Why being anti-work is not wrong.
So the default position for the modern person is to think that to be anti-work is to be anti-social. Since any economy runs on work and people’s willingness to accept this condition of life, it is thought that work is good and anyone against it is just a bad guy. Clearly those who are doing pretty well and are positioned towards the top of the economic hierarchy would be inclined to agree with this arrangement more. I’d add retired folks who miraculously have enough access to resources to live also fall under this.
However entering the economic system itself was a forced game. Yes it has to be played to survive but the fact that we are forced to play it at all lest we die an agonizing slow death by starvation or scary prospect of outright suicide makes it a legitimate injustice to be philosophically and personally against. Any forced, inescapable game is a legitimate target for moral scrutiny and criticism. This is quite independent to post facto subjective evaluations of liking the game. Like the happy slave, the laborer has no other choice. Peace.
However entering the economic system itself was a forced game. Yes it has to be played to survive but the fact that we are forced to play it at all lest we die an agonizing slow death by starvation or scary prospect of outright suicide makes it a legitimate injustice to be philosophically and personally against. Any forced, inescapable game is a legitimate target for moral scrutiny and criticism. This is quite independent to post facto subjective evaluations of liking the game. Like the happy slave, the laborer has no other choice. Peace.
Comments (285)
Amor fati (i.e. "amen").
Your quote made me think of this:
[i]But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.[/i]
Frost. Two Tramps in Mud Time
I'm curious how you associate these quotes.
I should have put in a couple of more stanzas:
[i]Out of the woods two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps.)
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.
Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.[/i]
This reminds me of an episode of One Punch Man.
So are you just pro work or anti anti work?
So the tramps go penniless cause the wood chopper was cheap :razz: . But more seriously, besides that most work does not unite the two, the fact of work is the issue.
This is where I think we disagree. Even as you decry one form of exploitation (Capitalism) you turn away from another (forced game of life). Like the happy slave, any form of necessary X (eg work) is unjust (pace happy slave- your subjective happiness with the necessity doesn’t negate the injustice).
Homemakers were very social people because taking care of relationships was a very important part of being a homemaker. Volunteering comes with intrinsic rewards of feeling important, getting an important job done, being appreciated. Of course, we do not normally think of the homemaker as a working person, but today we are realizing someone has to care for the children, so our solution is not to strengthen family values and marriage law to assure children's needs are met, we have agreed to push the homemaker out of the home and pay someone to do what she did simply because she believed she should do it. And we are scrambling to find people to care for the elderly, another thing homemakers did without pay because they believed they should do it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Have you ever tried to produce enough food for your family and preserve it, and make the clothes and other things a family needs? If a person is single, survival is less challenging, but it can still be life-threatening. My point is, mother nature does not care if you live or die, and thinking we survive without working, is an error. One way or another we are forced to work, or beg for the kindness of others. In the old days, a woman could produce everything the family needed and she was not paid to do so. It was done because that is what a good woman did.
Ludic fallacy. Read NN Taleb.
An oxymoronic fiction like e.g. "noble savage", "p-zombie", "rational actor", "utility maximizer" which I call the "Old Plantation fallacy" (or White Man's Burden fallacy). Specious nonsense, schop1. :shade:
That's about applying statistical models inaccurately to real life situations. Not quite the same.
Quoting 180 Proof
So in my case, not to be taken literally. Rather, it is to illustrate a situation where an individual is happy despite being put in an unjust situation. Mind you, the injustice may not even be realized.
An individual who is enslaved is unjustly put in that position. However, who am I to take away any happiness he still gets from living his daily life, despite his/her injustice. Similarly, a computer programmer who really likes coding can still enjoy this forced economic game. It doesn't negate the injustice of being in a forced game.
The problem is, people don't see life as a forced game, but there's the ignorance. It's not that it's not true, it's just not realized. A forced situation is a forced situation. Yes slavery would be a more limited forced situation, but AGAIN, doesn't negate that life itself presents work, which is a forced situation upon the worker.
You can think of it like "class consciousness" in Marxist ideology. Class was always there, but people perhaps didn't realize it in the terms Marx was positing.
