we live. There’s no escaping the consequences anymore. Climate change reaches everywhere, even the most remote islands. Nuclear war, likewise.

I think the only solution is to fight back and at the very least steer the ship of state in a less deadly direction. At best perhaps overthrow the whole system. That can only happen by joining with others. Unions, organizations, mass solidarity movements, and so on.

At this point it’ll have to happen at the local level — and that’s where we have real power. Maybe the Right’s takeover of national government has forced us all to act locally. I’m hopeful.

Why did [Putin] do it? There are two ways of looking at this question. One way, the fashionable way in the West, is to plumb the recesses of Putin’s twisted mind and try to determine what’s happening in his deep psyche.

The other way would be to look at the facts: for example, that in September 2021 the United States came out with a strong policy statement, calling for enhanced military cooperation with Ukraine, further sending of advanced military weapons, all part of the enhancement programme of Ukraine joining Nato.

You can take your choice, we don’t know which is right. What we do know is that Ukraine will be further devastated. And we may move on to terminal nuclear war if we do not pursue the opportunities that exist for a negotiated settlement.

- Chomsky

Lucid as ever at 93.

If Mexico would want that military alliance with China, wouldn't it then have to feel threatened by it's northern neighbor in order to try such a desperate Hail Mary pass? — ssu

I’d say that’s likely.

But regardless of the motivation, how would the US react to China building a few missiles on the border?

To dismiss or downplay the threat of NATO to Russia is not only silly, but it ignores the evidence.

That’s not justification for what Russia has done — but it’s a legitimate concern, and one they’ve been warning about for years.

The suspect was 12.

Exactly. The pendulum swings towards whichever party isn’t in control, especially when gas prices are up.

And one such explanation puts the genesis of the wealth of nations with an organized work force which exchanges its labor for tickets to exchange for goods or services. — Moliere

And on the backs of slaves, genocide, exploitation, colonialism. You know — the free market.

Further references regarding this atrocious ruling:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/opinion/environment/supreme-court-climate-change-west-virginia-epa.html

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/epzd94/supreme-court-term-abortion-climate-change-guns

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/climate/supreme-court-ruling-epa.html

The Supreme Court has said it requires Congress to speak clearly in the interest of democratic accountability. In the climate decision, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the people’s elected representatives should make decisions where the consequences are enormous.

“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” he wrote.

But the net effect of that approach was to enhance the Supreme Court’s own authority.

“They’re saying that they’re doing it for democracy purposes, but the fact is that they’re increasing their own power,” Professor Lazarus said.

Were democracy working, Professor Huber said, there would be new federal legislation to address the threat to the planet.

“If we had a Congress that at all reflected what the median American voter wanted,” he said, “we’d have relatively aggressive climate action.”

Exactly. This goes back, once again, to how important the (original) 350 billion reconciliation bill was last year. Despite having both chambers of congress and the executive, nothing has happened on climate change. The reactionary court knows this quite well, and so like the excuse of “sending it back to states,” sending it back to Congress and the “representatives of the people” is a complete joke. Just the same old delay, delay, delay tactics of these corporate shills.

The strategy of delay: Pass it on to state legislatures, because they’re dominated mostly by corporate-stocked conservatives; kick it all back up congress, because you know the house is gerrymandered in favor of conservatives and the Senate disproportionately favors conservatives (plus it’s minority rule anyway thanks to the filibuster). This way it looks like you’re operating on principles and not nihilistic greed, Christian nationalism, and science denial.

So I know we can’t blame only one person, but at the end of the day the actions of one guy from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, has literally been the roadblock to the changes that are needed. Blocked the reconciliation bill, and refused to abolish filibuster. No winning. Where are the people going to THAT guy’s house and protesting? Now’s the time.

Between the Supreme Court, appellate courts, Congress, state legislatures, governorships, think tanks, corporate lobbying groups, and a mass of enthusiastic consumers of Fox News type propaganda — the conservatives have already won.

Turns out the 2020 election only stopped the train from going backwards, delayed the inevitable and, at best, nibbled around the edges of progress. So once again if the voters show up, it’ll have to be because they’re motivated by the horrors inflicted by the party technically not in power. Not an easy feat. And unlikely.

Which means the climate-denying, election fraud-believing, Trump-worshipping, spineless corporate servants take back Congress —and nearly nothing gets done until 2024, when things could go even worse.

All the more reason you take things local.

Reference: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/supreme-court-s-e-p-a-ruling-shifts-more-power-away-from-congress/ar-AAZ7iOq

The statist-pretending-to-be-anti-statist can start a campaign for office, but he’d rather blame his ills on big government like the snowflake he is. Ignoring, as always, plutocracy. So be it.

—

Don’t like plutocracy? Become a plutocrat.

Don’t like the Fortune 500? Get into the Fortune 500.

Don’t like the government? … Well, that’s always the problem, because daddy Reagan said so. Just try to eliminate it as much as possible.

In other words: Leave the gun democracy, take the cannoli plutocracy. Like a good corporate slave.

Fantastic, now we're also pretending capitalism would reward virtue. — Benkei

No no no, it’s about freedom. You know, the freedom to work for the plutocrats who run the corporations and the government. Because you’ll definitely be one of them one day — if only you try hard enough you lazy bastard.

Speaking of bullshit.

Don’t like oligarchy? Just become an oligarch. Bam.

Impressive logic as always. Just get in the fortune 500.

