/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10151065]

Sweet reminder that there are no successful arguments against antinatalism

[Anonymous No.10151068]

>antinatalism
not science nor math

[Anonymous No.10151069]

>>10151068
logic is science

[Anonymous No.10151072]

>>10151065
big if true

[Anonymous No.10151076]

>>10151065
>the negation of good is "not bad"
>the negation of bad is "good"
>edgelords are proud of this argument

[Anonymous No.10151081]

>>10151076
lrn2read

[Anonymous No.10151084]

>>10151069
Science is in partly encompassed by logic, not equal to.

[Anonymous No.10151086]

>>10151069
If that's the case then you probably won't mind syllogistically outlining an actual argument for antinatalism?

[Anonymous No.10151092]

>>10151081
learn to make arguments that aren't just nonsensical word games

[Anonymous No.10151098]

>>10151065
Antinatalists are supremely confused, because they believe there is such a thing as "good" in the total absence of an agent to benefit. They have no problem recognizing that the absence of pleasure is not a deprivation because there is no one to deprive, but they seem to believe preventing non-existent people from suffering is good.

They are confused.

[Anonymous No.10151099]

>>10151065
204. Revolutionaries should have as many children as they can. There is strong scientific evidence that social attitudes are to a significant extent inherited. No one suggests that a social attitude is a direct outcome of a person’s genetic constitution, but it appears that personality traits are partly inherited and that certain personality traits tend, within the context of our society, to make a person more likely to hold this or that social attitude. Objections to these findings have been raised, but the objections are feeble and seem to be ideologically motivated. In any event, no one denies that children tend on the average to hold social attitudes similar to those of their parents. From our point of view it doesn’t matter all that much whether the attitudes are passed on genetically or through childhood training. In either case they ARE passed on.

205. The trouble is that many of the people who are inclined to rebel against the industrial system are also concerned about the population problems, hence they are apt to have few or no children. In this way they may be handing the world over to the sort of people who support or at least accept the industrial system. To insure the strength of the next generation of revolutionaries the present generation should reproduce itself abundantly. In doing so they will be worsening the population problem only slightly. And the important problem is to get rid of the industrial system, because once the industrial system is gone the world’s population necessarily will decrease (see paragraph 167); whereas, if the industrial system survives, it will continue developing new techniques of food production that may enable the world’s population to keep increasing almost indefinitely.

[Anonymous No.10151113]

>>10151065
I like to justify it by pointing out that my superior spawn will go forth and do all sorts of badass shit that will improve the world somehow.

Philosophically speaking, if all people are considered equal, I kind of agree that it's always more moral to adopt a poor child from an orphanage, but who really wants to do that right? You could have a little person who with a little bit if you mixed into them. I can't wait 'til my kid starts being a rebellious dick just like I would. MY kid would tell me gtfo, and I'd high-five them and be like yeah, stick it to the man!

[Anonymous No.10151118]

>>10151098
this is a good point

[Anonymous No.10151130]

>>10151098
Imagine driving to your nearest town and delivering a cake to a random person.

The person receiving the cake would be happy. But they would also not be unhappy if they were to never receive the cake.

Many examples of the asymmetries exist... On the balance, not having delivered the cake (being born) will not be harmful to the potential future child.

[Anonymous No.10151147]

>>10151130
This isn't an asymmetry though, except in the sense that it's just a word game.
The exact same argument applies in reverse if I were to go outside and kick a random person in the balls. If I do so, he will be very unhappy. But it doesn't make him any happier if I choose not to punt him in the nards.
The only difference between these two cases is that it's harder to distort English in the second case since most people naturally interpret "not happy" as equivalent to "unhappy".

[Anonymous No.10151194]

>>10151147
Long difficult journey to obtain knowledge vs. bang on the head and forget everything

No such thing as chronic pleasure

You would not swap 10 minutes of the best pleasures for the worst pain imaginable

If life were innately meaningful we would not experience boredom

All things are just chemical reactions in the brain yet we choose to not sit at home shooting H all day because gene survival bias

We are no in charge of our actions, thoughts arise and are not derived.

Coming into existence is essentially attaching consciousnesses to a set of genes which may or may not survive in the struggle for reproduction

&c &c. do you not concede these facts or do you not want to believe them to be true?