I think it's rather narrow-minded and self-servingly convenient to make the distinction between a forced situation at the hands of a person, and a forced situation by the hands of circumstances of the life game.
1. Life is not a game.
2. Slaves are not happy.
3. Making an argument with false or nonsensical premises (such as 1 & 2) necessarily reaches a false or nonsensical conclusion.
How so? The structures are in place (see "throwness" in Existential thought). The iterative structures in place create its own game (socio-political-economic-biological-natural). Even @apokrisis would agree on the formation of such game-like regularity occurring from life. Or maybe not.. But don't care really one way or the other if he agrees or not, just thought he might add some of his triadic stuff :D.
Quoting 180 Proof
You make it categorical.. Rather a slave can be happy (at times). Does he have a right to be happy? Of course. But is he still in an unjust situation? Yes. That's all I'm conveying. How you don't agree with that, I don't see.
Quoting 180 Proof
Since I refute the nonsensicalness of 1 and 2, 3 would not follow.
1. A game is an abstraction, life is not. Maps =/=
territory. (Taleb)
2. Persons coerced within or trapped by involuntary servitude diminish, not flourish. (Aristotle, Marx)
3. On this basis, your argument is nonsensical.
I'm not hung up on the term "game". It is an unavoidable set of challenges (some known, some unknown based on factors of cause/effect/contingency). Someone must overcome these challenges or have a very hard time of things (including death). Call it a set of challenges rather than game then. This is becoming a red herring as it doesn't change the forced [set of challenges] situation, just the term of what to call it.
Quoting 180 Proof
How is this not simply a political agenda. Flourishing.. Is this something that is true like Moses getting the Ten Commandments thing? Or did Aristotle et al just come up with a term you agree with conveniently. "You MUST overcome challenges because.. FLOURSHING!!!". A political agenda. An excuse or something to be enacted upon someone for X reason (FLOURSHING!! DAMNIT!!!!).
Quoting 180 Proof
So no.
I m not sure I got what's your actual question. Why anti work to be wrong in first place? Someone believes that having to work for his entire life is unfair and wrong. So? It is a simple matter of personal belief. How can someone find it wrong? To disagree with it?Sure Yes. But wrong? Why?
On the contrary others love working and they would be miserable if they didn't, even if they weren't forced to play the game as you mentioned,they would have invented it!
Maybe I m missing something here but I can't understand where the problem is.
So naturalistic fallacy then?
Of course the wood chopper gave the work to the tramps.
Or did you think I left out a couple of lines:
[i]Get lost hoboes
Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah[/i]
So, I should say "forced work". If you don't garden and you die or starve as a result, then that is what I am talking about. Whatever you must do otherwise X (dire consequences).
Same answer as Tom above.
Gotcha.. I thought this line:
Quoting T Clark
Was saying, sort of even though they were "right" he still chopped the wood cause of the reasons he provided uniting avocation and vocation. Makes more sense what you are saying.. though it is a bit ambiguous.. He agreed but did he ACTUALLY give them the work?
It's funny. As I was looking for the text of the poem online, I came across a paper that discussed this. It was a summary of past reviews of the poem. Apparently most reviewers saw it the same way you did, i.e. as a sign of Frost's lack of charity. I was flabbergasted. So, if you want to interpret it that way, at least you're in good company.
Ok that's better. Well yes then, imo, at the very end forced work is wrong indeed. And that's why I think that some day that will change. Cause it is logical humanity to move towards that direction.
Even in the veryyyy distant future. Work will become totally voluntary, I think.Meaning that people could live and not starve without forced work. But if they choose to work, then they would gain more.
But to put more people into the situation of [having to work] would be wrong until that problem is solved.
Glad to be in good company :D.
I don't want to wave this off as a naturalistic fallacy. I know what you are saying.. It is somehow what we "should be doing" as designated by "nature's way". I just don't know if anything that humans do is in the way of nature. Rather, because we make judgements on our decisions and outcomes, we are far removed from any natural version of "being". Rather, if negative judgements exist, then all of that goes out the window. All you have then, is "COMPLY" "Distract" "Ignore" etc. and we are back to Zapffe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau
Why is that?
Most men are wage slaves. Karl Marx
We are entirely dependent on working for a wage to gain the ability to live. The terms of labor are often highly unsatisfactory.
