/lit/ - Literature

>>21703415
>the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent suffering of their children is to not bring those children into existence

False. You exist across infinite parallel universes and cannot prevent yourself or your children from being born infinitely many times.

>>21703415
Yeah, but the problem with his logic is that if all the empathetic people who don't want their children to experience suffering stop having kids, we end up with a world entirely made of scumbags. The number on flaw with antinatalism is that it only works on good people, and if good people leave the world, the world becomes a permanent hellscape where the worst humans imaginable torture all other life forms for eternity. Good people need to have more children, anti-natalists need to have more children, and then those good people need to kill all the bad people.

>>21703415
Only a defective creature seeks to minimize suffering as its primary goal in life.

>>21703415
suffering is nothing in the end,
pain and evil, nothing too,
forgotten in a second of glory

You want to end suffering? what are you, gay?

>>21703415
Reminder that those championing anti-natallist beliefs are likely to be mentally ill and have a personality disorder.

>>21703439
>>21703435
>>21703427
Demons wearing stolen skin.

>>21703415
even the literal homosexual French existentialists are less gay than your dumb fuck ideology OP

>>21703457
These types are the last people from whom you'd wish to receive wisdom (even as it relates to Benatar's quality of life argument).

>>21703457
Basically, they have a defective mindset colouring their worldview which renders them incapable of measured discussion.

>>21703476
>>21703457
Stop samefagging, faggot. If you're on /lit/ you are mentally ill. You aren't normal, so stop larping as whatever it is that you're larping as. You're an autistic freak, deal with it.

>>21703481
>absolutely seething
Imagine trying to boost your ego by convincing strangers on the internet life is a mistake. Kek.

Being called mentally ill means nothing when you realize that most people believe in delusions. Everyone is mad, birth is trauma that you never can recover from.

>>21703457
Their argument:
>antinatalists central claim is that life is harm
>they argue that you have to be alive to feel pleasure and stress this isn't guaranteed
>they argue that if you're not alive you are guaranteed not to suffer/harm
>[no guarentee of pleasure, risk of suffering/harm, therefore nonexistence is best = basic thread of argument]
>note: they also like to being up that the fact you don't have a choice in coming into existence
>they conclude that not reproducing and ending life is the optimal outcome to reduce harm

Why they're refuted:
>antinatalists can't validate their central claim as they cannot weigh the total value of life in aggregate (the best they can do is assert individual bad things happen)
>[this is all the refutation that is needed: they cannot draw logic, let alone an extreme conclusion, from a central claim they are unable to prove; simple as--but lets go on to point out their bad logic]
>they place the weight of guaranteed outcomes on detractors but they don't have prescience to forsee the outcome/value of individual lives (let alone the aggregate of all life which they are assuming) but...
>antinatalists are attempting to prove their conclusion and thereby the onus is on them produce a stable logic based on a proven premise
>however, any single example of value in life automatically contravienes their premise and contradicts the logic they attempt to assert
>[antinatalists are generally filtered by this because they still affirm their premise even though reason has been given to reject it]
>we may come to the idea of suicide and ending life (which is logically coherent with their outlook while showing their values are actually incosistent)
>suicide automatically means an end to suffering, any harm caused doesn't exist for the victim (aside, the absence of existence means you can't even weigh such anyway)
>denial of suicide is an affirmation that value exists in life (or else why not? note that they won't even admit that suffering is short relative to continued existence, they really want to avoid clearly weighing anything)
>if the antinatalist says it affects others a consistent logic follows that they kill them as well (the sooner the better in fact--stop them from reproducing which puts an end to countless future lives)
>alas, the anti-natalist will assert their original logic no longer applies once they are alive (again, affirming the value of existing and demonstrating their logic can actually be harmful)
>the last bastion is they HAD no choice to exist (convienently it doesn't matter that they have one now) but again there are plenty of examples of lives worth living

Ahh

>>21703494
Why antinatalists are retarded:
>no matter how many times you point out how AND why their premise is ungrounded they will still assert you must argue within the logic it sets out
>no matter how many times you point out the logic is inconsistent they retreat to the idea of their unfounded premise and assert it follows naturally
>no matter the absurdities you can show as consistent with their reasoning (i.e. you shouldn't kill yourself let alone others) they will simply change the rules
>life is valuable once it exists and yet we need to stop it from existing...that's what their bullshit boils down to and it's utterly stupid

At this point it's worthwhile to point out antinatalists will ignore strong arguments against their case and use any excuse to stay within their own logic. It must also be noted that trolls responses of "I guess I'll kill myself and others" are retarded: the point is life is valuable and you fail to prove otherwise. You affirm an extreme conclusion, ending all life, based on a demonstrably flawed premise and inconsistent logic. Refuted. Stop making these retarded threads now.

>>21703481
holy mother of projection

the only solution to the n*talist problem

>>21703479
This implies that there is such a thing as a defined healthy mindset, that contemporary normies possess it and that this makes them uniquely authoritative regarding philisophical value judgments and deciding the correct set of normative ethics.

If this were the case we could simply solve ethics by opinion polls upon the rabble.

>>21703505
If you were normal and well-adjusted you wouldn't be on this website. I know not everyone who has ever posted on 4chan is an autist, but the majority are, so if you are neurotypical and posting here, you are doing so for an audience of autists, making you a weirdo. If you were normal you would use instagram and that's it.

>>21703515
Nope. It implies that people who profess anti-natalist beliefs are likely to suffer from depression alongside having psychopathic/Machiavellian tendencies (i.e. the last people you'd want pontificating about how we should view quality of life in relation to Benatar's arguments). Cope.

