/lit/ - Literature

>>22112041
Bentar is a mentally ill faggot who had a mental breakdown during an interview in front of happy picnicking families.

>>22112041
>ultimate conclusions
>David Benatar
He didn't kill himself.

https://www.abolitionist.com/anti-natalism.html

>Benatar's policy prescription is untenable. Radical anti-natalism as a recipe for human extinction will fail because any predisposition to share that bias will be weeded out of the population. Radical anti-natalist ethics is self-defeating: there will always be selection pressure against its practitioners. Complications aside, any predisposition not to have children or to adopt is genetically maladaptive. On a personal level, the decision not to bring more suffering into the world and forgo having children is morally admirable. But voluntary childlessness or adoption is not a global solution to the problem of suffering.

>Yet how should rational moral agents behave if - hypothetically - some variant of Benatar's diagnosis as distinct from policy prescription was correct?

>In an era of biotechnology and unnatural selection, an alternative to anti-natalism is the world-wide adoption of genetically preprogrammed well-being. For there needn't be selection pressure against gradients of lifelong adaptive bliss - i.e. a radical recalibration of the hedonic treadmill. The only way to eradicate the biological substrates of unpleasantness - and thereby prevent the harm of Darwinian existence - is not vainly to champion life's eradication, but instead to ensure that sentient life is inherently blissful. More specifically, the impending reproductive revolution of designer babies is likely to witness intense selection pressure against the harmfulness-promoting adaptations that increased the inclusive fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment of adaptation. If we use biotechnology wisely, then gradients of genetically preprogrammed well-being can make all sentient life subjectively rewarding - indeed wonderful beyond the human imagination. So in common with "positive" utilitarians, the "negative" utilitarian would do better to argue for genetically preprogrammed superhappiness.

>>22112050
Link?

>>22112193
Why didn't he answer?

>>22112193
>they go for a walk in the park
>interviewer forwards the idea that life can be improved
>Benatar raises his voice and starts sperging that life never improves (objectively false by the way)
>Benatar starts crying and basically says "life is unacceptable"
>interviewer is taken aback by his outburst and at a loss for words (Benatar is inconsolable)
Benatar is pretty unstable. On top of that he admits that his ideas are damaging while using the excuse that his work is academic and only meant for those that seek it out (note that these people are likely to have personality disorders and mental illness). Benatar objectively creates suffering and given that he's under the delusion that his work is toward the opposite: he's delusional and irrational.
>>22112357
Oh no! Slow board, faggot.

>>22112041
Benatar's Anti-Natalism is not existentialism. Existentialism rules out suicide and nihilism because the former doesn't solve the problem of the absurd, and the latter fails to recognize the solution is that meaning and value lies with us: what we take seriously reflects them, and thus we can be said to create them. Existentialism is far better than the life-denying garbage that leads someone to say it's better not to have been born.

>>22112185
>>22112041
>Anti-natalism
>morally admirable/permissible
To argue against Anti-natalists is to argue against the most absurd logic, and to agree with it is to treat logical proceedings as the end-all be-all of human existence.
Say there was an 8 year old boy, little Timmy, with loving parents. Not a particular gifted boy, nor a particular unintelligent one. He spends his days at school, doing his homework before dinner, and spending the nights playing video games or with his toys. He is an average boy, making scattered grades of A's, B's, and C's.
Then one day little Timmy brings home his first F. Timmy cries. The parents, understandably, are disappointed, and wish to discipline little Timmy. They could take away his video game console for a week, ground him for a weekend, or whatever traditional middle-class discipline they choose. But taking away the console will cause suffering, with no guarantee it will fix the problem. Furthermore, no matter the path they choose, Future F's will start the cycle anew.

So instead, they decide to end the suffering entirely. They deceitfully forgive little Timmy, promising no punishment, and slip horse tranquilizers into his favorite meal. When little Timmy is unconscious, the father strangles him and buries him in a covert grave. The mother and father employ a hypnotist to purge the memory of the murder and then flee to some third world beach, living out their lives in paradise, drinking mimosas and watching beautiful sunsets until they die.
From a suffering/pleasure dichotomy, the parents have chosen the correct path. Little Timmy will no longer be sad, they will no longer be disappointed, and the school will enjoy a stronger academic score. They themselves will enjoy pleasure on that beach with little pain. The total amount of suffering in the world has been reduced. Bonus, statistically little Timmy would have more chance to grow to be a murderer than a saint. Thereby the parents may have also prevented future suffering.

