Death (or never having been) maybe can be seen as ultimate freedom but I think it's also ultimate slavery, you (who don't exist) are free from everything but not free to (do/have) anything. U force ur kid to be born for your own sake yes, but u also give it a chance to have been, to percieve, to feel pain and love, to interpretate life. Death (or non-being) is neither good or bad. Life is both good and/or bad. the goal should be goodness for everyone rather than nothingness for everyone/noone.
I have a very different philosophy that is derived from the same central principle that life=suffering. Perhaps it will help you to inspire purpose and meaning in your own life. Let me know what you think.
It's the video on my channel called "The Meaning of Life".
Just because the rest of the world will continue to breed till doomsday does not mean we ourselves have to go along for the ride. As for not being noble, Jonathan Rauch said, we can choose exit gracefully (i.e. with as little pain as possible)* rather than continue breeding till the painful end (i.e. when whatever kills us kills us the hard and painful way). All other animals follow their breeding plan like robots. WE don't have to.
I think more should be done to put distance between the view that it is wrong to procreate, and teh view that life is bad. After all, wouldn't it be wrong to procreate even if life is very good (I assume it IS good - after all, most of us don't want to kill ourslves and would, given a choice, prolong our lives as long as possible)? I did not choose to be born. Life involves work so procreation is a kind of forced labour. Forced labour is wrong even if the workers enjoy it.
@Clear404 Not really. One can always avoid this labor through suicide, but you seem already aware of why that sucks. You seem grateful for having life been given to you, but condemn giving it to others. Life is good and there is nothing immoral about giving birth. If there was a voluntary way to enter existence, we could do that, but there isn't so we can't. If anything giving birth creates freedom by creating an actual choice between existence and non-existence.
@TheLockon00 So according to you it is alright to force someone to labour so long as that person could always kill themselves to avoid it? Idiot.
I am grateful for my life and i think my life is good, but that does not mean it was morally permissible for me to have been made to live it. I would not have been deprived had I not been created, but in creating me I was forced to live, and this is wrong.
Doesn't matter what most people do. What matters is my "descendants" won't suffer. The idea that humanity needs to continue is only due to our brain chemistry. That's circular thinking. Courage is useful ONLY if human continuance has a point . It has no point short other than pre-programming and egotism. So the "coward" charge lacks substance. Appealing to "progress" doesn't work either. BTW, our morals/ethics/empathy shortcomings are so deeply built in us we can't ELIMINATE them all.
@filrabat Your descendants won't experience anything positive either. No love. No pleasure. No triumph. No understanding of truth or beauty. Just an eternity of the dull ultimate neutrality that is non-existence. I used to not exist and now I do, and I can say that the latter is WAY better. AN advocates hate suffering, but have no respect for happiness or well-being. Fuck that.
ONLY existing people need these good things. If we didn't exist, then we wouldn't need these good things (just as my non-existent sister does not need them). It wouldn't be a dull existence, because dull is an emotional feeling / label we attach to states of being. No existence ->no emotions-> no dullness. Non-existence would be dull ONLY if your emotions existed, which is not the case with my non-existent sister (for one). Only existing people need happiness, etc.
@filrabat 1) It is dull by definition. We wouldn't be aware of how dull it it, but it is, by definition, supremely dull. 2) It is true that only existing people need happiness, but it is also true that only existing people need to avoid suffering. Hence, one of the pivital points of this ideology is folly.
1) If we aren't around, then dullness (or beauty, for that mater) can't exist. Only consciousness can label such things dull, beautiful (or any kind of abstract value). Ocean water wouldn't find a Pacific atoll beautiful.
2) Potentially existent people need to, esp if there is a chance for them to be future existent. By your logic, there's nothing wrong with a woman planning to have a child sniffing airplane glue or cocaine in the months before she conceives.
@filrabat 1) Get a fucking dictionary. As I said, it's dull by definition, and as I also said, we wouldn't be aware of it.
2) No, because I acknowledge both preventing suffering and creating happiness. You only acknowledge the former, and are thus inconsistent. The needs to avoid pain, suffering, anguish, etc are, like the need to feel pleasure, biologically evolved and hence not need by the non-existent. Hence, your ideology is folly.
@TheLockon00 Your view is extremely skewered. You think creating happiness is easy? You don't just create it, you have to find it, and in many examples -my own life for one - finding happiness is impossible considering the time and place I was born in, and my personal happiness also depends on world issues as I care about the state of the world I live in. And the state it's in is a miserable wasteland of mindless drones, simplistic followers and hive-minded groups with an aversion to progress.
@vgman94 Meh. I'd be impressed if you were from war-torn Africa, and were born to a starving AIDS infected community (an environment were choosing not to give birth is something I'd understand), but according to your profile you live in America. If you want to be unhappy because the world community has issues then that's your choice, but it solves nothing. By the way, the bit at the end about people with aversions to progress is real rich coming from and antinatalist.
Rich? Progress isn't an ever-increasing population (which increases stress), traffic jams and species exinctions. That's all an increasing population does, aside from causing more human misery. That's not a choice. It's following your heart. I can't just ignore the world around me and it's misery. Only low-level invalids don't care about the state of the world. There's visible holocausts, cruel lab experiments, immoral punishments, sexism/racism even through levels of law enforcement and more.
@vgman94 Yes, rich. You know what else is rich? An antinatalist bashing population increase for causing species extinctions. Also, while misery is created, so is happiness. Ignore if you want, but I'll be realistic. I care very greatly about the state of the world and am an active activist for several causes. I don't, however, let my concerns for these affairs turn me into a sniffling dolt.
@TheLockon00 Okay, here's the first grade version: Population increase = more houses built. More houses built means less land for wildlife to live. More people means more farms to feed them, which means less for other species to the point of extinction and endangerment. What is the point of that comic book reference? I "blinked"? No, I accepted the reality and don't pretend life is going to get better. It will always be a miserable pit as long as this species survives.
@vgman94 You mean that more humans equals more human consumption? How long have you been sitting on this information? How am I just learning about this now?
An intelligent person would try and come up with a solution to this species-threatening problem without wiping out the human race, but I digress. Since you DID NOT address my point (I even gave you number guided directions for fucksake) I will not do you the kindness, and will, instead, ignore your second comment.
@TheLockon00 You didn't even specify what comment it was. It was a long forgotten comment in the conversation. You should've been clearer as to what you wanted me to reply with. I assumed "2" was your second comment currently. Not some random number you espoused earlier. I never said the species should be wiped out. All I said is it would make things easier. There are ways to stop the problems without ending the species, but detractors would never stop to change their own, flawed life styles.
@vgman94 Dude, it was still on this page before you made these two responses. It's my comment you first responded to. The one where the points are listed 1) and 2). It's the one with the fucking "2" in front of it? Did any of my recent points have fucking 2s in front of them? What creates happiness? No one thing is the source of all the happiness everyone's ever felt in the history of the human race. What else do you want me to say? However, giving birth does indirectly create happiness
@TheLockon00 You keep sidestepping the question of what creates happiness, how to find it, etc. I see you realize your point is folly,l but are too cowardly to admit. Oh, well. Maybe someday you'll accept what you know in the back of your mind is true, instead of trying to be Hopelessly cheerful. Good day.... Or not.
@vgman94 Continued. To quote the greatest comic book hero of all time, "We both stared into the abyss. The only difference between us is when it stared back, you blinked." Also, please do what none of your comrades have done and address the second point I made. The one with the "2" before it.
@TheLockon00 Now do me the same kindness and refer to this second point: What happiness is created in this world? And do not answer with "having children creates happiness". I know from experience that is nothing but a lie (all my birth did was make ME miserable, while I dragged my mother down from being a respectable citizen to being rather lazy, which is my own fault). If you think children make happiness and that's the only answer you can give, I will not reply.
1)If nothing is around, then why should it matter if it's dull or not. Also, if we didn't exist, "dullness" would be meaningless - for if nobody's around to conceive of dull, then dullness exist?
2) Not inconsis. b/c exist/not-existing are 2 diff't scenarios - not two contrad't'y states of exist. Not having kids due to living living in a high-crime area, poverty, bad mom, etc. (or even less bad circ'st'n's) shows n-exist can have needs, albeit only future ones.
@filrabat 1) Dull: "Lacking in zest, interest, or excitement." So yeah, non-existence is supremely dull. Obviously the non-existenht aren't aware of this, but now that I'm alive I'm aware of what their missing.
2) Now you REALLY contradicted your ideology by saying the non-existent have needs, future or not.
1)How can you claim they miss anything when they don't exist? Non-existent don't have needs, barring the conditions in (2)
2)This is not a contradiction at all IF they are potential future existents. Otherwise, doing anything for our grandchildren wouldn't make any sense."think of our grandchildren" doesn't make any sense. This article addresses the issue pretty well francoistremblay. wordpress. com/ 2011 / 08/ 11 / the-non-identity-problem
@filrabat 1) So, I suppose you've never come accross the phrase "You don't know what you're missing"? Come on, be serious.
2) Taking the needs of potential future people into account is contradictory to your ideology. Remember all those stupid AN slogans about not needing to be alive, feel pleasure, etc prior to existing? You can't dismiss those needs but give credence to the need to avoid suffering.
@HIM0G "what a fucking pussy". I assume by that you mean that life is a great thing and if you don't agree, then you don't deserve respect. In that sense, pussy wimps (as you call them) are FAR from deserving respect. You're reaction is based only on the aninmal-based survival instinct - not facts, logic, and reason. The question is what possible purpose does life serve in the first place - and I mean an OBJECTIVE, INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMABLE purpose WITHOUT appealing to emotional distaste.
@filrabat Correction: I meant to say "pussy wimps (as you call them) are FAR from deserving DISrespect.
To continue...In short, the only reason life has any purpose is that your animal-based survival instincts tell you so. But the animal-based instincts in general are no longer a reliable method of truth-seeking - or even a practical guide to everyday living -, if it ever was one.
"People who want just humans to go extinct are simply misanthropic, they're not concerned with suffering."
Actually, a lot of us DO care about humanity, so much so that we care about whether we should be forcing people into this kind of world in the first place. This is particularly true if they won't suffer when non-existent. Also, I spent several months volunteering at a food bank and at a Goodwill store. Sure doesn't sound lke a misanthrope to me.
by your definition of sentient plants are sentient.
I use "Man" as in "mankind". I'm aware that it's a bit of a sexist term but I didn't invent it and there is no gender neutral equivalent with quite the same connotations. I use "animals" in the sense of "all non human animals". It is a popular use that does not deny that homo sapiens are animals.
Please sir, there is no need for this do degenerate into name calling. We're both trying to help. We just have different views
"By erasing humanity you erase many evils, but you erase all good. You create a completely pointless universe, just a big collection of moving atoms with no purpose or understanding."
What's so bad about a pointless universe, if we're not in it? The only purpose that humanity generates, is for humans to try and escape suffering, for the few of it that can be eluded ... only to fade out in oblivion after a brief existence. Isn't this pointless too - aswell as gratuitiously cruel?
an interesting perspective. reducing suffering has never been a big focus for me though. I'm more interested in what goods can be accomplished than in what evils can be prevented.
I'll have to think about things for a little while to give you any more of a response.
I've seen that you're aware of the socially injustice that parenthood creates; but I should point out that if orphanages were the default, children still would be property, but public instead of private as it is now. Aside from that, if no measures intrusive upon procreative activities are coupled to it, procreation would then become far too costless to discourage anyone from "securing offspring", far more 'broadly' than now that education is taken off hands.