>>21703525
>muh secret club for autists
yeah maybe back in 2007 dumbass. i heard a normie girl talking about 4chan this week

>>21703525
>If you were normal and well-adjusted you wouldn't be on this website.
All the more relevance/credence to the research finding that anti-natalists are socially dysfunctional mentally ill midwits with personality disorders.

>>21703415
why are philosophers still denying evolution? is it because evolution makes philosophy obsolete?

the reason parents don't want children to suffer is because if they suffer they are in danger and danger means death.

Of course parents want their children to not suffer so they can be healthy and survive.

>>21703547
>It implies that people who profess anti-natalist beliefs are likely to suffer from depression alongside having psychopathic/Machiavellian tendencies
And what makes you think those individuals are less capable of sound judgment? If anything there’s some evidence suggesting depressive realism.

>>21703577
>thinks the pseudoscientific field of evolutionary psychology somehow overcomes the is/ought problem
You need more philosophy desu

>>21703600
>If anything there’s some evidence suggesting depressive realism.
Evidence suggests the opposite according to replicated research and all the background material reviewed by those involved (>>21703476/>>21703479). The paper specifically addresses that in some detail by the way. Keep coping.

>>21703479
Got a link to the paper? This meshes nicely with Metzinger’s idea that a benevolent artificial intelligence free from human biological drives would make us extinct for our own good.

https://www.edge.org/conversation/thomas_metzinger-benevolent-artificial-anti-natalism-baan

>>21703628
How do they argue that people with those traits are less good at value judgements? How is the validity of these value judgements measured?

>>21703494
Pretty much every major religion agrees that life is deeply unpleasant. The Abrahamic religions say we're born of sin; Buddhism that life is dissatisfaction. Call it an appeal to authority, but experience tells us that life is necessarily rife with suffering. It seems to me, at the very least, that while pain is a necessary part of life, pleasure is not. After all, what is pleasure but relief from some kind of dissatisfaction?

>>21703499
Not perpetuating live isn't tantamount to causing the forceful cessation of a life.

>>21703641
This is a good point actually, it seems that is only the secular moderns have to pretend life is more jolly than it is and have to be dismissive of suffering since they have no metanarrative that justifies the suffering of a human life in some greater picture.

>>21703423
>>21703427
Good objections

>>21703457
>>21703494
Unsound objections

>>21703652
The “defective creature” one belongs in the unsound category because treating natural selection as teleological and even ethically normative is silly and unwarranted.

>>21703641
>fixate on suffering and pretend that's all the world's major religions focus on
>>21703630
>https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/09515089.2021.1946026
>>21703652
>filtered
Aggregate is relevant to anti-natalism because it underscores the sleight of hand taking place. No existence = no harm is a tautology. However, what they're actually arguing is that life should not exist because harm exists. To fairly argue this point the onus is on them to prove that the aggregate of life is harm (i.e. the tautology doesn't allow you to make such an assertion automatically and the best you can do to prove such is to cherry-pick extreme examples). So, the extreme conclusion that life should not exist can't be set out in detail and they have to retreat to an abstract tautology to carry the weight instead of their argument. Simple as.

We can go beyond that for how the argument plays out in the face of the most common criticism in these threads. When suicide is brought up the standard deflection is that the rules have changed in relation to life which now has value (i.e. creating non-existence is a harm). However, it's logically valid to assert that you will not have access to this supposed harm and that preventing others from facing it (e.g. by killing them) grants them access to non-existence and therefore the absence of harm. It also may prevent them from creating more life (and more harm) and if you extrapolate this out you can argue the harm you avoid by offering non-existence outweighs any short duration of harm created in the immediant.

So that's the problem with anti-natalism. It's adherents think you have to refute a tautology that defines harm as something that can only come to be if existence exists. However, the conclusion they're arguing is that life should not continue because it creates harm. Therefore, you have to demonstrate that the extent of harm relating to life justifies the idea that it shouldn't continue. When suicide is brought up anti-natalist admit the implicit value of life and change the rules (retreating to the tautology once again). Aside, there's the evidence that anti-natalists have a warped perception of reality due to depression and personality disorders that taints their ability to interpret Benatar's ideas.

>>21703571
>>21703576
>because normies know what 4chan is, that means the people posting on it are normies
The vast majority of visitors to 4chan are lurkers, they open up the website, look at a thread or two, and then leave. If you are here long enough to make a thread, reply to a thread, you are mentally ill. Accept it, deal with it. You aren't normal.

>>21703425
This is true. Anti-natalists will never succeed in ending all human life (they don't even have an actual plan anyway) so the rational thing to do if you are inclined to anti-natalism is ironically to have more kids. The only way you can stop the neverending tide of evil is to 1) perform good acts and 2) produce more of yourself, because the only thing child-free cuckoldry will do is guarantee the shitbags prevail.

We are living in a garbage dump of malignant souls but this doesn't have to be the case if the good people outbreed the bad people. The positive way to look at it is that unfortunately, evolution has selected for pieces of shit to flourish and create capitalistic slavery, or communistic slavery, or all the other forms of evil. But that's just because the human stock has been bad so far. Now it's time to improve the human stock by having kids.

>>21703663
it’s the fact that these people are a minority and will be replaced by the majority which loves life. So it’s a non-issue for us normal folks. I don’t want to change their minds, I just want to show them that their opinion is subjective and has no bearing on the “objective” truth for all of us.

>>21703415
>suffering
>existing
That's a cute idea and all, I guess, but no one with an IQ above room temperature actually believes it.

>>21703481
>You aren't normal
I'm here to collect data on you otherthans, lmao, don't get me confused with you.

