I responded individually but make general points that are relevant to others as well

I think it is a useless criticism, often meanspirited. I do think that suicide may be an act of rage, which isn't precisely selfish, but it is aimed at others or the universe or God. — Coben

Useless and mean-spirited? For pointing out that it's absolutely wrong on every level to claim to have a right to others life even if they suffer horribly and want to end it? Meanspirited indeed but the other way 'round. If others demand you to live, but you don't want, and every breath you take is because of others interest and not yours, you are utterly enslaved by them.

2. If someone has decided to make the rational decision to commit suicide, does people trying to deter them from their rationality take away from their person? — Anthony Kennedy

Depends entirely on how it's done.
If someone is about to euthanize themselves and someone else finds out and now calls the cops on them as if they had committed a severe crime, and the cops kidnap them and force them into some cage where they are force-fed mind-altering substances that chemically lobotomize them, then yes, the one calling the cops is responsible (and the cops as well) to what amounts to immense torture and as far as I'm aware even potentially unlimited (!) caging. People in the US even get a 5 figure bill for their own torture thrown at them afterwards.

If on the other hand they have an honest, open minded discussion that both want to partake in, and they then part ways and that's it, I don't see a problem with it. But for the most part it is none of their business (there are a few exemptions*)


*Having made all that clear there are a few exceptions, for example if someone dragged another human into a painful and deadly situation (birthing new victims or severe crimes, both applies the same way - and they are one and the same as far as I'm concerned).
As long as they deliberately caused that problem and now try to avoid their responsibility (small children entirely dependent on them or a severe criminal who wants to avoid punishment) through suicide, in those cases the right die is temporarily suspended.

Yes (euthanasia). But if you know it to be a irrational decision, driven by treatable depression for instance, different story. — Kenosha Kid

All people who want to euthanize themselves do that for ultimately one reason, and one reason only: to avoid and end suffering. This is not only not irrational, it is the most rational thing you could possibly do, in fact everything you do is to stave off any type of suffering, be it hunger, appetite, boredom, the need to urinate or defecate, etc., etc, but in contrast to suicide always only temporary. So it's even an inferior option, though most people are not able to do it because their survival instinct forces them to stay alive against their will.

In most cases this is absolutely obvious, but there are even very strange situations where the same applies, f.e. if someone want's to commit suicide because they fear they get raped by some green aliens if they don't. Now you might say there don't seem to be any aliens, so it appears irrational, but to them they are absolutely real, and being forced to have a mind making up such horrible stuff is painful as well of course, so again it's totally rational to want out of that situation, in both cases even if people like you think it were "treatable". It's none of your business because they have to suffer the consequences and are therefore the ones that decide the matter, period.

There are selfish suicides, like throwing yourself in front of a bus or train, or blowing your brains out in your kitchen for your partner to find, Hunter S. Thompson stylee. But that aside, wanting someone to suffer to make yourself feel better is undoubtedly, even psychopathically selfish. — Kenosha Kid

Agree with psychopathically selfish but have to completely disagree with the first part.
What do you think will happen to the numbers of train-suicides if everyone wouldn't be deliberately deprived of their right to end their suffering. F.e. if you had a pill by you at all times that would immediately euthanize you in a painless and quick way, how many people would instead jump in front of trains? Such a pill already exists by the way, but is very hard to get and deliberately made so, likely so the wageslaves at the bottom of the system don't start to off themselves in droves.

It's an act of absolute desperation, you can't call that "selfish". I don't know from where you are from but the vast majority of people in this world don't have the option to buy a shotgun at wallmart.
Since the risk of surviving an attempt is very problematic as it would leave you in an even way worse state than it was before, and the one before forced you to try to kill yourself already, people have to take methods that have very little risks of failure. Trains seem one of these as far as I'm aware, and nearly all of these desperate acts are completely avoidable if people weren't deliberately deprived of a possibility to end their suffering.

You're making a mistake here. The pleasure of raping is not the same as the pain of being raped. — TheMadFool

In the example you gave there wasn't even any pleasure, only pain forced upon someone, so that means it would make the case where I applied your reasoning upon even "stronger".