Define sentient please? In my experience everyone has a different understanding of it, and in fact the most popular definition is the ambiguous sci-fi one.
Man is concious and self concious. It is not clear that animals are, and seemingly very unlikely. They experiance pain, but it seems like little more than a chemical reaction and an instinctual response. They never ask "what is pain?" or "how can I overcome it" or even bother thinking that they should overcome it.
Suffering is only Evil because it tends to have negative effects on humanity which prevent individuals from acheiving their Good potential. By erasing humanity you erase many evils, but you erase all good. You create a completely pointless universe, just a big collection of moving atoms with no purpose or understanding.
then again, I've no clue what the afterlife or beforelife may be like, so maybe souls would be better off without ever coming here.
The only reason a collection of atoms needs to achieve potential is because some of the atoms making up the blueprint (the DNA) of that completed human says so. Your emotions are the only thing telling you you have potential, have to achieve, etc. So in the end, you're saying you need emotional fulfillment because your emotions say you have to. This is tautological at best and nonsensical at worst. Also, non-existent people don't need to achieve anything, not even the good.
Setting aside the question of the soul, it seems to me the only chance for finding or making something that matters comes with conciousness. Beauty does not exist without something to perceive it. You seem to suggest that beauty, good, etc. do not exist. If so, then all is pointless anyway. If you are right then I am but a machine with a bizzare program to seek truth and protect the beauty of conciousness. If this is so, well, lacking anything better to do i'll stick to the program
"mattering" is a a mere phantom property of something that can exist ONLY if there is a conscious entity to give that property value (i.e. "it matters"). e.g. Olympic Nat'l Park near Seattle has beauty, but ONLY because conscious entities (humans) give it that beauty. Non-neurological objects cannot grant beauty to it because they don't even have a nervous system, much less a complex brain. BTW, we are such machines as you describe. I just chose NOT to stick to the program.
I simply hope that you are wrong, and if you are right I fail to understand why one should bother to try to contradict the program, exspecially since if you're right such becomes impossible. In becoming aware of the program you may alter it's result, but in the end you surely still have an emotional basis for your actions. If somehow you did not, then I would be very interested in that.
I will grant that family structure encourages brainwashing and the unequal relationships in it are very psychologically unhealthy. Children are essentially treated as property. However the solution to that is simply to abolish the notion that you can have the right to own another human being without any sort of consent on their part so long as you or your wife gave birth to them. Orphanages should be improved and become the norm. Course, no one's going to accept that idea...
I have problems with your reasoning behind your position, but thats not what Im here to discuss I guess. Im not for the extinction of the human animal, its very unlikely that will come about, but I am for letting nature get on with the much needed downward correction the human population so badly needs. I dont care about suffering, Im a massochist, but I would argue for the upward mobility of the poor that have so many children that their lives could have been much better without a brood.
You're never going to convince the dumb flock of sheep who say things like "I don't want to die a virgin" to do anything other than procreate like a dumb flock of sheep. Great video though, in time nature will sterilize us whether we like it or not.
Thank you for spending time producing this video. I completely agree with you. I would also add that human beings also cause each other to suffer, as well as experiencing suffering themselves. Bullying, physical violence, wars, hurtful comments etc.
3:32, "There's gotta be one [last generation] eventually, doesn't there?"
We don't know that. We represent the latest link in an unbroken chain of life going all the way back to the first self-replicating molecule. Today the prospect of spreading to other planets have become a real possibility, and if we do, even the destruction of the sun won't stop us. Life is pretty hard to get rid of.
You sound like a wimp, like a weak person. To me it seems like you might be in depression. You should seriously get that checked out, I mean it without any irony. Having said that, I support the idea of human population control via birth control because if you run the numbers it would benefit humanity on this planet that has limited resources. What you speak of is ending the human race entirely. Why end it? Because you lost the will to live? Let me ask you this: do you drink alot? by yourself?
@vmorgun after a quick look at his page, I think all he does is play video games. Maybe if he had sex once in his life, he would have a different opinion all together.
@vmorgun We're encouraged to think of optimism, or life-affirmation, as a sign of bravery and strength, -- yet the truth may be that far greater courage and vigor, not to mention honesty, is needed to avoid this easy out; to look squarely at the horrors of existence without cracking a joke, raising a diversion, or grasping at rose-colored cliches. Moreover, a compassionate person cannot shrug off the sufferings of others; i.e. that another child starves to death every five seconds in this world.
@vmorgun "The ideal of Morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of highest Strength, of most powerful life; which also has been named (very falsely as it was there meant) the ideal of poetic greatness. It is the maximum of the savage; and has, in these times, gained, precisely among the greatest weaklings, very many proselytes. By this ideal, man becomes a Beast-Spirit, a Mixture; whose brutal wit has, for weaklings, a brutal power of attraction." -- Novalis
only trouble with this the WRONG people have the kids they do not want them, they end up abused, people like me should have had them, signed smart and great looking.......
Lead by example and kill each other off so you can in no way way go against what you believe,after all do not need temptation,like an alcoholic would try not to be around alcohol,and we will see if you are right.
Maybe; but wouldn't I just be joining in with the silent quire then? I think the more I ruffle their feathers by refuting their popular nonsense, the more they expose their hypocrisy for others to see - just like you yourself made Uhlbelk do, apparently.
Thats simply NOT true, suicide prevents a shit load of suffering, 1) all the suffering YOU have to go through the rest of your life, and 2) all the suffering you will cause the rest of the world for the rest of your life. I don't claim anyone killing themselves would save another life.
• that for many, suicide is an EVEN GREATER negative, than the negative sum of the projected suffering
• that we have a 'capacity' to ingest "hard pills", when they're grinded up and sprinkled across a lifetime's meals, while only few can swallow but 1 larger-than-eusophagus hard pill in one go.
• that none chose FOR HIMSELF to be born an obligate cannibal, and dying for the sake of our "food" would be JUST AS WRONG as eating "it".
@Bazompora Seriously? That is the justifications you can come up with? Those are ridiculous and illogical. How can suicide be a greater negative (suffering?). Capacity? When suffering goes beyond capacity the person dies. Lastly how would that be wrong in any way? You are accepting a small amount of suffering to end a large unquantified amount of future suffering that you would be responsible for EXACTLY the same as antinatalism.
It's not wrong to CHOOSE to die upon itself, but in this case, it would be a wrong committed to right another wrong, since death itself would then not have been what was desired; and it's especially a wrong outcome, since both wrongs could have been prevented.
& I thought it couldn't be more obvious that I was talking about the mental capacity to 'will' oneself to actively seek out death. FYI: 'Death' is only the end of 'dying', which, when soon, seems to be a most horrific experience.
You're an old man. There are many generations left to tend to your Geriatric needs. Grow food for you. Nurse you. Manufacture the medicines you'll need and basically provide everything that distinguishes you from a hunter gatherer. What about the very very last generation? What happens to them? They will become slaves to an ageing population with no slack taken up by new recruits. And when they, themselves, are too feeble to work do they pop a cyanide pill? Their Misery is guaranteed.
So we should all collectively decide to cease the existence of our race, before we all collectively decide to cease existence of the things that cause the pain in the first place? We should stop reproducing instead of putting a stop to the catalysts of war and poverty etc?
@theantinatalist Do you have ANY education in biology or biochemistry? Bacteria chemically sense concentrations of food, single celled organisms can sense and move toward light, ect. ect. ect. ALL sentient suffering is, is a more sophisticated form of the exact same principals. Is being chilly "suffering"? It is nerve stimulation from the skin to the brain. ALL suffering is, is a mechanism for living things to detect threats to its continued living.
"ALL suffering is, is a mechanism for living things to detect threats to its continued living."
Trust me: if I'd twist your nipples, it's NOT 'a threat to your continued living' that you'd be sensing ...
'Nature' isn't some perfectly concocted mechanism: while pain warns us of damage and threats, it makes us sapient beings (i.e. with an identity that is not synonymous to our gonads) suffer immeasurably more than a painless death would; as humans, we sadly are MORE THAN "living THINGS".
@Bazompora Not really, we are able to track virtually every human impulse to biological function and postulate evolutionary mechanisms for their existence. Twisting my nipples is various pain nerves, the function of which is to protect the body, it is so important that it doesn't even require the impulse to go to the brain to create a reflexive response. Psychological suffering mechanisms are traced through brain regions, stimulus, and their functions can be deduced as well.
"Not really, we are able to track virtually every human impulse to biological function and postulate evolutionary mechanisms for their existence."
You're missing the point: 'despite' the evolutionary advantages that these pains provide, they still form a system so primitive, that it can't differentiate between intentions or be turned off; it's 'pain on every occasion', since consequent suffering didn't receive negative selection. In that same way, we also SUFFER from fear and boredom.
If you think boredom is no form of suffering, I would challenge you to go and stay in solitary confinement, with only a bed and where only the same food and drinks are provided every day, just for a few weeks on end. Have your daily non-activity video-surveiled, because I bet you'd suffer from temporary insanity soon enough.
And I suppose we can agree that while suffering is good for the species, it is nothing but torture for the individual. As an individual, I find that inexcusable.
@Bazompora I'm not going to restate everything I've said already multiple times here. If it's torture then the logical step is suicide, it 1) stops you from having children just like antinatalism, and 2) it stops all the suffering you are experiencing and contributing to the world.
@Bazompora 1) No it does not retroactively undo harm, it PREVENTS more suffering to you and the rest of the world by your existence. JUST LIKE antinatalism "prevents" harm.
2) Antinatalism is calling for people to act in a rational manner (according to your own logic) to claim not being able to kill yourself because of an irrational instinct is hypocritical.
3) Same as 2...the logic of antinatalism proposes that suffering brought on by a living creature is not worth it, thus prevent it.
amputating yourself out of suffering (= suffering + suffering = death) =/= 'preventing' suffering (as in making it NEVER happened).
It's a shit "solution" and you know it (I hope): your "logic" is to go on making war and hand cyanide pills to the wounded!
And YOU are the hypocrit, selling suicide to others while not applying your "logic" upon yourself. But nooo! You're probably too happy for that! ... just as much as you're too happy to feel bad for your victims.
@Bazompora I'm not an antinatalist! I am not proposing people commit suicide. I don't have logic that is indefensible. This is the ad absurdum argument against the ridiculous logic of antinatalism. Death is a finite amount of suffering that would more then likely be lessened for the individual if they suicide as opposed to struggling with some chronic disease. The suffering to the rest of the world by your existence can ONLY be less if you die immediately as opposed to later.
Thanks for admitting you can't give fuck about other people's suffering.
But you got one small point there: ending my parasitic First-World life, would lessen suffering in the Third World, just as much as a drip of water would 'lessen' their thirst. But even BETTER would be, if I took as many as possible "First-Worldeners" with me, wouldn't you say? Now how should one "logically" go about this? Should I meet out to them too those "mercy blows" that you find a good "cure" for suffering?
@Bazompora That depends. An antinatalist might also believe in personal rights and determination. Thus they are only able to act within the confines of their own life. This is a completely separate issue to preventing suffering and thus I only bother bringing up suicide since that is an individuals personal right.
Please... "Rights" are made by humans and vary from one legal system to another, and even between parents' domestic tyrannies. But if we're speaking of "right and wrongs", then I should remind you that "making babies" is neither 'personal' or 'right': the "object" of that activity is a wholly separate human person, while the actor has prior knowledge of some of the wrongs (ordeals and death) he bestows upon that other person, aswell as a clue of the wrongs that could befall him or her.
