How bad does life have to get

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 03:16:13 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:16:51 AM

not if you don't exist

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 03:25:07 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:34:11 AM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 03:25:07 AM

How are you going to ask somebody for permission when they don't exist.

you can't, which is why it's an imposition, which is why it's wrong
there is no paradox

just because they don't exist yet does not erase the fact that you still didn't get consent
you will never get consent, so it is never okay to have kids

very few people have trouble with this logic
only you and kupo

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Not to mention the majority of people you ask would rather be alive than not existing.

that's because the majority of people are religious kooks who don't know any better
and they have their earthly desires and attachments that they cleave

and i would argue that most atheists are crypto-religious

humor me--how do you suspect i have come to this conclusion that life should cease to exist?
how have i been able to stray so far from the majority

Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:36:56 AM

would you want the average man and the average woman as parents?

i sure as fuck wouldn't

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 03:42:50 AM

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challengerX · February 04, 2015, 03:43:49 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:49:34 AM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 03:43:49 AM

Thankfully I have great parents. No, I wouldn't want that. I'd still like to be alive, though.

Not everyone is born with great parents. Very few people are.

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You bring kids into the world because that's what we do. It's how we're here, it's how you're here complaining about being born.

I'm not complaining about being born. I'm rather content with my life. I'm still able to recognize that having children is wrong, though.

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Because you have no attachments?

I have many attachments. I just recognize that they all have no intrinsic value--it's all in my head. That's how it is for everyone. Difference is, I don't act like life is worth living just because I was fortuitous enough to have been born with my life, rather than the life of someone who... was disemboweled at age ten, or some shit.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 03:51:45 AM

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DAS B00T x2 · February 04, 2015, 07:59:17 AM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 03:09:00 AM

You guys have been arguing in circles for 10 pages.

Suffering has value. Of course nobody likes suffering, but we gain understanding from it.

again, this isn't inherently and constantly true.

g💚jira · February 04, 2015, 08:50:14 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on February 04, 2015, 02:57:18 AM

Then "pragmatic" is simply the wrong word to use--I honestly don't believe that abstention from childbirth is really too much to ask, especially considering that the only countries that are reproducing en masse also happen to be the most impoverished and dilapidated shitholes on the planet. So I'm really not asking for much.

Pragmatic is the right word to use in the case of hard antinatalism [i.e. removal of all agents from the universe]. It's not a goal which can be reached on any realistic timescale, and you even agree to that later on in this post.

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I reject the notion that the universe is infinite on its face,

Consensus among scientists is that it's probably infinite. I can provide sourcing if you'd like.

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and I'm really not sure what that has to do with anything. A lot of people try to say that if there's aliens, that's supposed to debunk anti-natalism. Somehow. The existence of sentient beings on other planets somehow justifies the further creation of them.

Obviously. Removing all agents from here => nobody to send the message elsewhere.

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No... it doesn't. It just means that, now, we have this whole universe to clean up.

Exactly my point. That's literally an unattainable goal for humanity at anything near our level of advancement. If you want to clear the entire universe up, you have to retain some agents to, well, do the cleaning.

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Am I just supposed to give up? Don't fight for causes that I believe in? Fuck that shit.

No, you're supposed to realize that even though your philosophy may be right, now is not the right time to enact it on a widespread level. Sure, you could make the case that several countries should adopt [heh] antinatalistic policies, but as said before a species full of antinatalists in our time wouldn't fulfill the goals of the philosophy by any means."Give up and stop spreading your message because it's not a practical goal" isn't what I'm saying [transhumanist dreams wouldn't exist otherwise]. What I am saying is that antinatalism is idealistic and even were I to be on your side regarding the logic behind it, I wouldn't sign on for VHEMT just yet.

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Not necessarily, but preventing a cancer is always going to be a good thing. If there's two cancer patients, and only one patient is gonna live, well, that's the best you could do. That's all I can really ask for. If there's other life out in the universe, we can't do anything about it. Not for centuries, if ever.

