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Post by cupcakes on Sept 20, 2017 12:26:18 GMT
tpfkar The non-existent and never-to-exist do not have any moral stake. But the people who will exist in the future may feel aggrieved at the gamble that was taken on their behalf; and therefore the lack of consent is a valid moral concern. I'm sure you wouldn't say that it was acceptable for a pregnant mother to abuse alcohol and drugs just because the foetus is not yet a full person. The "non-existent and never-to-exist" never have anything at all. "People who will exist in the future" are still nonexistent, and "consent", among many others, is a concept that applies not at all. Fielding "consent" in this regard is just attempted catch-22 silliness. Unlike empty spaces where something does not exist, extant competent people at any time can make their own calls. And once extant the balance of good vs. the bad can be comprehensively considered. And of course actuals can decide for themselves, although the incompetent (to whatever task, of various types including immaturity) have their consent proxied in varying degrees according to their abilities by guardians of one type or another. But looking to the future, inductively it is easy to support that a live person at any time will far likely be quite grateful for their shot than not. A fetus is decidedly not nonexistent, and alcohol and drugs during gestation have actual effects on these actual beings. As noted, they and children up to I don't know what age are considered incapable of consent, and older than that still of informed competent consent. Should they all be terminated now? I have virtually nothing to say over what a woman can do with her body. Even the law doesn't, at least prior to whatever standard cutoff there is for legal termination. You dropped "relative", I wonder why? Not because doing so would facilitate your hyper-hysterical framings, right? All those things you list are not really "risks", just life, albeit with your very impassioned if perverse slant. And we're improving them all the time. Nor must upping my wellbeing drop nor lowering it raise another's. Very animated analogy though. Sure, and the fact that you think either that situation or the like of imported "cheap clothes" is necessary or in any way inherently linked to child rearing and so takes you straight to species extermination, again highlights the truck-sized holes in your emotion-laden lunges. I hear you, Erj. Although it seems like with your various past defenses of Trump you'd be simpatico with the drawbridge crowd. Anyhow, sensible compassionate sustainable living and human specicide are very different solutions, to phrase things very diplomatically. Sure, having a kid and facilitating the best life they can have is just like that. Wait, no, the other 18 would have precisely zero effect on the party serf unless the the host decided to be a psychopath. Another one of your grounded analogies. And by "wretched", do you mean as your self-stated ennui? Otherwise your numbers are hugely pessimistic. And we're improving them all the time. Wait, is this slave non-existent and never-to-exist? Sure, a resource integral to survival, and innate and inseparable from them, although increasingly mitigable. And what's described in the second line is not even desirable, as it would harm the kid horribly. And once that resource exists, the child is already extant. And again, "good". "Great opportunity". "Wonder". "Ride". "Blast". Etc. With great and looking up odds for happiness & satisfaction when facilitated. Over too soon in any case. If the antinatilist dream was fully realized, what do you suppose would prevent life's inevitable reappearance or sub/less-sentient species becoming sentient? Morally I would be fine with post-birth abortions, but I realise that this would probably be too radical to ever be implemented.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2017 15:27:31 GMT
tpfkar The non-existent and never-to-exist do not have any moral stake. But the people who will exist in the future may feel aggrieved at the gamble that was taken on their behalf; and therefore the lack of consent is a valid moral concern. I'm sure you wouldn't say that it was acceptable for a pregnant mother to abuse alcohol and drugs just because the foetus is not yet a full person. The "non-existent and never-to-exist" never have anything at all. "People who will exist in the future" are still nonexistent, and "consent", among many others, is a concept that applies not at all. Fielding "consent" in this regard is just attempted catch-22 silliness. Unlike empty spaces where something does not exist, extant competent people at any time can make their own calls. And once extant the balance of good vs. the bad can be comprehensively considered. And of course actuals can decide for themselves, although the incompetent (to whatever task, of various types including immaturity) have their consent proxied in varying degrees according to their abilities by guardians of one type or another. But looking to the future, inductively it is easy to support that a live person at any time will far likely be quite grateful for their shot than not. A fetus is decidedly not nonexistent, and alcohol and drugs during gestation have actual effects on these actual beings. As noted, they and children up to I don't know what age are considered incapable of consent, and older than that still of informed competent consent. Should they all be terminated now? I have virtually nothing to say over what a woman can do with her body. Even the law doesn't, at least prior to whatever standard cutoff there is for legal termination. I hear you, Erj. Although it seems like with your various past defenses of Trump you'd be simpatico with the drawbridge crowd. Anyhow, sensible compassionate sustainable living and human specicide are very different solutions, to phrase things very diplomatically. Sure, having a kid and facilitating the best life they can have is just like that. Wait, no, the other 18 would have precisely zero effect on the party serf unless the the host decided to be a psychopath. Another one of your grounded analogies. And by "wretched", do you mean as your self-stated ennui? Otherwise your numbers are hugely pessimistic. And we're improving them all the time. Wait, is this slave non-existent and never-to-exist? Sure, a resource integral to survival, and innate and inseparable from them, although increasingly mitigable. And what's described in the second line is not even desirable, as it would harm the kid horribly. And once that resource exists, the child is already extant. And again, "good". "Great opportunity". "Wonder". "Ride". "Blast". Etc. With great and looking up odds for happiness & satisfaction when facilitated. Over too soon in any case. If the antinatilist dream was fully realized, what do you suppose would prevent life's inevitable reappearance or sub/less-sentient species becoming sentient? Morally I would be fine with post-birth abortions, but I realise that this would probably be too radical to ever be implemented.Once again, I'm not concerned about the wellbeing of the non-existent, but those who will exist and will wish that they did not. And those who will exist in the future (as well as those who exist in the present) are part of an unnecessary gamble that is being made by someone else on their behalf. The future person's wellbeing becomes a salient consideration upon conception; and to continue with the pregnancy is to act without the consent of the foetus. It's ridiculous to say that it's OK to just recklessly keep having children even if you don't know whether you'll be able to provide for them, or even if it is very likely that they will be born with a congenital disability that will cause them a lifetime of suffering. It's not OK just because a non-existent person cannot consent. The wellbeing of future sentient beings is worthy of concern and consideration. That's why there is concern over climate change from people who are likely going to be dead by the time that the worst effects become evident. And the fact that children of a certain age can be suffering terribly but not consent to be killed, or have the wherewithal is another area of moral concern, for you will be condeming a certain number of young children to a period of suffering. And those with the worst disabilities are being born into a long life sentence that would be considered cruel and inhumane if it was inflicted upon a sadistic torture-murderer. I don't think that it is a relatively small risk, considering the state of the world at the moment, and the fact that even a large segment of well-off people are evidently very unhappy with their lives and this is reflected in the kinds of behaviours that you would not see from happy, well adjusted people (alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, domestic abuse, child molestation etc). If you bring a child into the world in a wealthy nation, then children and adults in other parts of the world will be exploited so that your child can be provided for. And of course the same thing can be said of farm animals who will be kept in poor conditions and killed for their meat. I don't want a lot of hyper religious people having the power to impose laws on me; especially when there are people who claim to be non-religious who want to impose arbitrary moral limitations on what services I'm allowed to obtain from the state or free market regarding something that affects me alone. In theory, I support open borders, because nobody should own land by dint of having been born on it...but if people are going to gain a foothold and then seek to aggressively impose religion, then that's a different matter. And I never really defended Trump; merely pointed out the undeniable fact that he wasn't as bad as Ted Cruz, and his presidency was in effect unlikely to be much different from a Hillary Clinton one (which is coming to pass). Globally, the majority of people are living in poor conditions, and it is a small minority who are doing the exploiting. Most of the world;s population isn't part of the middle class of a wealthy, developed nation. So the numbers provided were very optimistic. Sweatshop workers in places such as Bangladesh work for very low wages and in terrible conditions because they have to support themselves and consumers do not collectively demand better conditions (and show willingness to pay a premium so that their clothes and electronic devices can be manufactured in humane conditions). And just because someone does not already exist, does not mean that there isn't good reason to be concerned with the conditions in which as yet non existent beings will exist. Society already frowns upon parents who have far more children than they can ever afford; so that indicates that the wellbeing of a future person is taken seriously. But why is an unneccessary 'good' (in that absolutely nobody would miss the absence of it if there were no sentient beings) justified by the toll of suffering that will be exacted from the unfortunate? There's no guarantee of preventing the future appearance of life (I see how you've stolen Falconia's point); but that is beyond the control of anyone currently existing. It should be considered a moral imperative to stamp out suffering as far as we are able to; then hopefully any future civilisations that rise out of our ashes will find the same epiphany.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2017 15:43:44 GMT
Sorry if this is slightly long. i) & iii) I'm referring to the problem of an earlier function dictating its current function. eg: A church that has become a gothic nightclub no longer serves the role of being a church. There would have to be a reason to take "I need suffering because it helps me survive long enough to reproduce" over "I need suffering because it makes life more interesting." In existentialist terms, I don't think there is meaning beyond what people give it. For it to be bad it must be thought of as bad, and we know this changes from person to person. Sadists believe it to be a good thing. Sounding slightly Wittgenstein-esque, concepts mean things to different people. They are interpretational. I do not believe that most people take the absence of all suffering being bad as a priori. Some may contrast their views with it, sure, but think of all the people who watch sport. Would they believe the games would be better without suffering? What people interpret as bad varies at different times. Being the living beings we are, it is usually some event combined with a level of misery, never really the same ontological state of affairs, and never suffering in itself hanging as a platonic ideal. To isolate it as such, with it existing in each and every situation seems too artificial. ii) "And my point is that individuals ought not to be forced to contribute to a shared goal with which they do not agree, or be collateral damage that is caused in the process of pursuing that goal." Regarding goals, I believe there are reasonable demands and unreasonable demands. I think being forced to stay alive is an unreasonable one, however I do not think simply being born is an unreasonable one. Yes, the smaller (and it must be small or everyone would have given up already) collateral damage is worth the risk for most people because the joy of having children outweighs the negatives for them. Even if antinatalist philosophy is employed, there may still be natural evil occurring somewhere in the universe. One of Nietzsche's (the anti-pessimist) big concepts was his eternal recurrence. If you're a strict naturalist and believe the first law of thermodynamics holds then infinity may be in play and life may just be a reoccurring event by chance alone. (That is how life on earth is believed to have started). No matter how many people or animals are sterilized, there will eventually be new "life" or floating minds in some form or another. You have to become an anime villain with omnipotence/omniscience to make it work. If we are to take that to its logical end, it is likely better to be born in a controlled environment than being born into chaos. Schopenhauer (the big pessimist) believed that the will (beings, minds) simply manifests again at another vent which was why he did not encourage suicide but asceticism. If we go full scientism then antinatalism vanishes from the meme pool because it does not encourage survival. It is only within collapsing civilisations it will take hold and then other people (or other animals) who are not persuaded or lack the mental equipment to be persuaded will take advantage of that. i) Suffering could have a different function for each person. Some people find spiritual meaning through suffering, or find strength in times of suffering. I don't think that any of those dimensions to suffering would justify imposing it on another being who may find the suffering to be nothing more than a burden. The parent may have a different perspective on suffering; but should not presume that their child is going to share the same perspective. ii) I think that being born is unreasonable because it imposes demands and burdens upon the individual that they do not need, and without any benefits that the individual would have needed had they remained non-existent. And the facts are that peacefully opting out of existence is strongly proscribed, and where possible, prevented by the societies in which we live. Whether people consider it beneficial to themselves to have children is another issue (although there is scant evidence that people with children are happier than childless people, and the imperative to have children is likely to be our biology playing tricks on us so that we propagate our genetic material). The salient fact is that in doing so, they are imposing a set of burdens on someone who had no say in the matter (and will struggle to extricate themselves from those burdens if they find that sentient existence is not to their liking). The idea of eternal recurrence is an interesting one; as an infinite universe is likely to mean the future emergence of life. Perhaps even the exact same combination of molecules which make up 'me' will repeat, and I will be reborn again, in essence. Nothing we can really do about that if it does happen, but I think that there ought to be a moral imperative to nip the situation in the bud if we can, given that the rebirth scenario is unproven. Another antinatalist on Youtube made a similar point that it may be best not to expose westerners to antinatalism full-on, because if our civilisation died out, then that may leave savage civilisations in the ascendency. It's an intriguing idea, as it might mean that the short term goal of limiting suffering may have the unintended consequence of creating greater suffering in the future. It gives me pause to think about what would be the best way of spreading antinatalism; but would not make me abandon the philosophy.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2017 16:06:09 GMT
I don't have any problem with people 'highlighting' why they think that my arguments are unsound. And yet you moaned in this thread about "insults" for criticisms you can't handle. What do you think every post has been doing. Specifically here, the patent irrationality of zero sum. There is no inherent one paying for any other. It's perverse reasoning to suggest that one creature being born should have any intrinsic connection or necessarily anything at all to do with some other distinct creature being born elsewhere. In any case, as you believe they are all "organic robots" and so they cannot have done/do other than what they have done and will do or "feel" other than what they have been preset to "feel" ( just another illusion), any talk of "selfish" and "justification" and "favour" is just loony. You're trapped by Fate in your incoherent state as well, but it just highlights your breakdown in not being to recognize that believing that and furiously trying to affect people (or wailing on about "insults" for criticisms, or any other complaint hypocritical or valid) is deranged thinking. And another crash and burn. At it's worst framing it's a reverse-lottery where all win, and the bulk win big. A tiny minority win less, although most of those don't get a ticket in the end. And some's winnings run out and some choose to check out early as their winnings get low. And some just hate winnings, be they big or small. Again with your bizarre ideas. I didn't diagnose you medically, and lay people can observe and recognize patently aberrant behavior, and note morbid, hyper-emotional, grossly irrational thinking. And you repeating "need to demonstrate how the argument is faulty" for something demonstrated countless times, as well as pretending that "mental illness" was evidence for a conclusion as opposed to a conclusion based on the cited evidence of your many times noted irrationality and morbidity (and hysterical framing and overt dishonesty) - only reinforces the la-la land you exist in. "trollish ad hominem attack" - poor poor baby, you should find you one of those "safe spaces" when you get "triggered" like that. <== micCee language "Good". "Great opportunity". "Wonder". "Ride". With great and looking up odds for happiness & satisfaction when facilitated. You drive or use public transport, don't you? If true, then it is cute, cuddly, fuzzy and multicultural because Muslims are (mostly) brown. That takes precedence over any moral concern.I can handle insults perfectly well. What I was complaining about in the main was the fact that I was not given the opportunity to correct the distortion made by graham, much less defend myself against the insults. There's nothing which has convinced me that bestowing a good that is not needed is worth inflicting a harm which could have been avoided. And my previous 'rabid natalist' stance was really just channeling what society already tells us about having children and is the logical conclusion of that idea. I never complain about your insults, and I have taken them up to this point. I mentioned it in this one instance because the poster in question did a cut and run so that I couldn't defend myself against a)the strawman argument; b) the 'you only think this because you're depressed' dismissal of my argument. I did not point out a "typo" in your post. I remember the instance well. I was having difficulty deciphering your bizarre way that you were wording your posts, which I have since come to learn is just representative of your signature garbled word-salad style of posting. Valuing one's own life is not religions; but imposing restrictions on the autonomy of what other people can do with their own lives and bodies on the premise that 'life is sacred' is religious. And the Muslim thing was about the fact that whenever Islam was criticised, you would always have to draw up an equivalency to Christianity. Safe spaces did not originate from the 'alt-right', it originated (or at least became popularised) on university campuses. Likewise, 'trigger warnings' originated on university campuses so that sensitive students would be forewarned about potentially "triggering" material. And it's not only the 'alt-right' who mock constructs that were invented to protect students from challenging ideas. It's not 'zero sum', in that I'm not saying that there's a fixed amount of suffering in the world and when one baby has good fortune, another will have to compensate for that with bad fortune. The point that I'm making is that it's not possible to keep rolling the dice and expect only positive outcomes. Therefore, with each birth we do not know whether the child is going to have a good life, a mediocre life, or is going to suffer terribly. If we allow the dice to be rolled on the misguided basis that the results are 'usually' good, then that means that we're still going to pay the price of the suffering of the unfortunates as collateral damage in the enterprise. How is having to endure a condition where one's skin peels off at the slightest contact, or 80 years confined to a wheelchair and suffering depression for the entire duration a case of 'winning the lottery'? As explained a million times, I have no delusion that I'm going to alter an inevitable outcome; merely playing my inevitable role in that inevitable outcome, because a conscious entity cannot choose not to choose, nor be resigned to an unknown fate. If it wasn't a medical diagnosis and didn't invalidate the argument, then that makes it just an insult. Much the same as insulting someone based on the race, sexuality or disability. Which means that your behaviour is no different from that for which you have relentlessly criticised others. Also, you have mocked the appearance of posters here, so again, you do insult people without provocation. It's only good for the people who have had good fortuned, and has to be paid for at the expense of those who, through no fault of their own, had poor fortune coming into it.
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Post by cupcakes on Sept 22, 2017 17:02:28 GMT
Once again, I'm not concerned about the wellbeing of the non-existent, but those who will exist and will wish that they did not. And those who will exist in the future (as well as those who exist in the present) are part of an unnecessary gamble that is being made by someone else on their behalf. The future person's wellbeing becomes a salient consideration upon conception; and to continue with the pregnancy is to act without the consent of the foetus. It's ridiculous to say that it's OK to just recklessly keep having children even if you don't know whether you'll be able to provide for them, or even if it is very likely that they will be born with a congenital disability that will cause them a lifetime of suffering. It's not OK just because a non-existent person cannot consent. The wellbeing of future sentient beings is worthy of concern and consideration. That's why there is concern over climate change from people who are likely going to be dead by the time that the worst effects become evident. And the fact that children of a certain age can be suffering terribly but not consent to be killed, or have the wherewithal is another area of moral concern, for you will be condeming a certain number of young children to a period of suffering. And those with the worst disabilities are being born into a long life sentence that would be considered cruel and inhumane if it was inflicted upon a sadistic torture-murderer. I don't think that it is a relatively small risk, considering the state of the world at the moment, and the fact that even a large segment of well-off people are evidently very unhappy with their lives and this is reflected in the kinds of behaviours that you would not see from happy, well adjusted people (alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, domestic abuse, child molestation etc). If you bring a child into the world in a wealthy nation, then children and adults in other parts of the world will be exploited so that your child can be provided for. And of course the same thing can be said of farm animals who will be kept in poor conditions and killed for their meat. I don't want a lot of hyper religious people having the power to impose laws on me; especially when there are people who claim to be non-religious who want to impose arbitrary moral limitations on what services I'm allowed to obtain from the state or free market regarding something that affects me alone. In theory, I support open borders, because nobody should own land by dint of having been born on it...but if people are going to gain a foothold and then seek to aggressively impose religion, then that's a different matter. And I never really defended Trump; merely pointed out the undeniable fact that he wasn't as bad as Ted Cruz, and his presidency was in effect unlikely to be much different from a Hillary Clinton one (which is coming to pass). Globally, the majority of people are living in poor conditions, and it is a small minority who are doing the exploiting. Most of the world;s population isn't part of the middle class of a wealthy, developed nation. So the numbers provided were very optimistic. Sweatshop workers in places such as Bangladesh work for very low wages and in terrible conditions because they have to support themselves and consumers do not collectively demand better conditions (and show willingness to pay a premium so that their clothes and electronic devices can be manufactured in humane conditions). And just because someone does not already exist, does not mean that there isn't good reason to be concerned with the conditions in which as yet non existent beings will exist. Society already frowns upon parents who have far more children than they can ever afford; so that indicates that the wellbeing of a future person is taken seriously. But why is an unneccessary 'good' (in that absolutely nobody would miss the absence of it if there were no sentient beings) justified by the toll of suffering that will be exacted from the unfortunate? Another patently incoherent position of yours. If a fetus has consent then it's termination is subject to said consent. If a fetus has no consent (which is rational morality and law), then your raising of consent is of course moot. It is ridiculous to have children and not have their welfare and upkeep provided for. As it is ridiculous to pretend that said upkeep and maintenance can't be accomplished and should be as the baseline. I agree that the wellbeing and consent of future beings is a consideration, hence we fix/maintain the environment, allow them to live, and allow them to choose once they actually have the capability to do so. However, if potential pain can be considered ahead of time then equally so can potential joy and satisfaction and the future being's likely preferences. Whichever consistent way you want to go with nonexistent "future people" it leads to giving them the overwhelmingly advantageous opportunity. And the answer to physically suffering children is to treat conditions and ameliorate symptoms and palliate if they are terminal. The overwhelming response of the living would be that they would prefer to have lived rather than to have been terminated on the (tiny) chance that they would have situations such as you describe. It matters not what you "think", as most would consider your outlook unbalanced. What matters is that you dropped "relatively", which was a key component of the assertion. And we can improve and are improving all of the (relatively rare) situations you describe. And even 10 years of getting high is better than never having lived, as most addicts not riddled with guilt will tell you, at least while they're still getting high. There is no good reason for children in any parts to be exploited. You should be fighting against said exploitation instead of for morbid termination. You'd have far more possibility of an actual effect, if your beliefs even made any such efforts rational. You may not want the "hyper religious" be they Abrahamic or Antinatalist "having the power to impose laws" on you, but you'd have Trump and his drawbridge while simultaneously complaining about "pulling up the drawbridge". You defended Trump on many occasions, using your same alt-rig jingles. And sorry to break this mind-blowing fact for you, but if you're going to let in who you want and keep out who you don't want, that's not open borders. And given Trump's judicial choices, your thing about not much different in effect from Hillary Clinton is just more crazy giggles from you. Nothing is "necessary" or "unnecessary" on it's own, it's always relative to something else. Living is "necessary" to achieve this state that most prefer to it's end. The good/satisfaction/joy/gratefulnesss is worth the "risk" of both the helpful and unnecessary (for thriving) suffering. For the vast bulk of the living anyway. And since we're pondering this (well, you're just watching your body react as preprogrammed before the beginning (like that? ( ᐛ )و ), we must be living, right? Stamping our suffering =/= species extinction except to the psychopath. How many times do you want "future beings" to repeat the most brutal, tormented, gruesome stages of coming to civilization as opposed to sublimating and building on the gains we've made / are making? "I see how you've stolen Falconia's point". You think points are owned? Sorry you're hurtin', brother. I don't doubt I could pick up something she said as in general as I accept whatever makes sense. How about yourself? And on the question of public transport, can you bring yourself to answer? Do you or don't you drive or use public transport? If true, then it is cute, cuddly, fuzzy and multicultural because Muslims are (mostly) brown. That takes precedence over any moral concern.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2017 4:46:59 GMT
Once again, I'm not concerned about the wellbeing of the non-existent, but those who will exist and will wish that they did not. And those who will exist in the future (as well as those who exist in the present) are part of an unnecessary gamble that is being made by someone else on their behalf. The future person's wellbeing becomes a salient consideration upon conception; and to continue with the pregnancy is to act without the consent of the foetus. It's ridiculous to say that it's OK to just recklessly keep having children even if you don't know whether you'll be able to provide for them, or even if it is very likely that they will be born with a congenital disability that will cause them a lifetime of suffering. It's not OK just because a non-existent person cannot consent. The wellbeing of future sentient beings is worthy of concern and consideration. That's why there is concern over climate change from people who are likely going to be dead by the time that the worst effects become evident. And the fact that children of a certain age can be suffering terribly but not consent to be killed, or have the wherewithal is another area of moral concern, for you will be condeming a certain number of young children to a period of suffering. And those with the worst disabilities are being born into a long life sentence that would be considered cruel and inhumane if it was inflicted upon a sadistic torture-murderer. I don't think that it is a relatively small risk, considering the state of the world at the moment, and the fact that even a large segment of well-off people are evidently very unhappy with their lives and this is reflected in the kinds of behaviours that you would not see from happy, well adjusted people (alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, domestic abuse, child molestation etc). If you bring a child into the world in a wealthy nation, then children and adults in other parts of the world will be exploited so that your child can be provided for. And of course the same thing can be said of farm animals who will be kept in poor conditions and killed for their meat. I don't want a lot of hyper religious people having the power to impose laws on me; especially when there are people who claim to be non-religious who want to impose arbitrary moral limitations on what services I'm allowed to obtain from the state or free market regarding something that affects me alone. In theory, I support open borders, because nobody should own land by dint of having been born on it...but if people are going to gain a foothold and then seek to aggressively impose religion, then that's a different matter. And I never really defended Trump; merely pointed out the undeniable fact that he wasn't as bad as Ted Cruz, and his presidency was in effect unlikely to be much different from a Hillary Clinton one (which is coming to pass). Globally, the majority of people are living in poor conditions, and it is a small minority who are doing the exploiting. Most of the world;s population isn't part of the middle class of a wealthy, developed nation. So the numbers provided were very optimistic. Sweatshop workers in places such as Bangladesh work for very low wages and in terrible conditions because they have to support themselves and consumers do not collectively demand better conditions (and show willingness to pay a premium so that their clothes and electronic devices can be manufactured in humane conditions). And just because someone does not already exist, does not mean that there isn't good reason to be concerned with the conditions in which as yet non existent beings will exist. Society already frowns upon parents who have far more children than they can ever afford; so that indicates that the wellbeing of a future person is taken seriously. But why is an unneccessary 'good' (in that absolutely nobody would miss the absence of it if there were no sentient beings) justified by the toll of suffering that will be exacted from the unfortunate? Another patently incoherent position of yours. If a fetus has consent then it's termination is subject to said consent. If a fetus has no consent (which is rational morality and law), then your raising of consent is of course moot. If true, then it is cute, cuddly, fuzzy and multicultural because Muslims are (mostly) brown. That takes precedence over any moral concern.The foetus becomes a future person who may be experiencing suffering which was imposed upon them before they had the power of consent. The fact that someone doesn't exist yet is not rational justification for ignoring the welfare of the future individual and how they might feel about the decision that was made unilaterally on their behalf. And the parents can do everything right with regards to taking care of their child's material needs, and do everything within their power to ensure that their emotional needs are taken care of...and yet their child still has a wretched life that is an imposition on them. And even allowing for the preposterous presumption that suicide is easy once you get to a certain point, you've still burdened them with tremendous inconvenience before they get to the stage of determining that suicide is the solution, and the pain and suffering of wrestling with that decision, then the pain, fear and anguish of actually going through with it. But 'allow[ing]' them to live is just to create a problem that needn't exist. How many tears have been shed and hands wrung about the barrenness of Mars, or even the barrenness of our own planet before sentient life existed? And many of those who have life will never find it to be any kind of advantage; some of those will never have the ability to escape from it (e.g. your wholehearted support of denying the severely disabled the right to die except through starvation). I'm not talking about the risk for each individual. If the risk is merely 1 in 100 who feel burdened by existence, then that still represents 1 human being out of a sample of 100 who is being imposed upon for the supposed benefit of the other 99 (not drawing a direct causal link between the joy of the 99 and the pain of the 1; simply stating that the 1 is the price of continuing to roll the dice). It's not your place to determine whether someone else's suffering is 'worth' the joy that you've experienced; if you consider that to be your prerogative then that would make you an extremely callous individual. I do believe in fighting to improve conditions; but it would be altogether better not to create the mess in the first place, and then find a way of imperfectly cleaning up some of the mess. Yes, that is why I stated 'in theory', I am in favour of open borders. So that would be in the event that those hordes would entirely consist of individuals who did not seek to unduly infringe upon my liberty. At the moment, the vast majority of humans on the planet do have some kind of agenda that they want to aggressively impose upon others (even those who deem themselves to be liberal and irreligious), so it's rather a case of introducing even more strains of viruses into an already feculent cess pool. But in the very unlikely event that this sort of thing ever got sorted out, then I don't agree with the notion that the privileged minority should horde their resources just by dint of having being born in the right place. If the Syrian refugees were all antinatalists who were uncompromisingly in favour of the right to die, then I would say that we should let in as many as wish to come here. And if that would mean that the people already here found it difficult to get by, then that would be hard lines, because we never earned this privilege in the first place. The issue is that without any mandate except that unilaterally decreed by yourself and your mating partner, you are bringing a new life into the world that may possibly consider the life bestowed upon them to be an onerous imposition rather than a wondrous gift. That's where 'necessary' comes in; there is no justification from necessity of bringing new life into the planet, such as usually would be expected (at a bare minimum) if we were to gamble with someone else's suffering without first having obtained consent. And if you didn't bring them into existence, then they would not express a preference for life (and there will be nobody with a preference of death to feel aggrieved at the imposition against them); so your justification goes nowhere. Extinction is the only way that suffering can be eliminated; as suffering is woven into the very fabric of reality. We need suffering to let us know when to eat, when we need shelter from the cold, when we would benefit from communing with others, etc. Even if it is feasible to suppose that we can attain a utopia or near utopia in the future, then the road to that is paved with the collateral damage of suffering individuals. And if another supreme life form ends up colonising the universe in the future, that is most likely going to occur after humans will have gone extinct anyway. So the idea that we should stick around so that these future life forms might benefit from having us here to show them the ropes is a specious one. It's just that Falconia's ideas have never heretofore formed part of the basis of your argument. But if you want to pick up on some of the rational things that Falconia has mentioned, then I'd urge you to have a little re-read of her position on the right to die. Here's a quote to save you from going through the thread: So I suppose you'll now be wishing to call Falconia a psychopath? I think I know which dead-end street this is going down; but to humour you, I do drive and occasionally also use public transport.
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Post by cupcakes on Sept 26, 2017 4:48:28 GMT
tpfkar And the facts are that peacefully opting out of existence is strongly proscribed, and where possible, prevented by the societies in which we live. Nope, as it is easily accomplished and virtually unstoppable if one is not mentally ill or making a scene. Some children do it accidentally every year playing a game with one of our fragilities. People have an imperative to f!ck. Some women have a childbearing imperative. The more developed the society the later people choose to reproduce as they're generally more practical about the investment that is required, both personal and monetary. In underdeveloped areas an economic motive is much more pronounced. It's a great opportunity that the vast majority will overwhelmingly prefer over the alternative. And the only real struggle for the mentally competent is actually coming to the decision that the net is negative. By what supposition do you "err" towards infinite planets in infinite time not recreating "life", which is simply a mechanistic process, in the known case based around carbon. Do you suppose that we are in some way special in this regard? It's not that less civilized societies may ascend and so retard the refinement of existing civilization. It's that antinatalism guarantees that the savage and brutal suffering of pre-sentient and sentient beings in pre- and early civilizations will be repeated infinitely in some Sisyphean tragedy, as opposed to at least having the possibility of enlightened civilizations taming suffering for extended epochs. If true, then it is cute, cuddly, fuzzy and multicultural because Muslims are (mostly) brown. That takes precedence over any moral concern.
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Post by cupcakes on Oct 10, 2017 10:12:29 GMT
tpfkar Another patently incoherent position of yours. If a fetus has consent then it's termination is subject to said consent. If a fetus has no consent (which is rational morality and law), then your raising of consent is of course moot. The foetus becomes a future person who may be experiencing suffering which was imposed upon them before they had the power of consent. The fact that someone doesn't exist yet is not rational justification for ignoring the welfare of the future individual and how they might feel about the decision that was made unilaterally on their behalf. And the parents can do everything right with regards to taking care of their child's material needs, and do everything within their power to ensure that their emotional needs are taken care of...and yet their child still has a wretched life that is an imposition on them. And even allowing for the preposterous presumption that suicide is easy once you get to a certain point, you've still burdened them with tremendous inconvenience before they get to the stage of determining that suicide is the solution, and the pain and suffering of wrestling with that decision, then the pain, fear and anguish of actually going through with it. Absolutely, so they need to get consent before they can decide. The fact of yesterdays tomorrows being what today's yesterdays determine are imposed by they nonexistent future possibly not but oh my god everybody must die is more rational than your vapor can't give consent so too bad. But in fact, the evidence that the vast majority of people would resolutely prefer to be given this chance to enjoy this blast of an existence upends and overruns your morbid pessimism. It's not an imposition, it's a great gift of an opportunity that they can decide what to do with once they reach a state that includes the ability of consent. If they are wrestling with it then they in fact have desires for it. In any case, according to your beliefs they are simply organic robots with no actual choice following a player piano tape, so not only are their existences unstoppable and unalterable from what was set at the outset, they aren't really sentient at all, just "convincingly" (to what?) simulating it. On that note, you've also called me "deranged", which is the mental illness equivalent of "n*****"
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Post by sugarbiscuits on Jan 29, 2018 2:26:12 GMT
I've generally found anti-natalism ridiculous. I've not seen any arguments for it that don't rest on nonsense and fallacies, including that anti-natalists always seem to be ethical objectivists. have you read about Arthur Schopenhauer, david benatar and peter wessel zapffe?
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Post by sugarbiscuits on Jan 29, 2018 2:28:14 GMT
I hold to these philosophical positions somewhat inconsistently. Schopenhauer is one of the greatest philosophers ever to live. have you read any of his works?
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Post by Terrapin Station on Jan 29, 2018 5:36:42 GMT
I've generally found anti-natalism ridiculous. I've not seen any arguments for it that don't rest on nonsense and fallacies, including that anti-natalists always seem to be ethical objectivists. have you read about Arthur Schopenhauer, david benatar and peter wessel zapffe?
I'm familiar with their arguments. That's included in what I'm referring to re finding it ridiculous.
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Post by sugarbiscuits on Jan 29, 2018 13:06:52 GMT
have you read about Arthur Schopenhauer, david benatar and peter wessel zapffe?
I'm familiar with their arguments. That's included in what I'm referring to re finding it ridiculous. I read about those 3 on Wikipedia and read quotes of Zapffe's. I did read a little of Benatar's 2006 book Better never to have been. I neither agree nor disagree. Just like reading opposing points of views, different opinions. I remember Americangirl85 on tvrage accused me of not listening to other people's opinions which I don't think is true. David B. thinks the world is full of suffering, what do you think about that? I looked him up on youtube and found some interviews with him.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Jan 29, 2018 13:23:38 GMT
David B. thinks the world is full of suffering, what do you think about that? I think that "suffering" is never well-defined in these discussions. If we define it so that it's very broad, so that "The world is full of suffering" would be plausible, then we're going to define it where it's rather implausible to attempt to depict suffering as something necessarily negative, or at least as something that is a sufficiently negative that it outweighs non-suffering. If we define it so that most people would feel that it's necessarily, significantly negative, then "The world is full of suffering" is not going to be plausible. Or in other words, forget about the word "suffering" for a moment. Most people do not feel that most of their experience as living creatures in the world is negative on balance. Surely some people feel that way (and my suspicion is that those people tend to be the ones who are antinatalists when they think about this issue), but most people do not. A more important issue that I mentioned in the earlier post, though, is this. A lot of antinatalist views hinge on the notion that suffering (ignoring that it's ill-defined) is inherently negative. The problem with that is that nothing is inherently negative, or positive, or bad, or good, or anything like that. Value statements, or valuations in general (just in case we want to get persnickety with the word "statement") do not exist outside of individuals valuing things however they do. So there need to be living creatures, with minds, for there to be any sort of value whatsoever. And different individuals value different things, and/or different individuals value the same things differently. The upshot of that is that what may be suffering with an overall negative balance to you may not at all be suffering with an overall negative balance to a different person, even though objectively, what the two people are experiencing is just the same (well, or as much "the same" that it can be, given nominalism).
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Post by sugarbiscuits on Jan 30, 2018 14:24:00 GMT
David B. thinks the world is full of suffering, what do you think about that? I think that "suffering" is never well-defined in these discussions. If we define it so that it's very broad, so that "The world is full of suffering" would be plausible, then we're going to define it where it's rather implausible to attempt to depict suffering as something necessarily negative, or at least as something that is a sufficiently negative that it outweighs non-suffering. If we define it so that most people would feel that it's necessarily, significantly negative, then "The world is full of suffering" is not going to be plausible. Or in other words, forget about the word "suffering" for a moment. Most people do not feel that most of their experience as living creatures in the world is negative on balance. Surely some people feel that way (and my suspicion is that those people tend to be the ones who are antinatalists when they think about this issue), but most people do not. A more important issue that I mentioned in the earlier post, though, is this. A lot of antinatalist views hinge on the notion that suffering (ignoring that it's ill-defined) is inherently negative. The problem with that is that nothing is inherently negative, or positive, or bad, or good, or anything like that. Value statements, or valuations in general (just in case we want to get persnickety with the word "statement") do not exist outside of individuals valuing things however they do. So there need to be living creatures, with minds, for there to be any sort of value whatsoever. And different individuals value different things, and/or different individuals value the same things differently. The upshot of that is that what may be suffering with an overall negative balance to you may not at all be suffering with an overall negative balance to a different person, even though objectively, what the two people are experiencing is just the same (well, or as much "the same" that it can be, given nominalism). so if you don't mind me asking, do you have any biological children, or do you want to have any, or have more? Benatar argues that all sentient life should become extinct. it would be better if life never existed. he claims even the best of lives are very bad and much worse than what they are recognised to be.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Jan 30, 2018 14:26:36 GMT
Benatar argues that all sentient life should become extinct. it would be better if life never existed. It's important to understand the problem with this. It would be better for whom?
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Post by sugarbiscuits on Jan 30, 2018 20:42:28 GMT
Benatar argues that all sentient life should become extinct. it would be better if life never existed. It's important to understand the problem with this. It would be better for whom? he states any sentient life form would be better off never to have existed. I neither agree nor disagree.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Jan 30, 2018 20:50:47 GMT
It's important to understand the problem with this. It would be better for whom? he states any sentient life form would be better off never to have existed. I neither agree nor disagree.
Right. But think about the answer to this. Better off to whom? To the lifeform that doesn't exist? To whom?
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Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 22, 2018 13:11:32 GMT
Right. But think about the answer to this. Better off to whom? To the lifeform that doesn't exist? To whom? It can't be answered, because there is no whom, because then that is thinking in terms of the "self" and that is limiting. If the physical whom is non-existent, then who's to know how better or worst off the "whom" is.
If there are no selves, there is no better/worse, so "It's better for x" is just nonsense.
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Post by hi224 on Feb 28, 2018 20:51:18 GMT
Interesting stuff.
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