@Bazompora It IS personal, it is an individual taking responsibility for their own body, whether it is not reproducing or if it is suicide. Like I said it is a completely different issue then the logic behind antinatalism. Choosing to not have children because you don't WANT children is different then antinatalism because antinatalism proposes that it is a logical conclusion not just a choice or opinion. The logic is absurd and you have yet to show any reason my arguments against it are wrong.
I so far refuted any of your ridiculous arguments you directed at me; I suggest you skim through my previous comments, if you missed it. And I'll say this again until it sinks in: human reproduction is the act of creating a new OTHER individual with his or her own body, by parents who are usually the sole responsible party for the act. Wether one of the parents USED her own body as a tool for executing most of that act, doesn't diminish in any way that they do it TO ANOTHER individual.
@Bazompora You are incomprehensible, I am talking about PREVENTING suffering that antinatalists claim to do. If you DON'T have a child you are not DOING anything to anyone except yourself. To prevent the suffering YOU cause, YOU committing suicide is not DOING anything to anyone else. You haven't said ANYTHING to dispute that suicide is the logical extension of antinatalism. You haven't said ANYTHING about how people wanting to live means that suffering is preferred usually to not living.
antiNATALism is not about suicide, because suicide is irrelevant to the PREvention of suffering: it CAN only put a bold period behind an already-existing string of suffering. Killing oneself is neither part of the philosopy, nor is it morally EQUITABLE to expect one to die so another can live; antinatalism is about nobody HAVING to live (through birth) and die for another.
And people don't want to die, indeed; but they WILL and that's a fate suffered ASWELL.
@theantinatalist Oh, so you trading all the enjoyment life (which most people find GREATLY more significant) to stop a hunger pain? a skinned knee? the sadness of a puppy dying? why don't you ask someone with down syndrome if they are suffering and would rather not have been born. Also your claim that non-sentient life forms can't suffer is ridiculous and completely unfounded. What crazy definition of suffering do you concoct in your head to justify that position?
@theantinatalist Animals suffer, bacteria suffer, suffering is what happens to living things that lets them know they are at risk of no longer living. Your only excuse for antinatalists not committing suicide is that your death would cause suffering to family and friends ect, yet you completely ignore the vast "suffering" you impose on other life by existing, your death is in your version of suffering a finite quantity that won't change all that much if you die now or in 40 years, yet living...
@theantinatalist No, you are wrong, removing existence does NOT reduce what is bad, it makes the terms invalid. It is a married bachelor. It's the "before" the big bang. The moon only has "less" suffering only when compared to earth because earth has living creatures. IF you want to reduce suffering/pain you have to do it TO living creatures.
@theantinatalist preventing WHAT harm? preventing what from being hurt? you can only say that if you can prove some harm is going to happen and then prove that the harm prevented is somehow of greater value then the life that was prevented.
@theantinatalist You HAVE no reasoning. My reasoning hasn't been refuted, you haven't killed yourself, other things rarely kill themselves so the obvious conclusion is the suffering they experience is something they are willing to endure to keep living, and you propose to not allow future generations that decision by not allowing them to exist. Your reasoning is analogous to, in order to reduce ugliness, blind everyone at birth. Go ahead and start the antivisualism movement.
@theantinatalist you mean a stupid comment like this?: "It makes more sense to worship a sometimes merciful God than the ruthless and unintelligent piece of chemistry that is the DNA molecule."
don't bother. you're a complete moron. I'm done with you.
@theantinatalist why do you want to go against 3 billion years of evolution? you think we evolved to this point to go "fuck it all! lets end this!" and that's that? don't be so absurd!
@theantinatalist These replies are all over the place. I believe you are the one with absurd concepts of what suffering and responsibility are. My grandma, who I spent almost every christmas with and loved dearly died a week ago. I cried, I still get sad and choked up when I dwell on it, but my feelings and are my own responsibility, I am not "suffering". I could wallow in sorrow all day and night if I chose, but it's my decision and responsibility to myself not to do that.
@theantinatalist Yes it is possible to suffer more or less while you exist because it is part of what being alive is, by removing existence you are not reducing suffering. Boycotting factory farms lessens suffering, being a vegetarian doesn't. You have strange ideas of suffering, what suffers more a pet mouse, or a wild mouse? You think suffering will be less if nothing exists? That's absurd because the term suffering becomes meaningless without life.
@theantinatalist Compassion needs a subject. Exactly how are you being compassionate by proposing non-existence? Suicide is easy and rational to anyone who proposes non-existence is somehow better then existence.
@Uhlbelk The subject, of course, is the child who might have been born into a life of misery who instead is not due to the compassionate choice of non-procreation. This really isn't as hard as you'd make it out to be. If someone discovers they have a significant chance of passing on a terrible birth defect to a potential offspring, the compassionate choice is to forego creating that offspring. And, suicide is easy? This is a non-compassionate statement, founded in ignorance.
The suicide comment was quoting theantinatalist use of words, try responding to the entire statement. Might be born? Lets examine this, life (after a few years at least) is a personal choice...apparently your life is not so miserable that you would prefer to end it rather then keep living. So the obvious conclusion is your parents had you for selfish and cruel reasons, and you are....what? Remaining alive as long as possible, to suffer and make their decision as big of a mistake as possible?
@Uhlbelk I addressed both the compassion component of your 'statement', as well as the 'suicide is easy' part. I can't help it if you're more interested in your diatribe than my response to it. So, I'll continue. Yes, my birth was motivated by the selfishness of my parents. The cruelty aspect comes as part of the package, although I doubt they considered that. Parents never do; procreation is generally thoughtless as to that part. My reasons for remaining alive are mainly two. (cont)...
@Uhlbelk ...(continuing) 1. I remain alive for my children's sake, and for others who care for me. 2. I haven't reached that desperate point millions of people DO reach, the desperation that causes them to do terminal physical harm to themselves, including the chance that it won't take, and they end up in even a worse situation, as well as putting their loved ones in a worse situation. Of course, the question of my own reasons for living have nothing to do with the argument. You're handwaving.
@Uhlbelk Let's summarize: Antinatalists argue that the best way to insure that someone doesn't live a life he or she eventually detests, is to simply not bring them into existence. You argue that if they don't like it, they can always kill themselves later. Roll that around in your head for awhile, then try to come up with a substantive rejoinder if you can. You're just jumping from debating point to debating point thus far, and so far you've lost every point. Try harder, please.
@Uhlbelk However, if you keep dancing around the argument's challenges, don't expect a reply. So far your challenges are substanceless, and mostly beside the point. I'm interested in actual arguments against the position, not this bait and switch crap that people always come up with.
@theantinatalist Yes you are right, that is what I do believe. 1) Emotional trauma? Someone's feelings are their responsibility, if your position that living = suffering and not living = suffering prevented and that is in anyway reasonable then convincing others not to be emotionally traumatized by offing yourself should be no problem. 2) Mess that sentience leaves behind? Lol, you think nature suffers from having a city built on it? I'm sure the billions of rats in New York will disagree.
@theantinatalist Reasons completely contrary to their antinatalism beliefs. Obligations exist only when you agree to do something. Thus the only obligations you have are those you create yourself. My student loan debt is an obligation, I have NO obligation to my family, or friends, or some future society. I CHOOSE to be a good friend, a responsible and helpful member of my family and society because I want to.
@theantinatalist And that is equally the unfounded premise I've heard vomited up by every antinatalist. Please explain how suffering is reduced? It is like saying, if we kill a bunch of people the stupidity in the world decreases. Obviously you don't think the suffering you experience in life outweighs the enjoyment you experience otherwise you WOULD kill yourself. There is no "ethical obligation" that is a bullshit attempt to justify not killing yourself, obligation is a choice you make.
@theantinatalist There are ways to move beyond the pains and emotions you so dearly appeal to, the development of new technologies has shown that it is possible to someday rid ourselves from the slow death of aging, or death by disease. Also, letting life die out in the universe would only make its achievements pointless and there is even a possibility that through the development of civilization and expansion into space we might transcend the flesh and even the universe through our technology.
The only assured way to do so is to genetically reengineer ourselves in two ways: Purge BOTH 1.Our sensory nerves letting us feel pain (both physical and mental). 2. Our "survival instinct(s)" that compel us to stay alive. That way, we will feel neither pain nor pleasure; nor will we care if we continue living or not.
That would essentially make us glorified robots in the classical connotation of the term. Which is fine if you want that existence, but.. (continued)..
(Pt 2) ..most people are vehemently opposed to living a mode existence just a few steps up Watson, the IBM computer Jeopardy champion (its on YT, btw). Picture the Mars Rovers with technology and programming 40 yrs ahead of where Watson curently is (2011), and that's the kind of existence humans must have in order to ASSUREDLY escape pain. Unless you're willing to turn humans into DNA-based robots, I doubt higher tech will cure pain, suffering, etc, and not even death.
(Pt 3) Speaking of curing death, Watch "The Cosmic Apocalypse" on YT and read about "The Five Ages of the Universe". In short, both assure that it's impossible to escape death because one day, life will not be able to exist in this universe - even in theory. The best that anti-aging treatments, mind uploads into another person or an android, etc. can do is delay the end by an immense but finite number of years (up to about 10^40 or so years, perhaps as few as 10^14).
@theantinatalist It's creating an opportunity. You feel life is imposed upon people? They have every right and ability to stop living whenever they want, it's hypocritical to keep your own while not offering it to another. Logically the first thing an antinatalist should do when coming to believe this tripe, is to go off themselves.
Claiming something's fallacious and hypocritical is one thing. PROVING it is for the big boys and big girls. AN's postion is Suffering Prevention in all its forms. Suicide causes suffering for friends and family. So whatever benefits suicide has for an AN is NOT worth the anguish it causes family and friends. Therefore, the kill yourself charge is a real reason - it's just an initial emotional reaction, like spitting out rotten fruit from your mouth.
OK, Fine - just as long as you don't give a damn about your own friend's or family's feelings - as in traumatic experiences suicide causes those people. It's still obvious you'd rather just run your mouth with cheap ass punk shots rather than think about this in a sophisticated, mature way.
@filrabat Mate, i am in fact in favour of antinatalists having their opinion...because the end result will be that antinatalists wont breed...one less affliction in the gene pool.
I got to 2:50 in and had to stop. If you want the world to be a better place, make it one! Shut down your computer, go outside and find one of those people who's life is miserable not not worth living. Then show them how great life can be! Don't offer them, "your fate is sealed in stone, it's better for you to have never been born." THAT is the exact kind of B.S. that keeps the world the way it is!
I don't disagree that it's selfish. However I don't think anything here speaks to me, I don't want to (nor do I think it's possible) to come up with a single simplified response to this within 500 characters. To me however not having children is also giving up, saying we can not face the future because we fear the immoralities of it! Progress can't be made with such fears, all that will happen is those that actually want wars reproduce more while those that don't reproduce less....
so yes, immoral things will happen in the future, and so will moral things. Now here is why I fundamentally differ from this video. Do I like living? Yes! Two people were required at least to bring me into this world to live and I will die, and bad things have and will happen to me, but so can the same be said about good things. Instead the question shouldn't be about the bad things that will happen to children but the things we can do to ensure them the best quality of life.... for ALL!