[Anonymous No.10151200]

>>10151147

wrong. an asymmetry does exist in your example.

[Anonymous No.10151211]

>>10151200
>wrong
damn you sure showed me

[Anonymous No.10151222]

>>10151194
Putting aside the fact that you've just decided to ignore my refutation, no, I don't accept that the majority of those are true.
Even if I did, I don't see at all how you would piece them together to make some kind of argument that having kids is immoral/unethical.

[Anonymous No.10151231]

>>10151065
And that's why people need FAITH (not religion but faith) in order to go on living. They need to BELIEVE that it will all be worth it in the end. This is the root reason why religion is such a common phenomenon throughout the world. Realizing this, while also not wanting to subscribe to any particular pre-existing religion, I created my own religion by which I now live.

[Anonymous No.10151234]

>>10151194
>opinions=facts
Also what is the justification for
>If life were innately meaningful we would not experience boredom

[Anonymous No.10151238]

>>10151231
>I created my own religion
sounds interesting tell me more.

[Anonymous No.10151266]

>>10151065
How fuck fuck are you going to bang young girls if they're not being born? Go fucking kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.10151274]

>>10151222
>I don't see at all how you would piece them together to make some kind of argument that having kids is immoral/unethical.

Not being born = not being subjected to these phenomena

Not being born has no negative. Being alive on the balance is negative when considered objectively as evident by the OP table

??????

[Anonymous No.10151280]

>>10151274
>Not being born has no negative
Once again, you're just repeating the crux of your argument with no justification. If you are allowed to say
>pain is bad, so avoiding pain is good
then I do not see at all why I cannot say
>pleasure is good, so avoiding pleasure is bad
in which case there is some negative weight placed on not existing.

[Anonymous No.10151291]

>>10151069
>muh opinion is pure logic, obviously

[Anonymous No.10151293]

There are, depends on your ethical philosophy and metaphysical views. If you're a hedonic utilitarian, then there are solid arguments against antinatalism. If you're a negative utilitarian, maybe there aren't but even then

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/

I'm a fan of Peter Singer's thoughts on this. And David Benatar is a bit of a fucking lunatic, you should see some of his other books (he's a depressive incel MRA who had a fucked up childhood)

[Anonymous No.10151294]

>>10151065
>Absence of pleasure
>not bad

Tell that to my blue balls. The world always needs more virgin girls to deflower.

[Anonymous No.10151300]

>>10151280
>pleasure is good, so avoiding pleasure is bad
Fuck, this makes sense
But I guess a good pooint would be that 99% of the time peopke are not experiencing pleasure and they're not miserable, so not feeling pleasure is not bad it's the norm

[Anonymous No.10151307]

>>10151280
Firstly. Thanks for this discussion. It's interesting. I think mostly I hold my anti natalist belief is because my life has been really bad and I could never justify inflicting this on another human being (if they were experiencing what I have experienced). I believe I would have been better off never having existed.

In relation to
>pleasure is good, so avoiding pleasure is bad
in which case there is some negative weight placed on not existing.

The negative weight is not on not existing it is on the asymmetry of life in the living. Non-existence has to be brought into the conversation as it is the only ethical way to prevent exposure to the asymmetry. At least this is my take on it. If your already here, hedonism all the way...

[Anonymous No.10151313]

>>10151065
>LESS CHILDREN NOW!
OK, lets start with the niggers
>DATS RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But their birth rate is the highest
>YOU'RE LITERALLY HITLER!!!!!!
What does this have to do with Hitler
>WE'RE JEWS, WE KNOW WHO'S HITLER!

[Anonymous No.10151324]

>>10151307
>The negative weight is not on not existing it is on the asymmetry of life in the living.
You're either missing the point or ignoring it.
I am not suggesting that the good/bad balance in life is symmetric, or even positive. If you believe that the good/bad balance is negative, then from a hedonist perspective antinatalism is valid.

The point I am trying to get you to understand is that the box argument is nonsense, because if the absence of pain can be called a good thing, then the absence of pleasure can be called a bad thing, and your box isn't +/- and +/0, it's +/- and +/-.
Then you're just trying to do a plain old hedonist balancing of the +/- of pleasure/pain in existence.