Then it becomes a matter of "diluting" antinatalism to a "modern" status, and hard/pure antinatalism is forgone. Antinatalism is a universal quantification should it be true [you can apply every argument made towards human antinatalism to every other species ever, and certainly every other intelligent species that we know of].

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Gotcha, but you needn't worry about me not taking you and your philosophy seriously. I'm just really pressed for time, but I'm not going to dismiss your posts like that.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 09:02:29 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 11:09:51 AM

Quote from: gogojirajira on February 04, 2015, 08:50:14 AM

Consensus among scientists is that it's probably infinite. I can provide sourcing if you'd like.

Please do.

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That's literally an unattainable goal for humanity at anything near our level of advancement. If you want to clear the entire universe up, you have to retain some agents to, well, do the cleaning.

Hence the cancer patient analogy. I don't care much for this all-or-nothing mentality.

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No, you're supposed to realize that even though your philosophy may be right, now is not the right time to enact it on a widespread level.

When there's a single iota of definitive evidence for the existence of sentient extraterrestrial life, I'll concede to that. So, basically, not in my lifetime. A lot of people get all emotional if I even suggest the possibility that we're alone in the universe--but I'm simply applying Occam's razor, nothing more.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 11:28:54 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 11:32:06 AM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 11:28:54 AM

No you're not. We've found bacteria.

Oh wow, I didn't know bacteria was sentient!

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And the fact that you're advocating killing all life in the universe is disgusting.

Good thing I'm actually not doing that.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 11:36:16 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 11:39:31 AM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 11:36:16 AM

If there's bacteria in our galaxy, there's sentient life in the universe.

Yeah. On planet Earth. We know this. Thank you.

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Pretty sure you just did.

Pretty sure telling someone not to have kids is literally the exact opposite of killing someone.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 11:46:28 AM

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Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 12:00:36 PM

Not having kids = Genocide.

K.

More Than Mortal · February 04, 2015, 12:20:51 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on February 03, 2015, 08:48:24 PM

Well, not really. Obviously, two broken legs is worse than one broken leg, and so forth. The idea, as you've been forced to repeat ad nauseam to the ignorant, is that all disutility in accumulation tends to outweigh decisively all that could be considered utility in the world.

I actually realised the problem with that point after I posted it, but I thought I'd let you have a stab at it. I'd amend it from all suffering is equal to the aggregate nature of disutility is static to antinatalists.

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Also, you used the plural there--how many other anti-natalists other than myself have you spoken to? Or read the works of?

I'm nowhere near as clued up on antinatalist philosophy as you are, of course, which is why I'm engaging in this discussion. I have, however, read a bit of Schopenhauer.

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I don't know where you got the idea that all disutility is equal in magnitude from, but it couldn't have been from me.

Yeah, like I said above, I'd amend it to the aggregate nature of disutility being static, in that it will always outweigh utility.

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This assumes that, after we've finally augmented our lives to such an extent that we'll never suffer to any excruciating or gratuitous degree, that life is still something that ought to be experienced by everyone. Not to mention, it's extremely vague--you'd have to outline how to prevent literally every type of significant disutility in order to show that it all can be prevented, because right now, the very notion seems kind of... if not bogus, then totally unfeasible. I just have to ask--what, precisely, will make it worth it in the end? It's not enough to prevent bad shit, you realize. It's good--but now your task lies with justifying the imposition.

I don't need to show how every form of significant disutility could be abolished individually. Experience and emotion necessarily lies in neurology and states of the brain--which are manipulable without question. All forms of disutility have a proximate material cause, which can be altered.

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Why should we continue to keep pulling the unborn from the perfect, sublime, comfy realm that is nonexistence?

You can't reasonable qualify non-existence in such ways.

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I disagree, for pretty much the reasons stated above. After you get significant disutility out of the picture (however it is we manage that), that's not going to remove all the conflict and the bullshit in the world.