So... not only are we born without consent, but we are born into a world where we will be forced to work if we want to live.
Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain.
Yep. The OP is just another stalking horse for antinatalism.
Non sequitur. Stop trying to score points, schop1. You're position is already toast. :meh:
True. I'm not deriving an ought from is, juat disagreeing with you that the human predicament of laboring to survive is a "political agenda".
You see any other alternative?
This is it in a nutshell. You get it.
It is when creating more workers. Nothing is done in a vacuum. Clearly something is enacted by being born (workers working.. "flourshing" you say).
Don't put more workers (people who have to work) into the world in the first place.
Thus, Quoting Bitter Crank
The chains are the existential situation itself though.
So we are going back to the Antinatalist thread. You seem to have an obsession with that issue, since I have noticed every thread you open has its root to antinatalism.I don't see the reason to open a new thread for same things.
Oh, you want to opt out? You see te irony right?
Well no. Not really.
My whole point is that work is an injustice because it is an inescapable [set of challenges] you are putting someone else in that can't be opted out without completely dire consequences. The very call to not participate in something anymore is the very right taken away by the DE FACTO situation of the game itself. That is to say, sure, you can opt out of work but the consequences will eventually be starvation, homelessness, hacking it in the wilderness and dying a slow death, MAYBE free riding (making it other people's problem), or outright suicide. Of course everyone cannot free ride otherwise even more dire consequences for the whole system of (used) workers. You don't have to worry about any of those dire consequences by not participating in this thread. However, a worker who decides they are done working cannot afford such luxury.
What's funny is the very fact that this is an obvious truth makes people think it is still okay to enact on others :rofl:. Just more political agenda.
You need food to live, and so some way or another must put in some work, whether that work be hunting animals and foraging for plants or employment in exchange for money to purchase food. Unless you can expect welfare and/or charity.
I already predicted this kind of response previously in this thread.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Michael
Yes, that is repeating essentially what I said here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
The game of life itself (or call it whatever you want..set of challenges of life, etc. (pace 180's complaint of the term "game), DE FACTO creates the situation of an no opt out scenario without dire consequences. Your next move is what I predicted here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
And hence, yeah it is a well known fact. Yet more injustice is enacted. More no-opt out situations of injustice are created, etc.
But then your next move will be about people being happy working, in which I predicted:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Don't worry about debating, I already have answered the predictable moves in this debate for you. That is, unless you want to surprise me with something interesting and not a typical answer that I have already addressed.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This was a reply to @Michael. I have updated the post to reflect that quote.
So again your point is antinatalism. You just choose different routes every time as to end up to the same conclusion.
I find forced work also wrong.At the level that humanity has reached basic things to survive should be provided to everyone. But that has nothing to do with antinatalism as you try to imply.
Plus I don't understand what political agenda has to do with that issue.
Things you work for, that you earn, are more valuable to you. Your dad was right about that.
Gifts are things you don't earn, and maybe that's why so many people reach for the word "gift" when talking about life: you could not possibly have earned it.
What makes a gift valuable to you, is the giver's estimation that you deserve it. There's an opening there --- you could have earned that estimation --- for receiving the gift to be "getting what you deserve" in that sense, but in many cases such a view strikes us as too transactional, ungrateful, too ego-centric. It's not your judgment, as the receiver, that is gratifying and imbues the gift with value, but theirs.
One effect a gift can have is to instill in the receiver a wish to deserve it, to be worthy of a gift they would not have thought they deserve. (This is another of @Banno's direction-of-fit cases.) And this is indeed the attitude many take toward life: it is a gift I could not have earned, but that I can make an effort to deserve. To do otherwise is to be ungrateful.
In which case the work incumbent on living is welcome, because it is how you can earn the gift, become deserving of life. (This might be a cousin of Keats's view, expressed in a famous letter, that we are not born with souls but acquire a soul through suffering, the world as a "vale of soul-making".) It is true that, to quote another poet, "some are born to endless night"; we understand if they do not feel life is a gift, but if that's not your life, you have even more reason to feel grateful for having the life you do have, through no action of yours.
