/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19161586]

Reminder that Epicurus was the first anti-natalist.
>Goal of life is to minimize pain
>death is the cessation of sensation
How does his philosophy not advocate for voluntary extinction.

[Anonymous No.19161592]

>>19161586
Self-preservation is an instinct all animals have. You can't ignore it just like you can't ignore pain.

[Anonymous No.19161641]

>>19161592
>Self-preservation is an instinct all animals have.
How does this explain suicides committed by birds, whales, humans etc.

[Anonymous No.19161644]

>>19161641
He can't, because he is wrong

[Anonymous No.19161650]

>>19161586
If you follow this logic, you would find a painless way to kill yourself and then do it.

[Anonymous No.19161652]

>>19161644
>>19161641
>mental defects/damage are not a thing

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19161653]

He led miserable incels to a life of fulfilling happiness.
The men and women who start families will have plenty of joys to counterbalance the pains.

Keep in mind that something like 90% of the man’s writings are destroyed

[Anonymous No.19161660]

>>19161641
People commit suicide in extreme situations. People can also ignore severely painful injuries in extreme situations. That doesn't mean you can just ignore pain or self-preservation in everyday life.

[Anonymous No.19161666]

>>19161592
>You can't ignore it

[Anonymous No.19161698]

>>19161652
>>19161660
I don't know it's complicated as shit. Fucking whales, the largest animal on Earth commit mass suicides and birds freeze their wings and jump from cliffs to kill themselves. Surely this is rare but it does happen. Whale suicide numbers are massive. And then there are humans who become alcoholic, drug addicts, make purposely shitty decisions to fuck their life over, despite having the ability to end world hunger and poverty they refrain from it and wheel of evil keep on turning etc. And then there monks who shave their heads and go into total solitude and then there are people who commit suicides.

Self preservation alone doesn't explain this. Maybe there is some reality to Philipp Mainländer Will-to-Death. But I don't know.

[Anonymous No.19161705]

>>19161641
Suicide happens because self preservation is no longer seen as possible, or its a mistake. Example, a person kills themself because its no longer possible to survive without experincing pain. or a person kills themselves on accident while running away from a lion.

[Anonymous No.19161707]

>>19161698
Self-preservation is crucial to understanding everyday life. If we didn't have a fundamental instinct for it all these wage cucks and old people would wake up, go to the kitchen, and slit their own throats or at least stop giving a shit about maintaining themselves. What keeps nearly everyone going is fear of death.

[Anonymous No.19161715]

>>19161698
>Surely this is rare but it does happen.
Yeah, but the problem with this argument is that is special pleading because it ignores the overwhelming amount of evidence that this isn't the case. And, depending on those examples, those suicides can reduced to genetic defects, accidental, or even because self preservation was seen as no longer possible, so living no longer made any sense.

[Anonymous No.19161720]

>>19161586
>Goal of life is to minimize pain
Quote him saying this.

[Anonymous No.19161761]

>>19161707
>>19161715
No, there is something else, there is a faint trace of Will-to-Death. There is an opioid crisis in America right now. Addiction does fuck one's life and people do it purposely. People have this self destructive attitude and this includes vast number of people. And Whale suicides numbers aren't no joke.

If in case of suicide if instinct of Self preservation disappears then what remains?

[Anonymous No.19162929]

>>19161653
Quite ironic considering he had no wife or children. Doesn"t that seem contradictory to what you just said? Pretty sure he is a proto-antinstalist.

[Anonymous No.19162937]

>>19161720
>what is ataraxia?

[Anonymous No.19163038]

>>19161720
Op is too big a dummy to realize that Epicurus sees the start of not-pain in the absence of pain
He does not minimalize pain per se, but rather aim for a peaceful state devoid of mixed states (happiness + pain) or some pain. That is why epicurus differentiated beween moving and static pleasures
Epicurus does NOT acknowledge an intermediate state between pain and pleasure, thus it is NOT about minimalization of pain or maximalization of pleasure in a direct sense

I am surely mixing up some stoic concepts into the doctrines of epicurus here. Sorry for that

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19163187]

>>19162929
No.

[Anonymous No.19163536]

> Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not.
At least read his epistles before releasing your latest bowel movement into this board. It takes about an hour to read all of them. You stupid fucking nigger.

[Anonymous No.19163542]

>>19161586
I don't get how anti natalist arrive at the conclusion that an absence of suffering is good by itself but an absence of pleasure isn't bad.

[Anonymous No.19163595]

>>19161650
Pic related

[Anonymous No.19163643]

>>19163595
Chart is bs. Carbon monoxide more agonizing than shotgun to chest, yeah right.

[Anonymous No.19163772]

>>19163187
>this post will do

[Anonymous No.19163783]

>>19161586
Satisfying your biological urge to procreate, as well as experience fatherhood, may minimize pain in the long-term. Otherwise you may live a life that is unsatisfactory to you. Therefore his philosophy is not necessarily consistent with anti Natalism - it depends on your individual response to fatherhood, something you unfortunately cannot predict in advance or compare to a childless life.

[Anonymous No.19163834]

>a. Epicurus lived from 341 to 270 BC. He is associated, of course, with a philosophy of his own: Epicureanism. By reputation Epicureanism and Stoicism are opposites. The first is said to be a philosophy of sensual enjoyment and indulgence, the second a philosophy of austerity. Both reputations are misleading; the English word “Epicurean” nowadays gives an impression of Epicurus about as inaccurate as the word “Stoicism” does of the Stoics. The two schools of thought do differ in many significant ways, most prominently in the relationships they propose between virtue and happiness. Epicurus regarded pleasure as the only rational motive for mankind, whereas the Stoics thought that our sole rightful purpose is to act virtuously – to live by reason and to help others, from which happiness follows assuredly but incidentally. Despite these differences, however, the Epicurean and the Stoic agree on some important points in their analysis of judgment, desire, and other subjects.
>Like many other Hellenistic philosophers, Epicurus produced books and essays that have not survived. But we do have a small set of his writings – mostly a few letters and some sets of quotations. One of the larger sets was found in a manuscript in the Vatican Library during the 19th century (the so-called “Vatican Sayings”). Epicurus is also quoted here and there in the writings of other classical authors. Indeed, a number of the entries from Epicurus in this book were preserved by Seneca himself, who saw it as no cause for embarrassment.
> I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property.
>Seneca, Epistles 12.11

[Anonymous No.19163838]

>death is the cessation of sensation
that must be the gayest translation i've ever read lmao

[Anonymous No.19163859]

OP is misusing the second bullet point egregiously. He was talking about the fear of death

>Accustom yourself to thinking that death is nothing to us, since every good and evil lies in perception, while death is the deprivation of perception…. Something that causes no trouble when it is present causes pain to no purpose when it is merely expected. Death, the most horrible of evils, is therefore nothing to us – since so long as we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist.

Epicurus, Letter to Menœceus