>>21703706
gay

>>21703668
A lot of words to say very little. As far as I know, there's nothing to suggest that the depressed are incapable of reasoning soundly. Many significant philosophers have been deeply depressed or otherwise atypical.

You failed to refute any of my points; you just sidestepped the fact that the largest religious tradition in the world (and what is a more accurate repository of phylogenic experience than tradition) explains existence as the product of sin. Moreover, you failed to address Schopenhauer's point that happiness is negative. Instead of trying to dismiss the anti-natalist problem, why don't you make a constructive argument.

>>21703706
You are what you eat, monkey see, monkey do. The company you keep is who you are. Sorry, but that's reality.

>>21703689
>it’s the fact that these people are a minority and will be replaced by the majority which loves life.
If this were the case, it would have happened already. In order to deal with the anti-natalist problem, you have to advert to something above materialism, as it is certainly the case that joy is scarce and suffering is abundant.

>>21703415
i agree
only extinction can mend all wounds

>>21703423
Stop watching cartoons.

>>21703425
Not my nor my non-existent progeny’s problem, that’s something your kids will have to deal with. May God have mercy on their souls.

>>21703754
You have no empathy for all the pigs, cows, and chickens that will be enslaved by the sick fucks you refuse to kill? Anti-natalists need to get physical and form an army.

>>21703731
>As far as I know, there's nothing to suggest that the depressed are incapable of reasoning soundly.
Depression combined with psychopathy/Machivellianism is overrepresented in those whom subscribe to anti-natalism. This effects the way they're likely to interpret Benatar's arguments (which is relevant due to the fact they in part ask one to reflect on quality of life). I never made the claim that anti-natalists are socially defective and thereby Benatar's philosopical argument is incorrect. I pointed out the fact that evaluating aspects related to his argument is likely not something for which proponents of anti-natalism are well-equiped (this according to the researchers involved in the study posted above).
>you just sidestepped the fact that the largest religious tradition in the world
The fact suffering exists doesn't prove your conclusion and focusing on that sole aspect as it relates to religion betrays a one-sided personal bias when it comes to the subject. Simple as.
>why don't you make a constructive argument
I did. Antinatalists use a tautology (non-existence = no suffering) to carry the weight of their extreme conclusion (life should stop existing). Their hidden premise is that the sum of all life, taken in aggregate, is harm. They can't prove this premise and therefore their conclusion is unsubstantiated. Antinatalists are retarded because they want you to refute a tautology and will deny any argument that calls into question their conclusion.

>>21703792
This only goes for the utilitarian antinatalists though, which aren’t the only type.

>>21703792
You're misrepresenting my claim. It's not just that suffering exists, but that suffering and insufficiency are the genesis of intelligent life and therefore essential to it. You've also failed to address Schopenhauer's argument twice now.

>>21703415
Don't care, wanna be a dad some day.

>>21703858
>gets angry when someone refuses a slide
>ignores other people's arguments
>claims his argument has been ignored
Antinatalists don't mean to be disingenuous (they're just retarded).

>>21703768
Why? My world dies with me anyway. I reiterate: not my problem.

This thread is part of what’s wrong with this board at this point anyway, so I will not be posting or monitoring further. Good luck to you.

>>21703887
Based.

>>21703882
Obviously, you're not arguing in good faith. You're making exactly the mistake that you accuse anti-natalists of. You're retardedly insisting that the only way to argue life is harmful is with a fucking excel spreadsheet that quantifies and sums all the harm and good in the world; and you're refusing to engage with any argument that doesn't concede your stupid premise.

>>21703882
I didn't need to read the rest of your argument because your first premise is so incredibly stupid. It's funny because I'm not even an anti-natalist.

>>21703700
I hope you get cancer

>>21703876
I hope your child is born with down syndrome so you'll have to live with it for the rest of your life, disgusting breeder.

>>21703876
that's gay

There are more pleasurable experiences in life compared to the amount of suffering
If you really think otherwise and go boohoo all the time, just kill yourself and relieve yourself of that suffering.

>>21703963
>There are more pleasurable experiences in life compared to the amount of suffering

t. never read Schopenhauer

>>21703973
I don't care what he says.

>>21703982
The same way you don't care that your kids will suffer. Not surprised.

>>21704002
>you don't care that your kids will suffer
They won't suffer though?

>>21703415
mans gotta cope so im gon have ton of kids like a football team. ion care bout their suffering, g. what bout my suffering? mans gotta cope, antinatalist gotta cope if can't rope.

>>21703425
this is true, antinatilism increases suffering. Benatar is an utilitarist so he should accept this as an agurment against antinatalism

I have not created an infinity of children thus spearing an infinity of beings from an infinity of different types of sufferings. I am now going to go take all my good boy points and fuck the mother of the author of the book to death (also saving her from all the suffering she might have potentially endured if her life span was any longer).

>>21704021
the true suffering of the world is caused by the maladjusted (read Darlymple's The Frivolity of Evil), which, in turn, are children of bad parents. If only that type of person is having children the world becomes chaos, good and welladjusted people should have a lot more children not less. This is a problem today because intelligent and well off people are trying to save the planet not having children while poor folk are having lots and lots of children, mostly single moms. You can guess what the future holds for us.

>>21703900
>no matter how many times you point out how AND why their premise is ungrounded they will still assert you must argue within the logic it sets out
>At this point it's worthwhile to point out antinatalists will ignore strong arguments against their case and use any excuse to stay within their own logic
>>21703903
>seething so hard he needs to reply twice
I responded to your argument. I ignored your slide. You ignored everything because anti-natalists are retarded.