You haven't refuted anything, and are now talking some stuff reminding me of a strawman-smokemirror about other alleged Antinatalists. You are not responding to my arguments whatsoever, since I did point that out more than once this has to be considered arguing in bad faith at this point.

As a last attempt to have an actual debate that you are refusing so far (I wonder why), please respond to my arguments, not some strawman-Antinatalist, and at least these two points I made, everything else isn't even close to a debate but an intentional waste of time:

• Do you agree with “forcing people into painful and deadly situations is wrong”?
  If so – congratulations you are now an Antinatalist, if not, you have no argument against someone forcing you into a painful and deadly situation.
  
  
• You are constantly referring to how “happiness” has to be taken into account.
  Being deprived of “happiness” is suffering, as you certainly wouldn’t want a life without any “happiness”, so the experience of “happiness” is the release of the suffering of the painful craving of happiness.
  
  Empty void isn’t suffering a deprivation of happiness obviously, so
  Why do you think it were a good idea, to create and multiply the problem of craving happiness, especially if the absence of creating the problem solves it as perfectly as it could possibly be solved?
  
  There is no band-aid (temporary release of the craving for happiness) needed if you don’t put a knife into someones chest (unnecessarily creating the suffering that is the craving of “happiness”) in the first place.

I acknowledged the existence of suffering in the world and also that, comparatively speaking, it's greater in severity than any happiness that can possibly experienced by any one of us — TheMadFool

Everybody is forced to acknowledge the existence of suffering, there is no choice in that, but to the contrary it’s against everyones’ choice by definition.

A bit on semantics:
Please be more specific what exactly you are speaking about when you talk about “happiness”, because the word strikes me as a bit fuzzy.
F.e. what part of being pained by hunger, appetite and boredom and then having eaten a big meal and being temporarily released of that pain of hunger, appetite and boredom is actually “happiness”? The few seconds of taste before you swallow? Or the being satiated after being hungry? All of it?

You could use “pleasure” instead as it covers more of what you are most likely referring to, and just using “happiness” weakens your own point, because suffering includes all types of badness, but "happiness" not all types of alleged “goodness”. Why it’s alleged “goodness” and not actual “goodness” did I describe in more depth in my response to you here.

The best argument antinatalists have to offer is one that proceeds from the statement that suffering is far in excess of happiness and I've admitted that this is a fact.” — TheMadFool

Hard disagreement here, this argument isn’t even in the top 10 by any stretch of imagination.
What you described is yet another reason while life is asymmetric and stacked against you from the very start, but there are even way better arguments. I provided two at the end of this post, please respond to them.

First question to ask is this: What is the function of pain, what purpose does it serve?

Physiologists will be more than willing to inform antinatalists that pain is an unpleasant sensation which serves the purpose of letting a person know that the body has been injured and requires attention to prevent it snowballing out of control and leading to death. — TheMadFool

What your doing here is claiming inherent bad (suffering) were actually good, because part of that bad happens to -sometimes- serve a function inside the bad system of life.
But Antinatalists question the alleged necessity of the bad system of life itself, and point out that it’s bad because you can’t possibly improve -absence of suffering-, by forcing it into suffering.
You are basically committing an ought-is-fallacy here among others.

To apply this line of thinking:
Brutal group-rape is bad but serves a function, namely the release of the urge to brutally rape of the multiple rapists. (Also there is only one victim.) So brutal-group-rape is now a good thing.

I hope you see now how blatantly evil this line of thinking is.
I find this to be a good test, if your line of reason could be used to allegedly “justify” the torture of innocents it needs to be discarded immediately.


Now how about you responding to these two arguments:

• Do you agree with “forcing people into painful and deadly situations is wrong”?
  If so – congratulations you are now an Antinatalist, if not, you have no argument against someone forcing you into a painful and deadly situation.
  
  
• You are constantly referring to how “happiness” has to be taken into account.
  Being deprived of “happiness” is suffering, as you certainly wouldn’t want a life without any “happiness”, so the experience of “happiness” is the release of the suffering of the painful craving of happiness.
  