There is first the gift of life itself, which you can work to be worthy of; but then there is luck, that the life you were given is not one "endless night". It is, as you have noted many times before, an odd thing that the people giving you the gift of life cannot know what sort of gift they are giving you. They too will count it as luck (or grace, if they lean that way) that the life they gave not turn out to be "endless night".
Can you deserve luck? Can you put in any amount of work to be worthy of being lucky? It does not seem so. But you can, and should, be grateful that you were lucky.
This sentiment encapsulates the Enlightenment: if poets and philosophers become professors and Nobel-laureats, then their vocation and avocation become one. Then poets don’t have to run about blind and poor, like Homer, singing their epics, and Socrates doesn’t have to hang around in the agora questioning whoever chances along while neglecting his family.
But it is all too neat and perfect. The truth is that your vocation, ie your job, takes you away from your avocation, ie, what you really love to do. You can take a job doing what you love to do, but the demands of the job will make you hate it—or you will pervert what you love in order that it conform to your job.
There is no free lunch. Some problems are simply unsolvable—but must be dealt with.
Quoting Leghorn
I find this to be extremely accurate to my experience. I think it's kind of a psychological quirk that's inside of many people, not all. It's very curious.
Amen...But don't worry an anecdote is coming to try to correct you displaying the "exception that proves the rule" of course :roll:
The political agenda is one of seeing enacted someone "dealing with" the challenges of life [game of life]. This game is inescapable, and one cannot opt out with dire consequences (degradation or death). A political agenda is one where one has a goal of seeing carried out a certain "way of life". Other people should be doing X, in other words because YOU want to see this happen.
a) This is a large part of life that cannot be ignored. To ignore that someone who is born will experience it, is to be extremely careless.
b) If the person is not careless, then they certainly are taking into account that the person born will work.
c) If a and b then, at the least, some consideration that the person will have to be born to deal with the challenges of life (work, game of life), will ensue if that person is born.
d) Ergo, someone wants to see enacted X from someone else and as a society (work). Thus
e) The injustice of forcing this no opt out, inescapable (except degradation and suicide) situation is an agenda that is enacted.
The want of the procreator to see the "way of life" carried out by others outweighs the injustice of putting that person in a no opt out situation. They are literally "forced" to play the game (and preferably try to get good at it and like it damn it!!) or die.
How?
Maybe that's true for you, but it's not true for everyone. It doesn't seem to have been true for Frost. But that's beyond the point. "Only when love and need are one, and the work is play for mortal stakes, is the deed ever really done, for heaven or the futures sakes," is a fact. It's not just an ideal, a fantasy, of a perfect life. It's the truth. Plain and simple.
But if you mean you are capable of contributing to your own care and even perhaps contributing some amount to others, but choose to be more a burden than need be, yeah, you suck and are therefore immoral.
If you're the guy who waits for others to clean his dishes, and we all do have dirty dishes, you're not the roommate any of us want, especially if you try to justify your sloth philosophically.
Insert trivialization of the issue as.. right... here:
Quoting Hanover
Insert red herring of irrelevant point...right...here:
Quoting Hanover
End by inserting repartee...like.. right...here:
Quoting Hanover
Anyways, no this isn't about me not cleaning the dishes or wanting to do "my fair share.." The whole point is that it is unjust to be put in a situation where you cannot opt out unless you die of depredation or suicide.. Hence I said (predicting your free rider snark):
[quote="schopenhauer1;604799"]My whole point is that work is an injustice because it is an inescapable [set of challenges] you are putting someone else in that can't be opted out without completely dire consequences. The very call to not participate in something anymore is the very right taken away by the DE FACTO situation of the game itself. That is to say, sure, you can opt out of work but the consequences will eventually be starvation, homelessness, hacking it in the wilderness and dying a slow death, MAYBE free riding (making it other people's problem), or outright suicide. Of course everyone cannot free ride otherwise even more dire consequences for the whole system of (used) workers. You don't have to worry about any of those dire consequences by not participating in this thread. However, a worker who decides they are done working cannot afford such luxury.
You're missing his point. His gripe is with those who made him, who made him exist (and more generally, with people making other people exist, and thus, suffer).