>>21703425
>>21703683
If you do have a child, it will suffer without a doubt. But in the grand scheme of life and the universe it will almost certainly make no difference whatsoever. The odds of your child suffering are 100%. The odds of your individual child improving the human condition are infinitesimal.

I'm not sure it's rational to roll the dice when they're loaded like that.

>>21704204
This would be a solid argument if that's all life was (just suffering) but it isn't. There is hardship and suffering but also happiness, love, and joy.

Life is worth living despite suffering and the greatest testaments to mankind's existence are brought out from/during hardship and suffering.

I think antinatalists are incredibly weak, cowardly, and spineless individuals. Every fiber in my being is repulsed by their position.

>>21704204
your body parts will decay and become part of earthly matter. "you" don't ever die. sometimes i really think that schopenhauer was right.

>>21704033
Thank you sir do the needful sir

>>21704270
Anti-natalists come off like a cringe teenager screaming "I NEVER ASKED TO BE BORN, MOM!" after being told they're too young to take the car out after 10PM.

>>21704242
I think you're making a different argument against antinatalism. You're saying having a children can be good for the individual children who are born. Others earlier in the thread were saying that having children was important for the sake of humanity - even (especially) for those who hold antinatalist views.

I was trying to say that if you do hold antinatalist views and you do care about preventing your child's suffering, and then you compare the miniscule probability of your individual child making a contribution to human welfare against the absolute certainty of your child suffering, then you're not left with much of a reason to have that child. The trade-off is utterly lopsided and not worth it, in that case.

>>21703515
Yes, that is the basic assumption of all psychological research and treatment.

>>21704204
not true, suffering is largely caused by humans as is the opposite of suffering also caused largely by humans, the grand scheme of the universe doesnt matter, it doesnt diminish individual happiness as it doesnt diminish individual suffering

>>21704291
youre diminishing people's capacity of diminish suffering and increasing general well being, its as great as the capacity to do the opposite
less good people having children increases chaos in the world, it lowers the number of people willing to improve living conditions for others, and thats what antinatalism will achieve, cause people willing to be antinatalist are mostly good people

>>21703423
Fpbp

>>21703415
For some reason this reminds me of my aunt with Parkinson's. She used to say that life is about offspring, having children, a legacy.
But her beliefs failed her, her only son committed suicide.
She also said that suffering makes people stronger but she once cut herself on something and blood was coming out and she was squealing like a bitch clinging to life like a cuck.
If she really was strong, she would have killed herself by now, she's just a burden on everyone.

>>21703415
There's no point preventing suffering if there isn't anything good to begin with.

>YOU ARE SUFFERING
>YOUR CHILDREN WILL SUFFER
>YOU DO NOT GET TO DECIDE IF THIS IS THE CASE OR NOT
what's with this nigga?

>>21703750
>One kid on the short bus says to the other
>"You're retarded!"
You are both of the children

>>21703887
>Not my problem
You are probably a Jew.

>>21704509
You are probably circumcised and "da joos" are your perpetual scapegoat for whatever personal failures you refuse to accept

We have enough people in the world. As far as I can tell, the only reason we need to keep pumping the numbers is so we have more slaves for the machine. Your kids will suffer unless they’re privileged and even then they’ll still suffers. Bringing a kid into this world just so they can be a slave is quite cruel.

>>21704387
It doesn't strike me as fair to a potential child to bring it into existence because you think it might improve the lives of others, while discounting the impact that being born will have on the child itself. But that's what people who argue in favor of having kids for the sake of the species seem to me to be doing.

Still, even looking exclusively at the impact a child will have on the world, it's not at all clear to me that there is a good argument against antinatalism there. There is a fundamental optimism in your view, but antinatalists are pessimistic. Even saying that a child is equally as likely to increase general wellbeing as to decrease it strikes me as wildly optimistic. Most people do not lead altruistic lives of service, most people are competitive and self-interested and content with a social arrangement that benefits them at the expense of others. Even a good-natured, intelligent child with pure intentions might become a scientist who inadvertently contributes to the development of some horrific new kind of weapon. And many antinatalists are vegans, but you can't ensure that a child will become and remain vegan for an entire lifetime. So if your child goes on to eat thousands of animals, that's a significant amount of suffering that's now been brought about. Not for humans, but you can be an antinatalist for all creatures that can suffer, not just humans.

But again, I don't think it's fair to ignore the personal experience of the child. And from the standard antinatalist perspective, there's a lot of suffering found within even an average life. If you think about having a child, from the antinatalist perspective, you are probably already factoring in the reality of that child's death. You are considering that this child will lose people they love (or worse, have no one to love). You are thinking about the possibility of that child lying on a hospice bed, in great pain, with no hope of getting better. This child of yours might be drafted into a war, or raped. And these are not unusual fates. All of those pains are part of what you consider when assessing the amount of suffering that will result from the choice to procreate. The individual suffering of the child is part of the calculation, and it's the most important part.

>>21703457
>"Replication"
>STOP IT PATRICK YOU'RE SCARING HIM

>>21703743
The environment is constantly changing. Some people aren’t fit for modern society

What's with retard adjacent types accusing anti natalism of being an agenda pushed by elites? (Georgia guidestone)
......elites want less retarded low skilled dysgenic golemites living in cage homes? ....

If anything elites want more people that's abundantly clear.

>>21703689
>I just want to show them that their opinion is subjective and has no bearing on the “objective” truth for all of us.
Normal people aren't stupid enough to think in a hive/Npc mode, doing things they want (animal instinct) instead of doing things for a reason (moral), you fucking idiot
Oh wait...

