anyone else personally feel like having kids now days is selfish?

everyone is doing it anon

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There comes a point when you realize your hopes and dreams won't come true, so you have a kid and hope they can pick up the baton.

>>35984475
This desu.

Also when you die your kid is still 50% you genetically, so in a sense you live on.

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>>35984600
If you go back far enough your lineage goes back to pre-civilation times. That's billions maybe trillions of ancestors. So even a single persons entire life could be reduced down to just .0000000000000000000001% of your overall genetic code.

Was it selfish to have kids when they had a stupidly high chance of dying before they turned 10? Was it selfish to have kids when they would be expected to work from childhood to death?

>>35984896

>Was it selfish to have kids when they would be expected to work from childhood to death?

Yes. You shouldn't have kids unless unless you can guarantee them a better life than what you had.

>Bbbbbbbbbb-bbbbbbbut then society would collapse with such low birth rates!

Then maybe it should be telling that for society for function we need the vast, VAST majority of people slaving away so that the rich few can live worry-free lives.

>>35984851
Dude, if you go back far enough your lineage goes back to single cell organisms.

It was selfish for whatever was responsible for bringing us into existence.

>>35984993
so essentially we should have just let the human race die out

>>35983473
I feel like it's morally wrong to reproduce if you're not happy. It means your genes aren't well adapted to the environment. People who are well adapted will be happy and have lots of kids and everyone will end up being more suited to the new world that technology has created. The infinite growth model of humanity is breaking down. We can't all derive satisfaction from being innovators and solving problems that nature presents us. We're going to have to evolve into a race of creatures that is content with living together on this rock in harmony, either that or technology will destroy us all and we go back to square one on the evolutionary train.

>>35985096

Only the rich should be allowed to have children. Sterilize the poor at birth, maybe give them chances to look after the kids of the rich to fulfill their parenting desires, and then as they die off replace them with robots. Obviously we'd have to have sufficient enough AI to handle all of the jobs the poor do but once that's done I honestly don't see how the future will be any better than the past unless you're born into a rich family.

>>35985041
trippy

sometimes i look through kaleidoscopes and imagine im just an input machine

>>35983473
Your ancestors went through hell to survive so theyre bloodline wouldn't die. Now you live such an easy life that you want to abandon everything they worked for. No you're the one whos selfish.

>>35983473
because people think kids will magically fill some hole in their life and make them happy
don't ever fall for this stupid, tired meme

>>35983473
>having kids now days is selfish?

You're right. It's selfish and cruel. Every cradle is a grave. You are sentencing someone to a life of pain, suffering, and death. You are creating suffering where none existed before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antinatalism
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/antinatalism

"It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer" -Arthur Schopenhauer

"If a child, for whose existence I was responsible, were to ask me why he or she were here, what happens after death, whether I could guarantee he or she would not suffer a fate like that Furuta Junko suffered in 1988/89 (please look it up, as there's no room to describe it), what would I say? To me, the fact I have no answers that would not be guesswork, evasion or dogma indicates that having children is selfish and cruel." -Quentin S. Crisp

"By means of abstention from procreation the wheel of suffering would be deprived of its impetus until it comes to a standstill." -Karim Akerma

>>35984600

People do talk about genetic legacy. But humanity will eventually go extinct.

The question is, how much human suffering will exist before humans go exinct? Some people argue humans should go extinct sooner rather than later, simply in the interest of preventing human suffering.

>>35983473
I feel like my genes are capable of making any of my future offspring a net credit to society, so it's my duty to have kids, and invest enough in them so that they can fulfill their potential.

I can understand why much of /r9k/ would not share this sentiment.

>>35985184
Being 'rich' is zero sum. There are lots of rich people in shitty countries who got rich by scamming their compatriots. I can't imagine making more people like that will be helpful.

If the kid doesn't like being alive they're free to kill themselves. Otherwise the opportunity to live is the best thing you can possibly get.

>like whats it all for anyways besides if the parents arent one of those religious types who thinks that god wants them to have kids
Because I think I have a debt to civilization for supporting me throughout my life that needs to be repaid by affording someone else this opportunity who will then help to support society.

>>35984896

Yes, but most animals have offspring unthinkingly. Humans can make a more conscious decision about creating a life. But humans are prone to delusional optimism.

"And to this world, to this scene of tormented and agonised beings, who only continue to exist by devouring each other, in which, therefore, every ravenous beast is the living grave of thousands of others, and its self-maintenance is a chain of painful deaths; and in which the capacity for feeling pain increases with knowledge, and therefore reaches its highest degree in man, a degree which is the higher the more intelligent the man is; to this world it has been sought to apply the system of optimism, and demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The absurdity is glaring." -Arthur Schopenhauer

Just think of how much pointless human suffering could have been prevented if your grandparents 10 generations back had never had children.

>>35983473
yeah sure, if you're a pussy.

>>35986211
Oh hey its this guy

>>35985041
>Dude, if you go back far enough your lineage goes back to single cell organisms.

Yes, and it has led to 4 billion years of suffering on Earth.

But there's no suffering on the Moon. No suffering on Mars.

As far as we know, Earth is the only planet where suffering exists.

Morally speaking, minimizing suffering is the only thing that matters. A person without children is already more moral than a person with children, because they have not sentenced other humans to suffering and death.

"It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer." -Arthur Schopenhauer

>>35983473
honestly if im making less than 40k im not having kids, thats just a uprising of depression right there.

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>>35986379
This is your brain on utilitarianism.

>>35985096

If someone thinks that human suffering is a bad thing, yes. And there are even people today who argue that the extinction of humanity should happen sooner rather than later. Like VHEMT, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Most of them promote it by not having kids. Others say all babies should be aborted. Others I suppose might take more radical measures. Like for example, one could genetically engineer a "gene drive" which forces itself into 99% of an organism's offspring, like one making them infertile, which could be used to make any species go extinct.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601213/the-extinction-invention/

Humanity will go extinct eventually. The question is how much pointless human suffering will happen before humans go extinct.

Faced with the prospect of death, many people will look optimistically to another generation, also faced with the prospect of death. But procreation makes death possible. In a world without procreation, eventually there would be no more death.

>>35985913
>Your ancestors went through hell to survive so theyre bloodline wouldn't die.

So did the dinosaurs.

So did countless other species.

99% of species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.

Humanity will also go extinct one day.

But will there be more human suffering if the global population is 14 billion instead of 7 billion? How about 28 billion?

How many more people have to die?

Think of how much pointless suffering and death would have never happened if your ancestors, say 10 generations ago, never had children.

People act like having children gives their death meaning. But it just passes death onto someone else, an innocent child.

>>35986258
>I feel like my genes are capable of making any of my future offspring a net credit to society, so it's my duty to have kids, and invest enough in them so that they can fulfill their potential.

You probably couldn't pick a worse time to have kids. Humanity may not even survive the next 100 years. That is the future hellscape you are sticking them in.

You also can't guarantee they will live a good life, without much pain or suffering. You don't know how they will die. That in itself is just cruel.

"Man dares to allow himself to be cruel, when he's already committed, tranquilly and repeatedly, the crudest act of all: engendering, condemning beings that do not exist or suffer to the horrors of life." -Guido Ceronetti

>>35986567
Why are you so opposed to suffering and death?

>>35986299
>Otherwise the opportunity to live is the best thing you can possibly get.

It's not. It's creating suffering where none existed before.

Think of the worst possible ways to die. Well, real humans who have lived on Earth have probably died that way. No parent thinks the worst will happen to their children. But it can, and does. Daily.

>>35986660
I don't consider suffering to be an inherently bad thing. Suffering is an affirmation of life in a way and to endure suffering is the great test of any individual.

>Think of the worst possible ways to die.
In order to die you would first have to live. And I would consider never having lived at all a fate infinitely worse than dying a gruesome death.

>>35986402

Utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness for the most amount of people. Negative utilitarianism is about minimizing suffering for the most amount of people. Morally speaking, minimizing suffering is the only thing that matters. A rich person getting a new car and feeling temporary happiness does not outweight the suffering of all the starving people that could have been fed with that money. "the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer" -Arthur Schopenhauer

Parents will do all kinds of things to prevent their children from suffering. But the only 100% guaranteed way to prevent all suffering in a child is to not have one.

Mars is beautiful, because there's no pointless suffering on Mars. And most suffering is pointless. People tell themselves stories to give their suffering meaning, like their death had meaning, or some struggle had meaning, but most suffering is pointless and arbitrary. Death is the end of suffeing, which is the best thing that could be said about death.

Death closes the book of suffering that parents began with procreation.

>>35986767
> Morally speaking, minimizing suffering is the only thing that matters.
Why?

>>35986628
This desu. Pain and suffering only appear bad to you due to your limited perspective. When you regain all of our memories and return to our 'God' state you'll realize that everything happens, both good and bad, because it HAS to.

>>35983473
yeah well you can kill yourself Op if that's so much of a problem

and how can you not even make your own life? do you always have to rely on others? idiot

>>35986628

I think most people (and lifeforms that can feel pain) would agree that suffering is bad. It's unpleasant. It doesn't feel good. In fact, it feels horrible. And dying also feels horrible. Think of how many deaths (human and non-human) have happened on Earth in the last 4 billion years. Most of those were probably due to being eating alive. But Arthur Schopenhauer said, "the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer."

Death, however, is the end of suffering, release from suffering. That's why people kill themselves. To stop suffering. Although Emil Cioran said, "It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late." Meaning, people only kill themselves after a long period of suffering. They can't undo it.

Speaking about the Buddha, Hari Singh Gour said "Oblivious of the suffering to which life is subject, man begets children, and is thus the cause of old age and death. If he would only realize what suffering he would add to by his act, he would desist from the procreation of children; and so stop the operation of old age and death."

"By means of abstention from procreation the wheel of suffering would be deprived of its impetus until it comes to a standstill." -Karim Akerma

"Corruption has its beginning in birth and those who refrain from procreation through virginity themselves bring about a cancellation of death by preventing it from advancing further because of them, and, by setting themselves up as a kind of boundary stone between life and death, they keep death from going forward." -Gregory of Nyssa

>>35986853
>the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer
Then don't get devoured, dummy. Do the devouring.

>>35986853
Anon, I'm just letting you know that you chose, of your own free will, to enter into this life knowing fully well each and every event which would transpire, exactly as it would transpire, and still chose to go through with it, as it's preferable to the alternative.

>>35986729
>I don't consider suffering to be an inherently bad thing.

Really? Does that mean you want someone to throw acid in your face?

The reason adrenaline evolved was to increase muscle activity to flee and avoid suffering.

The reason pain receptors evolved was to feel pain so an organism would flee and avoid being eaten alive.

>Suffering is an affirmation of life in a way and to endure suffering is the great test of any individual.

Suffering isn't an "affirmation" of life, it's an unavoidable and even arbitrary part of it.

"If a child, for whose existence I was responsible, were to ask me why he or she were here, what happens after death, whether I could guarantee he or she would not suffer a fate like that Furuta Junko suffered in 1988/89 (please look it up, as there's no room to describe it), what would I say? To me, the fact I have no answers that would not be guesswork, evasion or dogma indicates that having children is selfish and cruel." -Quentin S. Crisp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta

>In order to die you would first have to live. And I would consider never having lived at all a fate infinitely worse than dying a gruesome death.

And you're wrong. People who do not exist cannot suffer. People who are never born are not "deprived" of anything because people who don't exist cannot be deprived of anything.

But bringing someone into existence will always bring them harm.

By making a squishy mortal person who can suffer any imaginable pain and suffering possible, you are throwing an innocent child into a cold cruel universe. Now, maybe you don't care that other people's children suffer horribly, or die horribly. But others think that human suffering as a whole matters, and minimizing suffering matters.

Parents will do all kinds of things to prevent their children from suffering. But the only 100% guaranteed way to prevent all suffering in a child is to not have one.

>>35986789

Because the happiness and pleasure of one person, can never outweigh the pain and suffering of another.

>>35987004
Yeah it can if it's my happiness and pleasure.

>>35986803

I've certainly flirted with pantheism before.

I still have a hard time believing, however, that all the suffering in the world is worth it for the bliss of "God realization."

Really? The Holocaust? Famines? World Wars? Child sexual abuse?

And in pantheism, it is only God that suffers, it is God Itself that must endure all suffering. Which is why Jesus said love thy neighbor as thyself, and turn the other cheek. Because harming others is harming God.

That's also why Jesus said it's better to not have kids.

1 Corinthians 7:8-9
"Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion."

In a similar vein, Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, said "And yet, it is not to be denied, that both the father and mother have Corrupt flesh, and that the seed itself is full, not only of filthy lust, but of contempt and hatred of God: and thus, it is not be denied, that there is sin in procreation."

>>35986871

I would have no remorse killing you. Know why? Because your life has only been made possible by the deaths of countless other animals. And frankly, your continued existence is not worth more than their suffering.

Schopenhauer said "every ravenous beast is the living grave of thousands of others."

>>35986913

Are you Mormon? Because souls do not choose before birth to be born. Children are brought into existence against their consent by parents who make them.

If being awake always preferable to the deepest part of sleep? No, it isn't. It's almost as if you don't exist in the deepest part of sleep. There is no pain, no memory, no suffering, and to that state you will one day permanently return.

>>35987014
No, it doesn't make up for it.

Suffering always weighs more heavily on the "scales of life" as it were.

Your happiness does not erase others' unhappiness. Your pleasure does not erase others' pain. Your contentedness does not erase others' suffering.

Do you think the users of /r9k/, which is probably one of the most unhappy boards, give a fuck if you alone are happy?

>>35987074
This is an opinion and can't ever be objectively proven, but I feel that even infinite suffering is infinitely better than nonexistence. However, I would certainly off myself before it got anywhere NEAR that level because the flesh is weak (and I'm a pussy lol). But think about it. We're God, just sitting there as the Ein Sof, infinite light/love/pleasure/all that for an infinite amount of time (or, likely more correctly, outside of time). We got really fucking bored of that. Think of it like this (not my original idea [though technically everything is 'mine'/ours lol]) if you could lucid dream for any amount of time each night, you might start out living out all your fantasies, one by one and over and over. Eventually, though, you'd tire of that. So the dreams would become more and more extreme, wild, nightmarish, absurd, and certainly long! Eventually, you'd reach the point where you've lived out every possible existence (even those which might seem impossible from your current perspective!), over and over. Including this very existence! What else is God going to do? He/I/We play a sort of 'Hide-and-Seek' with ourself/ves, through every possible existence out of the infinite possibilities. Temporary suffering, pain, or sadness - regardless of how monumental it may seem at the time - is nothing to God in the pursuit of experience, enlightenment, enjoyment, everything - a good story.

>>35987155
We'll certainly return to it, but not permanently! I'm >>35986803 >>35987219. We are all different iterations of the same, singular consciousness/being - God. And so we know fully well what we are getting into when we begin each iteration. Yet we continue to do it, because we have no other real option. This is precisely because there is no time within states of nonexistence. So each time we become nonexistent, we immediately return to a state of being, existence. Time's wonky like that.

>>35986992
>The reason pain receptors evolved was to feel pain so an organism would flee and avoid being eaten alive.
Precisely. We suffer so that we know when something is, for lack of a better word, bad. We feel pain so that we're motivated to escape life-threatening situations. It helps us to identify "bad" things and in overcoming that suffering we needn't fear whatever that thing may be, as we've already triumphed over it.

>Suffering isn't an "affirmation" of life,
Oh but it is. Suffering and joy have an inherently mutually dependent relationship. One cannot exist without the other and in acknowledging whatever desires we may have we must also acknowledge the suffering it will take to realize them.

To use a very simple and /r9k/ example you cannot be a NEET who watches anime and plays video games all day without also being able to handle the loneliness and uncertainty that comes with such a lifestyle.

>People who do not exist cannot suffer.
This is a thing you do that makes me think you're not ready to understand my position, you seem to use "suffering" as being synonymous with "evil". And I'm sceptical of any notion of "evil" as well as that I'm not convinced that suffering is an absolute bad. Saying "but they'll suffer" is about as compelling to me as saying "but they'll go to hell".

Of course people who don't exist cannot suffer. And I think this is a great tragedy.

>People who are never born are not "deprived" of anything because people who don't exist cannot be deprived of anything.
Was a real person deprived of anything? No, of course not. But this misses the point of the argument and it's that the idea that a person who could have been instead was not, and that this is the worst thing that could have happened to such a hypothetical person - to have never been. No opportunity to experience joy, no opportunity to experience suffering, to simply be denied realization.

To have never existed is a lot like death in a way.

>>35987114
>Schopenhauer said . . .
>Schopenhauer said . . .
>Schopenhauer said . . .
Blow it your ass.

If I live because others are dead then so be it. My life is infinitely more valuable to me than all the suffering real or hypothetical to ever happen. I don't have any ill will towards anyone else mind, I love them even, nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.

>>35987196
>Do you think the users of /r9k/, which is probably one of the most unhappy boards, give a fuck if you alone are happy?
No, of course they don't.

But for much the same reasons I do not care about their suffering, or anyone else's for that matter. My own satisfaction is all important and everyone else can mind their own business.

Think this is unreasonable? Well how selfish and arrogant must you be to demand that people live life for your sake?

>>35987219

I've heard all of that before (and even felt it). Yadda yadda, Bill Hicks says it's "all just a ride" and so on. Alan Watts says God plays Hide and Seek with Itself.

However, I still can't reconcile all the suffering that has happened, does happen, and will happen, with pantheism.

I can't make myself believe that all the pain and suffering in the world is simply God having fun. To just brush off suffering, insist it's all make believe, all a game, is to me, colossaly irresponsible. And it's frankly a bad gamble, to bet that all suffering is simply a dream. If you're wrong, you've ignored untold amounts of suffering. But to treat suffering as real, as something that matters, as something that can be prevented, if you're wrong, what have you done? Prevented some suffering.

I have to believe, that even if pantheism is true, that suffering is accidental, that Godforms in amnesia unknowingly harm other Godfarms in amnesia because they don't realize that harming others is harming themselves.

I think Meher Baba did argue that all the suffering in the world is worth the bliss of God-realization, however, I don't think joy can ever outweigh suffering. Now, you could argue that God only dreams of suffering, but the suffering is still experienced.

If God is all things, then God experiences all suffering that happens.

If there is no God, then the universe still experiences all suffering that happens.

Then again, Alan Watts also argued that God seeks to "become nothing" again. Or as Meher Baba said, to return to the unconscious deepest part of sleep.

>>35987258

Most religions that believe in reincarnation insist that we do NOT know "fully well" what were are getting into with each rebirth. Yet the wheel of suffering continues, and that is only made possible by procreation, hence why many of their holy men practice celibacy.

Buddhists do argue that desire is the cause of suffering, but I would argue that procreation is the real source. If one refuses to procreate, if one refuses to eat other animals, like the strictest Jains do, who believe in "ahimsa", non violence towarsd all living things, then suffering stops with them. To create a new person is to do violence to them, and make them vulnerable to all possible violence.

And plenty of other religious groups feel that life is a prison of sorts, or that matter is corrupt in a way. Like the Cathars. Or early Gnostic Christians.

I heard somewhere that suffering, pain, and darkness are simply the absence of God.

>>35987442
I've not actually looked into them, desu. I just experienced this feeling (which, imo, is absolutely undeniable once you've experienced it) on multiple separate occasions with different drugs and combinations of them.

>>35987559
Oh, I don't follow any specific religion. I just speak from personal experience, occasionally borrowing from the words of others who have posted about similar experiences.


I have a question for anyone here, but mostly the suffering guy. Is adding HCl to Zinc immoral? What about combusting a complex organic chemical, such as serotonin? What are your thoughts on interrupting the respiration of a single-celled organism? How about consuming groups of cells, like mosses or lichens? Small plants, or trees? You'd probably think it's immoral once it gets to mammals, rodents in this case, right? Even though they're not self-aware in the same way that you and I are? Is harming a baby, who will have no memory of the incident, immoral? I already know, though, that you think the suffering of humans (and likely all animals) is immoral. But since everything in existence can be broken down and abstracted into energy continually changing forms, how can you say that any one form of energy (and the processes associated with it) is immoral?

>>35985096
Yes, that's what our nature is working us towards anyways

>>35987281
>We feel pain so that we're motivated to escape life-threatening situations.

Not all suffering has a point like that. Some suffering is pointless. Tons of diseases have suffering that is pointless.

>Suffering and joy have an inherently mutually dependent relationship. One cannot exist without the other

Philosophically it sounds nice to say that joy and suffering have a yin/yang relationship.

To mention neurotranmitters, there's no reason that pleasure must accompany pain. But you could argue that less joy is relative suffering.

>you seem to use "suffering" as being synonymous with "evil". And I'm sceptical of any notion of "evil" as well as that I'm not convinced that suffering is an absolute bad. Saying "but they'll suffer" is about as compelling to me as saying "but they'll go to hell".

Nearly every living thing has a direct experience with suffering, unlike hell. You could say suffering is a "living hell" or "hell on Earth."

People generally say that actions that increase suffering are evil. Like torture, rape, murder, violence, theft, causing other people pain, etc. Whereas actions that minimize suffering are generally called good or even "heroic." Like saving someone from a burning building, giving a choking person the Heimlich maneuver, charity, donating things to poor people, giving food to starving people, etc.

>Of course people who don't exist cannot suffer.

You didn't exist for 13 billion years. Were those 13 billion years a tragedy? No.

>Was a real person deprived of anything?

Yes, consent to exist. And they will suffer and die.

>the idea that a person who could have been instead was not, and that this is the worst thing that could have happened to such a hypothetical person - to have never been.

Well, much of what I'm saying is based on the book Better Never to Have Been by David Benatar. That yes, coming into existence is the worst thing that could happen to someone, because it will always bring them harm.

>>35987339
>If I live because others are dead then so be it. My life is infinitely more valuable to me than all the suffering real or hypothetical to ever happen. I don't have any ill will towards anyone else mind, I love them even, nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.

Your worldview is frankly immoral.

Pray I never see you or find our where you live then. If stopping you could prevent future suffering, then it's morally right to do so. Suffering is like a branching tree. If it can be nipped in the bud, it should be.

It's common for children to be solipsists, but it's pretty sad when it continues into adulthood.

And I can say without a doubt that one lamb's life is worth 1,000 of yours. That's because humans are the most evil animals on Earth. That's why your death would actually improve the world.

>>35987364
>I do not care about their suffering, or anyone else's for that matter. My own satisfaction is all important and everyone else can mind their own business.

A worldview indistinguishable from a psychopath. You wouldn't happen to be autistic would you? Was your father 35 years old or older when you were concived? Psychopaths and autistics are both typically lacking in empathy, like you.

>Think this is unreasonable? Well how selfish and arrogant must you be to demand that people live life for your sake?

I'm not demanding others "live life for my sake." But actions have consequences, and some actions lead to more suffering than others.

For example, for a selfish person like you, who doesn't care if anybody else suffers, it would actually improve the lives of everyone around you if they got together and killed you.

>>35987728

I'm not a Jain but they treat suffering in levels, they believe lifeforms with more senses have a greater capacity for suffering. They believe in non violence to all living beings. But they recognize that humans can suffer if they don't eat, so they allow themselves to eat fruits and vegetables, which they figure have a lower ability to suffer than humans or animals or insects, etc. Meher Baba, who was Sufi, would argue that God begins in an unconscious state, then evolves to different states of matter, then different states of material, then higher and higher living beings, until God reincarnates a certain thousands of times as a human, and then can experience "involution" and experience the kinds of things you describe. There's a poem by Rumi, who was a Sufi mystic: "I died to the inorganic state and became endowed with growth, and (then) I died to (vegetable) growth and attained to the animal. I died from animality and became Adam (man): why, then, should I fear? When have I become less by dying?" I suppose Jains would argue that's why caring about the suffering of "lesser" beings matters, because they are all God on the same path.

I would argue that immoral actions tend to increase suffering (like harm), moral actions tend to minimize suffering (like help). I don't know what it "feels" like, if anything, for a single-celled organism to suffer, but I think it's safe to assume that multi-cellular organisms (like people) suffer more. And the more complex a nervous system gets, and the more pain receptors a lifeform has, the capacity to feel pain and suffer probably increases.

Harming a baby who won't remember it is still immoral. Because harming others is immoral. It's not the memory that makes it immoral. Although one could argue that all physical trauma eventually also becomes psychological trauma or emotional trauma, mental trauma. And it's often the mental trauma that's more debilitating in the future than physical trauma, which can heal.

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>>35987364
>everyone needs altruistic help at one point or another
>if you will pure individualism no one will ever act from altruism
>you will go without help when you need it
>thus pure individualism is dissonant with egoism
QED

>>35987763
> Tons of diseases have suffering that is pointless.
Not necessarily true. Sickness opens up doors to self-overcoming in a much more esoteric way than simple "Ow, this hurts I'm going to stop doing this". When facing your own mortality or great pain it forces you to reconsider your life and how you ought to live it.

>there's no reason that pleasure must accompany pain.
Well yes there is, for the very simple reason that joy is contextualized by suffering. To use a simple example of this if you do nothing but eat food all the time you're going to get bored of it, whereas if you're starving to death then some food would carry immense joy.

>Nearly every living thing has a direct experience with suffering, unlike hell.
Of course but my point wasn't that suffering doesn't exist.

>People generally say
I know people generally say that. But the vast majority of people are stupid plebs that are brainwashed by Christianity and utilitarianism. Most people do not consider why they have the morals that they do at all.

>You didn't exist for 13 billion years. Were those 13 billion years a tragedy? No.
I don't think you understood my point.

>Yes, consent to exist. And they will suffer and die.
You totally missed my point here too. I advise you go back and realize why this is a failure of reading comprehension.

>Well, much of what I'm saying is based on the book Better Never to Have Been by David Benatar.
And I'm telling you that what you believe is wrong and utilitarianism is the devil because it leads people to insane conclusions like this.

>>35985124
This, someone who is not happy cannot be a good father.

>>35987830
Children are the most red-pilled people alive. And I'm not a solipsist, I just realize the futility in worrying about anything but your own lot in life.

>evil
>immoral
>morally right
lmao

>>35987914
Yes, I am autistic. Was that supposed to be an argument?

>I'm not demanding others "live life for my sake."
Yes you are. You're demanding that I devote a part of my life to alleviating your suffering and for the fact that I refuse to do this you think I should be killed. That is the most narcissistic thing I've heard in my life.

Fundamentally what I'm saying is that I mind my own business, and everyone else should mind theirs. Why is this selfish? Because I don't reinforce the unwarranted egos of others?

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>>35984475
>>35984600
This mentality is fucking awful, I fucking hate normie breeders I FUCKING HATE THEM.

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>>35988158
You didn't my argument. I'm not making a case for or against altruism. I'm making the case that you shouldn't let it bother you that other people are suffering.

I also don't like egoism.

>>35983473
having kids has always been selfish and is probably the most selfish thing you can do since you are literally forcing another person into this world just so they can grow up and work until they die

>>35988512
Living is voluntary. If the person born doesn't like living then they're free to leave.

>>35986299
>Because I think I have a debt to civilization for supporting me throughout my life that needs to be repaid by affording someone else this opportunity who will then help to support society.

Society is disgusting and you want to have a child not to be a person but to be a fucking moving part in a machine that does nothing but destroy people and make them miserable, I'm so glad that you're probably a NEET khv who will never get given the time of day by a woman to reproduce in the first place.

I feel like the day is coming soon when masses and masses of young people are just going to say fuck it and we're going to experience a dip in birth rates unlike anything we've ever seen before. Young people are extremely self aware these days and more depressed than ever and feminism has made women decide in droves that they don't want to just pop out kids for the sake of it anymore. It's just the mouth breathing normies we have to worry about but right now it's like a 60/40 split in the population between normies and depressed internet kids, robots, SJWs and libshits who don't want to have kids.

>>35988554
>Living is voluntary. If the person born doesn't like living then they're free to leave.

Are you some sort of fucking sociopath? Being alive gives you false hope and someone dying is a lot harder on everyone involved who ever loved them and the person themselves getting to the point of killing themselves than them never having existed.

>>35988568
Why is society disgusting? Do you not like all the great things it's given us? Art, advanced healthcare, universal literacy, safety, comfy homes, I can go on for a long time. What don't you like about it?

>>35988343
>When facing your own mortality or great pain it forces you to reconsider your life and how you ought to live it.

That's also the logic of Jigsaw in the Saw movies.

So childhood cancer is a blessing? Or when drug cartels skin people alive?

>joy is contextualized by suffering. To use a simple example of this if you do nothing but eat food all the time you're going to get bored of it, whereas if you're starving to death then some food would carry immense joy.

But those involve different receptors and different neurotransmitters. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, leptin is the satiety hormone. The body produces both. Say genetic engineering made it so people don't produce ghrelin. Maybe people would get too thin. So maybe the pain of hunger serves a good purpose, survival. But not all suffering has a point.

>the vast majority of people are stupid plebs that are brainwashed by Christianity and utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness. Although "Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as the sum of all pleasure that results from an action, minus the suffering of anyone involved in the action."

I don't think it's brainwashing that most people think harming others is immoral, helping others is moral. That's basically the Golden Rule, treating others as one would wish to be treated.

>I advise you go back and realize why this is a failure of reading comprehension.

You asked "Was a real person deprived of anything?" Yes, they never consented to being born. And they were deprived of being free from suffering.

>And I'm telling you that what you believe is wrong and utilitarianism is the devil because it leads people to insane conclusions like this.

Negative utilitarianism holds that minimizing suffering is morally good. The only 100% guaranteed way to prevent the suffering of a child is to not make them in the first place. So negative utilitarianism leads to antinatalism.

>>35988596
>and someone dying is a lot harder on everyone involved who ever loved them and the person themselves getting to the point of killing themselves
And it shouldn't be this way. We as a society should be prepared to admit about suicide victims that it's what they wanted and that there's no sense in feeling sad for them or trying to stop them. If someone decides they don't like living and decides to stop then more power to them.

>>35988554
that may be true but at the same time from a moral stand point it is not. religious people don't just have that option. on the other hand people that aren't religious still are being forced into this world and have to live until they are old enough to realize that they want out

>>35988372

If I tortured you to death, would you think that's evil? Oh, so you do think evil exists. If I tortured you to death, would you think what I was doing was immoral? Oh, so you do think immorality exists. If I saved your mother from a burning building, would you think what I was doing was morally right? Oh, so you do admit that morality and immorality exist.

And caring about the well-being of others isn't futile, it's basically essential for a society to not descend into hellhole warzones.

And children are not the most redpilled. There's a book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Which is really about making children into less selfish assholes. Some adults never made that change. Like you. Then again, maybe you're just an edgy teenager.

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>>35984600
>>35984475
I hate these arguments with a passion. Not only are they idiotic as fuck, they also disgust me on a personal level.
It's viewing your child as a proxy for you, as some extension of yourself without a personality. What if your son doesn't care about picking up your shitty baton? What if you daughter doesn't want to be like you? Retards who spout shit like that are bound to be awful parents.

>>35988610
On the neurotransmitter point - if you have too much of any one, your body will compensate in an attempt to reach homeostasis, and so will create many more receptors for that specific neurotransmitter. It fucking sucks.
t. Morphine addict

>>35988610
>So childhood cancer is a blessing?
You misunderstand. I'm not saying suffering is inherently good, I'm saying suffering is not inherently bad.

And of course it's not good when drug cartels skin people alive. My whole point is that suffering can potentially hold valuable lessons to enhance your life. If you get brutally tortured and die in the process you aren't really getting an opportunity to learn anything.

> But not all suffering has a point.
To be pedantic nothing has a point beyond that which you ascribe to it. But you aren't wrong, and said before I'm not saying suffering is inherently good but rather not an absolute bad.

> That's basically the Golden Rule
Yes, and this is what I'm talking about. The golden rule isn't an absolute truth of the universe, it's just something people are conditioned to believe.

This is probably my main problem with antinatalists. Very often they assume their morality is totally self-explanatory.

>You asked "Was a real person deprived of anything?"
It was a rhetorical question. And the rhetorical purpose of it was in regards to a point about whether or not it's a tragedy for someone to have never existed. Hence no of course a real person doesn't suffer when they aren't born, they aren't real, they're a hypothetical entity. And I'm saying that this is a fate worse than death.

In fact the rhetorical question at face value was agreeing with you. So it's especially nonsensical to answer it in a way that's totally removed from the previous point.

>So negative utilitarianism leads to antinatalism.
Of course it does. But what I'm telling you is that negative utilitarianism is wrong.

If I'm going to get my moralizing hat on and start laying down moral imperatives I would say we ought to maximize life, which at least in part includes embracing suffering.

>>35988416
>Yes, I am autistic. Was that supposed to be an argument?

No, it was just likely you were either autistic or a psychopath due to your admitted lack of empathy, which both of those groups are deficient in. It's not your fault your parents waited until they were too old to have sex, but they've left you with that defect. I would argue that people on the autism spectrum suffer a lot in life. If your parents never had kids that late in life, you wouldn't suffer with such a thing.

>You're demanding that I devote a part of my life to alleviating your suffering and for the fact that I refuse to do this you think I should be killed.

I never demanded you do anything to alleviate my suffering.

But if a person is increasing suffering in the world, especially for their own selfish reasons, then it's morally good to remove them from the world, to prevent future suffering.

Your continued existence is not necessarily worth all the suffering you may inflict on those around you.

>Fundamentally what I'm saying is that I mind my own business, and everyone else should mind theirs. Why is this selfish? Because I don't reinforce the unwarranted egos of others?

You did say "everyone else can mind their own business." And if you mind your business, you expect everyone to mind theirs. Which is basically the Golden Rule, treating others how you would like to be treated.

But you also said "I do not care about their suffering, or anyone else's for that matter. My own satisfaction is all important."

It's that kind of thinking that warrants your removal from life on Earth. It's identical to the worldview of a mass murderer.

>>35988668
>religious people
For religious people antinatalism and suicide is a non-problem.

>on the other hand people that aren't religious still are being forced into this world and have to live until they are old enough to realize that they want out
Then they should kill themselves when they decide it's what they want to do. Once they've done that they don't need to worry about suffering past, present or future given that they're dead.

>>35988554
>Living is voluntary. If the person born doesn't like living then they're free to leave.

How old do you think is the youngest, willful suicide? And not some baby or toddler accidentally dying due to stupidity?

It probably spikes in the early teens. So the first 13 years of your life are "voluntary." No, they were forced on you by someone else.

Would you be willing, right this second, to trade lives with any 0 to 13-year-old, anywhere on the planet?

>>35984475
Yeah. I've been thinking of having a kid for the sake of having someone achieve the things I always wanted. I'd cut all contact when it inevitably fails.

>>35988629
>We as a society should be prepared to admit about suicide victims that it's what they wanted and that there's no sense in feeling sad for them or trying to stop them.

If you've seen the documentary The Bridge, about people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge to kill themselves, they've talked to survivors and they immediately regretted it after they jumped.

Sometimes wanting to kill yourself really is just a temporary feeling that passes.

And sometimes people would like to no longer exist, without all the painful dying part.

>>35988683
No, as said I'm sceptical of "evil" as a real thing. I would think you're being a massive cunt and really hate you, but that doesn't really require accepting "evil" as a reality.

Additionally I do think morality exists (for lack of a better word). But I'm criticizing how you take your morality as totally self-explanatory and just start pointing fingers at sinners like a bible-thumper. If you're going to start making moral judgements you'd be wise to justify them.

>And caring about the well-being of others isn't futile
True, but that's not what I said. I said it's futile to worry about anything but your own lot in life, which is very true. You have no control over anything that isn't immediately relevant to you. i.e your job, your home, your friends, your family. There's no sense in worrying about things beyond my power like acts of nature or starving Africans.

Additionally I would say that they best way to ensure a good quality of life to others is to leave them alone and let them figure out their own way through life. If we all worry about making our own lives good we are probably going to get what we set out for, a decent quality of life. If we worry about how to make everyone else's life good too we're just going to go around in circles forever about what we should do to accomplish this because we all have a different vision of what a good life means.

>And children are not the most redpilled.
They are. Kids don't give a fuck. They play as they wish all day long and don't give a damn about what others think about it. To be enlightened is to deprogram yourself from society's way of changing us from this and forcing us to be servants.

>>35988828
I was suicidal (for apparently no reason other than shitty neurochemistry, I guess) in the 4th or 5th grade - and I wasn't abused or anything. By all accounts a 'perfect' childhood otherwise.

>>35988863
No, people are forced to say that by our shitty society, or else they're institutionalized and locked away. Look up the statistics for the number of people who go back and successfully kill themselves after one or more failed attempts - it's extremely high.

>>35988782
My parents were 16 and 17 when I was conceived.

>defect
It's not really a defect any more than being gay is. The bad aspects of it are more caused, much like homophobia, from society stubbornly rejecting anyone different from the norm.

>I never demanded you do anything to alleviate my suffering.
Yes you did. And hilariously you did it again immediately in the next sentence.
>But if a person is increasing suffering in the world, especially for their own selfish reasons, then it's morally good to remove them from the world, to prevent future suffering.

>It's identical to the worldview of a mass murderer.
Yes. People who mind their own business are no different to people who kill other people for sport.

Flawless logic.

>>35988828
>How old do you think is the youngest, willful suicide?
I don't know. I suppose it would depend on the person.

If a toddler is smart enough to consciously decide to off themselves then I say have at it.

>>35988863
This is true. But the good thing about the people who don't survive is that they don't need to worry about regretting it afterwards.

>>35988770
>I'm not saying suffering is inherently good, I'm saying suffering is not inherently bad.

Would you willingly submit yourself to total suffering, 24/7, since "suffering is not inherently bad"?

>My whole point is that suffering can potentially hold valuable lessons to enhance your life.

But isn't it the lessons that are valuable, not the suffering?

>The golden rule isn't an absolute truth of the universe, it's just something people are conditioned to believe.

I think it's something most people instinctually feel. "I don't want to get hurt, don't hurt me, I won't hurt you."

>Hence no of course a real person doesn't suffer when they aren't born, they aren't real, they're a hypothetical entity. And I'm saying that this is a fate worse than death.

How is never existing worse than death? I guess you could argue they never got to experience pleasure. But David Benatar wrote, "Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad-and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be."

Basically, he argues that people are delusionally optimistic about their real quality of life.

>what I'm telling you is that negative utilitarianism is wrong.

No. I'm convinced that minimizing suffering is the highest moral philosophy.

>If I'm going to get my moralizing hat on and start laying down moral imperatives I would say we ought to maximize life, which at least in part includes embracing suffering.

Pick a tragedy. Say, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 kids between 6 and 7 were shot to death. Can you imagine the suffering each of those 20 children went through, being shot, losing blood, dying? If their parents never made them, they could have never suffered that.

To have a child is to throw an innocent child into a world where any possible horror could befall them. That's why it's cruel to make children.

>>35989095
Even if suffering is wrong, so what? Eventually the universe will end, and all memory of suffering of any kind will be erased. It's only if suffering has some kind of higher purpose that it might actually survive the end of our universe, and so it's a non-issue. If it's bad/meaningless, it'll be erased. If it's not bad, useful, or even good, then it will continue on.

>>35989095
>Would you willingly submit yourself to total suffering, 24/7, since "suffering is not inherently bad"?
Well no because I want to do stuff and I can't really do anything when I'm locked in some sadist's dungeon for the rest of my life. For much the same reason I haven't killed myself.

>But isn't it the lessons that are valuable, not the suffering?
I don't think you can isolate one from the other when the lessons are a direct consequence of the suffering and indeed in a rather perverse way the suffering IS the learning process.

>I think it's something most people instinctually feel. "I don't want to get hurt, don't hurt me, I won't hurt you."
Do you really think that?
Do you really think people are instinctively opposed to hurting others?

I don't think so. I think people are naturally selfish dicks that would love to not get hurt, but be free to hurt others with impunity.

>How is never existing worse than death?
Well because I like living and I accept death as an inevitable end to this. The fact that I'm going to stop living doesn't really matter when it's only possible because I live to begin with.

However if I was never born there would be no such saving grace. It would be like being dead without first having gotten the opportunity to live.

> If their parents never made them, they could have never suffered that.
If their parents never made them they would have never gotten to be a part of a nice family in the first world either.

I know it's a big no-no to trivialize mass-shootings but what I'm about to say is going to sound like it. I'd say getting shot is a fair trade for a few years of life.

>>35989215
>>35989095
I forgot something.

>Basically, he argues that people are delusionally optimistic about their real quality of life.
What the fuck?

>I enjoy my life this much
>Wrong! Your life isn't really that good!
How in god's name would he know?

>>35988608
We're supposed to suffer and we're forced into doing things like going to school and working, there are no options to live completely off the radar and no options to live by our own means and own rules. I'd be fine with a medieval society or a pre-1800s society but today's society is designed to keep us down and to keep us suffering unless you spend the entirety of your life becoming a corporate high up but then you're too fucking busy to enjoy your money and too uptight to spend it on anything extravagant or you could luck out and be talented and live life on easymode as a famous actor or singer but societal norms and values have taught us that we need to work for money and therefore most famous people feel guilty, unworthy and like Hollywood whores, that's why they all end up so depressed and miserable regardless of what they have. There is no reprisal for A N Y O N E, there is no true happiness for A N Y O N E in this society unless they're blissfully ignorant or in denial or religious.

Also art would still be around without society at least.

>>35988923
>No, as said I'm sceptical of "evil" as a real thing. I would think you're being a massive cunt and really hate you, but that doesn't really require accepting "evil" as a reality.

I would argue that your hatred, and you calling me a "cunt" is just you trying to avoid using the word "evil" or "wrong." You would think what I'm doing is wrong and I should stop. Post-modern liberals tend to do this thing where actions aren't "evil", they're "shitty" or "violating" someone's rights. Afraid to call something evil.

>Additionally I do think morality exists (for lack of a better word). But I'm criticizing how you take your morality as totally self-explanatory and just start pointing fingers at sinners like a bible-thumper.

I don't think morality is totally self-explanatory. I just think that most people agree that harming others is generally morally wrong or "bad", and helping others is generally morally right or "good", and that these judgements are based on levels of suffering or well-being, and that people naturally want to avoid suffering.

>There's no sense in worrying about things beyond my power like acts of nature or starving Africans.

Well, one could blame starving Africans on the parents who made them. You didn't make them. So the parents have more to do with their children's suffering than you do. However, you may also have more power to alleviate their suffering than their parents.

>If we all worry about making our own lives good we are probably going to get what we set out for, a decent quality of life.

No, that kind of selfish "I got mine" thinking led to the global financial collapse in 2008.

>To be enlightened is to deprogram yourself from society's way of changing us from this and forcing us to be servants.

I think socialization is necessary. Those without it are sociopaths, or people with anti-social personality disorder (aka psychopaths, like the psychopaths who led to the global financial collapse in 2008).

>>35988946
Well it may have more to do with the method of suicide than anything else. Jumping from a high place can be terrifying. The drop is also probably longer than they thought it would be.

Some people regret their suicide attempts, they realize they wanted to live afterall, some people keep trying to finish the job their parents started.

>>35984600
> passing on your genes

utter pleb Tier animalistic shit. Passing on physical traits is pointless. Memes are what a legacy obsessed individual should be striving to pass on. Through your presence and influence you can influence hoards of people, artwork and ideas are far more important than genetics.

Example: at work I was there long enough to start bring the guy who trained new people. I taught them my way of doing things, my terminology, my rationikastions about what's more important than what. Then they go and work like that, eventually using those same teachings to teach new people. After a while that's seen as the only way it's ever been. I'm sure it'll change again, but for a time me and my memes had ownership and legacy.

>>35989266
Well yeah there is. If you really want you can just learn survivalist skills, get the right equipment and live innawoods. The world has a lot of unpopulated wilderness where you could live.

I also don't know how you can think school and rent are oppression but think medieval society where you would more likely than not be a serf is okay.

>but today's society is designed to keep us down and to keep us suffering unless you spend the entirety of your life becoming a corporate high up
No it isn't. I work for minimum wage in a call centre and my life is pretty good. I have a comfy room with fun things in it, I'm in good health, I have good friends and a nice family, all I have to do is work and I'm free to spend the rest of my time having a good time.

Really life isn't so bad, anon.

>>35988629
>And it shouldn't be this way. We as a society should be prepared to admit about suicide victims that it's what they wanted and that there's no sense in feeling sad for them or trying to stop them

What the fuck? How disconnected are you? Can you honestly imagine a teenager's mother seeing that her son wants to kill himself and just say "well, that's too bad, sure, go for it"? There's lots of people around who've been at the brink of suicide and have come back from it and went on to live happy lives, and then there are people whose entire existence is a logical fallacy and a result of selfishness on their parents' part who would've just been better off never having existed because it was cruel to put them here and give them hope in the first place. The children of heroin addicts, starving African kids born with AIDS, the kids of people who just had them for the sake of having them, the kids of people who weren't prepared to have them, the kids of depressed robots, the kids born into ghettos and put through foster care systems; they all deserved better. They don't deserve to spend the rest of their miserable soul-crushing lives living on false hope and chasing dreams that will never come to fruition for them.

>>35988863
Those people probably regretted it due to people in their lives seeing what they'd fucking done to themselves and actually giving a shit and giving them the love and attention they'd been craving for so long for once. That's why they regretted it.

>>35989019
>Yes you did. And hilariously you did it again immediately in the next sentence.

You might never cause me suffering, personally, ever. But to not care about the suffering of anyone else, there's a very high likelihood that your actions will increase suffering in those around you.

But your continued existence is not necessarily worth all the suffering you may inflict on those around you.

>Yes. People who mind their own business are no different to people who kill other people for sport.

Someone who kills people for sport could easily say "I do not care about their suffering, or anyone else's for that matter. My own satisfaction is all important."

I'm not saying you're as bad as someone who kills people for sport. But you share the same mindset, the same worldview. Which makes you a danger to others. Like anyone who lacks empathy.

Frankly, the world would be a better place if everyone who lacked empathy was eliminated.

>>35989379
>Really life isn't so bad, anon.

But it is. And it could be better. No wait, let me rephrase that; it could be fair. But it isn't. Good for you getting to born into a nice family that actually loves you but a lot of us don't get that privilege and it's just misery upon misery, and good for you for never striving for anything higher than your call centre job. You are built to survive in this society and to an extent I wish I was wired the same.

>>35986379
>schopenhaur
dumb kid's post dismissed.

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Daily reminder that life is a pyramid scheme of suffering because of inherit desires. We all wish we could be a buddha of infinite inner peace, yet that's exactly what we were before we were born, due to our parents selfishness. All because they thought it would make their own lives more endurable.

>>35989381
At one point, I'd decided to kill myself, and my friend fully supported me (though he was a bit bummed to lose his best and almost only friend). That made me love him so fucking much - getting support for once in my life was exactly what I needed, and it was actually what kept me from killing myself lol. If he'd called the police on me and had me committed, that would've ruined any possibility of a good life for me, and I would've 100%, absolutely zero doubt whatsoever, killed myself the instant I was released from my 72 hour hold (God fucking damn it we really ought to outlaw those - they piss me off so fucking much).

>>35986211
>Furuta Junko

too soon ;_;

>>35986853
stop quoting poeple you dumb twat.

>>35986233
How do you know humans will go extinct?

>>35989140
>Even if suffering is wrong, so what?

Suffering matters because there is a living being experiencing it. Pain, agony, trauma, being eaten alive, etc.

>Eventually the universe will end, and all memory of suffering of any kind will be erased.

When a brain dies, or rather, when braincells die one by one, all memory of suffering is erased because all memories in a brain are destroyed. But there being no memory of it doesn't change the fact that it happened, someone or something had to feel it as it was happening. An experiencer experienced it.

That matters, because you too can suffer. You share that with other living beings. We are born, we suffer, we die. The ability to suffer is something you have in common with other life. Not all lifeforms suffer though, and they are the lucky ones. But the most fortunate are those who are never born.

>>35989272
>I would argue that your hatred, and you calling me a "cunt" is just you trying to avoid using the word "evil" or "wrong."
In a sense you're right. "evil" as a concept is basically a way for people to identify the things they hate. The problem I have with it is it transforms "I don't like you" into "I don't like you for supposedly objective reasons and everyone else has an obligation to hate you too". I have no such pretences, I would want you to stop simply because it hurts. Not because there's an objective reason why you shouldn't.

>. I just think that most people agree that harming others is generally morally wrong or "bad", and helping others is generally morally right or "good", and that these judgements are based on levels of suffering or well-being, and that people naturally want to avoid suffering.
The thing about that is that something isn't true just because lots of people believe it.

>However, you may also have more power to alleviate their suffering than their parents.
I also have infinitely less reason to care.

>No, that kind of selfish "I got mine" thinking led to the global financial collapse in 2008.
On the contrary if everyone thought like me there wouldn't have been a financial collapse because there would not be capitalism. If every single man, woman and child just looked out for themselves and no one else things like property and business hierarchies that make multimillionaires possible would not exist. Society would probably resemble some kind market socialism.

However you do have a point. Generally rich people do have "got mine" attitudes and this definitely contributes to capitalist crises. But the worst tragedies of all, concentration camps, artificial famines, genocide, are caused by people that are trying to enforce their vision of "good" on everyone else. The world is a lot safer in the hands of selfish dicks than it is in the hands of would be good-doers.

>>35989499
Not him, but it's extremely likely (if not absolutely certain due to entropy - though there are some theoretical workarounds) that the universe will eventually come to an end.

>>35989514
Why does that make it matter, though? Honest question - I'm not trying to shitpost.

>>35989381
>Can you honestly imagine a teenager's mother seeing that her son wants to kill himself and just say "well, that's too bad, sure, go for it"?
No, but I'm saying that maybe it would be better if she did.

>They don't deserve to spend the rest of their miserable soul-crushing lives living on false hope and chasing dreams that will never come to fruition for them.
Precisely, which is why we should remind them that suicide is always an option so that they may suffer no more.

>>35989523
Could an alternate reality simulation continue to work after heat death? If so, we would still exist in some form

>>35989544
If, by that, you mean our universe is being simulated by something outside of it [our universe], then yes. So in that way, humans could live on. That's actually the premise of systemspace.link :3

>>35989405
>But your continued existence is not necessarily worth all the suffering you may inflict on those around you.
Ah, but here is the thing. To me it is, in fact to me my continued existence is priceless and I think everyone else would be wise to think so about their lives too.

If I stopped existing then that's terrible. I can't do all the things I wanted to do.
If someone else is starving to death that's no concern of mine. I'm still well-fed and free enjoy life.

>Frankly, the world would be a better place if everyone who lacked empathy was eliminated.
Do you realize that what you're suggesting isn't that different to what I'm saying? In fact it's even more radically selfish.

I'm saying we should all leave each other alone.
You're saying that anyone who could potentially post a threat to your well-being, even in the most indirect way, should be killed. The only people who should live are people that will heighten your non-suffering. Your satisfaction, to you, is more important than my continued existence. How is this anything but a more aggressively self-serving version of my platform?

>>35989432
>Good for you getting to born into a nice family that actually loves you but a lot of us don't get that privilege and it's just misery upon misery
Then just cut ties with your family and go somewhere else. That's what I did with my biological father.

> and good for you for never striving for anything higher than your call centre job
I'm actually studying to go to university and hope to be an academic some day. I also do artistic stuff in my spare time.

>>35989215
>Well no because I want to do stuff and I can't really do anything when I'm locked in some sadist's dungeon for the rest of my life.

And I would argue that suffering is inherently "bad" because it's something people want to avoid.

>I don't think you can isolate one from the other when the lessons are a direct consequence of the suffering and indeed in a rather perverse way the suffering IS the learning process.

Inductive reasoning is when people take a singular experience and turn it into a generalization. That thing hurt me, so avoid all things like that. But some things, like chronic pain, have no lesson.

>Do you really think people are instinctively opposed to hurting others?

Well, I think bullying suggests otherwise. But I think people instinctively "don't want any trouble." Even bullies are scared of dying, so once a bully realizes they can't hurt others with impunity (like if someone beats the hell out of them), they may behave more.

>Well because I like living and I accept death as an inevitable end to this.

If you didn't exist, you wouldn't know any better. And most people don't know how they will die, except people who kill themselves.

>It would be like being dead without first having gotten the opportunity to live.

The point is that people who don't exist cannot suffer. People who don't exist can't be locked in some sadist's dungeon for the rest of their life. But that can happen, and has happened, to people who were brought into existence. And I bet they wish they had never been born (along with most of /r9k).

>If their parents never made them they would have never gotten to be a part of a nice family in the first world either.

Not everyone is born in the First World. And there are bad things to living in the First World too. Ending up on /r9k/ for example.

>I'd say getting shot is a fair trade for a few years of life.

What's so good about a few years of life? They got to taste sweet things?

>>35989261

This first thing doesn't have to do with David Benatar, but it's related I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
>Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than do non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs, depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.

As for Benatar

>David Benatar cites three psychological phenomena which he believes responsible for our unreliable assessment of life's quality:
>Tendency towards optimism (pollyannaism): we have a positively distorted perspective of our lives in the past, present and future.
>Adaptation: we adapt to our circumstances, and if they worsen, our sense of well-being is lowered in anticipation of those harmful circumstances, according to our expectations, which are usually divorced from the reality of our circumstances.
>Comparison: we judge our lives by comparing them to those of others, ignoring the negatives which effect everyone to focus on specific differences. And due to our optimism bias, we mostly compare ourselves to those worse off, to overestimate the value of our own well-being.

>Benatar concludes:
>"The above psychological phenomena are unsurprising from an evolutionary perspective. They militate against suicide and in favour of reproduction. If our lives are quite as bad as I shall still suggest they are, and if people were prone to see this true quality of their lives for what it is, they might be much more inclined to kill themselves, or at least not to produce more such lives. Pessimism, then, tends not to be naturally selected."

>>35989740
>And I would argue that suffering is inherently "bad" because it's something people want to avoid.
That's circular logic

>why is it bad? Because people want to avoid it.
>Why do they want to avoid it? Because it's bad

>like chronic pain, have no lesson.
Oh but they do. In having chronic pain you must learn how to cope with pain, there is the lesson.

>But I think people instinctively "don't want any trouble."
I would agree. But my point was that people want both, they want to be free to hurt others without getting hurt. Their aversion to hurting others is conditional on whether that will cause hurt for themselves.

>If you didn't exist, you wouldn't know any better.
And that god I'm fortunate enough to avoid that.

>And most people don't know how they will die
True, but I have a hard time imagining a death that would be so horrific the rest of my life wouldn't have been worth it.

>The point is that people who don't exist cannot suffer
Well of course they can't but I've already raised my objections to you treating suffering as a universal bad.

>People who don't exist can't be locked in some sadist's dungeon for the rest of their life.
Very true, so they can't. But they can't have great fun either.

>Not everyone is born in the First World. And there are bad things to living in the First World too.
Well yeah but my point was very literal. The kids who died in that shooting were born in the first world and clearly something bad happened to them, I never denied that.

>What's so good about a few years of life? They got to taste sweet things?
In essence, yes.

>>35989379
>Really life isn't so bad, anon.

Right now. For you. In your opinion. It could get worse later. And someone else right now might hear about you working for minimum wage in a cell center, and think your life sounds pretty bad.

But would you trade your life, right now, with the life of any random person on Earth right now?

Would you trade your life, right now, with the life of any random person on Earth at any time in the past?

Would you trade your life, right now, with the life of any random lifeform on Earth right now?

Would you trade your life, right now, with the life of any random lifeform on Earth at any time in the past?

When viewed as a whole, as 4 billion years of life on Earth, as I-don't-know-how-many-lives-and-deaths, of all life that has ever existed on Earth, then yeah, life really is bad. You may be one of the relatively lucky ones, but you are massively outnumbered by the poor wretches of life-and-death on Earth.

There is an interesting problem with arguing against living in general, it automaticlly makes you a hypocrite.

>>35989381
>Those people probably regretted it due to people in their lives seeing what they'd fucking done to themselves and actually giving a shit and giving them the love and attention they'd been craving for so long for once. That's why they regretted it.

They regretted letting go of that railing. Gravity has a way of doing that to people.

>>35989857
Yeah it could get worse later but there's no sense in thinking about that. All we can really do is our best to avoid that.

>But would you trade your life, right now, with the life of any random person on Earth right now?
No? I like my life and I don't want to drop everything I'm doing .

>but you are massively outnumbered by the poor wretches of life-and-death on Earth.
Well that's too bad.

>>35989381
>Can you honestly imagine a teenager's mother seeing that her son wants to kill himself and just say "well, that's too bad, sure, go for it"?

No, because she probably cares about her son and wants him to continue living and being around. Basically, people around a suicidal person selfishly want that person to keep on living (and suffering) for their own sake. People say suicide is selfish, but it's even more selfish to insist that someone keeps on living and suffering simply because you want them too.

"They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person." -Arthur Schopenhauer

>>35989444

Schopenhauer was throwing down redpills hundreds of years ago.

"Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies."

"Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and short-sighted--in a word, are big children all their lives, something intermediate between the child and the man, who is a man in the strict sense of the word."

>>35989457

Thanks for that GIF and post, anon.

Life may be suffering but you made me laugh.

>>35989926
Not him, but goddamn it do I ever love that fucking quote. It's just fantastic.

>>35989494
Look, I know quotes tend to piss off phoneposters like yourself, but we desktop users were here first.

Hell, you're probably just upset you can't maintain pasta on your phone.

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>>35989499
>How do you know humans will go extinct?

It's not if, but when.

>>35990036
Goddamn it. None of that should matter to me at all, since I'll be LONG dead, but it fucking terrifies me. Fuck, I REALLY hope humanity gets its shit together and makes off-planet colonies before the next mass-extinction event, or else we're hey absolutely fucked. And I reeaaally want for us to create a galactic empire. So much.

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My family is full of high-IQ sensitive types. We're not cut out for this world. We don't do well. So I don't know why they keep breeding new victims. I got snipped a long time ago. But my sister created a couple new ones, and they are are smart as hell. They're already starting to figure out how fucked up this world is. I feel bad for them.

You know who should breed, low-IQ Republicans who like TV and obeying authority. People who live by trite sayings like "early bird gets the worm!" Those people are perfectly suited to this world. Just make a lot of them, and leave people like us out of it please.

>>35989518
>"evil" as a concept is basically a way for people to identify the things they hate. The problem I have with it is it transforms "I don't like you" into "I don't like you for supposedly objective reasons and everyone else has an obligation to hate you too".

Well, it gives things more authority or weight to call it evil, rather than "that hurts me." If someone responds "I don't care", then saying what they are doing is "evil" points to something bigger, more important than just one person's opinion.

>I also have infinitely less reason to care.

You should care because they are people who can suffer just like you. You can suffer like they do. They can suffer like you do. You want to avoid suffering. So do they.

>if everyone thought like me there wouldn't have been a financial collapse because there would not be capitalism.

Capitalism is based on acting like a selfish parasite, getting someone else to do most of the work, while someone above reaps most of the profits.

It was selfish psychopathic gamblers who caused the global financial collapse.

>But the worst tragedies of all, concentration camps, artificial famines, genocide, are caused by people that are trying to enforce their vision of "good" on everyone else.

All those things are possibly only because parents have kids, who themselves are enforcing their vision of "good" on everyone.

>The world is a lot safer in the hands of selfish dicks than it is in the hands of would be good-doers.

I think smog in China and burning rivers prove otherwise.

Anthropogenic climate change has a very real chance of causing the extinction of most species on Earth. Some antinatalists might see extinction as a good thing, since it means no more suffering for a species. But it could also cause the extinction of humanity. Some antinatalists do view human extinction as a good thing. But how that happens, some ways entail more suffering than others.

>>35990297
>Well, it gives things more authority or weight to call it evil, rather than "that hurts me." If someone responds "I don't care", then saying what they are doing is "evil" points to something bigger, more important than just one person's opinion.
Well of course. But really that's not the case, really it is just one person's opinion and really there isn't a bigger more important force at work. They are hurting me and I don't like it is all there is to it.

>You should care because they are people who can suffer just like you. You can suffer like they do. They can suffer like you do. You want to avoid suffering. So do they.
Yes, and their suffering doesn't diminish my enjoyment and alleviating it wouldn't heighten my enjoyment.

>Capitalism is based on acting like a selfish parasite, getting someone else to do most of the work, while someone above reaps most of the profits.
I know. And if workers were more selfish they wouldn't get away with it.

>All those things are possibly only because parents have kids
Yes. It's also made possible by there being water on Earth and the sun existing, clearly these are problems we need to solve.

>I think smog in China and burning rivers prove otherwise.
I think the holocaust and the atrocities of the USSR are more important than environmental damage.

>>35989533
>Why does that make it matter, though?

matter: be of importance; have significance; weight; make any/a difference, be of importance, be of consequence, be relevant, count.

Is it significant when you suffer? Yes, you can feel it. Is it significant when other lifeforms suffer? Yes, they can feel it too.

Suffering is important and suffering matters because every lifeform that can suffer wants to avoid it, and evolution has even led to many adaptations in order to avoid suffering. Fear, adrenaline, speed, even immune systems, etc.

I guess someone could argue that suffering (and avoidance of suffering) is what led to small mammals developing into humans over millions and millions of years. That even avoidance of suffering is the "prime mover" of evolution.

But if you are a living being on Earth, we are all in this "boat" of suffering together. If your personal suffering increases, that matters. If your personal suffering decreases, that matters. If suffering in the world increases, that matters. If suffering in the world decreases, that matters.