A hava nagila kind of person takes for granted that life is a blessing and worth living. But clearly, not everyone is like that. More importantly, whether a person will have a fundamentally positive outlook on life or not appears to be beyond a person's immediate control. It appears to be something that one must be born or raised with, but isn't something that can be learned later on in life.
Are you slothful by nature, but have managed to overcome your sloth philosophically?
As noted above, some people do believe, by default, that life is a blessing and worth living. Such people cannot relate to your concern.
You could perhaps specify your point and instead of making a wholesale indictment against humanity for procreating at all, focus on pointing at the fault of producing children while failing to instill in them the belief that life is a blessing and worth living.
I think this is the point that people fail at the most: Showing and teaching others that life is a blessing and worth living.
While many people will eagerly criticize anyone who is in any way pessimistic about life as such, they are quite unable (or just unwilling?) to persuade them otherwise. They'll even go so far as to claim that something is genetically or otherwise physiologically wrong with the pessmist and dismiss them.
Your point is that life isn't fair?
So he must be he and I must be me? Why seek to move the immovable with this thread then?
To be anti-work is to acknowledge that you are in a no opt out game, which is indeed an injustice. Not playing along with the de facto forced situation...
Because in the end, my stance doesn't promote and condone no opt out situations.. See this very thread for anticipated response (aka happy slave response..) The dialectic has played out a bit, you just have to read otherwise repeat my already answered responses to typical type of objections that have already been addressed. You know I've heard 'em before.
They can't relate to my concern, but perhaps to the injustice of a no opt out game.. The harm one subjectively feels is precisely what I am saying is not relevant. Rather, the injustice of the no opt out game, is all that matters. Here is a no opt out game.. like it OR NOT. You like X (sunsets, walks on the beach, reading philosophy), thus Jimmy should work (political agenda enacted on others).
Is it immovable?
Are you slothful by nature, but have managed to overcome your sloth philosophically?
:fire:
[math]Bare Necessities \rightarrow [...] \rightarrow Self \mbox{-} actualization \rightarrow Transcendence[/math]
Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs
I suspect they would relate to that injustice only if they would be on the losing end of the no opt out game.
Because generally, many people are perfectly fine with unjust, uneven, unequal arrangements -- as long as they are not on the losing end, or at least far enough from it.
As long as a man has a wife and children to beat, or at least a dog to kick, he can find ways to be okay with being bullied by his boss.
Moreover, many people perfer to arrange their relationships with other people in a way that is unjust, uneven, unequal to others, but beneficial to themselves. Many people don't mind having slaves (and would probably prefer to have slaves).
So, it doesn't look like there are many people who can relate to your concern.
Well, I'm an immanentist (re: Spinoza, Zapffe, Camus, Rosset ... ) :death: :flower:
:up: This reminds me of a frequently asked question regarding the US space program: Why put so much into space exploration when all that money could be used to solve more earthly, more presssing, problems?
Neil deGrasse Tyson's response (paraphrasing): We spend more money on lip balm than we do on NASA.
So the answer to all these for you is no bringing kids in life?
Anyway we have discussed about antinatalism already at another thread and we agreed that we disagree.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You paint all these things to look like dire consequences when not all of them are. I think everyone would agree that starvation is a bad thing, but is it obvious that homelessness is? Some ppl actually choose homelessness, I think, as a solution to the forced game of life you speak of. Have you ever been homeless? I haven’t, but I’ve considered the possibility, and it’s certainly scary to anyone who has never experienced it.
We grow up well-fed, decently clothed, warm and dry in our cozy homes. We watch daddy go off to work, and on our way to school look out the window of the car or school bus and see ppl on the street in shabby clothes, unkempt, with long disheveled hair and beards, pushing along a cart full of their possessions, and we are fascinated by them—till daddy tells us they are “homeless ppl” that are down on their luck or just plain sorry and miserable.
It’s funny: we watch ppl on tv willingly take only a knife and fire-starter kit and go live for a few weeks in some god-forsaken region of the earth, eating bugs (and being eaten by them!) and worms and killing small animals to stay alive, and we identify with them. Then we see a homeless person on the street, and he is the most alien thing human to us.
I think it would be good if the government would require—not like in Israel, that every man serve in the military for a year—but that everyone spend at least a month being homeless and on the street. Maybe we would discover that it is not as terrible as we were brought up to believe. Maybe we would find something better in it than the comfortable life that was the only one we knew. At least we would have a taste of what we only knew before, as outsiders, as a terrible thing.
I think this says it all. We don't enter it, we're in it from the get go.
Life is about economics; which means management and distribution of resources (abstract and/or otherwise).
When you talk about 'work' I've no real idea what you're talking about. If you mean being paid money for doing something for someone else in exchange for your skills/knowledge/time, then I don't see what the big deal is. Money doesn't even need to come into it - 'economics' doesn't require 'money'.
The big deal is what you said here:
Quoting I like sushi
And because it’s from the get go, it is a forced situation. If you don’t work, you’re probably in trouble. Don’t put more people in the situation. Don’t add more workers as it represents a no opt out situation. Putting someone in this no opt out position is an injustice along with all the harms of life.
I think we're talking cross purposes here. I don't mean just 'Work' as in 'having a job'. I'm talking about having to work to get food/water etc.,. The 'cost' may be time, money, sleep and numerous other items. Within we trade off one possible future for another. That is economics and it is basically human life.
If you're just talking about employment not interested. My mistake.
I don’t separate the two. Economics is a more complex version of the hunting-gathering economy. Whatever method to get food/resources then I am defining as work, NOT just the current market economic system as has been around since the 1800s in various forms.
Thus "Work" (economic system) is an avoidable, inescapable non-opt-out situation. Thus wrong to put someone into.
Would you say homelessness is a form of free-riding? It can be, when a man panhandles, begs for his money or food, but it isn’t necessarily so...
...I once knew a man who said he used to be homeless, and to get his meal he waited for a certain supermarket to throw their expired meat into the back dumpster, and after they were gone he would fetch it out and cook it over a campfire. That is certainly not freeloading...
...I knew another man who did the same thing in back of a posh restaurant: he waited there till they threw all the uneaten food out, then he swooped in to fetch it out of the trash. He thusly enjoyed the finest shrimp linguini and chicken alfredo at no cost—other than the effort of leaning over into the dumpster.
As for the man who begs for his bread, is he so despicable? so miserable? Cannot men who possess mansions and yachts afford to give a man who has nothing to eat a loaf of bread? Is this really unfair? Can we really know that a man who would rather beg for his bread than earn it is contemptible?
Maybe he is willing to buck the system and undergo what we consider shameful behavior because he has a more exalted sense of the dignity of life. Is he any more contemptible than a factory worker who earns a decent wage and supports his family and sends his kids to school, but is a sycophant to his boss? brown-noses in order to curry favor?
But we know and have agreed previously that not all no opt out positions are wrong to impose. So how do you tell apart the ones that are ok to impose and the ones that aren't?
A beginning worker at McDonalds would not be forced to live at mom's home or share expenses with another for the necessities. And more men in the US age 30 and below do in fact live at their parent's home than was the case twenty years ago. More young women, too.
Belonging to a much older generation I still believe in working one's way up, but housing is out of sight these days and gas is $3.50 - $4 a gallon. Prior to this three generations might live in the same house, and I see this returning, along with multiple families in one home.
For me, personally, I'm not anti-work as the jobs I work essentially function as 'pain-relief' - I'd feel worse NOT working. The problem is of course - I was borne out of my mothers womb into this world having perpetual biological needs that REQUIRE work (on threat of violent death - starvation, thirst, violent by other animals, etc) to maintain. There is no choice. It is, once embodied (or as I think of it - once humanized), we work to address our needs until we die. That is to say - no me, no pain and therefore no work to mitigate it. If I were never embodied there is no need to drive trucks to mitigate of unstructured time in the first place. No womb, no father whom ejaculates within, no conception, no child, no seeing the whole embodied striving played out in the next generation, no more work, no more perpetuation of the family, social, or political structure that ones forefathers cared about so much.
No humans - no pain nor suffering.
Inescapable, etc. You can opt out of the surprise party if you really wanted.
Not an excuse to impose on another.. Imagine any injustice done because you think X about a situation.
Sometimes that option is more freeing. Homelessness in this regard must rely on a larger superstructure though. It was still an injustice somewhere down the line.