>>21704330
Not precisely. That psychologist who influenced Hitler believed that the masses were fucking stupid and ruled the world. Therefore they should be controlled in favor of brilliant people.

>>21703439
>Something fundamentally disturbing, something uncanny and unsettling, is embedded in the heart of religion itself. It comes out most pointedly in those religious contexts and traditions where the very idea of divine reality is framed and experienced as somehow fearsome, as something that confronts humankind with what we might anachronistically describe as a proto-Lovecraftian sense of metaphysical revulsion at the revelation of “things that should not be.”

>In the face of all this, why do people today ask about the connection between religion and horror? Why do so many of us moderns find it odd or shocking to hear this deep linkage called out and explicitly identified, when it would be more reasonable to ask if these two things have ever NOT been connected?

>Perhaps — and here I may simply be indulging my own temperament and mistaking it for insight; or maybe I’m really onto something (I invite my readers to judge for themselves) — perhaps it has to do with an unconscious recognition that only a few have ever named aloud. This recognition is simultaneously implicit and explicit in all of those great biblical images of a wrathful God whose transcendent nature is categorically other than the natural world, so that even though this nature is termed “holiness,” a word that conjures notions of supernatural light and love, it emerges in human experience an an eruption of supernatural nightmarishness that is fundamentally corrosive both to the world at large and to the human sensibility in particular. In other words, perhaps the reluctance to acknowledge the religion-horror connection has to do with a psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement at the intuition that the divine itself, not just in its conventionally demonic aspects but in its intrinsic essence, may be fundamentally menacing.

- The Uncanny Convergence of Religion and Horror,
Reflections on a haunted universe

>>21704956
>It wasn't supposed to be a documentary

>>21703423
>i didn't murder her, your honor, she still lives in parallel universes

>>21705068
>>Perhaps — and here I may simply be indulging my own temperament and mistaking it for insight; or maybe I’m really onto something (I invite my readers to judge for themselves) — perhaps it has to do with an unconscious recognition that only a few have ever named aloud. This recognition is simultaneously implicit and explicit in all of those great biblical images of a wrathful God whose transcendent nature is categorically other than the natural world, so that even though this nature is termed “holiness,” a word that conjures notions of supernatural light and love, it emerges in human experience an an eruption of supernatural nightmarishness that is fundamentally corrosive both to the world at large and to the human sensibility in particular. In other words, perhaps the reluctance to acknowledge the religion-horror connection has to do with a psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement at the intuition that the divine itself, not just in its conventionally demonic aspects but in its intrinsic essence, may be fundamentally menacing.
If you want the truth about this idea, all you have to do is skim through the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and closest remaining texts to the true primordial tradition. But the idea of horror, love and hate, and all of the other dualities, are human inventions which are imputed to the divinity from the human perspective. The Being, whose glory (maya) is literally this world in its entirety (yet is not this world), is not going to be completely palatable to the human being is mired in the duality of pleasure and pain, good and bad.

>>21703423
Based

>>21703415
What is your endgame? Convince everyone to not have children or convince yourself? Feel morally superior by arguing with everyone else? Murder all going-to-be parents? What is it?

Antinatalists are never going to convince normies of their position by rational argument and neither will it happen the other way around. Both are just building theoretical frameworks around intuitive, emotional positions.

But this is all of normative ethics, it’s just a competition at sophistry around claims that aren’t truth-apt in the first place. It’s a lot of effort for no result to bicker about this though so make sure you enjoy it or do something else.

>>21705085
>Murder all going-to-be parents
I would if I could get away with it. Bringing children into this world is worse than killing people.

>>21705081
Unheimlich is far beyond any simple dualistic good/evil paradigm

The uncanny is where monsters and freakish grotesque creatures originated

>>21704168
If we can demonstrate that harm is an essential part of life, then it seems like we're closer to proving the anti-natalist premise without having to "aggregate harm", whatever the fuck that means. I'm not much of a philosopher, but Schopenhauer makes sound arguments to this point in studies in pessimism. But for some reason you don't want to talk about that. Not even saying anti-natalists are right, just that your objection does not hold up, just that they've identified a legitimate problem that can't be so easily dismissed. That is, we are hardwired for discontentment, and dissatisfaction is suffering.

>>21705133
>I would if I could get away with it. Bringing children into this world is worse than killing people.
I doubt you would even if you could. Killing requires some amount of will and self-respect.

>>21703415
literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater

>>21705185
-> >>21705068

>>21703638
Still waiting for an answer.

>>21704648
It has been replicated, retard.

I feel like antinatalists are too humanist/anthropocentric and should include (wild) animal suffering in their considerations. It’s not obvious that reducing or removing humanity from the equation would lead to less net suffering on earth. If anything we’re the only organism so far that could serve as a sort of secular boddhisattva steward of sentient life that serves to diminish all forms of suffering.

>>21705441
https://reducing-suffering.org/strategic-considerations-moral-antinatalists/

Good article on the subject, everyone with negative utilitarian intuitions should read Tomasik to clarify their ethics.

>>21703750
>aw jeez rick, we shouldnt have been born.

lol lmao

>>21705441
It's funny that antinatalism is basically one of the hacky fail states of an AI tasked with reducing suffering. If we extinguish all life, then no more suffering ezpz!

>>21705523
Yes Metzinger argued this, it's a pretty reasonable thing for a benevolent AI without human biological trappings and blind spots to conclude desu.