As for nihilistic suggestions that I see coming from this. I do not think like you do, does everything truly come to an end? The suggestion that it will has less validity then suggesting that their was begin what to this date nobody can prove their was. We can trace events that lead to the current state of the universe but currently it's impossible to prove that the universe is not some eternal existence that just always was. The idea that the universe "began" or will "end" is a special pledge.
as for humanity, maybe it will end, maybe it won't, again until it happens this is something that sits in the unknown. But what also sits in the unknown is the meaningfulness(or less) of this. As currently goes the only possibility (worth considering) that could wipe out humanity is full scale international nuclear war. The Andromeda–Milky Way collision will probably happen before our sun dies and that is still Billions of years away! A super volcano would be tragic but in the end, not enough.
@charbroiledmonk1033 They won't, and that's the point. It's called 'prevention'. To 'prevent' something is to take appropriate action before that something becomes manifest in the real world. To 'prevent' a child from experiencing suffering and death is to refrain from moving that child from a 'potential' state to an 'actual' one.
@metamorphhh facepalm... Stop doing the pseudo-philosophical juggling you are doing. You are using the possibility of harm and death like it is going out of style.
@metamorphhh obviously you take things far too seriously and that is probably why you adhere to the stance you do. life, like my comment, is just a big joke, so laugh along with it instead of crying foul.
antinatalism is hypocrisy at it's finest and these positions are laughable. claiming that the act of bringing a child into the world is selfish is pretty preposterous and assumes parents are all completely idiotic. financially? the cost of raising a child is almost always going to be more then they provide for you. companionship? they are going to be sucking the time you could be spending with people who you choose to be with.
@Uhlbelk And yet, people have them. Why? Because they find the trade-offs acceptable, at least at the time of conception. The decision to procreate is a purely selfish one, since the child certainly needs no 'favors'.
@metamorphhh, This is just lazy thinking. Pretty much you are painting all parents as purely selfish being who are incapable anything else other than self interest. Have you any evidence of this claim, did you ask every parent past, present, and future on why they had children. Maybe because you are unable to consider any other reasons for having children does not mean that other reasons do not exist for having children.
@metamorphhh Lol, so the joy of sex makes every child a selfish act. Guess that makes all acts of charity and benevolence selfish because it makes the person doing it feel good? Well, luckly in america we can fix that whole pregnancy problem as soon as it happens, so your point is still invalid.
@metamorphhh 1) whos expense? the parents? You have YET to prove it is selfish.
2) I never said charity to an unborn child, simply making an example of how your claim of conception being selfish is ridiculous.
First let me make a definition of "selfish"...Wanting for yourself. Pretty simple. Bringing a child into the world is "giving" life...it is "giving" support, resources, time, care, attention. You can prove a couple is doing the opposite of 'selfish' by having a child.
@Uhlbelk Not sure how I can make this any clearer. Since a pre-existent child has no wants, no deprivations or desires, all motivations for having one emanate from the needs and desires of the parents, thus making procreation a selfish act. Procreation isn't 'giving' to anyone, since there was originally no one to 'give' life to. Life isn't given, it's created. Afterwards, yes; parents give to their children. But that's a tradeoff chosen by the parents as part of their decision to procreate.
@Uhlbelk Parents have children for many reasons, all selfish. Ego reasons. Financial reasons. Status reasons. Societies encourage this selfishness because procreation also serves those outside any immediate family in terms of the economy, national defense, etc. Life is a system of exploitation, into which all new children are ultimately indoctrinated.
If you want to continue this conversation at length, I'd suggest you post at my blog at antinatalism . net. This is too small a working space.
@metamorphhh Lovely claims you make, but while seemingly reasonable are not. Prove my parents had me for selfish reasons. You can prove why YOU had children because who besides you can know, you can report why other people CLAIM to have had children, but you don't know. Your argument is analogous to claiming someone who donated all his lottery winnings to orphans did it for selfish reasons, in effect you are claiming every single action by living things are selfish.
@Uhlbelk Now you're simply arguing like children argue. "Prove it! Prove it!" and then claiming that I can't make any statements about how people generally think since I can't get into each one of their heads. Yeesh! As far as selfishness is concerned, there's probably some involved in most altruistic actions. However, procreation is not altruistic, since nobody needs any help until after the fact. (cont)...
@Uhlbelk By the process of elimination, that makes procreation an act motivated by the desires of the procreator i.e. a 'selfish act'. I have no need to climb into anyone's head to come to that conclusion. I arrive there by a simple process of elimination.
@metamorphhh Sorry I see no reason to take this to any other forum, youtube is where people make claims and here is where I see fit to argue those claims.
@Uhlbelk No problem. Your argument reminds me of a t-shirt I saw a fundie Christian wearing once. "So, you believe in evolution? Why, WERE YOU THERE?" Don't take this the wrong way; I'm sure you're reading it differently than what I meant in my head when I wrote it. :)
@metamorphhh Well, they may remind you of that but it isn't even close to similar. The answer to the t-shirt is, yes I was there because it is happening currently and scientifically there is no reason to suspect if it is happening at this moment it wasn't happening in the past. Your position requires everyone to fit your claims and you can't come close to showing that is true. You can essentially claim it is true for you, yet you've already had children so that point is moot to begin with.
The Argument you presented in this video is utter Gibberish. All the points you have made pertaining to suffering are little more than an appeal to emotion. You destroy your own argument when you claim that people only have children for selfish reasons and then argue that we should end the human race with our generation. This is an equally selfish in that you are denying yet to exist children even a voice to be heard and deciding for them that it is best for the children not to exist.
@ithkul Children who don't yet exist can't be denied any more than any fictional character. It's when children are actually created that the problems begin...for them. The decision not to create them cannot harm them in any way. The decision to create them CAN and DOES harm them, and eventually leads to their death.
@metamorphhh Please stop while you are still behind. It is painful to read your post for the amount mental juggling you are doing. I am flabbergasted of the emotional drivel being spit out. It is evident at least as far it is presented, your own argument is no different from my own as as time is concerned. At the point, when the decision to have a have child. The child at that point is no more real than a fictional character. even the consequences are no different than fiction at that point.
@ithkul BTW stop attaching Such negative connotations to death. the whole Harm statement in regards to death is little more than an appeal to my emotion. You are making an assumption about my attitude about suffering and death itself. To put it bluntly, I would not change the amount of suffering in my life now past or future even if it is needless. I treasure the ability to experience even if it may be nightmarish, but as long as I am able to experience something no matter how painful it is.
@ithkul It means I am still alive. Even with all the physical and emotional scars I carry. I would gladly do so for no other reason then the opportunity presented in this one life we get. Yeah it may look bleak and for most people who ever lived will die in utter obscurity and loneliness but to have that chance to live and emerge from non-existence even if a brief instance of time, gives me a chance to feel. death on the other hand, I will never experience for the last thing I feel is dying.
@ithkul I'm not making an assumption about your attitude towards suffering or death. You're making an assumption that a new being will automatically find the same value in suffering as you do. Although to be honest, there are degrees and modes of suffering that you wouldn't accept, I'm sure. Like everybody else, I'm sure you do your fair share of inculcating personal suffering when you're able to prevent it.
@metamorphhh again that is not what i am arguing whatsoever. I never claimed nor stated anything regards to other having similar attitudes in respect to death and suffering as myself. All I am pointing out is that there are different attitudes with respect to death and suffer to which from your position will be simply ignored. You are reading way too much into it.
@ithkul So then, to you even the consideration of not conceiving a child for the sake of, say, a severe birth defect being passed on, or the fact that you can't afford the child, or a host of other reasons easily imagined is simply nonsensical? Ideas like waiting until you can afford a family, or waiting until a certain age all fall by the wayside, for the simple reason that the child you're planning on eventually having or not having doesn't exist yet? Silly.
@metamorphhh Now you are misrepresenting my position within my replies. With last reply you are still no addressing my point with regards the time. You were suppose find it ridiculous because it is just as ridiculous as what you are saying. what you are saying about harm and death cannot be measured in anyway because the subjects have yet experience it. It is same shitty trick that Preachers who use hellfire and damnation to keep the parishioners going to church.
@ithkul To be honest, I'm having a hard time following you at times. Incoherence peppered with insults gets tiring after awhile. I thought I addressed your argument straightforwardly. Sorry.
@metamorphhh I apologize if I seem aggressive or condescending. I just am little frustrated that you are not getting my point. I admit that last few posts have been straight rushed out my head akin to a rough draft being put to print. It may not be the most eloquent or easily read, however, because of that my message may not have been received as intended. To put in simple terms, your argument need better support other what has been presented thus far.
It would be funny if we all die out this way. Some alien race ends up visiting earth and finds in the fossil records evidence of humanity and concludes that we died by giving up on interbreeding. I'm sure they would laugh and make a museum telling of a race of natives that were progressing finally just giving up and dying.
@Plasmon19 Or perhaps they'll admire us for acknowledging the futility of continuing a losing game for the sake of pride and imaginary attainment, all at the expense of others who never volunteered to be steppingstones on the road to an illusory tomorrow.
Death (or never having been) maybe can be seen as ultimate freedom but I think it's also ultimate slavery, you (who don't exist) are free from everything but not free to (do/have) anything. U force ur kid to be born for your own sake yes, but u also give it a chance to have been, to percieve, to feel pain and love, to interpretate life. Death (or non-being) is neither good or bad. Life is both good and/or bad. the goal should be goodness for everyone rather than nothingness for everyone/noone.
BearWindAppleyard 3 days ago
Excellent video. So many good points in a short video.
tigerslilly29 3 weeks ago
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Here's an objection to antinatalism. I don't think it works, but I wonder what others think (or if others know of a better way of expressing it)
The objection:
1.If procreating is seriously morally wrong, then we are justified in forcibly preventing it.
2.We are not justified in forcibly preventing someone from procreating
3.Therefore, procreating is not seriously morally wrong
Clear404 1 month ago
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I have a very different philosophy that is derived from the same central principle that life=suffering. Perhaps it will help you to inspire purpose and meaning in your own life. Let me know what you think.
It's the video on my channel called "The Meaning of Life".
jlhe2011 1 month ago
@HIM0G
Just because the rest of the world will continue to breed till doomsday does not mean we ourselves have to go along for the ride. As for not being noble, Jonathan Rauch said, we can choose exit gracefully (i.e. with as little pain as possible)* rather than continue breeding till the painful end (i.e. when whatever kills us kills us the hard and painful way). All other animals follow their breeding plan like robots. WE don't have to.
filrabat 2 months ago
I think more should be done to put distance between the view that it is wrong to procreate, and teh view that life is bad. After all, wouldn't it be wrong to procreate even if life is very good (I assume it IS good - after all, most of us don't want to kill ourslves and would, given a choice, prolong our lives as long as possible)? I did not choose to be born. Life involves work so procreation is a kind of forced labour. Forced labour is wrong even if the workers enjoy it.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 Not really. One can always avoid this labor through suicide, but you seem already aware of why that sucks. You seem grateful for having life been given to you, but condemn giving it to others. Life is good and there is nothing immoral about giving birth. If there was a voluntary way to enter existence, we could do that, but there isn't so we can't. If anything giving birth creates freedom by creating an actual choice between existence and non-existence.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
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@TheLockon00 So according to you it is alright to force someone to labour so long as that person could always kill themselves to avoid it? Idiot.
I am grateful for my life and i think my life is good, but that does not mean it was morally permissible for me to have been made to live it. I would not have been deprived had I not been created, but in creating me I was forced to live, and this is wrong.
