Minority representation in major films is proportional to the population, but it still seems difficult for minorities to break out of typical racial roles.

Star Fox is a great remake. Same with Majora's Mask. A Link Between Worlds was really fun, too.

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Of course it's morally reprehensible to give birth to them, but the cause of anti-natalism needs mouthpieces.

I feel like you're being a shitter on purpose. Boring night? Been drinking, perhaps?

Honestly, I didn't mean to be offensive by using the term "mouthpieces". I was just referring to your comment about how anti-natalism needs advocates, and that partially justifies staying alive.

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Not at all.

Why not? They don't have autonomy, so, to you, that means you can impose all you want on them.

Right?

First of all, because I don't believe in anti-natalism; second, because murder is wrong and future suffering never justifies it. I do believe that in limited circumstances suicide is an ethical response to abject suffering. You have yet to explain to me how ending their suffering and preventing any future suffering they can impose on others, before they've gained sentience or been corrupted by natalist society, is wrong.

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I'm asking you to tell me why killing an infant isn't a morally preferable solution to letting it live a life in which it will experience suffering.

Could grow up to be an anti-natalist.

I mean, you're purposely changing the subject, but all right.

No, if the child was guaranteed to live a life of absolute suffering

Nope, an average kid. Tell me why an average kid, born in America, should not be murdered in the name of anti-natalism. This isn't a change of subject, it's a foundational justification of the claim that non-life is a far greater moral state than life and suffering.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 23, 2016, 08:48:11 PM

So have anti-natalists been conditioned, too? Because again, any argument against suicide is an argument against anti-natalism. Tomorrow, you will suffer and impose suffering on others. Tell me why you should allow that to happen.

Because the importance of my message far outweighs the piddly amounts of suffering incurred by my existence. I'm a pacifist vegan anti-natalist feminist socialist. Chances are good that I'm not going to be harming anything.

Hold up. Are you now telling me that if I raise my child to be a vegan anti-natalist feminist-socialist, that it's okay to give them life? Of course it's morally reprehensible to give birth to them, but the cause of anti-natalism needs mouthpieces.

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What if I just murdered it? It wasn't capable making decisions; it was less sentient than a dog. It wasn't conditioned into believing life was worth living. How is killing it (quickly, of course) not a morally preferable solution to letting it live a life in which it will experience suffering?

You also mentioned children and teenagers. You'd be okay with murdering and raping a child or teenager, because they aren't "autonomous." That's what you're telling me.

Not at all. I'm asking you to tell me why killing an infant isn't a morally preferable solution to letting it live a life in which it will experience suffering. Rape is abhorrent; murder frees a person of all future suffering, which is ultimately the purpose of not giving birth. Anti-natalism seems to perfectly justify the [humane, quick] murder of all those that cannot be converted to followers of anti-natalism because 1) their "agency" has been corrupted by a lifetime of influence telling them life is worth living, 2) their net effect on the planet is bad (they cause more suffering than joy), and 3) they may have kids, which you've said many times is the most evil thing a person can do. Murder might be evil, but surely it pales in comparison to birth.

Gonna be frank here: I'm not interested in talking to you about this. I'm trying to talk to Verbatim; don't put arguments into his mouth.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 23, 2016, 07:59:34 PM

Because a foundational premise of anti-natalism is that suffering is always bad; this is demonstrably untrue.

By the way--if you're going to make this argument, that suffering is good because humans can learn or derive wisdom from it, I could easily argue that the wisdom I have derived from the suffering that pervades our existence has manifested itself as anti-natalism.

Well sure, and of course it'd be true (your experiences of suffering has led to your belief in anti-natalism). But you'd also be telling me that suffering could result in something good, which undermines your entire premise.

Either way, they achieve autonomy after enough brain development. Which makes you even more evil for defending it--you're basically saying that all sentient life is sentenced at least twenty long years, forced to live, before they have the right to kill themselves.

That's not what I was saying at all. The discussion of infants not being morally autonomous is a response to the claim that birth is a denial of that person's agency. An infant doesn't have agency or the ability to use logic to make decisions about themselves. Birth is no more an imposition than feeding, bathing, entertaining, or napping a baby. Infants are not sapient, nor are they sentient.

Personally, anti-natalism would be much more compelling if it dropped the whole "birth = imposing suffering" thing. It seems like the biggest facet that people take issue with, or even offended (again going back to the idea that this claim co-opts others' agency in determining what is and isn't good for themselves). There's a pretty strong argument for life -- particularly human life -- being a net wrong inflicted on our planet, as evinced by extinctions and climate change. All of that leads to a strong argument for not introducing more humans into the population, maybe even of humans choosing self-extinction. I think the strongest manifestation of anti-natalism exists in the idea that the population and footprint of the human race needs to be drastically and immediately reduced.