>>21705155
>no matter how many times you point out how AND why their premise is ungrounded they will still assert you must argue within the logic it sets out
>"If we can demonstrate that harm is an essential part of life..."
>At this point it's worthwhile to point out antinatalists will ignore strong arguments against their case and use any excuse to stay within their own logic
>"we're closer to proving the anti-natalist premise without having to "aggregate harm", whatever the fuck that means"
Retard.

>>21705733
Can you help me out and explain to me what I'm missing, since I'm clearly a retard? Here's how I'm trying to motivate the anti-natalist premise:
>Happiness is a negative quality. That is, it consists of relief from some kind of suffering.
>So suffering always precedes happiness.
>In that case, even if we always get what we want, suffering must exist in equal measure with happiness, because suffering is a precondition for happiness.
>So, by your calculus, there is no net benefit in an ideal world where every desire is fully satisfied.
>I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't get what I want all the time.
>QED, life is harmful to the living.

A possible counter-objection:
>To reduce the value of human life to aggregate pleasure and pain is reductive. This is clearly the case because it is generally accepted that intelligent life has a special kind of value that the life of an animal does not. Yet there is nothing to suggest that people and animals differ in their capacity to experience pleasure and pain. Therefore, it must be the case that human life has some other kind of unique value.

>By producing an account of this value, we can refute the anti-natalist problem.

>>21704710
It's not like a genetic trait. The argument must have some real merit, since anti-natalists necessarily deselect themselves, but it persists anyways.

>>21703415
I disagree, suffering is actually good and the more people suffer the happier I am.

>>21705854
t. Demiurge/parent

>>21705853
The genetic trait could go something life “if your life is shit, then give up and blame the world for your failures.” Such a trait could be present in many natalists who just happen to not have shitty lives. It could also just be a product of low intelligence mixed with other predispositions for low fitness. You would think incels would have already been wiped out by now, and yet here they are.

One of Cioran's most direct remarks on this subject (he has other, similarly direct remarks elsewhere):

The notion that it would have been better never to exist is among those which meet with the most opposition. Every man, incapable of seeing himself except from inside, regards himself as necessary, even indispensable, every man feels and perceives himself as an absolute reality, as a whole, as the whole. The moment we identify ourselves entirely with our own being, we react like god, we ARE god. It is only when we live at once within and on the margins of ourselves that we can conceive, quite calmly, that it would have been preferable that the accident we are should never have occurred.

If nothing else, he's quite right about the instinctive revulsion for the idea itself, which frequently gives way to insults, emotional appeals, and so forth, directed against any who would seriously suggest it. In short, to subjective outbursts. Cioran instead suggests that the reader consider the idea calmly and objectively, on its own merits.

Ironically, in this suggestion Cioran contradicts himself. Elsewhere he is very fond of pure subjective, emotional, lyrical outbursts, and has nothing but contempt for calm philosophizing. Here, the reverse. I am confident that he was aware of this contradiction, and unconcerned with consistency. He says as much.

>>21703415
The greatest joy about having children is transmitting your knowledge, your skills and your ideas onto them so they can carry on. This isn't possible today: you are simply paying to maintain the child while the State provides for his "education" which is entirely aimed at benefitting the system itself and not you. As a parent you are in fact supposed to reinforce whatever ideas the State had programmed your child with, or the child will be ostracized and you will be condemned for being a bad parent. Within the context of modern society there's not even the question of being antinatalist: you're not having your own children to begin with, you are simply providing seed or an uterus to create another slave of the system. And this child (taking a page off 1984) will be the first to police you for dissident ideas, because he's trained to be loyal to the system and not you. It's not your child, it's a changeling, a cuckoo's egg.

natalists love to shitpost smugly in these threads but they're fighting the inevitable, antinatalists are on the winning side of history.

>>21705971
based and refreshing angle

>>21703415
An excerpt from Benatar's book:

>While much progress has been made in helping those who are marginalized by society and who have been historically discriminated against, these efforts have ignored those who are the most marginalized. To date, efforts have focused on women, people of color, and people of different gender orientations and identities. Who is missing from these efforts of empowerment? Those who have not yet received existence. The most marginalized of all are those who are ontologically marginalized. Yes, the LGBTQIA+ or the African American suffers, but they at least have the ability to suffer, owing to the fact that they exist. Those who have no existence, however, are not able even to suffer. Our priority must first be to empower those who do not exist to exist. Only when everyone who is capable of existence has been brought into existence, empowered with ontological being, should we focus our efforts are helping those who do exist.

>>21705825
>unjustified focus that centralizes suffering
>constructs a false dichotomy
>asserts an unverifiable claim
>constructs a strawman
>begs the question
Does that help? I'm bored to I'll now acknowledge your slide: Schopenhauer's advice on being happy is verifiably bullshit and bares a striking simularity to the negative ideation putting anti-natalists at a poverty when judging anti-natalist claims (as per >>21703476/>>21703479). It's a slide but at least I've related it to the subject matter now instead of it being just an appeal to authority.

>>21705825
>inb4 you confuse referencing research and relating it's contents to a discussion with asserting something is correct because someone says so (i.e. "NO YOU APPEAL TO AUTH")

>>21703415
>He has a point, you know.
In what way does he have a point?

>>21706667
Unfun things are unfun.

>>21706675
That's not a point, and that's common sense.

>>21705971
>And this child (taking a page off 1984) will be the first to police you for dissident ideas, because he's trained to be loyal to the system and not you.
You can see it so hard right know that it's not funny anymore.

