If you could be a God...

But if you don't create the universe to begin with, then neither the non-existent pleasure nor the non-existent joy warrants any concern at all. However, if you do create the universe (as described) then you're effectively creating the inverse of a progressive taxation system to deal with a problem that exists only inside of your mind (the fact that your non-existent would-be creations are not experiencing joy) and the people who are subject to that taxation are those who have not agreed to the terms and signed any contract.

Also, are you really sure that if you consider the entire history of life in the universe and the whole process of evolution in total, that over the course of history, joy has outweighed suffering? Even when rudimentary medicine didn't exist and people often died of very painful and gruesom diseases before they'd reached their 20th birthday, with not much in the way in terms of pleasurable passtimes; just the constant grind of trying to survive under difficult conditions? And in terms of the animal kingdom, think about how many animals needed to suffer violence from competitor species, or suffer from disease or starvation and die just so that one successful specimen could be born with a random mutation that was conducive to survival in that particular environment. You really think that humans are doing anything right now (or ever) which is worth such a cost that you probably aren't capable of imagining?

And yes, there are winners and losers, but even the winners don't get a prize that is actually meaningful; they just get to say "I win". And then, of course, they die anyway and it's as if their winnings never came to them in the first place.



That's settled, then.



No, it's pretty much the same. I meant to state in the OP that it would be a computer simulation but that the inhabitants would really be conscious, and what I did describe was the work of a deistic god.



Deprivation is suffering. If you want an ice cream then until you get one, you're going to have to endure the experience of being deprived of that ice cream. And in terms of conscious experience, there's not much else to strive for except for satisfying deprivations; ergo not really more than solving the problems that your very existence creates to begin with. It may be for something that is a mild deprivation, you wouldn't necessarily say that you're suffering from lack of ice cream, but that is still a case of mild, fairly trivial suffering.



I'd feel morally obligated to at least push the second button, and whether to push the first one would be a matter of personal discretion. In my case, I would push the first one if the extinction of existing life were going to be reasonably swift and painless. I think that if people couldn't reproduce, it would likely eventually reach the stage where most of them would rather just die anyway, as the world decayed and there were no longer any youth to support the elderly in their dotage.

1. You didn't choose all of the factors that lead up to the point where you make the choice, and you didn't choose how you were going to react to those factors. Therefore, your actions are always dictated by some prior unchosen cause. If you were an atheist, you could just define free will as 'the ability to make choices according to your preferences and disposition', and I would only be able to quibble with your assertion on a semantical level. But since you belief in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity, then the chain of causality whence evil and suffering came into the world needs to stop somewhere short of God. And it can't, because if you examine how you arrived at a decision, there are ALWAYS prior causes which inclined you towards this predisposition or the other, which predetermined what you would choose.

2. There wasn't any deprivation of good before the universe existed, so there was no problem to be solved except for one that existed in God's own mind. Whilst the simulated inhabitants who got lucky in the lottery may apportion credit for the pleasure that they experienced; that would still come at the expense of others who are paying the real price of the experiment. And there's no kind of fair mechanism which determines that it's ethical to give one group of people an unneeded benefit, but that this was going to come at a high price to another arbitrary group of people who didn't owe any debt. Effectively, if someone else is going to have to pay the real cost of your experiment (even one that will result in some people perceiving that they have benefitted) and you aren't going to be able to get their consent first, then you owe them a very good explanation.

Then to reiterate your last point "Wow. What a moral monster you are.".



That's a good point, but one that supports my argument. You haven't experienced what it is like to have to pay the highest costs of continued existence (and in my hypothetical, you would not have to pay any debt in order to create your universe), and therefore you aren't qualified to dictate how high of a price other people should have to pay for an unnecessary (not to mention philosophically dubious) good that wasn't missed before it existed.

I mean, suppose I had gotten hold of your bank details somehow and had decided to go on a long holiday round the world using your money to pay for the trip. When I returned, I claim that I've done nothing wrong because the pleasure that I experienced whilst on holiday far outweighs the hardship brought upon you by having to pay for it. Would that be an acceptable justification?



That seems outrageous, but I'm glad we've gotten that clear.



I'm saying that it's fine if other people think that their joy has meaning, but I just don't want to have to pay for it, and I don't want anyone else to have to pay for it without having given consent ahead of time. Isn't that reasonable? And the only thing that separates you, and your belief that it's all worth the costs, from someone who resents their existence is the fact that you got the right numbers in the lottery and they got the wrong ones. When it comes down to why someone else should have to pay for your joy with their suffering, you haven't got any answers.



If you are deprived of water then it starts off as a dry mouth (which you might shrug off as nothing important, if you expect to be able to acquire water soon), but then becomes serious discomfort as you die of dehydration. The deprivation is the 'stick' which forces you to do whatever it is you need to do in order to survive. The carrot (the pleasant sensation of refreshment that you get as you gulp down some ice cold water on a hot day) is merely made out of removal of the stick. So it's all a carrot and stick mechanism, except where the carrot isn't even really the addition of value.

Coming from a man whose moral sense is as messed up as yours is, that's a positive complement.



And similarly, it supports my argument. You haven't experienced what it is like to have to enjoy the greatest benefits of continued existence, and therefore you aren't qualified to dictate how high of a price other people should have to sacrifice for an unnecessary (not to mention philosophically dubious) suffering that wasn't a factor before it existed.

You know, you'd do much better at this if you just came to realise that every single argument you make about suffering is exactly mirrored by the same argument about joy.


It might be, for you. But I disagree with your assessment of the relative costs, and so come to a different conclusion.


Again, given the source, I welcome your outrage. I'd be seriously worried if you weren't outraged.


And I think it's terrible if other people think that their suffering has meaning, but I just don't want to have to sacrifice to end it and I don't want anybody else to have to sacrifice for it either.

And so on, and so on.

No! It is in fact entirely unreasonable.

You claim to be suffering, and you literally want everyone else in the universe to die so you can end it. And you think that's reasonable? You are the most selfish and evil person I've ever heard of. Yes, including fucking Hitler. Every mass killer in the history of humanity combined did less damage than you want to, and most of them at least had real reasons for it. Stupid, misguided, evil reasons, but at least they didn't do it because they were consumed by the world's biggest sulk.

For pete's sake, just take your nonsense and shove it. You're not going to get what you want. Not now, not ever. Live with it.

So? Again, it works both ways. It always does.


And again, it works both ways.

Anyway, you asked what I would do. You have your answer.

Repeating the same debunked argument over and over and over again isn't going to help.

Most welcome.