  Empty void isn’t suffering a deprivation of happiness obviously, so
  Why do you think it were a good idea, to create and multiply the problem of craving happiness, especially if the absence of creating the problem solves it as perfectly as it could possibly be solved?
  
  There is no band-aid (temporary release of the craving for happiness) needed if you don’t put a knife into someones chest (unnecessarily creating the suffering that is the craving of “happiness”) in the first place.

Are there situations where its allowed to erase a memory from someonelse's mind? Imagine if it would be possible where are the borders to who and who not? — LiveAnotherDay

Interesting question. A good way to go about it is to be clear about what is "good" and what is "bad" and then proceed from there.

"Bad" is "suffering", without suffering the word "bad", looses it's meaning, very much like the word "harm" or "problem".

"Good" on the other hand is everything that helps resolve suffering, like being sheltered staves off the harm of homelessness, quality food staves off the suffering of starvation, hunger, appetite and boredom, and a laptop with the ability to visit interesting philosophy-forums staves off boredom and the general craving for mental stimulation.

It comes all down to the avoidance of suffering, so this is key to have in mind to judge the benefits of moral scenarios.

Now back to the question, are there scenarios where the erasure of memories can be beneficial. Absolutely!

If we imagine a group-rape victim, that is traumatized in many ways from this brutal memory, and the perpetrators are locked away or will likely never be found anyway, it makes a lot of sense to take that torturous memory from the rape-victim.

It releases the victim of their suffering, with no downsides.
If they can’t remember it, and didn’t have lasting physical problems from it, it will practically be as if it never happened to them, it would "solve" it.

But just to be sure, you can and should ask them, if they want that.
And if so - relieve them of it. And with consent especially, I see many beneficial ways to use it.

How is this not possibly a social pressure to try to incorporate pain as good, so as people don't fall into pessimism? — schopenhauer1


Yes... what is this exactly? What is the person who uses this framing trying to do? — JerseyFlight

To me it looks like muddying the waters.
All suffering is bad (by definition), but in life we are constantly forced to go through some pain, to avoid bigger pain, like training to avoid physical weakness, etc.

And now they can point to that lesser pain and say "look a bad is now a good", but one only did it to stave of bigger suffering, that's what they deliberately omit.

This strikes me as one of the socially constructed biases - "pain is actually good", but the people shoving this garbage down others' throats aren't standing in their kitchen every morning and putting their hand in boiling water, so they can "grow" and "gain" from the "good" pain.

I think it comes all down to glorifying suffering (pure badness), which is one of the very core "necessaries" to get people to procreate.

I think it is striving for the unconditional justification of life itself regardless of the poverty of conditions. — JerseyFlight

I think it goes even so far as to be grateful for bad conditions.

Maybe you should crack open a history book or two — Sir2u

What did I just say? — Sir2u

Try doing some reading about slavery — Sir2u

Good luck next time!
If you want to take your own advice, you may wanna start here.

Don't forget happiness in your equation unless you want to end up dividing by zero, mathematically speaking. — TheMadFool

"Dividing by zero" is a major error in mathematics. You are trying to color my statement that comes down to empty void doesn't crave "happiness" (the release of suffering) as such an error, while you are the one actually doing it.

But apart from that, we can't have a debate if you just completely ignore all my refutations of your claims and then just repeat your already refuted claims. That's just trying to waste my time.

Whatever scenario an antinatalist will invent, it always boils down to life is suffering and so, you know what. Old wine in a new bottle, mate. — TheMadFool

Antinatalists don't have to "invent" scenarios, but delusional suffering-apologists have to invent impossible alleged future utopias where suffering doesn't exist anymore to try to "justify" torture in the past in the present and in the future as well.

But as ridiculously ironic as that is, it's beside the point, that life literally is suffering.
Life is having imposed a targeted state upon you and a reality state that differentiates from that target state.The bigger the difference between them, the more suffering.
That's all life is, was and unfortunately - will be, desperately trying to solve problems life created and imposed in the first place.
That people long ago already saw that doesn't make it any less true, but in fact more sad, that humans after all that time are still in utter denial for the most part.

Sorry, I couldn't read through your post in entirety — TheMadFool

And that's the exact line where I stopped.
You "couldn't" read further my refutations of your claims but could write something more intended for me to invest time to debunk (that you then wont read as well I assume).