I cannot think of a moral system where this is admirable or permissible, but logically it is entirely sound. It's utterly absurd.
But of course, anti-natalists will argue that little Timmy should've never been born at all, and the parents could have enjoyed the beach without a murder.
They seem to not see the most blatant moral contradiction in their position. They are fundamentally denying freedom. No one chooses to be born, I will grant that, but everyone chooses to continue their life. Once a person is able to cognize suicide and its ramifications, they face the existential choice of either continuing their life, or ending it.
Anti-natalism seeks to rob humans of that choice.
From Kant's "rational free moral agent" standard this is morally appalling.
"Should I wish everyone would rob me of choice, even if it the choice is a difficult one?"
Obviously no
Willingly choosing to not have kids, and to encourage others to do the same, is to attempt to deny freedom to the blameless.

>>22112385
Not a breakdown. Far from it. Huge mischaracterization.

>>22112729
>THAT DOESNT COUNT!
If you think raising your voice and breaking into tears when someone suggests life could improve, note in the middle of a park on a nice sunny day surrounded by happy people enjoying themselves, is normal you're a retard who shouldn't be offering anyone advice on what it is to exist.

>>22112729
Also, in the past antinatalist cultfags coped by asserting the interviewer was lying. Kek.

>>22112714
It's only sound in your psychopathic little brain.
I'm no antinatalist either but you seriously need to get on some meds ASAP

>>22112041
>Benatar stands strong
Until he sees a flower, kek.

>>22112793
This criticism and meme is only levied by city dwellers whose excursions to nature are of national parks on off occasions where they feel bewildered. I lived in rural areas my entire life. It isn't that great. Ludwig Feuerbach lived for long stretches in the country. The term pagan didn't pertain to roman religious practices by the way, it was an insult tantamount to hick or country dweller that the church fathers levied who considered them to be in many cases without an idea of God or gods. The point being it's more understandable to me how country living lends itself more to people being divorced of any social coincidences that they otherwise would chock up to fate, some rhyme or reason why x person met b person or y thing happened to them on that date in the midst of all that hussle and bustle, and hence because of all this, things like atheism and a lack of adoration of nature (or outright hatred of it, such is the sentiment of most continental climate and lower in the midst of winter) are understandanle to them and not the city slicker.

>>22113417
>sperg
Don't care. Antinatalism is the most pathetic retarded cope of an ideology I've ever come across (and I've read Message to the Black Man in America and Ayn Rand).

>>22113422
picrel is retarded. "absence of pleasure" is "not bad" yet somehow "absence of pain" is "good" rather than "not good/bad".

>>22114941
Imagine getting caught in empty semantics, people here grow dumber by the day

>>22112714
seek help

This all sounds much more like nihilism than existentialism.

>>22112793
You know that mocking your adversary's thesis isnt an argument right anon?

>>22113422
Moving the goal posts. Must have struck the nail on the head for you to deflect. I'm not even an antinatalist.

>>22113422
>s oijaks
Thats all you need to see to know you are talking to a bot or a literal unironic retard

>>22112041
I’d like to buttrape Benatar

>>22112041
That dog - he is literally me.

>>22114941
It's one of the tautologies Benatar asserts in order to make his argument. If you question it or interpret that it can be used to argue in favor of morally repugnant out outcomes l, antinatalists will cry foul and demand you accept Benatar's logic. They're idiots. Wxnadr
>>22114975
That's literally from either Benatar's book or one of his papers.

>>22115157
>Must have struck the nail on the head
You sperged nonsense and made an anecdotal argument from authority that you lived in a rural area (no one cares). Stay on topic, retard.

>>22115176
>triggered by the meme
That means it's working.

>>22112673
there is no value but if you create the value then it is value.
>this is a solution to nihilism

>>22116703
Nihilism self-defeats because it pretends like there is no value not even one we create. Yet nihilists are in the same breath creating value all the time. That's the issue.