Weirdly enough, the person in the video explicitly defines the moral framework from the perspective of human consciousness, so it doesn't really tread into the objective-morality territory I'm talking about above.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 23, 2016, 06:47:30 PM

No anti-natalist argument has provided a compelling reason why suffering should be considered supremely morally wrong any more than an atom losing or gaining electrons.

But nobody has made this argument. The value of suffering isn't a question of "morality." Suffering, in all its forms, represents a body of negative sensations that sentient beings can experience--its because of its intrinsically negative nature that we must logically conclude that it is to be avoided at all costs.

What you've just made is an argument for suffering as the supremely immoral facet of your ethical worldview. It absolutely is an argument of morality.

What's "pre-school" about the recognition of suffering as a negative sensation that is to be avoided?

Because a foundational premise of anti-natalism is that suffering is always bad; this is demonstrably untrue. Suffering is very little more than a biological response to stimuli; from our perspective it's bad because it usually manifests as pain, but that's hardly an argument for it being the source of all value in conscious beings.

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but if you truly believe your existence represents a net suffering on others there's really no reason to not do so, flimsy rebuttals of educating others of the philosophy aside.

"There's no reason for you not to kill yourself, except for all those great reasons you have not to kill yourself."

If you can provide a morally justified reasoning for not killing yourself, from the framework of anti-natalism, then you have provided an argument against anti-natalism itself. According to you, your very existence causes others suffering. Because suffering cannot be minimized in any morally adequate way, the best way to live anti-natalism is to not exist.

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The agency argument is a farce; nobody believes babies, toddlers, children, or even teenagers are autonomous.

Why is that relevant?

You can't in one instance claim birth is an imposition on another person while in another not vehemently arguing for the complete autonomous moral agency of that person. If they are not completely autonomous, then birth couldn't possibly be an imposition.

Teenagers aren't autonomous--says who? You're telling me a teenager isn't capable of rationalizing his or her actions?

If you believe in a deterministic worldview in which humans are completely incapable of free will, independent of any influence or impetus, then you must believe humans are incapable of autonomous reasoning. Their moral agency is partially commanded by their society and environment. Arguing anti-natalism essentially co-opts the agency of everyone who hears it by telling them that their suffering and the suffering they impose on others is justification for their non-existence. In short, telling me my existence was a moral affront against me removes my ability to even make a conscious decision about it.

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It's no more an affront to a person's agency to give birth to them as it is to give them a gift that they didn't explicitly ask for.

People already argue that life is a gift. They're fucking cunts, but they're out there.

This isn't an argument.

I mean, goddamn, you've said some stupid shit in the past, and this is right up there.

I get that this is just how you talk to people, but if you're not willing to share mutual respect in this discussion, then we're not going to have it.

I should add that he originally asked me in early December and I just responded today.

The short answer is no. Anyone wanting to see the other side of that question can check out an essay I did back in the day for a military ethics class. The easy argument is against torture (and that's what everyone was writing about) so I argued for it instead. I don't actually consider it morally justified; it was just a thought-experiment.

Keep in mind it's a college essay so I was required to discuss certain philosophies. If some references sound forced, it's because it was a syllabus requirement.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=95321546588095183688

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 23, 2016, 03:34:18 PM

Because if you can afford college you don't need money from FAFSA.

You've obviously never needed financial aid. It goes way beyond "are you poor".

Not much farther, actually. EFC is directly tied to income and current assets (including any IRAs, stocks, bonds, account balances, or cash withdrawals [which show up as assets on a tax return anyway]). You can automatically get an zero EFC based on certain income levels of your parents if they're in the lowest tax bracket or qualify for other benefit programs, though.

So yeah, they need to know how much money you have in your account because more money = greater ability to pay for your own education, in which case you don't need money from FAFSA. FAFSA is designed primarily to supplement a household's income, not replace it.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 23, 2016, 01:56:49 PM

You can just save and quit; it takes only a couple button presses. You're not supposed to be able to stop mid-fight, so it resets you to just before the fight as a tradeoff.

Already addressed this.

Not good enough.

At this point I'm not really addressing you, I'm just discussing the mechanic with everyone else.

You don't even need to pause if you're hollow or offline because enemies don't patrol and the game saves your location constantly.

Porn is pretty damaging, tbh.

Quote from: Turkey Sanders on January 22, 2016, 02:32:22 PM

Reading Lost Stars and I'm pretty put-off by how generic it is so far. Random people fall in love and are the best at everything by the age of 16 and every aspect of the plot revolves around how they want to fuck...It's okay for what it is but it's weird they would choose to exhibit a lot of the post-RotJ stuff from such forgettable characters.

Yeah, I'm glad I decided to read Twilight Company instead.

It's worth reading (one of the main characters commands the star destroyer that crashes on Jakku, and they witness basically every major event from the original trilogy), but it has a ton of teen drama shit in it.

So the story is presented through in game items?

There's a bit of dialog and a couple cutscenes, but the lore is fleshed out in item descriptions and general context clues.