First thing to be clear about is that people don't want to, everyone, without exception, loathes, suffering. A certainty there's no point arguing about. The OP wants to make a case for antinatalism on the basis of how people prefer to sleep rather than be awak engaging in dull and boring activities. and the parallel being drawn is crystal clear - sleep is nonexistence and being awake is existence. If one prefers to sleep then, this argument concludes, one must prefer death. — TheMadFool

I’m not sure if that’s the intended message or parallel, but since death is simply the end of life, and Antinatalists are against birth – the start of life, they are of course against its forced end as well – death.

I think more accurate would be to characterize Antinatalists as in favour of absence of imposed existence (short nonexistence), not because nonexistence is inherently good, but because suffering is inherently bad, and the only avoidance of all kinds of sufferings is not to be forced to exist.

At the same time nothing is lost because the craving for what we refer to as "good experience" is suffering too.


And I see the starting post is as a way to start getting aware of how much of life really is bad or neutral and how few moments are something we actually would consciously chose to experience.
I don’t think one needs or should force an analogy of sleep=nonexistence and being awake=existence.

So far so good.

The scenario you describe puts us in the position of having to make a choice: — TheMadFool

The post was to present a scenario where one wouldn't wake up from sleep again but still avoid suffering, even though you claimed nobody would do that.

Either have your foot cut off and meet your end OR sleep and meet your maker. I presume what you really want to offer as choices are: be awake and suffer OR sleep and don't suffer. It's quite obvious that the latter is a preferable alternative but, the catch is, for that choice to be always the best, to be awake must always involve suffering, not just suffering but intolerable suffering.

Is this an accurate description of reality? — TheMadFool

The everyday experience of most people isn't something to be excited about, but it probably isn't something to immensely fear either. But that doesn't mean that most people won't or aren't suffering severely. Immense suffering doesn't need to be your baseline to be bad, every single instance of it is one too much.

Also the degree of how much you actually suffer varies from human to human and is dependent on your circumstances and age (and a lot more of course). I think a lot of over 80-year-olds aren't particularly excited about their future experiences.
And every infant is in pretty much in constant agony as far as I'm aware, that's all they ever communicate.

But I honestly think you are very privileged if you seriously believe that immense suffering is something abstract as it can literally happen at any moment. You may have been spared until now but this is not too common.
For many it is very real, so real in fact that they overcome the strongest instinct humans have and go against their own survival instinct and manage to somehow kill themselves, while having many obstacles in their way (external and internal ones) while still fearing death, pain and uncertainity as much as everyone else, or even more so.



But even more fundamentally, this post by @dukkha makes an excellent point of how pleasure is just the avoidance of suffering, meaning life isn’t the carrot and the stick, but doesn’t even have a carrot, it’s in fact only beating with the stick (suffering) and temporary absence of the stick (pleasure).

Here are my choices: 1)awake and having the time of your life — TheMadFool

What does that euphemism actually mean - “having the time of your life”?
That you suffer through craving something and get a release for that suffering, until you are bored again? Like being pained and obsessed by a craving to visit some special place and then finally after many months you were actually able to visit that place and get your problem that life imposed onto you temporarily fulfilled (=release of suffering), until the next craving will be forced upon you?

You can only "enjoy" something if you suffer through a craving for it, f.e. the more you crave food, the "better" it will taste. And without any craving whatsoever the same food won't taste good at all.
The "pleasure" you may(!) get is always a release of your own suffering, and if the suffering is particularly great, you may(!) get a big release, thinking you profited, when in reality, you went from -5 to -0.5 again.
The same applies to thirst and drinking, constipation and going to the toilet, the urge for sex and an orgasm etc. Dukkhas' post I linked explains it really well.

OR 2) asleep and dead to the world? — TheMadFool

Something tells me this is meant to be an obvious “that would be totally bad”-option, but I really can’t see it. Wherein lies the harm in being unconscious?
There is no harm whatsoever if you aren’t conscious/suffering, you don’t miss out anything if you aren’t pained by a craving for what you then think you will miss out on.