I guess the same applies for those who pretend to be anti-statist: just become the state. Run for something, get elected. Easy as that.

:yawn: Simplistic Nickelodeon political dogma. Always funny, always boring.

What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something — you know, your wages are going down, etc. — you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous glitz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government.

(Chomsky)

—

Always worth repeating. In case anyone is taken in by the complete bullshit spouted by statist libertarians.

Which is why you are and remain an idiot. — Benkei

:ok:

Sociopathic statist libertarians talking to themselves is sometimes fun to watch.

Let’s all help those in need. Just don’t do anything too big to help those in need.

Leave it all up to individuals, not their government. Because the government is always bad.

So you want to help those millions in need? Give a homeless person a few bucks. That’ll solve the issue.

Taking property away is unacceptable — never mind the fact that it’s precisely the owning of property and resources, especially hoarded by .001% of earthlings, that causes the millions of those in need in the first place.

So goes the tenets of antisocial personality disorder libertarianism.

A) Independents are breaking for Dems lead by "suburban soccer moms" and professional women and some young Republican women according various polls.

(B) I suspect turnout will be very high – comparable to the 2018 midterms, especially for Dems

(C) Dozens of indictable co-conspiratorial (pardon-seeking) GOP senators & congress persons who will be named by the J6 Committee by September. NB GOP silence is deafening about the J6 Cmte's findings so far (which is bound to get worse yet).

(D) I also suspect gas prices will come down during the summer and be felt by consumers / voters in the fall which makes them less eager punish encumbant Dems (though supply chain + Russian War-driven inflation will drag the G7 economies into recession by late summer)

Independents are not breaking for Democrats, so far as I see. Happy to be shown differently.

B and D are based on your suspicions. We have no idea if there will be high turnout or lower gas prices, but MY suspicion goes the opposite way — based on historical midterm trends and the Ukraine war, respectively.

As for C, I don’t think these hearings will have the slightest impact on Republican voters. They will continue voting for their Red team, because Blue team has been demonized to the point of little Anti-Christs.

Appreciate the response, just not very convincing in my view. But I hope I’m proven wrong.

Government has never hurt me.

I guess government isn’t the problem after all.

Top notch logic.

—

What a stupid political ideology.

"Vote! Contact your reps! Protest!", yes, we have been doing all this, and it's clearly not enough, otherwise none of this would be happening to begin with. The problem isn't external to the system, the problem is the system itself. — _db

True. But I’d argue it’s happening because the counter forces are stronger and better organized. They have the wealth and resources to create networks of power— mainly through use of propaganda. The Koch network is a prime example — Jane Mayer has done good work here.

But the answer, as always, is organizing. Especially on the local level. We’re often too distracted by the national drama — where we can do little to change — and pay little attention to state and local issues, where we can have a very real effect. That will have to be the way moving forward.

That’s what the right has been doing since Obama was elected— starting with state legislatures and midterm turnout. It worked very well. There’s no reason the left can’t do the same.

True, the Tea Party was largely motivated by the fear of “losing their country” to those very scary immigrants and minorities, but if the left can generate the same level of energy sans the xenophobia and racism, watch out.

The issue is we have the most disorganized Left in the world.

Lol!

I was thinking the exact same thing. Thought I misread it.

Physics IS philosophy. — Joshs

Yes indeed. It’s the fundamental branch of natural philosophy. (Perhaps astronomy is older — but physics is still central.)

I think this too often gets forgotten. People want to make sharp distinctions, as if the sciences have no need for philosophy and long ago “detached” from it. I think hidden in that view is dogmatism — namely, scientism — which arises out of a justifiable disdain for organized religion… and one I used to share.

But we throw the baby out with the bathwater if we make these rigid compartmentalizations. Better to break free of it. Life is messy.

Multiple universes seems to push the question back, much like God. Who or what created God? What created the universe or the multiverse? Etc.

Human beings aren’t omnipotent. This could be a question we just can’t answer, and perhaps demonstrates our cognitive limits.

Personally I think since the question is a scientific one, and thus assumes a concept of “nature” (the universe), we should inquire about what we mean by universe, nature, causality and time.

If the explanation lies outside our capacities, or outside of naturalism, then we need to accept it or broaden our fundamental concepts of existence.

just shut up and let me vent — T Clark

No.

If you want to vent, don’t make things up about me in the process.

Pointing out a truism isn’t being dogmatic, nor pompous.

The reality is that you’re upset he was banned, and you’re looking for a fight.

Also unwise. But I do similar things often, so I don’t hold it against you.



Yeah— it’s unfortunate. Personally I found most of it funny, even at my own expense. Pretty predictable.

I saw this coming back in November. So I’m not at all surprised. All the more reason to fight back in the same way the right has for the last few decades: state and local level politics. We’ve largely lost National power for a while now.

You never said you were wise, but you pontificated on another's lack of wisdom. — T Clark

“Pontificated” is an odd way to interpret me there. It’s just plainly true that he acted unwisely, to the extreme in fact, over and over again and even after multiple warnings.

No one is asking you not to miss someone you clearly have attachment to. But let’s try not to make things up in the meantime.

[irony]Thank you for your insightful comments on wisdom.[/irony] — T Clark

I’m not sure where irony fits in here. Sarcasm, perhaps?

In which case all I can say is: I never said *I* was wise. I struggle with my temper and lack of patience as much as anyone.

Still, I think the question stands.



:up: