Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2017 4:46:59 GMT
Sept 22, 2017 15:27:31 GMT @miccee said:
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?
If true, then it is cute, cuddly, fuzzy and multicultural because Muslims are (mostly) brown. That takes precedence over any moral concern.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
"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?
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:
I actually agree with your views on suicide because the odds are against you being sucessful. (The odds are currently 100 and 200 to 1 against). So in the same way it should be one's right to take a pill to prevent menopause (or any suffering) it should be their right to have a safe way to opt out of life.
So I suppose you'll now be wishing to call Falconia a psychopath?
And on the question of public transport, can you bring yourself to answer? Do you or don't you drive or use public transport?
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.