Clear404 2 months ago
Doesn't matter what most people do. What matters is my "descendants" won't suffer. The idea that humanity needs to continue is only due to our brain chemistry. That's circular thinking. Courage is useful ONLY if human continuance has a point . It has no point short other than pre-programming and egotism. So the "coward" charge lacks substance. Appealing to "progress" doesn't work either. BTW, our morals/ethics/empathy shortcomings are so deeply built in us we can't ELIMINATE them all.
filrabat 3 months ago
@filrabat Your descendants won't experience anything positive either. No love. No pleasure. No triumph. No understanding of truth or beauty. Just an eternity of the dull ultimate neutrality that is non-existence. I used to not exist and now I do, and I can say that the latter is WAY better. AN advocates hate suffering, but have no respect for happiness or well-being. Fuck that.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00
ONLY existing people need these good things. If we didn't exist, then we wouldn't need these good things (just as my non-existent sister does not need them). It wouldn't be a dull existence, because dull is an emotional feeling / label we attach to states of being. No existence ->no emotions-> no dullness. Non-existence would be dull ONLY if your emotions existed, which is not the case with my non-existent sister (for one). Only existing people need happiness, etc.
filrabat 2 months ago
@filrabat 1) It is dull by definition. We wouldn't be aware of how dull it it, but it is, by definition, supremely dull. 2) It is true that only existing people need happiness, but it is also true that only existing people need to avoid suffering. Hence, one of the pivital points of this ideology is folly.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00
1) If we aren't around, then dullness (or beauty, for that mater) can't exist. Only consciousness can label such things dull, beautiful (or any kind of abstract value). Ocean water wouldn't find a Pacific atoll beautiful.
2) Potentially existent people need to, esp if there is a chance for them to be future existent. By your logic, there's nothing wrong with a woman planning to have a child sniffing airplane glue or cocaine in the months before she conceives.
filrabat 2 months ago
@filrabat 1) Get a fucking dictionary. As I said, it's dull by definition, and as I also said, we wouldn't be aware of it.
2) No, because I acknowledge both preventing suffering and creating happiness. You only acknowledge the former, and are thus inconsistent. The needs to avoid pain, suffering, anguish, etc are, like the need to feel pleasure, biologically evolved and hence not need by the non-existent. Hence, your ideology is folly.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00 Your view is extremely skewered. You think creating happiness is easy? You don't just create it, you have to find it, and in many examples -my own life for one - finding happiness is impossible considering the time and place I was born in, and my personal happiness also depends on world issues as I care about the state of the world I live in. And the state it's in is a miserable wasteland of mindless drones, simplistic followers and hive-minded groups with an aversion to progress.
vgman94 2 months ago
@vgman94 Meh. I'd be impressed if you were from war-torn Africa, and were born to a starving AIDS infected community (an environment were choosing not to give birth is something I'd understand), but according to your profile you live in America. If you want to be unhappy because the world community has issues then that's your choice, but it solves nothing. By the way, the bit at the end about people with aversions to progress is real rich coming from and antinatalist.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
Rich? Progress isn't an ever-increasing population (which increases stress), traffic jams and species exinctions. That's all an increasing population does, aside from causing more human misery. That's not a choice. It's following your heart. I can't just ignore the world around me and it's misery. Only low-level invalids don't care about the state of the world. There's visible holocausts, cruel lab experiments, immoral punishments, sexism/racism even through levels of law enforcement and more.
vgman94 2 months ago
@vgman94 Yes, rich. You know what else is rich? An antinatalist bashing population increase for causing species extinctions. Also, while misery is created, so is happiness. Ignore if you want, but I'll be realistic. I care very greatly about the state of the world and am an active activist for several causes. I don't, however, let my concerns for these affairs turn me into a sniffling dolt.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00 Okay, here's the first grade version: Population increase = more houses built. More houses built means less land for wildlife to live. More people means more farms to feed them, which means less for other species to the point of extinction and endangerment. What is the point of that comic book reference? I "blinked"? No, I accepted the reality and don't pretend life is going to get better. It will always be a miserable pit as long as this species survives.
vgman94 2 months ago
@vgman94 You mean that more humans equals more human consumption? How long have you been sitting on this information? How am I just learning about this now?
An intelligent person would try and come up with a solution to this species-threatening problem without wiping out the human race, but I digress. Since you DID NOT address my point (I even gave you number guided directions for fucksake) I will not do you the kindness, and will, instead, ignore your second comment.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00 You didn't even specify what comment it was. It was a long forgotten comment in the conversation. You should've been clearer as to what you wanted me to reply with. I assumed "2" was your second comment currently. Not some random number you espoused earlier. I never said the species should be wiped out. All I said is it would make things easier. There are ways to stop the problems without ending the species, but detractors would never stop to change their own, flawed life styles.
vgman94 2 months ago
@vgman94 Dude, it was still on this page before you made these two responses. It's my comment you first responded to. The one where the points are listed 1) and 2). It's the one with the fucking "2" in front of it? Did any of my recent points have fucking 2s in front of them? What creates happiness? No one thing is the source of all the happiness everyone's ever felt in the history of the human race. What else do you want me to say? However, giving birth does indirectly create happiness
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00 You keep sidestepping the question of what creates happiness, how to find it, etc. I see you realize your point is folly,l but are too cowardly to admit. Oh, well. Maybe someday you'll accept what you know in the back of your mind is true, instead of trying to be Hopelessly cheerful. Good day.... Or not.
vgman94 2 months ago
@vgman94 Continued. To quote the greatest comic book hero of all time, "We both stared into the abyss. The only difference between us is when it stared back, you blinked." Also, please do what none of your comrades have done and address the second point I made. The one with the "2" before it.
TheLockon00 2 months ago
@TheLockon00 Now do me the same kindness and refer to this second point: What happiness is created in this world? And do not answer with "having children creates happiness". I know from experience that is nothing but a lie (all my birth did was make ME miserable, while I dragged my mother down from being a respectable citizen to being rather lazy, which is my own fault). If you think children make happiness and that's the only answer you can give, I will not reply.
vgman94 2 months ago
@TheLockon00
1)If nothing is around, then why should it matter if it's dull or not. Also, if we didn't exist, "dullness" would be meaningless - for if nobody's around to conceive of dull, then dullness exist?
2) Not inconsis. b/c exist/not-existing are 2 diff't scenarios - not two contrad't'y states of exist. Not having kids due to living living in a high-crime area, poverty, bad mom, etc. (or even less bad circ'st'n's) shows n-exist can have needs, albeit only future ones.
filrabat 1 month ago
@filrabat 1) Dull: "Lacking in zest, interest, or excitement." So yeah, non-existence is supremely dull. Obviously the non-existenht aren't aware of this, but now that I'm alive I'm aware of what their missing.
2) Now you REALLY contradicted your ideology by saying the non-existent have needs, future or not.
TheLockon00 1 month ago
@TheLockon00
1)How can you claim they miss anything when they don't exist? Non-existent don't have needs, barring the conditions in (2)
2)This is not a contradiction at all IF they are potential future existents. Otherwise, doing anything for our grandchildren wouldn't make any sense."think of our grandchildren" doesn't make any sense. This article addresses the issue pretty well francoistremblay. wordpress. com/ 2011 / 08/ 11 / the-non-identity-problem
filrabat 1 month ago
@filrabat 1) So, I suppose you've never come accross the phrase "You don't know what you're missing"? Come on, be serious.
2) Taking the needs of potential future people into account is contradictory to your ideology. Remember all those stupid AN slogans about not needing to be alive, feel pleasure, etc prior to existing? You can't dismiss those needs but give credence to the need to avoid suffering.
TheLockon00 1 month ago
@HIM0G "what a fucking pussy". I assume by that you mean that life is a great thing and if you don't agree, then you don't deserve respect. In that sense, pussy wimps (as you call them) are FAR from deserving respect. You're reaction is based only on the aninmal-based survival instinct - not facts, logic, and reason. The question is what possible purpose does life serve in the first place - and I mean an OBJECTIVE, INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMABLE purpose WITHOUT appealing to emotional distaste.
filrabat 3 months ago
@filrabat Correction: I meant to say "pussy wimps (as you call them) are FAR from deserving DISrespect.
To continue...In short, the only reason life has any purpose is that your animal-based survival instincts tell you so. But the animal-based instincts in general are no longer a reliable method of truth-seeking - or even a practical guide to everyday living -, if it ever was one.
filrabat 3 months ago
@nolovelost92
"People who want just humans to go extinct are simply misanthropic, they're not concerned with suffering."
Actually, a lot of us DO care about humanity, so much so that we care about whether we should be forcing people into this kind of world in the first place. This is particularly true if they won't suffer when non-existent. Also, I spent several months volunteering at a food bank and at a Goodwill store. Sure doesn't sound lke a misanthrope to me.
filrabat 3 months ago
@nolovel
by your definition of sentient plants are sentient.
I use "Man" as in "mankind". I'm aware that it's a bit of a sexist term but I didn't invent it and there is no gender neutral equivalent with quite the same connotations. I use "animals" in the sense of "all non human animals". It is a popular use that does not deny that homo sapiens are animals.
Please sir, there is no need for this do degenerate into name calling. We're both trying to help. We just have different views
NoTrueFace1 4 months ago 2
@NoTrueFace1
"By erasing humanity you erase many evils, but you erase all good. You create a completely pointless universe, just a big collection of moving atoms with no purpose or understanding."
What's so bad about a pointless universe, if we're not in it? The only purpose that humanity generates, is for humans to try and escape suffering, for the few of it that can be eluded ... only to fade out in oblivion after a brief existence. Isn't this pointless too - aswell as gratuitiously cruel?
Bazompora 4 months ago
@Bazompora
an interesting perspective. reducing suffering has never been a big focus for me though. I'm more interested in what goods can be accomplished than in what evils can be prevented.
I'll have to think about things for a little while to give you any more of a response.
NoTrueFace1 4 months ago
@NoTrueFace1
Looking forward to it.
I've seen that you're aware of the socially injustice that parenthood creates; but I should point out that if orphanages were the default, children still would be property, but public instead of private as it is now. Aside from that, if no measures intrusive upon procreative activities are coupled to it, procreation would then become far too costless to discourage anyone from "securing offspring", far more 'broadly' than now that education is taken off hands.
Bazompora 4 months ago
@nolovelost92
Define sentient please? In my experience everyone has a different understanding of it, and in fact the most popular definition is the ambiguous sci-fi one.
Man is concious and self concious. It is not clear that animals are, and seemingly very unlikely. They experiance pain, but it seems like little more than a chemical reaction and an instinctual response. They never ask "what is pain?" or "how can I overcome it" or even bother thinking that they should overcome it.
NoTrueFace1 4 months ago
Suffering is only Evil because it tends to have negative effects on humanity which prevent individuals from acheiving their Good potential. By erasing humanity you erase many evils, but you erase all good. You create a completely pointless universe, just a big collection of moving atoms with no purpose or understanding.
then again, I've no clue what the afterlife or beforelife may be like, so maybe souls would be better off without ever coming here.
NoTrueFace1 5 months ago
@NoTrueFace1
The only reason a collection of atoms needs to achieve potential is because some of the atoms making up the blueprint (the DNA) of that completed human says so. Your emotions are the only thing telling you you have potential, have to achieve, etc. So in the end, you're saying you need emotional fulfillment because your emotions say you have to. This is tautological at best and nonsensical at worst. Also, non-existent people don't need to achieve anything, not even the good.
filrabat 3 months ago
Setting aside the question of the soul, it seems to me the only chance for finding or making something that matters comes with conciousness. Beauty does not exist without something to perceive it. You seem to suggest that beauty, good, etc. do not exist. If so, then all is pointless anyway. If you are right then I am but a machine with a bizzare program to seek truth and protect the beauty of conciousness. If this is so, well, lacking anything better to do i'll stick to the program
NoTrueFace1 3 months ago
@NoTrueFace1
"mattering" is a a mere phantom property of something that can exist ONLY if there is a conscious entity to give that property value (i.e. "it matters"). e.g. Olympic Nat'l Park near Seattle has beauty, but ONLY because conscious entities (humans) give it that beauty. Non-neurological objects cannot grant beauty to it because they don't even have a nervous system, much less a complex brain. BTW, we are such machines as you describe. I just chose NOT to stick to the program.
filrabat 3 months ago
@filrabat
I simply hope that you are wrong, and if you are right I fail to understand why one should bother to try to contradict the program, exspecially since if you're right such becomes impossible. In becoming aware of the program you may alter it's result, but in the end you surely still have an emotional basis for your actions. If somehow you did not, then I would be very interested in that.
NoTrueFace1 3 months ago
I will grant that family structure encourages brainwashing and the unequal relationships in it are very psychologically unhealthy. Children are essentially treated as property. However the solution to that is simply to abolish the notion that you can have the right to own another human being without any sort of consent on their part so long as you or your wife gave birth to them. Orphanages should be improved and become the norm. Course, no one's going to accept that idea...
NoTrueFace1 5 months ago
I have problems with your reasoning behind your position, but thats not what Im here to discuss I guess. Im not for the extinction of the human animal, its very unlikely that will come about, but I am for letting nature get on with the much needed downward correction the human population so badly needs. I dont care about suffering, Im a massochist, but I would argue for the upward mobility of the poor that have so many children that their lives could have been much better without a brood.
TheCaptainLulz 5 months ago
You're never going to convince the dumb flock of sheep who say things like "I don't want to die a virgin" to do anything other than procreate like a dumb flock of sheep. Great video though, in time nature will sterilize us whether we like it or not.
sxysuccubus 6 months ago
Silly sausages!!!! life is great eat teh sausages have teh childrenz
GiganticSausage 6 months ago
Thank you for spending time producing this video. I completely agree with you. I would also add that human beings also cause each other to suffer, as well as experiencing suffering themselves. Bullying, physical violence, wars, hurtful comments etc.
raymondlai5 6 months ago
Most of us like sex - That´s an understatement! :P
PeterRoeder31 6 months ago
3:32, "There's gotta be one [last generation] eventually, doesn't there?"
We don't know that. We represent the latest link in an unbroken chain of life going all the way back to the first self-replicating molecule. Today the prospect of spreading to other planets have become a real possibility, and if we do, even the destruction of the sun won't stop us. Life is pretty hard to get rid of.
Snagabott 7 months ago
You sound like a wimp, like a weak person. To me it seems like you might be in depression. You should seriously get that checked out, I mean it without any irony. Having said that, I support the idea of human population control via birth control because if you run the numbers it would benefit humanity on this planet that has limited resources. What you speak of is ending the human race entirely. Why end it? Because you lost the will to live? Let me ask you this: do you drink alot? by yourself?
vmorgun 7 months ago
@vmorgun after a quick look at his page, I think all he does is play video games. Maybe if he had sex once in his life, he would have a different opinion all together.
Hangshai 7 months ago
@vmorgun We're encouraged to think of optimism, or life-affirmation, as a sign of bravery and strength, -- yet the truth may be that far greater courage and vigor, not to mention honesty, is needed to avoid this easy out; to look squarely at the horrors of existence without cracking a joke, raising a diversion, or grasping at rose-colored cliches. Moreover, a compassionate person cannot shrug off the sufferings of others; i.e. that another child starves to death every five seconds in this world.
Silenus6 6 months ago
@vmorgun "The ideal of Morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of highest Strength, of most powerful life; which also has been named (very falsely as it was there meant) the ideal of poetic greatness. It is the maximum of the savage; and has, in these times, gained, precisely among the greatest weaklings, very many proselytes. By this ideal, man becomes a Beast-Spirit, a Mixture; whose brutal wit has, for weaklings, a brutal power of attraction." -- Novalis
Silenus6 6 months ago
only trouble with this the WRONG people have the kids they do not want them, they end up abused, people like me should have had them, signed smart and great looking.......
thepixieful 7 months ago
Lead by example and kill each other off so you can in no way way go against what you believe,after all do not need temptation,like an alcoholic would try not to be around alcohol,and we will see if you are right.
johndebbra 7 months ago
@theantinatalist
Maybe; but wouldn't I just be joining in with the silent quire then? I think the more I ruffle their feathers by refuting their popular nonsense, the more they expose their hypocrisy for others to see - just like you yourself made Uhlbelk do, apparently.
Bazompora 7 months ago
Thats simply NOT true, suicide prevents a shit load of suffering, 1) all the suffering YOU have to go through the rest of your life, and 2) all the suffering you will cause the rest of the world for the rest of your life. I don't claim anyone killing themselves would save another life.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
Please use the 'Reply' function.
And you are ignoring:
• that for many, suicide is an EVEN GREATER negative, than the negative sum of the projected suffering
• that we have a 'capacity' to ingest "hard pills", when they're grinded up and sprinkled across a lifetime's meals, while only few can swallow but 1 larger-than-eusophagus hard pill in one go.
• that none chose FOR HIMSELF to be born an obligate cannibal, and dying for the sake of our "food" would be JUST AS WRONG as eating "it".
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora Seriously? That is the justifications you can come up with? Those are ridiculous and illogical. How can suicide be a greater negative (suffering?). Capacity? When suffering goes beyond capacity the person dies. Lastly how would that be wrong in any way? You are accepting a small amount of suffering to end a large unquantified amount of future suffering that you would be responsible for EXACTLY the same as antinatalism.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
It's not wrong to CHOOSE to die upon itself, but in this case, it would be a wrong committed to right another wrong, since death itself would then not have been what was desired; and it's especially a wrong outcome, since both wrongs could have been prevented.
& I thought it couldn't be more obvious that I was talking about the mental capacity to 'will' oneself to actively seek out death. FYI: 'Death' is only the end of 'dying', which, when soon, seems to be a most horrific experience.
Bazompora 7 months ago
You're an old man. There are many generations left to tend to your Geriatric needs. Grow food for you. Nurse you. Manufacture the medicines you'll need and basically provide everything that distinguishes you from a hunter gatherer. What about the very very last generation? What happens to them? They will become slaves to an ageing population with no slack taken up by new recruits. And when they, themselves, are too feeble to work do they pop a cyanide pill? Their Misery is guaranteed.
DingoBabyEat 7 months ago
AGENT SMITH LIVES!!!!
St1kyFinguz 7 months ago
So we should all collectively decide to cease the existence of our race, before we all collectively decide to cease existence of the things that cause the pain in the first place? We should stop reproducing instead of putting a stop to the catalysts of war and poverty etc?
letmeloginyoucunt 7 months ago
WHAT?????? Woooah... that's really F****** UP!!
indigomorgan1 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Do you have ANY education in biology or biochemistry? Bacteria chemically sense concentrations of food, single celled organisms can sense and move toward light, ect. ect. ect. ALL sentient suffering is, is a more sophisticated form of the exact same principals. Is being chilly "suffering"? It is nerve stimulation from the skin to the brain. ALL suffering is, is a mechanism for living things to detect threats to its continued living.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
"ALL suffering is, is a mechanism for living things to detect threats to its continued living."
Trust me: if I'd twist your nipples, it's NOT 'a threat to your continued living' that you'd be sensing ...
'Nature' isn't some perfectly concocted mechanism: while pain warns us of damage and threats, it makes us sapient beings (i.e. with an identity that is not synonymous to our gonads) suffer immeasurably more than a painless death would; as humans, we sadly are MORE THAN "living THINGS".
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora Not really, we are able to track virtually every human impulse to biological function and postulate evolutionary mechanisms for their existence. Twisting my nipples is various pain nerves, the function of which is to protect the body, it is so important that it doesn't even require the impulse to go to the brain to create a reflexive response. Psychological suffering mechanisms are traced through brain regions, stimulus, and their functions can be deduced as well.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
"Not really, we are able to track virtually every human impulse to biological function and postulate evolutionary mechanisms for their existence."
You're missing the point: 'despite' the evolutionary advantages that these pains provide, they still form a system so primitive, that it can't differentiate between intentions or be turned off; it's 'pain on every occasion', since consequent suffering didn't receive negative selection. In that same way, we also SUFFER from fear and boredom.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora Lol, yes I hate suffering from boredom...it is excruciating, would NOT want to subject anyone else to such a possible torture.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
If you think boredom is no form of suffering, I would challenge you to go and stay in solitary confinement, with only a bed and where only the same food and drinks are provided every day, just for a few weeks on end. Have your daily non-activity video-surveiled, because I bet you'd suffer from temporary insanity soon enough.
And I suppose we can agree that while suffering is good for the species, it is nothing but torture for the individual. As an individual, I find that inexcusable.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora I'm not going to restate everything I've said already multiple times here. If it's torture then the logical step is suicide, it 1) stops you from having children just like antinatalism, and 2) it stops all the suffering you are experiencing and contributing to the world.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
You are a big advocate of death (as in people DYING), aren't you?
But your proposition is utterly assinine:
• suicide doestn't retroactively undo the harm done;
• suicide requires one to painstakingly overcome the strongest of all instincts: survival;
• suicide is no option for those who absolutely do not want to die either (I.e. the majority).
And I wonder what sense of morality can argue for the death of the victim to be "the logical step" in combating the trauma caused by abuse(rs)?
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora 1) No it does not retroactively undo harm, it PREVENTS more suffering to you and the rest of the world by your existence. JUST LIKE antinatalism "prevents" harm.
2) Antinatalism is calling for people to act in a rational manner (according to your own logic) to claim not being able to kill yourself because of an irrational instinct is hypocritical.
3) Same as 2...the logic of antinatalism proposes that suffering brought on by a living creature is not worth it, thus prevent it.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
To make it simple:
amputating yourself out of suffering (= suffering + suffering = death) =/= 'preventing' suffering (as in making it NEVER happened).
It's a shit "solution" and you know it (I hope): your "logic" is to go on making war and hand cyanide pills to the wounded!
And YOU are the hypocrit, selling suicide to others while not applying your "logic" upon yourself. But nooo! You're probably too happy for that! ... just as much as you're too happy to feel bad for your victims.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora I'm not an antinatalist! I am not proposing people commit suicide. I don't have logic that is indefensible. This is the ad absurdum argument against the ridiculous logic of antinatalism. Death is a finite amount of suffering that would more then likely be lessened for the individual if they suicide as opposed to struggling with some chronic disease. The suffering to the rest of the world by your existence can ONLY be less if you die immediately as opposed to later.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
Thanks for admitting you can't give fuck about other people's suffering.
But you got one small point there: ending my parasitic First-World life, would lessen suffering in the Third World, just as much as a drip of water would 'lessen' their thirst. But even BETTER would be, if I took as many as possible "First-Worldeners" with me, wouldn't you say? Now how should one "logically" go about this? Should I meet out to them too those "mercy blows" that you find a good "cure" for suffering?
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora That depends. An antinatalist might also believe in personal rights and determination. Thus they are only able to act within the confines of their own life. This is a completely separate issue to preventing suffering and thus I only bother bringing up suicide since that is an individuals personal right.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
Please... "Rights" are made by humans and vary from one legal system to another, and even between parents' domestic tyrannies. But if we're speaking of "right and wrongs", then I should remind you that "making babies" is neither 'personal' or 'right': the "object" of that activity is a wholly separate human person, while the actor has prior knowledge of some of the wrongs (ordeals and death) he bestows upon that other person, aswell as a clue of the wrongs that could befall him or her.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora It IS personal, it is an individual taking responsibility for their own body, whether it is not reproducing or if it is suicide. Like I said it is a completely different issue then the logic behind antinatalism. Choosing to not have children because you don't WANT children is different then antinatalism because antinatalism proposes that it is a logical conclusion not just a choice or opinion. The logic is absurd and you have yet to show any reason my arguments against it are wrong.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
I so far refuted any of your ridiculous arguments you directed at me; I suggest you skim through my previous comments, if you missed it. And I'll say this again until it sinks in: human reproduction is the act of creating a new OTHER individual with his or her own body, by parents who are usually the sole responsible party for the act. Wether one of the parents USED her own body as a tool for executing most of that act, doesn't diminish in any way that they do it TO ANOTHER individual.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@Bazompora You are incomprehensible, I am talking about PREVENTING suffering that antinatalists claim to do. If you DON'T have a child you are not DOING anything to anyone except yourself. To prevent the suffering YOU cause, YOU committing suicide is not DOING anything to anyone else. You haven't said ANYTHING to dispute that suicide is the logical extension of antinatalism. You haven't said ANYTHING about how people wanting to live means that suffering is preferred usually to not living.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk
And you're incomprehending;
antiNATALism is not about suicide, because suicide is irrelevant to the PREvention of suffering: it CAN only put a bold period behind an already-existing string of suffering. Killing oneself is neither part of the philosopy, nor is it morally EQUITABLE to expect one to die so another can live; antinatalism is about nobody HAVING to live (through birth) and die for another.
And people don't want to die, indeed; but they WILL and that's a fate suffered ASWELL.
Bazompora 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Oh, so you trading all the enjoyment life (which most people find GREATLY more significant) to stop a hunger pain? a skinned knee? the sadness of a puppy dying? why don't you ask someone with down syndrome if they are suffering and would rather not have been born. Also your claim that non-sentient life forms can't suffer is ridiculous and completely unfounded. What crazy definition of suffering do you concoct in your head to justify that position?
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Animals suffer, bacteria suffer, suffering is what happens to living things that lets them know they are at risk of no longer living. Your only excuse for antinatalists not committing suicide is that your death would cause suffering to family and friends ect, yet you completely ignore the vast "suffering" you impose on other life by existing, your death is in your version of suffering a finite quantity that won't change all that much if you die now or in 40 years, yet living...
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist No, you are wrong, removing existence does NOT reduce what is bad, it makes the terms invalid. It is a married bachelor. It's the "before" the big bang. The moon only has "less" suffering only when compared to earth because earth has living creatures. IF you want to reduce suffering/pain you have to do it TO living creatures.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago 2
@theantinatalist preventing WHAT harm? preventing what from being hurt? you can only say that if you can prove some harm is going to happen and then prove that the harm prevented is somehow of greater value then the life that was prevented.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist You HAVE no reasoning. My reasoning hasn't been refuted, you haven't killed yourself, other things rarely kill themselves so the obvious conclusion is the suffering they experience is something they are willing to endure to keep living, and you propose to not allow future generations that decision by not allowing them to exist. Your reasoning is analogous to, in order to reduce ugliness, blind everyone at birth. Go ahead and start the antivisualism movement.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@theantinatalist you mean a stupid comment like this?: "It makes more sense to worship a sometimes merciful God than the ruthless and unintelligent piece of chemistry that is the DNA molecule."
don't bother. you're a complete moron. I'm done with you.
emperorkang 7 months ago
@theantinatalist evolution is fact, backed up by a ton of science. if you're an atheist, you should realize this too.
emperorkang 7 months ago
@theantinatalist I knew it! you believe in a magical sky daddy! HAHAHAAHA!.....you're dimissed....nutcase.
emperorkang 7 months ago
@theantinatalist why do you want to go against 3 billion years of evolution? you think we evolved to this point to go "fuck it all! lets end this!" and that's that? don't be so absurd!
emperorkang 7 months ago
@theantinatalist i never imposed my existence on anybody....
emperorkang 7 months ago
@theantinatalist These replies are all over the place. I believe you are the one with absurd concepts of what suffering and responsibility are. My grandma, who I spent almost every christmas with and loved dearly died a week ago. I cried, I still get sad and choked up when I dwell on it, but my feelings and are my own responsibility, I am not "suffering". I could wallow in sorrow all day and night if I chose, but it's my decision and responsibility to myself not to do that.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Yes it is possible to suffer more or less while you exist because it is part of what being alive is, by removing existence you are not reducing suffering. Boycotting factory farms lessens suffering, being a vegetarian doesn't. You have strange ideas of suffering, what suffers more a pet mouse, or a wild mouse? You think suffering will be less if nothing exists? That's absurd because the term suffering becomes meaningless without life.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Compassion needs a subject. Exactly how are you being compassionate by proposing non-existence? Suicide is easy and rational to anyone who proposes non-existence is somehow better then existence.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk The subject, of course, is the child who might have been born into a life of misery who instead is not due to the compassionate choice of non-procreation. This really isn't as hard as you'd make it out to be. If someone discovers they have a significant chance of passing on a terrible birth defect to a potential offspring, the compassionate choice is to forego creating that offspring. And, suicide is easy? This is a non-compassionate statement, founded in ignorance.
metamorphhh 7 months ago
The suicide comment was quoting theantinatalist use of words, try responding to the entire statement. Might be born? Lets examine this, life (after a few years at least) is a personal choice...apparently your life is not so miserable that you would prefer to end it rather then keep living. So the obvious conclusion is your parents had you for selfish and cruel reasons, and you are....what? Remaining alive as long as possible, to suffer and make their decision as big of a mistake as possible?
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk I addressed both the compassion component of your 'statement', as well as the 'suicide is easy' part. I can't help it if you're more interested in your diatribe than my response to it. So, I'll continue. Yes, my birth was motivated by the selfishness of my parents. The cruelty aspect comes as part of the package, although I doubt they considered that. Parents never do; procreation is generally thoughtless as to that part. My reasons for remaining alive are mainly two. (cont)...
metamorphhh 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk ...(continuing) 1. I remain alive for my children's sake, and for others who care for me. 2. I haven't reached that desperate point millions of people DO reach, the desperation that causes them to do terminal physical harm to themselves, including the chance that it won't take, and they end up in even a worse situation, as well as putting their loved ones in a worse situation. Of course, the question of my own reasons for living have nothing to do with the argument. You're handwaving.
metamorphhh 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk Let's summarize: Antinatalists argue that the best way to insure that someone doesn't live a life he or she eventually detests, is to simply not bring them into existence. You argue that if they don't like it, they can always kill themselves later. Roll that around in your head for awhile, then try to come up with a substantive rejoinder if you can. You're just jumping from debating point to debating point thus far, and so far you've lost every point. Try harder, please.
metamorphhh 7 months ago
@Uhlbelk However, if you keep dancing around the argument's challenges, don't expect a reply. So far your challenges are substanceless, and mostly beside the point. I'm interested in actual arguments against the position, not this bait and switch crap that people always come up with.
metamorphhh 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Yes you are right, that is what I do believe. 1) Emotional trauma? Someone's feelings are their responsibility, if your position that living = suffering and not living = suffering prevented and that is in anyway reasonable then convincing others not to be emotionally traumatized by offing yourself should be no problem. 2) Mess that sentience leaves behind? Lol, you think nature suffers from having a city built on it? I'm sure the billions of rats in New York will disagree.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist Reasons completely contrary to their antinatalism beliefs. Obligations exist only when you agree to do something. Thus the only obligations you have are those you create yourself. My student loan debt is an obligation, I have NO obligation to my family, or friends, or some future society. I CHOOSE to be a good friend, a responsible and helpful member of my family and society because I want to.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist And that is equally the unfounded premise I've heard vomited up by every antinatalist. Please explain how suffering is reduced? It is like saying, if we kill a bunch of people the stupidity in the world decreases. Obviously you don't think the suffering you experience in life outweighs the enjoyment you experience otherwise you WOULD kill yourself. There is no "ethical obligation" that is a bullshit attempt to justify not killing yourself, obligation is a choice you make.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@theantinatalist There are ways to move beyond the pains and emotions you so dearly appeal to, the development of new technologies has shown that it is possible to someday rid ourselves from the slow death of aging, or death by disease. Also, letting life die out in the universe would only make its achievements pointless and there is even a possibility that through the development of civilization and expansion into space we might transcend the flesh and even the universe through our technology.
Plasmon19 7 months ago
@Plasmon19
The only assured way to do so is to genetically reengineer ourselves in two ways: Purge BOTH 1.Our sensory nerves letting us feel pain (both physical and mental). 2. Our "survival instinct(s)" that compel us to stay alive. That way, we will feel neither pain nor pleasure; nor will we care if we continue living or not.
That would essentially make us glorified robots in the classical connotation of the term. Which is fine if you want that existence, but.. (continued)..
filrabat 7 months ago
@Plasmon19
(Pt 2) ..most people are vehemently opposed to living a mode existence just a few steps up Watson, the IBM computer Jeopardy champion (its on YT, btw). Picture the Mars Rovers with technology and programming 40 yrs ahead of where Watson curently is (2011), and that's the kind of existence humans must have in order to ASSUREDLY escape pain. Unless you're willing to turn humans into DNA-based robots, I doubt higher tech will cure pain, suffering, etc, and not even death.
filrabat 7 months ago
@Plasmon19
(Pt 3) Speaking of curing death, Watch "The Cosmic Apocalypse" on YT and read about "The Five Ages of the Universe". In short, both assure that it's impossible to escape death because one day, life will not be able to exist in this universe - even in theory. The best that anti-aging treatments, mind uploads into another person or an android, etc. can do is delay the end by an immense but finite number of years (up to about 10^40 or so years, perhaps as few as 10^14).
filrabat 7 months ago
@theantinatalist It's creating an opportunity. You feel life is imposed upon people? They have every right and ability to stop living whenever they want, it's hypocritical to keep your own while not offering it to another. Logically the first thing an antinatalist should do when coming to believe this tripe, is to go off themselves.
Uhlbelk 7 months ago
@sugelanren See Part 2 of this video, where he specifically addresses this
filrabat 8 months ago
@filrabat Ahhh...he's a fallacious hypocrite...gotcha.
sugelanren 8 months ago 2
@sugelanren
Claiming something's fallacious and hypocritical is one thing. PROVING it is for the big boys and big girls. AN's postion is Suffering Prevention in all its forms. Suicide causes suffering for friends and family. So whatever benefits suicide has for an AN is NOT worth the anguish it causes family and friends. Therefore, the kill yourself charge is a real reason - it's just an initial emotional reaction, like spitting out rotten fruit from your mouth.
filrabat 8 months ago
@filrabat How convenient.
sugelanren 8 months ago
@sugelanren
OK, Fine - just as long as you don't give a damn about your own friend's or family's feelings - as in traumatic experiences suicide causes those people. It's still obvious you'd rather just run your mouth with cheap ass punk shots rather than think about this in a sophisticated, mature way.
filrabat 8 months ago
@filrabat Mate, i am in fact in favour of antinatalists having their opinion...because the end result will be that antinatalists wont breed...one less affliction in the gene pool.
sugelanren 8 months ago
I got to 2:50 in and had to stop. If you want the world to be a better place, make it one! Shut down your computer, go outside and find one of those people who's life is miserable not not worth living. Then show them how great life can be! Don't offer them, "your fate is sealed in stone, it's better for you to have never been born." THAT is the exact kind of B.S. that keeps the world the way it is!
BryceOfByrden 8 months ago
I don't disagree that it's selfish. However I don't think anything here speaks to me, I don't want to (nor do I think it's possible) to come up with a single simplified response to this within 500 characters. To me however not having children is also giving up, saying we can not face the future because we fear the immoralities of it! Progress can't be made with such fears, all that will happen is those that actually want wars reproduce more while those that don't reproduce less....
DoomsdayR3sistance 8 months ago
so yes, immoral things will happen in the future, and so will moral things. Now here is why I fundamentally differ from this video. Do I like living? Yes! Two people were required at least to bring me into this world to live and I will die, and bad things have and will happen to me, but so can the same be said about good things. Instead the question shouldn't be about the bad things that will happen to children but the things we can do to ensure them the best quality of life.... for ALL!
DoomsdayR3sistance 8 months ago
As for nihilistic suggestions that I see coming from this. I do not think like you do, does everything truly come to an end? The suggestion that it will has less validity then suggesting that their was begin what to this date nobody can prove their was. We can trace events that lead to the current state of the universe but currently it's impossible to prove that the universe is not some eternal existence that just always was. The idea that the universe "began" or will "end" is a special pledge.
DoomsdayR3sistance 8 months ago
as for humanity, maybe it will end, maybe it won't, again until it happens this is something that sits in the unknown. But what also sits in the unknown is the meaningfulness(or less) of this. As currently goes the only possibility (worth considering) that could wipe out humanity is full scale international nuclear war. The Andromeda–Milky Way collision will probably happen before our sun dies and that is still Billions of years away! A super volcano would be tragic but in the end, not enough.
DoomsdayR3sistance 8 months ago
if you prefer non-existance stop talking about kids and kill yourself >.>
there are plenty of ways to do this painlessly
Dreamerx47 8 months ago
How are my children supposed to experience the horrors I have created without me having them? That seems like an awful big hole
charbroiledmonk1033 8 months ago
@charbroiledmonk1033 They won't, and that's the point. It's called 'prevention'. To 'prevent' something is to take appropriate action before that something becomes manifest in the real world. To 'prevent' a child from experiencing suffering and death is to refrain from moving that child from a 'potential' state to an 'actual' one.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh facepalm... Stop doing the pseudo-philosophical juggling you are doing. You are using the possibility of harm and death like it is going out of style.
ithkul 8 months ago
@metamorphhh obviously you take things far too seriously and that is probably why you adhere to the stance you do. life, like my comment, is just a big joke, so laugh along with it instead of crying foul.
charbroiledmonk1033 8 months ago
@metamorphhh you missed the fact that, like life, my comment was a joke. so have a laugh and stop being so serious about everything
charbroiledmonk1033 8 months ago
@sugelanren
A retarded question. If you can't figure that out for yourself... Well, fuck you then.
EquinoxOfTheGods 8 months ago
@EquinoxOfTheGods Are you 12 years old?
"If you can't figure that out for yourself... Well, fuck you then."
An excellent piece of debating there.
sugelanren 8 months ago 2
antinatalism is hypocrisy at it's finest and these positions are laughable. claiming that the act of bringing a child into the world is selfish is pretty preposterous and assumes parents are all completely idiotic. financially? the cost of raising a child is almost always going to be more then they provide for you. companionship? they are going to be sucking the time you could be spending with people who you choose to be with.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk And yet, people have them. Why? Because they find the trade-offs acceptable, at least at the time of conception. The decision to procreate is a purely selfish one, since the child certainly needs no 'favors'.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh, This is just lazy thinking. Pretty much you are painting all parents as purely selfish being who are incapable anything else other than self interest. Have you any evidence of this claim, did you ask every parent past, present, and future on why they had children. Maybe because you are unable to consider any other reasons for having children does not mean that other reasons do not exist for having children.
ithkul 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Lol, so the joy of sex makes every child a selfish act. Guess that makes all acts of charity and benevolence selfish because it makes the person doing it feel good? Well, luckly in america we can fix that whole pregnancy problem as soon as it happens, so your point is still invalid.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk There's most likely a selfish element to many 'acts of charity and benevolence'. The crucial differences re procreation are two:
1. Procreation is selfishness at someone else's expense.
2. The unborn require no charity. Charity is necessitated only after the child is brought into existence.
Legal abortion has nothing to do with the philosophical question. Your conclusion is a non sequitur.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh 1) whos expense? the parents? You have YET to prove it is selfish.
2) I never said charity to an unborn child, simply making an example of how your claim of conception being selfish is ridiculous.
First let me make a definition of "selfish"...Wanting for yourself. Pretty simple. Bringing a child into the world is "giving" life...it is "giving" support, resources, time, care, attention. You can prove a couple is doing the opposite of 'selfish' by having a child.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk Not sure how I can make this any clearer. Since a pre-existent child has no wants, no deprivations or desires, all motivations for having one emanate from the needs and desires of the parents, thus making procreation a selfish act. Procreation isn't 'giving' to anyone, since there was originally no one to 'give' life to. Life isn't given, it's created. Afterwards, yes; parents give to their children. But that's a tradeoff chosen by the parents as part of their decision to procreate.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk Parents have children for many reasons, all selfish. Ego reasons. Financial reasons. Status reasons. Societies encourage this selfishness because procreation also serves those outside any immediate family in terms of the economy, national defense, etc. Life is a system of exploitation, into which all new children are ultimately indoctrinated.
If you want to continue this conversation at length, I'd suggest you post at my blog at antinatalism . net. This is too small a working space.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Lovely claims you make, but while seemingly reasonable are not. Prove my parents had me for selfish reasons. You can prove why YOU had children because who besides you can know, you can report why other people CLAIM to have had children, but you don't know. Your argument is analogous to claiming someone who donated all his lottery winnings to orphans did it for selfish reasons, in effect you are claiming every single action by living things are selfish.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk Now you're simply arguing like children argue. "Prove it! Prove it!" and then claiming that I can't make any statements about how people generally think since I can't get into each one of their heads. Yeesh! As far as selfishness is concerned, there's probably some involved in most altruistic actions. However, procreation is not altruistic, since nobody needs any help until after the fact. (cont)...
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk By the process of elimination, that makes procreation an act motivated by the desires of the procreator i.e. a 'selfish act'. I have no need to climb into anyone's head to come to that conclusion. I arrive there by a simple process of elimination.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Sorry I see no reason to take this to any other forum, youtube is where people make claims and here is where I see fit to argue those claims.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
@Uhlbelk No problem. Your argument reminds me of a t-shirt I saw a fundie Christian wearing once. "So, you believe in evolution? Why, WERE YOU THERE?" Don't take this the wrong way; I'm sure you're reading it differently than what I meant in my head when I wrote it. :)
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Well, they may remind you of that but it isn't even close to similar. The answer to the t-shirt is, yes I was there because it is happening currently and scientifically there is no reason to suspect if it is happening at this moment it wasn't happening in the past. Your position requires everyone to fit your claims and you can't come close to showing that is true. You can essentially claim it is true for you, yet you've already had children so that point is moot to begin with.
Uhlbelk 8 months ago
The Argument you presented in this video is utter Gibberish. All the points you have made pertaining to suffering are little more than an appeal to emotion. You destroy your own argument when you claim that people only have children for selfish reasons and then argue that we should end the human race with our generation. This is an equally selfish in that you are denying yet to exist children even a voice to be heard and deciding for them that it is best for the children not to exist.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul Children who don't yet exist can't be denied any more than any fictional character. It's when children are actually created that the problems begin...for them. The decision not to create them cannot harm them in any way. The decision to create them CAN and DOES harm them, and eventually leads to their death.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Please stop while you are still behind. It is painful to read your post for the amount mental juggling you are doing. I am flabbergasted of the emotional drivel being spit out. It is evident at least as far it is presented, your own argument is no different from my own as as time is concerned. At the point, when the decision to have a have child. The child at that point is no more real than a fictional character. even the consequences are no different than fiction at that point.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul BTW stop attaching Such negative connotations to death. the whole Harm statement in regards to death is little more than an appeal to my emotion. You are making an assumption about my attitude about suffering and death itself. To put it bluntly, I would not change the amount of suffering in my life now past or future even if it is needless. I treasure the ability to experience even if it may be nightmarish, but as long as I am able to experience something no matter how painful it is.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul It means I am still alive. Even with all the physical and emotional scars I carry. I would gladly do so for no other reason then the opportunity presented in this one life we get. Yeah it may look bleak and for most people who ever lived will die in utter obscurity and loneliness but to have that chance to live and emerge from non-existence even if a brief instance of time, gives me a chance to feel. death on the other hand, I will never experience for the last thing I feel is dying.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul I'm not making an assumption about your attitude towards suffering or death. You're making an assumption that a new being will automatically find the same value in suffering as you do. Although to be honest, there are degrees and modes of suffering that you wouldn't accept, I'm sure. Like everybody else, I'm sure you do your fair share of inculcating personal suffering when you're able to prevent it.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Sorry, that should be 'avoiding the inculcation of personal suffering'.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh again that is not what i am arguing whatsoever. I never claimed nor stated anything regards to other having similar attitudes in respect to death and suffering as myself. All I am pointing out is that there are different attitudes with respect to death and suffer to which from your position will be simply ignored. You are reading way too much into it.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul So then, to you even the consideration of not conceiving a child for the sake of, say, a severe birth defect being passed on, or the fact that you can't afford the child, or a host of other reasons easily imagined is simply nonsensical? Ideas like waiting until you can afford a family, or waiting until a certain age all fall by the wayside, for the simple reason that the child you're planning on eventually having or not having doesn't exist yet? Silly.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh Now you are misrepresenting my position within my replies. With last reply you are still no addressing my point with regards the time. You were suppose find it ridiculous because it is just as ridiculous as what you are saying. what you are saying about harm and death cannot be measured in anyway because the subjects have yet experience it. It is same shitty trick that Preachers who use hellfire and damnation to keep the parishioners going to church.
ithkul 8 months ago
@ithkul To be honest, I'm having a hard time following you at times. Incoherence peppered with insults gets tiring after awhile. I thought I addressed your argument straightforwardly. Sorry.
metamorphhh 8 months ago
@metamorphhh I apologize if I seem aggressive or condescending. I just am little frustrated that you are not getting my point. I admit that last few posts have been straight rushed out my head akin to a rough draft being put to print. It may not be the most eloquent or easily read, however, because of that my message may not have been received as intended. To put in simple terms, your argument need better support other what has been presented thus far.
ithkul 8 months ago
Being human means that there is much more to sex than just the reproductive act.
panterguy 8 months ago
It would be funny if we all die out this way. Some alien race ends up visiting earth and finds in the fossil records evidence of humanity and concludes that we died by giving up on interbreeding. I'm sure they would laugh and make a museum telling of a race of natives that were progressing finally just giving up and dying.
Plasmon19 8 months ago 2
@Plasmon19 Or perhaps they'll admire us for acknowledging the futility of continuing a losing game for the sake of pride and imaginary attainment, all at the expense of others who never volunteered to be steppingstones on the road to an illusory tomorrow.
metamorphhh 8 months ago