My scenario, if it does anything, should blow the lid of clear off the antinatalist agenda. — TheMadFool

The antinatalist “agenda” (disphemism) is to end suffering. It is the most important thing you could possibly solve.

The choices available to us aren't limited to live and suffer or die and not. — TheMadFool

We don’t have any choice, since we have to exist and were forced into this life. You are exactly one moment of immense suffering away from being actively suicidal, because being suicidal isn’t a choice either. It’s just another suffering-avoidance mechanism.

Antinatalists forget that we can live and be happy — TheMadFool

No you can’t live and be happy. You can suffer (and be a bit unaware of its exact extent) and then get a temporary release off that suffering and call it "happiness", but that’s it.

and if this wasn't true in the past and even if it isn't true in the present, the future is unpredictable - tables may turn, unexpected things may happen.. — TheMadFool

Yes concentration camps may return rather sooner than later, another argument for Antinatalism.
You don't need the bandaid (paradise) if you aren't stabbing people in the first place (dragging them into life).

Well as far as I'm aware there are countless sucessful suicides every few seconds. — Zn0n


You're correct of course and I won't, can't, deny this truth but don't forget how many don't take their own lives. — TheMadFool

None of those who don’t take their life would have missed out anything if they didn’t come to be, so their existence is completely irrelevant to that equation, but what is actually important is that uncountable numbers of real victims would have been spared immense suffering/torture if they wouldn’t have been dragged into life.

Also (temporarily) happy people don’t make up for torture victims. That was what I’m asking in my previous post. How many torture victims do you think are justified for someone elses’ temporary happiness?
(And how can you even be happy in such a brutal world in the first place, but that's another topic.)
Every single of those victims of life is one too much, and it’s all for absolutely nothing, because the ones that don’t want to kill themselves (assuming they could, which is very unlikely btw) couldn’t have missed anything whatsoever.

Zn0n
+
@schopenhauer1
=
Same person. Try covering your tracks better and don't be so transparent. The sheer level of stupidity and projection here is embarrassing to watch. — MSC

Obvious diversion attempt, you have nothing left to say so you desperately try to construct nasty ad hominems.

For the record, there isn't good evidence that Zn0n and Schop the same user. — fdrake

Thanks for pointing it out. Would be great if multiple threads wouldn't be deliberately derailed with nonsense like this.
The only similarities between me and him is our position on birth/life and apparently being a target for nasty ad hominems.

Antinatalists are assuming, erroneously, the future will be no different from the present or the past. The Problem Of Induction — TheMadFool

No Antinatalists know that nonexistant people don’t crave anything, not even paradise.
So even if your literally impossible claim were actually correct, it’s still completely irrelevant, because craving an impossible paradise is suffering in itself – and that befalls only the living, not empty void obviously.


Apart from that, what you are saying is also “induction isn’t perfect so it’s always wrong”, and base your completely made up claim, that the future will allegedly certainly be paradisical on absolutely nothing, not even induction, because induction very clearly proves the complete opposite.


And why do you think you have the right to throw others in suffering because you believe in something that allegedly will happen at some point.
How many victims is throwing down the meat-grinder to achieve something that is a) impossible and b) completely unnecessary justified? Is that number bigger than 0 for you? If so why?

And if so, is there any limit to this cruelty, any amount of numbers of torture victims that are thrown into this sewer that you think weren’t justified anymore? 10 people? 100? 1.000.000? 10 billion?
Is there any limit of victims for you, or is the alleged goal of ending suffering sometime in the future worth unlimited suffering for you?

Not dragging others needlessly into suffering is already the solution that you claim to want sometime in the future.

I don't think your WYRBS argument works for the simple reason that sleep is known to be a temporary state of unconsciousness. People prefer to sleep rather than doing something dull and boring only because they know they'll get up from it. — TheMadFool

So if someone were at the end of their life, and had to choose between 1) getting their foot cut off and dying and 2) sleeping during this time instead and then dying, people wouldn't want to avoid the suffering, even if they don't wake up from it?