[Anonymous No.10151345]

>>10151324
Imagine going in for surgery and they put you under general anesthetic so you wont experience pain (this is a good thing, no?). Also imagine one of the nurses catches a glimpse of your glock and decides to fuck you good on the table as you are out cold. This is a pleasure, but because you were not awake you could not experience this pleasure. You wake up. The pleasure was not a negative as you did not experience it and the absence of pain was also a good thing for the same reason. This is all I got and how I think about it.. you'll have to take it up with David Benatar cause my IQ just maxed out..

[Anonymous No.10151351]

>>10151345
I'm sorry but I don't understand the point you're trying to make with this.
I feel like losing out on the experience a hot nurse riding my cock is a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.10151362]

>>10151065
We don't know why we're even able to grasp the concept of antinatalism, nor any concept of anything. But we are. So fuck whatever sense there is to make, since nothing makes sense anyway.

[Anonymous No.10151367]

>>10151351
Only because you became aware after the fact. If you were not aware of the fact it would not have made any difference to you (the absence of pleasure) in not having existed.

That's all I got. I can't into the arithmetic's relating to the table, sorry.

[Anonymous No.10151378]

>>10151367
I can accept that, but then you're only aware of the avoided pain because you knew about it beforehand. If I didn't tell you about the surgery before I put you to sleep, then it shouldn't make any difference to you that you were harmed because you weren't aware of it.
A "person" who has not yet existed is clearly not aware of either the potential pleasure or pain awaiting them in existence.

[Anonymous No.10151386]

>>10151065
The argument for antinatalism is entirely grounded in subjective values judgement. Sincerely believing there's "no argument" against it is like sticking your fingers in your ears and screeching. inb4 you try to argue utilitarianism is some kind of measure for objective value judgement.

[Anonymous No.10151390]

>>10151386
That's funny because the argument for morality is entirely grounded in subjective values judgement. Sincerely believing there's "no argument" against it is like sticking your fingers in your ears and screeching. inb4 you try to argue utilitarianism is some kind of measure for objective value judgement

[Anonymous No.10151397]

>>10151378
>I can accept that, but then you're only aware of the avoided pain because you knew about it beforehand.

mindblown.jpg (serious)

>If I didn't tell you about the surgery before I put you to sleep, then it shouldn't make any difference to you that you were harmed because you weren't aware of it.
I would disagree here. As I am already alive I have an interest in continuing to exist. Harming me would be against my interest in continuing to exist.

>A "person" who has not yet existed is clearly not aware of either the potential pleasure or pain awaiting them in existence.
Agreed, so its best to leave them where they are and not show them?

[Anonymous No.10151402]

>>10151130
>a fucking food analogy
I can't even laugh.

>>10151194
>long, difficult journey
To you
>no such thing as chronic pleasure
Demonstrably false, you're simply demoralized
>you would not swap 10 minutes of the best pleasures for the worst pain imaginable
No one would, but having been extraordinarily happy, I would not swap the chance of experiencing it again with the definite reality of experiencing nothing instead
>all things are just chemical reactions
If you've accepted that fact, why are you upset about it when there's substantial, successful work throughout all of human history on controlling your emotions? You're literally making yourself miserable
>we are in no charge of our actions
No evidence for this claim whatsoever
>coming into existence is blah blah blah
If there's no purpose, why are you upset except because you are demanding a purpose and throwing a tantrum when one isn't provided? QED antinatalism is childishness.

>>10151390
That's exactly the case, you're catching on. There's literally no point in being upset. You're doing it to yourself by allowing your ego and base desires to control you. It's not like this hasn't been the central conflict of human nature in all of recorded history, argued and mulled over in the West and East for all of history. There's countless options for escaping this cycle without nihilism, antinatalism, or demoralization.
QED antinatalism has got to be the result of neo-modern forces of pseudo-education which ignore the totality of human knowledge and experience so far discovered to instead throwing temper tantrums that life isn't romantically idyllic according to a set of values less than 1/3 of the human population gives a shit about

[Anonymous No.10151420]

>>10151386
prove it

[Anonymous No.10151426]

>>10151402
I'd take it another step and add that anti-natalists are probably mostly low IQ types that would have spent the vast majority of their time accounting for their basic survival needs prior to the gifts of modern technology. If they were more intelligent, they would not sit around in a world of virtually limitless options for happiness desperately issuing pseudo-intellectual gyrations about how life is intrinsically bad and not worth living as an ego-defense mechanism for how unsatisfied they are with their own lives.