>>22112385
>eyes teared up because all the suffering in the world
>he is insane!!! he have #4i271 mental disorder, my personal psychologino knowledge says it
believe it or not, this extreme sensitivity to suffering is advanced and a delicate sensitivity. i dont agree with him, but he is serious with things people take for granted and try to diminish out of superficiality and shalowness.

>>22116739
the entire point of nihilism is that value is random. there is no real universal value. embracing the randomness dont make it valuable and honorable, its just a new pretense.

>>22116852
On the contrary, the assumption that we should freak out in the absence of universal value is an assumption that isn't worth making. There's no need to freak out. And to freak out, by the way, suggests taking a feeling seriously. That in itself (taking something seriously) is immanent valuing. We value via taking things seriously. That's part of the problem with nihilists they just do what they're not supposed to do and ask others to value what they value under the pretense that value doesn't exist. It's just self-defeating.

>>22112714
Bad analogy. They could theoretically wipe their memory of the murder (what hypnotist would even do that?) but not of having a son entirely. Besides, the grade could be fixed and the kid could learn to overcome obstacles, enduring, and learning to endure inevitable suffering and challenge, essentially making it not suffering at all. Your definition of suffering seems to be “anything I deem painful or bad for some arbitrary else”. Completing a workout or eating a spicy meal is objectively suffering, yet people enjoy it.

You clearly have a surface level understanding of philosophy as a whole. I don’t mean that as an insult at all. Your rant reminds me of myself at a younger age. I am against anti natilism, but definitely not because of your argument.

My advice for you is to just chill out a bit.

>>22116883
dont think of nihilism as "what nihilists do", please. thank you.
>the absence of universal value is an assumption that isn't worth making.
why?.

>>22112041
Nobody belted the fuck out of them

>>22116973
I said the idea that we should freak out (due to absence of universal value) isn't worth making. I already said why.

>>22116990
why did this image turn me on

>>22117109
you dont "have to" freak out, you naturally freak out because all values in order to be values have an inherently universal approach.
you just think value is inherently universal because we are wired that way, i suppose you mean that when say
>the solution is that meaning and value lies with us
but is just so lazy. that dont say anything really, its just another form of nihilism in the end.
>there is no value but my value

>>22117140
But freaking out is a form of valuing. That's the problem. At that point just tell people to value stuff. Nihilism doesn't do anything. Meanwhile if all nihilism is saying "there's no value" and yet admitting that we still do value stuff and every nihilist must do so, even in the nihilist freak out, you're already an existentialist. Don't you see?

I'm glad to exist, so it's not better to have never been. If you think otherwise, kill yourself. Simple as that.

>>22116768
>HE'S JUST SENSITIVE!
Not when it comes to the actual tangible harm his ideas have caused as illustrated in that excerpt. He freely admits that his ideas cause harm and hidea behind the idea they're for academics who seek them out when it's been established through verified and replicated research his work attracts mental illness and personality disorder.

>>22116571
You're the one who posted a city slicker meme.

>>22117358
>>22117358
You're the one to personalized it and sperged a bunch of nonsense.
>antinatalists have a distorted worldview which becomes comical when juxtaposed with positive imagery
Simple as. I'd tell you to "touch grass" but I don't want to hear details about your childhood home alongside whatever excuse you come up with to name drop Fichte.

>>22115003
Antinatalists are disingenuous retards who won't listen to reason. It's better to satirize their beliefs in the chance they'll realize their absurdities and grow out of them.

>>22117411
Simply because the implication of said meme was absurd and would only appeal to people who live in cities. Anyone who has ever lived outside knows nature isn't sunshine and roses. It's quite brutal most of the time. My reason for disagreement with the antinatalists is suffering isn't bad. You are trying to convince people that the great outdoors isn't suffering. It's false and if anything the meme would wrongly serve to reinforce Benatar in a non urbanite. You seem quite offended, so much so my hypothesis that such scenary is more to be viewed uncritically as heckin awesome by high density persons seems to being proved by your seething.

>>22117447
>would only appeal to people who live in cities
No dude. You've been triggered into arguing a joke isnt funny--that means the meme worked. Good luck with the autism.

>>22112050
He was right
Those families will burn to death as a result of car farts

>>22112185
Imagine witnessing a world of suffering and concluding that the suffering should be taken away, instead of amplified to the point that everyone who ever benefited from it is punished in kind and ends up a sniveling little broken turd too