The correct formulation of an antinatalist question is: Would You Rather be Dead? I don't think there'll be many takers to this generous offer. — TheMadFool

Well as far as I'm aware there are countless sucessful suicides every few seconds.
What isn't even factored in in these numbers is that most attempts are unsucessful (something like 90% iirc) and there is practically no availability to speak of for peaceful methods, plus constant indoctrination how life is always great and if you disagree for whatever reason you are "mentally ill".
So there is in fact an enormous number of people who really, really want to be dead already.

Triggered. — Kenosha Kid

shill

This thread has at least solidified my impression that anti-natalism is depression + generalisation from samples of one. — Kenosha Kid

This comment has solidified my impression that you have nothing other than lame insults and weak strawman-generalizations and are therefore demonstrably completely argumentatively helpless.
Good luck next time, you’ll need it.

Overall, much agreement obviously.

One may say that their baseline boredom requires less, technology, but certainly restlessness is part of their daily life as well. You take away their version of entertainment, that surely would also affect them negatively as anyone from a "modern" society. — schopenhauer1

Great point, they certainly have their own forms of entertainment, I haven't seen it from that angle.

*Bangs head against wall* — MSC

Any type of unprovoked ad-hominem is an admission of defeat, so good luck next time!

That was an inspiring read. So what, functionally speaking, differentiates an Antinatalist from an Efilist? — Bird-Up

I obviously already answered that in my post. But you stated it again as a starting point for some rather lame strawmen, namely:

Does the Efilist also assert that preexisting life should not be lived? — Bird-Up

No he doesn't it's the natalist who thinks nonexistence needs to be pained because it could possibly miss out on (all the suffering of) life if it weren't.

That continued existence itself is a crime? — Bird-Up

It definitely is, the creator of life, or more specifically suffering, is the criminal.

It seems like Efilism demands suicide, murder, or possibly both. — Bird-Up

It doesn't, Natalists are the ones who demand the continued existence of suicide and murder.
Efilists/Antinatalists want an end to all suffering, including those.

Anyone who truly subscribes to Efilism must already be gone. — Bird-Up

"You haven't climbed out of the cage somehow, so that must mean you like to be imprisoned."

What do you mean specifically? Are you saying humanity is more likely to become extinct before they reach that technological milestone? — Bird-Up

I made all that extremely clear.

It is kind of funny to think that this is almost the same reasoning that people used to justify slavery. But it turned out that it was the white man that was ignorant. — Sir2u

Ignoring what a ridiculous statement that is in context to the comment you replied to, are you saying white (male) humans enslave? Because that's blatantly racist (and sexist).
Ironically it's infact racism and sexism that is one of the excuses that was and is used to enslave others.

The tendency to enslave others has nothing to do with skin color but level of psychopathy/sociopathy and/or how much they obey a cruel system.

Completely agree.. Don't forget Pollyanna tendencies, and group-think. If people are ridiculed for stating these things enough, it will be "picked up" from the rest of the group to also denigrate those who have this awareness. — schopenhauer1

Yes, very good point, all these cushy biases (“what an opportunity to be alive :)”) are shielded by their own brutal, bias-like enforcer-mechanism: group-think and what strikes me as fascist tendencies (“purge the outsider, there is only the group, and the group is everything”), but “collectivism” describes this as well.

It's funny you bring up children. I have less empathy than others perhaps on this. Yes, there is naivete, and one can say closer to "animal like' in this but there is a dark side to the child experience. The child is also less aware of how sociopathic he/she can be, not having fully developed brains. So I am not predisposed to provide a rosy view on this period in human development. — schopenhauer1

I changed my perspective on them over the years but am too generally rather low on empathy*, but still know they are victims.
Very true that they don’t even realize how cruel they can be, f.e. if they are ripping out the legs of some spider, without even realizing what they are doing to this spider.
(And it’s even kind of the same with spiders, I’m very, very low on empathy with creatures that hunt and chemically liquify other insects, but know they too are still victims).
And it’s very likely that every single human does unknowingly countless atrocities like this as part of their development.

* does that sentence even make sense for an antinatalist, because how low on empathy have you to be to trap them into this world


What I’m now struggling with regarding children is how often they scream and cry.
My neighbors created two, and one is a toddler now, and he screams and cries out pretty much every single day, often even several times. Some people may think once a day doesn’t even sound too much, but when was the last time you screamed and cried because you were in such agony.