>>10151420
>prove what is literally common, widely accepted knowledge
Start with the Greeks.™

[Anonymous No.10151433]

>>10151397
>Harming me would be against my interest in continuing to exist
In our context, "harm" is not being anesthesized before surgery, right? But that wouldn't exactly harm you, you would just feel a lot of pain. The surgery would still benefit your continued existence, whether or not it caused you pain. Perhaps I am misunderstanding?

[Anonymous No.10151438]

>>10151426
I know it isn't obvious to them, so I'll specify what I meant for the antinatalist crowd.

My hypothesis is that you're too stupid to be happy. You'd be happier spending nearly 100% of your life's energy performing manual labor simply to keep yourself fed, clothed, and sheltered, because you are not intelligent enough to do anything else and find meaning. Given virtually every option in the world (if you're shitposting on the internet, you have functionally infinite ones), you've decided to argue that life is intrinisically valueless using reification and post-hoc non-thought, principally predicated on either ignorance or a total misunderstanding of what you have learned.

[Anonymous No.10151443]

>>10151402
>To you
Maybe everything you do know could be learned in the time it would take for someone to take a blow to the head lol
>Demonstrably false
Please provide the ICD classification for chronic pleasure
>I would not swap the chance of experiencing it again with the definite reality of experiencing nothing instead
Again subjective. You can accept it one way but not another way for others, why?
>why are you upset about it
I'm not just pointing it out
>No evidence for this claim whatsoever
Think of five color and pick your favorite color. Then ask yourself where the answer came from. Also see experiments predicting hand movement before conscious awareness.
>why are you upset except because you are demanding a purpose
I understand you have to create your own meaning, if life was inherently valuable then it would have meaning without making up some shit and then pretending your happy about it

[Anonymous No.10151447]

>>10151426
>Greeks
which one

[Anonymous No.10151451]

>>10151065
>Pain is always bad
This isn't a philosophy board, faggot.

[Anonymous No.10151465]

>>10151433
>harm
I was saying harm in regard to "is it ok to harm you when you are anesthesized if you didn't know about it".

But I guess you would know you would be harmed if you were to wake up and feel pain.

If the argument was would it be ok to kill someone as they sleep if they were not to become aware of it. My answer to it would be no for the above answer.

[Anonymous No.10151467]

>>10151065
>Sweet reminder that there are no successful arguments against

[Anonymous No.10151472]

>>10151438
>My hypothesis is that you're too stupid to be happy

I thought the dumber you are the happier you are. Why do so many intelligent people like doctors kill themselves then? Does this not blow your theory out the window. Why are the doctors not intelligent enough to invent magic happiness out of thin air?

[Anonymous No.10151553]

>>10151467
no u

[Anonymous No.10151967]

bump

[Anonymous No.10152033]

>>10151065
for there to be a counterargument there first has to be an argument

what is antinatalism? Things are better if nothing exists? What does "better" mean if nobody is around? Go back to school.

[Anonymous No.10152190]

>>10151238
Mathology

[Anonymous No.10152230]

>>10151065
People are motivated by pleasure therefore
0% pleasure = Death

[Anonymous No.10152265]

>>10151065
Interesting hypothesis. I think the most scientific way to approach this situation is to start polling people on how much they appreciate the fact that they've been born. Using this data it should be possible to shed some light on the matter if existence is good or not. You could then assume that the not-existent person would also follow the similar distribution of desire of existence as anyone else.

Sure, it is easy for you to argument against a non-existing person that the fact that they don't exist is a good thing because they don't experience pain. I mean, how would they even answer? What really is asymmetrical is the case that you get to decide whether someone else gets to exist or not without them having any say in the matter.

Personally I wouldn't rank the absence of pain and the presence of pleasure equally. If I don't experience pain for a while, then absence of pain does nothing for me. It is reasonable to be thankful that I am not feeling any pain, but it doesn't bring me any extra pleasure.

[Anonymous No.10152560]

>>10151065
Summing all the pleasure and pain of all existing people yields a net pleasurable existence

[Anonymous No.10152596]

Toilet paper doesn't get pregnant so I'm free from that ethical conundrum