>>35986211
Then why are you not killing yourself right now?
If you decide to live, maybe there is something that makes it worth.
Hurr durr people experience pain so there should be no more people.
What the fuck is this retarded nihilism logic.

>>35989638
>Ah, but here is the thing. To me it is, in fact to me my continued existence is priceless and I think everyone else would be wise to think so about their lives too.

To you it feels priceless. But in reality it isn't. For example, in many countries people are killed simply because their organs are worth more than that person is worth alive.

>If I stopped existing then that's terrible. I can't do all the things I wanted to do.

Chances are you won't be able to do them anyway, which is another kind of suffering.

>If someone else is starving to death that's no concern of mine. I'm still well-fed and free enjoy life.

See, and that's what makes you a bad person. Your enjoyment of life does not negate someone else's pain and suffering in life. Suffering carries more weight than happiness.

>Do you realize that what you're suggesting isn't that different to what I'm saying? In fact it's even more radically selfish.

No. Eliminating everyone who lacks empathy, like yourself, would mean less overall suffering in the world. The people eliminated wouldn't suffer any more, and the people they selfishly use or carelessly harm wouldn't experience that suffering either.

>You're saying that anyone who could potentially post a threat to your well-being, even in the most indirect way, should be killed. The only people who should live are people that will heighten your non-suffering. Your satisfaction, to you, is more important than my continued existence.

This isn't just about my suffering, but the overall suffering in the world.

I'm saying that if a person's existence leads to more suffering than their non-existence, then it makes sense to eliminate that person. For example, if someone could prevent Hitler from being born, it would be moral to do so, in the interest of preventing suffering in the future.

Or if a fetus faces a life of suffering in a third world country, it makes sense to abort that baby, to prevent future suffering.

>>35988158

Ah yes, the good old Kantian Argument. That still comes down to a personal preference on how willing you are to gamble, though

>>35983473
>implying having a kid isn't the most otherish thing you can do
You're actually, physically creating someone else and then hopefully nurturing to maturity. Yeah that's sooo selfish

Jk I'm pretty big on the antinatalism meme too

>>35989348
Why not pass on both, by that logic?

>>35989834
>That's circular logic

No, I would say that when people say things are "bad", they mean they should be avoided. Bad people, bad habits, bad thoughts, bad apples, etc. Suffering is labeled "bad" because organisms naturally want to avoid suffering.

>In having chronic pain you must learn how to cope with pain, there is the lesson.

So nerve pain is a lesson in coping? Migraines are a lesson in coping? Joint pain is a lesson in coping?

>they want to be free to hurt others without getting hurt.

I don't think most people want to hurt most others. But they may want to hurt people who've hurt them. And it's natural to want to retaliate.

>And that god I'm fortunate enough to avoid that.

Why? What's so good about existing?

>True, but I have a hard time imagining a death that would be so horrific the rest of my life wouldn't have been worth it.

How about you get thrown into a woodchipper tomorrow, feet first? Was it all worth it?

>Well of course they can't but I've already raised my objections to you treating suffering as a universal bad.

Suffering is something all lifeforms that can feel it want to avoid, so I'm pretty sure that makes it universally bad.

>Very true, so they can't. But they can't have great fun either.

There are maybe 107 billion humans who have ever lived. Do you think over half of them had "great fun"?

>In essence, yes.

Yeah well I don't think getting the chance to taste sugar outweighs dying a horrific agonizing death.

>>35989860
>There is an interesting problem with arguing against living in general, it automaticlly makes you a hypocrite.

"First, it is possible to think that both coming into existence is a serious harm and that death is (usually) a serious harm. Indeed, some people might think that coming into existence is a serious harm in part because the harm of death is then inevitable." -David Benatar

It's always selfish to have kids, always, in every time period

Bringing life into the world without that life's consent is wrong.

>>35990616
>in reality
What did he mean by this?

My view is no less real than the view of someone who would want to harvest my body for organs. If you have some method for objectively quantifying a person's worth then do tell.

>Chances are you won't be able to do them anyway
Well then that's my own fault isn't it?

>Your enjoyment of life does not negate someone else's pain and suffering in life.
Of course it doesn't. I could be having the most fun anyone to ever live has ever had and people would still be suffering.

But why should I care? While they're starving to death I'm having an absolutely great time. So why worry about it?

>Eliminating everyone who lacks empathy, like yourself, would mean less overall suffering in the world.
You could also achieve less suffering by nuking all life on Earth to extinction. As a matter of fact that would totally eliminate suffering. So why not just slaughter every man, woman, child, animal, plant and microorganism alive by your logic?

>This isn't just about my suffering,
Oh but it is, it absolutely is. It may sound a lot nicer if you dress it up as being for everyone else's sake but that's not really the case. If you did not want to minimize suffering in your own life this discussion would not be happening.

>. For example, if someone could prevent Hitler from being born, it would be moral to do so, in the interest of preventing suffering in the future.
Again, explain why suffering is an absolute moral bad that we have an imperative to alleviate.

>>35989918
>Yeah it could get worse later but there's no sense in thinking about that.

It will get worse later. That's what aging is, life getting worse.

>No? I like my life and I don't want to drop everything I'm doing.

And I'm saying that your life may be going good right now according to you, but life as a whole is bad, because you wouldn't be willing to trade lives with any random person, the chances your life will be worse is much greater than the chances it will be better.

>>35990771
>No, I would say that when people say things are "bad", they mean they should be avoided. Bad people, bad habits, bad thoughts, bad apples, etc. Suffering is labeled "bad" because organisms naturally want to avoid suffering.
But here is what you must consider. Beyond the fact that most people avoid it why is it bad?

You virtually just said almost for word that suffering is bad because

>So nerve pain is a lesson in coping? Migraines are a lesson in coping? Joint pain is a lesson in coping?
Yes.

>I don't think most people want to hurt most others.
I'm not saying most people are sadists. I'm saying most people would like to have the freedom to hurt others whilst being protected from being hurt. They don't want that freedom because they want to hurt people for fun, they want it so they can do other things without any regard for the people this may harm.

> What's so good about existing?
It's fun.

>Was it all worth it?
Yes.

>Suffering is something all lifeforms that can feel it want to avoid
But are they right to want to avoid it though?
I would say they're not, as said I think there's value in suffering and great gains to be made by embracing it.

>There are maybe 107 billion humans who have ever lived. Do you think over half of them had "great fun"?
I think a greater number of them had great fun compared to those who did get locked in a sadist's dungeon for the rest of their life.

I've noticed you have a serious problem with following your own arguments.

>Yeah well I don't think getting the chance to taste sugar outweighs dying a horrific agonizing death.
Clearly you're not living right.

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I will NEVER EVER have children and there is nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise.
Same goes for everyone else like me.

What are you gonna do about it - force me to impregnate some girl? LMAO

BREEDERS BLOWN THE FUCK OUT FOR ALL ETERNETY

>>35985096
*species


speciesspeciesspecies

>>35990833
>That's what aging is
No it isn't. I've aged a bit and I would say my life has gotten better.

>because you wouldn't be willing to trade lives with any random person
Yes, it's proven that life is bad because I don't want to drop everything and trade lives with some random person. Flawless logic, antinatalists.

A better argument would be if you would rather die or be randomly reincarnated as someone else. In which case I would prefer the latter so it doesn't really work.

i have autism so my kids would too

im doing the world a favor

>>35991247
Autistic people need to breed en masse and outbreed normalscum.

>>35983473
Nowadays children are more like trophies the parents put up on normiebook.

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>>35984600
not mine
origina

>>35991285
I kind of want to see that. Just an army of 500 million autists vs an army of 500 million normies. That would be interesting.

>>35991313
Thanks for describing my mother.

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>>35991285
l never thought of it that way

>>35983473
Yes goy, having kids is selfish. Jamal, Javier, and Muhammed all have enough children for the world as it is

>>35983473

I can't pass down fat genes, I myself am just fat and miserable and have been sense I was 9. Unless I make my kids fat he'll probably lead a decent life like the people around me. I'm self-aware enough to know I've been dealt the short straw and that life is worth living (for others(not me)). My parents are simply incredibly stupid liberals

>>35984600
You are wrong. Have fun raising Jamal's kid.

>>35983473
If life is worse than oblivion then yes, reproduction is selfish. But if life were truly worse than oblivion you would already have ended your own. The simple fact that you are here asking the question proves that fundamentally you believe existence is better than non-existence and thus it would be selfish to withhold that from your potential offspring.

Sort yourself out.

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>>35983473
Or maybe people just genuinely like kids? They like the company and companion ship? The surreal experience of holding a baby in your arms? Caring and nurturing him as he grows up. Knowing he looks up to you. Helping it through problems it'll have in the future with your life experience? Fuck off with your dumb ass nihilistic "b-but just why? What's the point" questions.

>>35990612
BECAUSE WE HAVE A BIOLOGICAL DRIVE TO WANT TO LIVE YOU RETARD

NOT A PHILOSOPHICAL ONE