It’s a torturous sound and I can’t help but project my own suffering that is caused by his screams onto him and think -STFU!-, but know at the same time he is in so much suffering that he screams out and cries because of it, and nobody takes it serious, for one because of how “normal” and “expected” it is that children constantly severly cry.

And I really wonder how people have more than one child. One child may be because of naivity or some the-human-race™-must-be-dragged-out-indoctrination that they fell for, but I hear their screams muffled through (relatively thin) walls, so for them it’s even worse.
And yes they get the “positive parts” of some helpless creature being completely dependent on them and can be bossed around as they see fit. But how does that balance.


And especially Infants’ experience is pretty much pure torture (that they can’t help but spread it onto their surroundings**), I think nobody can possibly deny this, because nearly everything of what they communicate all day every day is in how much agony they are , and it starts with a birth that severly hurts them physically (deformed head, lots of bruised joints and bodyparts, sometimes broken bones, etc.).


**I really wonder how very early, primitive societies without stone-walls(!) and diapers(!) even procreated at all. There had to be multiple people in every one of those societies that weren’t flooded by hormones but tortured by the constant screams of these ever-shitting infants and toddlers, and I wonder how these humans didn’t simply secretly threw the child into a lake in some burst of anger, especially if they could get away with it without anyone knowing it was them.


How can anyone decide “yeah great let’s have another one of those children that are screaming in agony every day for years(!) – that’s what we (and them!) really want”.
And the price for these children are even enormous in every other aspect as well.
It doesn’t make sense whatsoever, and I’m truly disgusted by anyone who dragged children into suffering, especially multiple.


And don’t get me started on those that want sympathy because the child they created with their sick genes is now crippled, and how hard this is for them..

Antinatalism, anyone? — Bird-Up

Wait until you hear of Efilism.
(Basically Antinatalism applied to all sentient life instead of humans only)

I would agree that humans will eventually escape the limits of their own suffering. As long as we strive to master our own bodies, sooner or later, we will flip the pain switch into the "off" position. It would be hard to imagine a scenario in which we could resist doing so. This would apply to both physical and psychological pain.
[...]
So such pursuits would not be relevant to the discussion of today's suffering; even if the realization that suffering will someday cease, brings a sense of comfort with it. — Bird-Up

How could you possibly be so delusional* optimistic about this?!
Are we talking about the same group of humans that has gone through unimaginable torture because power-hungry psychopaths in that group tortured countless of others in that same group (concentration camps, gulags, world wars, etc. etc.).
There is enormous evidence to the contrary, so what on earth would make you so sure about humans alleviating one another of all suffering? (If it were even possible in the first place, which is very unlikely.)

And from another angle - how were this state of being different from nonexistence (Antinatalism applied)? The solution is already here!


*sorry, not a nice thing to say but still true from my perspective

We are never fully satisfied, and constantly in need and want. We can't stay long in boredom. We need to be entertained. We strive, struggle, deal with in complex social arrangements to maneuver. We can know every moment that we need to get something done, or something is not satisfying, or simply life itself is empty. — schopenhauer1

“constantly in need and want” – a definition of life.
Do you remember one moment where you didn’t needed or wanted anything?
If so (and that’s a very big ‘If’) how long did it last?
And how long did and does the opposite state last, constant need and want?
Is being in a state constantly deprived of whatever things there are, a good state of being – or a bad one?


“Life is empty” is a great existential-nihilist statement, though from a perspective of pessimism I think one could even say it is worse than empty, because suffering isn’t nothing, it’s negative – to adapt the picture, one could say life isn’t just an empty room, it is a sewer.

Yet, we keep putting more people into it. — schopenhauer1

I surely won’t, and I think we should be more exact on this.
There really is no single entity called ‘the human race’ but only a bunch of individuals and saying things like “humans rape, murder, birth” is this fuzzy, collectivist mindset, especially if you (semantically) identify with this collective ("we").
I don’t. And many others neither (and then there are many who do the right thing for completely wrong reasons or even accidentally).
I don’t even identify with all living humans as a group and for sure not with this concept of “the human race” as a whole.