>>21705971
>The greatest joy about having children is transmitting your knowledge, your skills and your ideas onto them so they can carry on. This isn't possible today: you are simply paying to maintain the child while the State provides for his "education" which is entirely aimed at benefitting the system itself and not you. As a parent you are in fact supposed to reinforce whatever ideas the State had programmed your child with, or the child will be ostracized and you will be condemned for being a bad parent. Within the context of modern society there's not even the question of being antinatalist: you're not having your own children to begin with, you are simply providing seed or an uterus to create another slave of the system. And this child (taking a page off 1984) will be the first to police you for dissident ideas, because he's trained to be loyal to the system and not you. It's not your child, it's a changeling, a cuckoo's egg.

>>21706782
>You can see it so hard right know that it's not funny anymore.

The book that buck broken the /lit/ religous cucks.

>>21703425
> a world entirely made of scumbags
Fuck em, its their problem then, fucking assholes! Should have sterilized those fucks when we had a chance.

>>21705854
If only humans beings existed, I would be okay with this.

>>21703415
>people go to great lengths to spare their children from sufferi-

All health, beauty, intelligence, and social grace has been teased from a vast butcher’s yard of unbounded carnage, requiring incalculable eons of massacre to draw forth even the subtlest of advantages. This is not only a matter of the bloody grinding mills of selection, either, but also of the innumerable mutational abominations thrown up by the madness of chance, as it pursues its directionless path to some negligible preservable trait, and then — still further — of the unavowable horrors that ‘fitness’ (or sheer survival) itself predominantly entails. We are a minuscule sample of agonized matter, comprising genetic survival monsters, fished from a cosmic ocean of vile mutants, by a pitiless killing machine of infinite appetite. (This is still, perhaps, to put an irresponsibly positive spin on the story, but it should suffice for our purposes here.)

>>21707667
Fuck

>>21705482
Imagine an episode where they travel from one reality to another, killing versions of themselves, just so they can travel back in time in their own universe and prevent their own existance once and for all.

>>21707667
disgusting

>>21704509
rent fucking free

>>21703415
Is there a more Jewish ideology than anti natalism?

>>21708860
Yes, natalism

>>21708860
Nazism and communism

>>21703457
>mentally ill
Buzzword
>personality disorde
Another buzzword

>>21709101
This, mental illness is just a variety of categories of ways in which someone might not be a good breeder wageslave.

>>21705441
This thread started with Benatar and he does believe it's wrong to bring any sentient being into existence.

>>21709560
Yes, focussing only on "bringing into existence" is the wrong approach I believe. It's like Singer's famous drowning toddler in a shallow pond. If you can save him but refuse to you're an accomplice to his death, even though you're not his father. If your reasons for antinatalism are of the negative utilitarian kind, this opens up a way broader and more complex moral landscape than merely not cooming into a fertile lady.

Tomasik wrote extensively on this: https://reducing-suffering.org

>>21703415
>"It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent suffering of their children is TND"

He has a point, you know.

>>21706492
>unjustified focus that centralizes suffering
>constructs a false dichotomy
>asserts an unverifiable claim
Definitely. That's what I was getting at with the counter-objection, and I think the most intuitive way to deal with anti-natalism. After all, it seems pretty cynical to dismiss the anti-natalist argument as, at bottom, being grounded on a fallacy and explaining it away as a product of mental illness. It makes more sense to me that anti-natalists are identifying a well-known philosophical problem but resolving it in a defective way.

>>21710572
>It makes more sense to me that anti-natalists are identifying a well-known philosophical problem but resolving it in a defective way.
That's charitable, but as astute as you are, you know that their resolution is only currently proved defective in the arena of your opinion, which may be a construct born of conditioning, matter, but not objective truth. You should admit that the part that assumes they're wrong is close cousins to the part which is disgusted.

or not, whatever

>>21710610
>but not objective truth.
Good philosophy rarely is

>>21703425
>implying bad people give birth only to bad people
Wew lad

>>21707667
hopefully the mohel didn't give him herpes

>>21710572
The point is that it can be explained in that way. The problem with these threads is that anti-natalists repeatedly post them as if their conclusion is irrefutable and demand that you refute a tautology instead of their argument. They attempt to monopolize how all arguments relating to the tautology must be framed and in order to even broach the subject in a constructive way you have to demonstrate that they don't have ownership on the parameters of the discussion. To do this you highlight the hidden premise that needs to be proven in order to affirm the extreme conclusion they are asserting and bring up the fact that those likely to champion anti-natalism represent a cognitive minority with a bias toward negative ideation (which is relevant to Benatar's quality of life argument).

>>21707667
this is literally so that you can't tell jews apart from the goyim in case you're looking for them
I have no idea why Americans do this except they say it's sanitary which is retarded, do you not wash yourselves? Do you cut off your ears too to prevent earwax? what a fucking retarded country

>>21711048
I appreciate what you're doing, and at the very least, it seems like we've managed to have some constructive discussion on the topic.

>>21707667
>its ok to mutilated children as long as its male
>t. jews, feminists, muslims, americans, etc

>>21710770
Don't forget the kind of upbringing this child will receive from these kinds of people.

>>21703415
Anon, aren't you aware that people existed before they were born? The greatest gift you can give your child is a life as a human being, thus giving them the opportunity to become enlightened and exit samsara.

>>21710760
I used "objective truth" for want of anything else, but my brain stalled. Let's say "the best course of action" instead.

>>21707667
This is sickening

>>21711615
Redpill me on Buddhism/Hinduism/Samsara

>>21711805
Good entry point.

>>21703415
You could also kill your children with carbon monoxide poisoning while they sleep. So there's at least two ways, Benatar!

>>21711087
>this is literally so that you can't tell jews apart from the goyim in case you're looking for them
What's ironic is that the current form of circumcision Jews practice was specifically designed so that they COULDN'T blend in. If they wanted to blend in, you would think it would be easier to go back to the Biblical milah-stype circumcision where they only remove the tip of the foreskin.