It does, necessarily. Assuming neurological manipulation actually affects how we experience the world (duh, unless somebody's a fucking Platonist or something--but who listens to Platonists), then it's possible to remove the causes of conflict and bullshit. You'll never be able to remove all forms of conflict, since some have utility, but zero-sum conflicts (war, for instance) could absolutely be abolished. And your examples of people being fucking retarded and rejecting ideas on some ad hominem basis could, also, be abolished.

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I like the idea of quantifying levels of comfort/discomfort, but you need more than two parameters.

I'm willing to concede that, but it doesn't knock-down the fundamental idea that disutility isn't necessarily static, and will more than likely change in the future.

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You gotta be talking about some crazily advanced technology--practically science fiction.

Which is highly probable in the long-run.

challengerX · February 04, 2015, 01:29:22 PM

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🍁 Aria 🔮 · February 04, 2015, 02:09:35 PM

Someone has to exist to be killed, Chally. The only cause of death in that situation would be father time. I get what you're saying- that he's advocating mass extinction and this could be considered a negative for a species- but that's not the same thing as genocide.

Azumarill · February 04, 2015, 02:22:29 PM

i dont really want to have kids anyway. there is only one constant, guaranteed factor in life, and that is suffering. it would be presumptuous and arrogant to bring someone into this world, by my estimation.

we're reproducing too fast. just look at this... it's fucking ridiculous.

the earth only has so much to give us, and we're taking so much more than we need to... we're overfishing, underground freshwater reservoirs are emptying fast, pollution is hurting our atmosphere. why can't we just form a benign symbiotic relationship with the earth like every other goddamn animal? we have to trim the rate of reproduction and encourage procreation at or below the replacement rate. we dont need this many goddamn humans in the world... how many are already suffering every day? i think the merciful thing is not to reproduce and throw life into this thresher. i wont be a part of the problem.

Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:16:53 PM

Quote from: Prime Meridia on February 04, 2015, 02:09:35 PM

Someone has to exist to be killed, Chally. The only cause of death in that situation would be father time. I get what you're saying- that he's advocating mass extinction and this could be considered a negative for a species- but that's not the same thing as genocide.

I honestly think he's trolling. No one could honestly contrive that genocide involves anything else other than actually killing.

More Than Mortal · February 04, 2015, 03:21:17 PM

Quote from: challengerX on February 04, 2015, 01:29:22 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on February 04, 2015, 12:00:36 PM
Not having kids = Genocide.

K.
Telling a species to stop reproducing is pretty much genocide, yes. Who are you to decide whether they should exist or not?

Is an entire species voluntarily going extinct through abstinence genocide?

Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:22:59 PM

Quote from: Nuka 'Kal Vargun on February 04, 2015, 03:22:21 PM

It wouldn't be voluntary, it'd be forced. That's the only way for it to be possible.

Says you.

More Than Mortal · February 04, 2015, 03:23:35 PM

Quote from: Nuka 'Kal Vargun on February 04, 2015, 03:22:21 PM

It wouldn't be voluntary, it'd be forced. That's the only way for it to be possible.

That's not true; it's logically possible for a species to voluntarily go extinct. There's no contradiction there.

So, would voluntary extinction count as a form of genocide?

Azumarill · February 04, 2015, 03:24:25 PM

i dont think completely annihilating the human race would be the best idea.. i mean, we are really fucking insane, but intelligent life is such a rare thing in the universe, it'd be a shame to throw this all away... we just need to cut the population down to size over the next few generations. we cant let the baby boom happen again. we have to encourage single-child or no-child families.

Verbatim · February 04, 2015, 03:24:54 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on February 04, 2015, 03:23:35 PM

So, would voluntary extinction count as a form of genocide?

No. I don't even know how you could contrive that.

More Than Mortal · February 04, 2015, 03:25:27 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on February 04, 2015, 03:24:54 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on February 04, 2015, 03:23:35 PM
So, would voluntary extinction count as a form of genocide?
No. I don't even know how you could contrive that.

Well I know you and I think that. I want to see what they say.