Excuse my semantic rant, that was besides the point you made, that life is inherently a bad thing.

We are the animal that knows our situation. — schopenhauer1

You do for sure, but for how long are you really aware, and how many others are similarly aware?
There are quite some inherent human biases that need to be overcome, like the appeal to nature-fallacy (“nature is great because it sometimes looks nice, even though it’s a torturous death-colosseum”) and this brutal naivity in children – getting rid of these two alone is a very painful process to go through, and this is only what comes down to putting some glasses on.

We are not only experiencing the negative state, but know we are. — schopenhauer1

I think suffering is self-explanatory in the sense that it is what one simply doesn’t want to experience, so everyone suffering must know that he doesn’t want it, and will therefore avoid it whenever possible. I think it is impossible to suffer and at the same time not know that one doesn’t want to suffer.

Though regarding the general awareness of the circumstances of the suffering it likely makes it even a dimension deeper and more horrible.
This seems like a major difference between humans and wild animals living out their instincts*.

And this circumstantial awareness may be one of the reasons why -at least some- humans were able to cut their losses (or wished they were able to).

But thinking about it, if there are actual cases of animals euthanizing themselves in a way that really should go against their instincts – like jumping of a huge cliff, maybe even while struggling doing it, this could be a very strong indicator that at least some of them know their horrible situation as well.

Maybe all those stranded whales weren’t all that “disoriented” after all.
And who knows, some of those toddlers (as in humans temporarily on the mental level of animals) drinking bleach may had a specific goal doing this..

*though I’m not sure about animals in those “concentrated-animal-feeding-operation”s, as they aren't able to live out their instincts at all, they may know very well that their situation is catastrophic.

Please share any more thoughts on the matter. — schopenhauer1

Speaking of sharing, one of the most insightful posts I found over the years on the nature suffering is from here, namely this post.


The implications of what dukkha wrote are absolutely horrific, and a rock solid case for antinatalism (yet another one – as you know). Though there is still much to add** and I may write soon a thread on it and will be curious what you think about it.

**f.e. how our perception of time makes matters a lot worse, as it decelerates time down to slow-motion while we have to endure suffering - and as if that weren't bad enough already, at the very same time it accelerates it while we experience pleasurable moments, so that it basically acts a fast-forward to suffering.

It's amazing how much of the day could disappear, and it really wouldn't matter, or would be in fact, a relief. It's like grinding gears, that is somehow also like being on autopilot, because it's just things to maintain some sort of work related to (inevitably) surviving in a complex society, or its related to comfort, also in the context of a complex society. — schopenhauer1

Speaking of ‘being on autopilot’, this is another indicator of how our mere presence is miserable, because how much of our doing results in dissociating from ‘mere existing’.

I used to meditate for an hour (years ago) and it’s not all that much if you think about it, but I always had to force me to do it, and if ‘just sitting doing nothing’ is so hard and so uncomfortable (and it is!), what exactly does that tell us about our existential baseline?

Though to be fair, it might be because we are so addicted to stimulation through technology (including books), that ‘just sitting doing nothing’ immediately starts a (drug-like) withdrawal.
Theoretically it could be possible to overcome this stimulation-addiction, so that mere presence doesn’t pain you so heavily anymore, but I’m not sure if it is actually possible.

But, even if it were, that we are so very prone to getting immensely addicted to external stimulation in the first place is telling in itself, and stems from suffering-avoidance for sure.

I call this kind of inherent, constant suffering and "want" necessary suffering, as it is built into being alive, as you say. — schopenhauer1

This is another important point, I’m not sure if suffering is actually necessary for consciousness, I doubt it is, and it certainly isn’t to the degree that we have to go through.
If consciousness is forced external input onto some “I”, it is inherently unfree, but could theoretically still at least be neutral. So that makes me assume a sadistic creator even more, and I really, really hope I'm wrong with that.

(But ultimately, I found it very hard to go even near the bottom of the matter. How does suffering even work fundamentally, and how is the “I” even created, presumably out of nothing? It looks like logic doesn’t even apply there.)