sly instinct likes a lot of my posts, but i don't know, maybe he just likes the way i talk

You don't even have to be a vegan, in my opinion. Just don't encourage meat-eating.

Years before I was a vegan, I was still able to concede that it's the right thing to do. Then one day, I just decided I wanted to be a bigger part of the cause than that.

But that's the minimum standard. You can continue eating meat--but just don't advocate it.
I think that's reasonable.

although that does raise the question... do you as antinatalist view all suffering as equal? would you be content in a world where the most severe cases have been wiped away? or rather in a state of eternal happiness..

Well, clearly, two broken legs is worse than one broken leg, so I wouldn't say I view all suffering equally. I argued a bit with Das earlier over other sentient beings' capacity to suffer--and I believe all sentient creatures all have the same capacity, essentially. There's no distinction to make between cutting a pig and cutting a human in my eyes--it's the same negative. But suffering does indeed vary in intensity and pertinence.

The suffering endured from me calling someone an idiot, for example, is hardly suffering at all. If you had the choice to safe someone from being run over by a train, or to save someone from being called an idiot, it would be a ludicrously simple choice to make.

A world where the most severe cases are wiped away... I'm not sure what that means. I know what you're getting at, but it's sort of hard to qualify severity. If we lived in a state of perpetual orgasmic pleasure that we would never get sick of, that would be ideal. But I suppose if we get rid of all disease and all bigotry, I think we could go a long way.

Yeah unlike convincing evey living thing in the universe to commit sudoku which is sure to happen.

No one's doing this. Anti-natalists don't do this.

why? why not just strive for life without suffering?

like, what separates an antinatalist from someone who wants to eliminate suffering? Why assign a negative value to birth if that individual's life ultimately helps to create a society based solely on happiness?

If you're going to impose anything on anyone, you have to have a certainty that it'll work out perfectly in the end. If you take your parents money with the intent on gambling it all away, you better leave the casino a millionaire. And if you're not dead-certain that you'll become a millionaire, you don't have the right to steal the money. So I'm for childbirth in the sense that if you're dead-certain that your child will one day cure cancer, then it's justified.

For me, I just don't think there will ever be a point where all suffering will end. There's a concept called the hedonic treadmill. We'll always find a way to be unsatisfied with our lives.

I have. All it tells me is the various kinds of dietary contortions vegans have to go through just to maintain a serviceable supply of nutrients you could just as easily and more efficiently have obtained from meat.

And that makes meat-eating okay?

I don't even care if meat-eating increases your lifespan by twenty years.
It's still unethical.

Oh, this is an anti-natalism thread now? How did that happen?

My apologies. I didn't bring it up--they did. I can drop it, if you'd like.

what puzzles my understanding of the philosophy is if antinatalists are prepared to quantify all sentient existence into periods of suffering and happiness, why not strive towards an end goal of strictly happiness instead of wiping away the two options?

We strive for both. I realize that anti-natalism isn't going to catch on in the mainstream for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In that time, we'll probably have created marvelous things that will help mitigate human suffering AND animal suffering. But that's not going to shy me away from expressing what I honestly feel we should do.

It's not a hassle if they lack the capability to think that way

Yes, it is. Lacking the capacity and legal right to make your own informed choices for yourself until you're eighteen years old sounds like the biggest hassle ever.

Now this I obviously agree with. No one has the obligation to live, but our species would die if no one chose to have children on the off chance that they would be living a terrible life.

Well, I'm glad that we can at least agree on that. But obviously, I'm an anti-natalist, so I want the human race to go extinct. I want our species to die. The easiest way is to stop having children. No suffering, no impositions, no red buttons.

What makes you think I care? It's my life, I'm the most important thing in the world to me.

I know. You're a selfish cunt. I know this.

You think too much in the negative, bad things happen in life, but so do the good.

The bad far outweighs the good.

Murder =/= killing

Semantics.

An Ethiopian has the potential to live a good life.

LOL

You can end your life, if you choose.

That doesn't undo your birth. It doesn't undo the crime. It doesn't undo the fact that you didn't want to be born in the first place.

Euthanasia is legal in only four or five very small countries.

Even if you had the legal right, you'd have to probably jump through a bunch of hoops, when it should be as simple as walking into a hospital and asking to be put down. Without question. You can't do that.

what gives you the right to kill people who don't want to die?

Here's a better question:

What gives you the right to give birth to people who may not want to be born?

Isn't it ethical for me to kill an animal and eat it then? Since it will end the animals suffering . It's the most ethical thing I could do

Only if it is suffering, I suppose. But no one really thinks like that.

Murder is inherently unethical.

LOL

Killing someone = making them suffer

You can't suffer if you're dead, dumbass.

Anti natalists aren't killing anything, just not replenishing a finite resource, really.

He's referring to the red button here, though. I've expressed in the past that I'd probably press it.