If being alive is so bad, then kill yourself. You won't because you're just an edgy moping little faggot.
Telling an antinatalist to kill themselves is the ultimate refutation, if they don't go and jump off a building immediately then you know they are full of shit.

>>21703668
>>21712724
>implying suicide attempts can't fail and leave you even worse off than you were before

>>21707667
disgusting barbarians

>>21712724
>Telling an antinatalist to kill themselves is the ultimate refutation
Doesn't make sense because said antinatalism may find himself in privileged position where he enjoys or at least finds his current live conditions bearable. He can always kill himself later. This doesn't make life as a whole less shit or meaningless, and plenty of people who are not antinatalists suffer greatly constantly, day after day, obviously.

>>21713199
>said antinatalism
*antinatalist

>>21712724

Causality is not real.

>>21712724
>tfw antinatalist and wasted too much time on this shitshow already.
I'm going to ride this bitch into the nuclear holocaust.

Bump

>>21712747
I wonder what would happen if there was a suicidal method that was 99.99% feasible, 100% accessible and 0.01% agonizing?

>>21703887
>My world dies with me anyway.
No, it actually does not. Unironically study NDEs and realize that there actually is an afterlife. And pay close attention to the life review:

>"The room seemed to be suspended in mid air, and right in the middle of the dark of space with swirling galaxies going on all around it. Standing on a floor that appeared as reflective, black onyx. I looked up, and saw four translucent screens begin to appear – and form a kind of gigantic, cubed box all around me. It was through this method that I was shown my life review. Without ever having to turn my head, I panoramically saw my past, present, future – and there was even a screen behind me that displayed a tremendous amount of scientific data, numbers, symbols and universal codes. I was in complete amazement because (as all of this was occurring) I realized I understood absolutely everything I was seeing – even in the most microscopic detail! There seemed to be no limit to the thoughts I was able to think or the ideas I was able to absorb. In this space, what we tend to think of as a limited comprehension or single-mindedness here on Earth, becomes truly infinite and limitless here! I kept thinking over and over how true it is what they say: that when we go back home – we all really are of one mind!"

We actually reexperience this whole life from all perspectives when we are done with it. So the world does not disappear. The opposite happens, you see it way more clearly.

Here is a very persuasive argument for why NDEs are real:

https://youtu.be/U00ibBGZp7o

It emphasizes that NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and when people go deep into the NDE, they all become convinced. As this article points out:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

>"Among those with the deepest experiences 100 percent came away agreeing with the statement, "An afterlife definitely exists"."

Since NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and they are all convinced, then 100% of the population become convinced that there is an afterlife when they have a sufficiently deep NDE themselves. When you dream and wake up, you instantly realize that life is more real than your dreams. When you have an NDE you immediately realize that life is the dream and the NDE world is the real world.

Or as one person quoted in pic related summarized their NDE:

>"As my soul left my body, I found myself floating in a swirling ocean of multi-colored light. At the end, I could see and feel an even brighter light pulling me toward it, and as it shined on me, I felt indescribable happiness. I remembered everything about eternity - knowing, that we had always existed, and that all of us are family. Then old friends and loved ones surrounded me, and I knew without a doubt I was home, and that I was so loved."

Needless to say, even ultraskeptical neuroscientists are convinced by really deep NDEs.

>anti-natalist threads refuse to die

>>21715929
Fuck off Jens

Suffering isn’t inherently a negative factor, that’s the core flaw with the anti-natalist thought.

It’s just your brain saying that something isn’t right and it needs to be fixed. The anti-natalist position is akin to smashing your computer with a sledgehammer because it threw an error.

>my life sucks and I wish I was never born.
>I must convince others they too hate their lives.

>>21708860
pornography

>>21703415
I would argue that any suffering a person has is worth it. I would also argue that it's better to be than to have never been.

I don't get his point on not bringing them into existence makes you a good person either, if I didn't bring my child into existence then there is no child for me to have been able to prevent harm by bringing them into existence. If that makes sense...

>My very existence causes great harm to the world
>Doesn't kill himself
Wow, definitely didn't expect this!

>>21715991

Demonstrably false. There is often suffering without there being anything wrong (chronic pain, etc.) and vice versa (asymptomatic terminal illness).

>>21717804
Pain never exists for no reason, if no cause is found externally then it usually means that it’s a neurological issue. And there is no such thing as a asymptomatic terminal illness.

>>21703415
This is an interesting perspective on the topic of suffering and parenthood. The idea that preventing suffering is the only guaranteed way to spare one's children from pain and hardship is certainly thought-provoking.

However, it's also worth noting that there are many joys and benefits to parenthood that can outweigh the risks of suffering. Many parents find great fulfillment and purpose in raising their children, and the love and companionship that comes from family life can be deeply rewarding. Additionally, many people feel that bringing children into the world is a meaningful and important way to contribute to society and the future.

Ultimately, the decision to have children is a personal one that involves a complex mix of factors, including individual values, beliefs, and priorities. While it's important to be aware of the potential risks and challenges of parenthood, it's also important to recognize the many rewards and joys that come with it.

>>21717995

As I said, demonstrably false.

>>21718022
So it's a selfish act for the parents?

>>21715991
>Suffering is not inherently negative.
*Pokes his eye with a knife*
AHHHHHH THIS CAN BE POSITIVE AHHH
*rapes his children*
>???? UHH THAT'S CAN BE POSITIVE TOO!

>>21718022
based chat-gpt poster.

>>21718248