And in this regard you do seem anti-work in the idea that it is an injustice. Of course, you bring up the larger and deeper existential problem of striving at all (pace Schopenhauer) here:
Quoting Inyenzi
[math]1. Work \rightarrow Money \rightarrow Food \rightarrow Work[/math]
The arrow stands for converted to.
:cry: :sad:
The money we get from work simply gets transmuted via food back into work. So, the belief that we're getting something in return for the work we do - a full belly - is an illusion; after all, the food in our tummies circle back to become work.
Anti-work justified.
Scenario 2
[math]2. Work \rightarrow Money [For \space (Food \rightarrow Work) + Other \space Activities \space e.g. Recreation][/math]
:smile: :grin:
The worker makes a little extra which he can spend on himself (whatever he wants). In this case, working has benefits.
Anti-work unjustified.
Nevertheless, even scenario 2 fails to make a case for natalism. Work, even if it's good, doesn't quite do the job of making life worth it.
Perhaps we need to make a distinction: boring work & fun work. But we'd simply be playing with words.
The cost of 'enjoying yourself' exists and it isn't in a matter of monetary value.
These are the basic building blocks of what economics is about. I'm not making it up. A look at any basic introduction to economics and what economics covers will reveal this.
The OP is about EMPLOYMENT/JOBS. You don't have to get a job but you'll have to work no matter what if you wish to keep breathing. The person posting this has made clear elsewhere they don't much care for breathing in the first place and that on balanced life=suffering and that that is 'bad'/'wrong'.
Quoting I like sushi
How then?
Quoting I like sushi
Indeed but there's a difference between working for survival and working to earn enough to have a good time every now and then.
Quoting I like sushi
When I said we could be simply playing with words I meant that we're on the same page, we see eye to eye, the dispute between us being only verbal (about the choice of words).
If you think not, the onus is on you to clarify the situation and that because I won't be able to do so, I lack the wherewithal.
Quoting I like sushi
I offered my analysis:
[math]Work \rightarrow Money \rightarrow Food \rightarrow Work[/math]
The above is a raw deal and I believe a good number of folks are in such a or similar circumstances. Life ain't worth it then, no?
Then, I showed how it could be better but then work is just the tip of the iceberg of our woes.
You can also opt out of life if you really wanted. So "inescapable" doesn't seem to be it (in quotes because neither is inescapable). What else? Or are you saying a certain difficulty of escape is required for something to be wrong to impose?
I agree entirely. Frankly I think your posts are the most valuable and insightful on this forum. I have nothing further to add but to agree. It gives me a sense of community knowing others out there feel the exact way I do as well.
:up: Thank you Inyenzi. The same for your posts too.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why is it you think that people often look away from these ideas? How is the injustice of putting someone else in the de facto nature of working-to-survive, not realized?
One of my main ideas lately is that people make a huge fallacy with how they view pessimism which goes something like:
"All injustices are immediately realized easily." As this injustice shows, it is not always the case that people catch on about what is indeed an injustice in this world.
But that's patently false. It is not inescapable. You've cited multiple ways to escape it:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Stop taking it out of context...
Quoting schopenhauer1
???????=work
???????=slavery.
the only difference is at the intonation of the word.Within human societies the act of working was always a way for a third person to gain profits from other people's efforts.
So I think it’s wrong to say someone is placed into this situation, as if taken from the city of god and positioned in the world by the whims of someone else. It presupposes a different existence. Rather, in the world is where we begin. Each of us start and end here. There is no other state of affairs.
I find the whole antinatalist project, at least insofar as it makes ethical claims, to be humbug on those grounds. There are many reasons to not procreate, but to not procreate in order to protect a person from suffering and pain and depression is nonsense.
So above a certain difficulty of escape (where escaping comes with dire consequences) inflicting something is wrong. That's your current criteria?
No I'm not going to ask you what "dire" means and pretend that suicide does not qualify as a "dire" consequence, we can agree that it does. But just want to know if this is the current criteria by which you judge when an imposition is ok or not.
Food is not going to just rain down from the heavens and into your mouth, will it? Shelter isn't going to manifest itself as you need it, nor will it repair itself, even if you're fine with a cave you still have to search for one. What if it becomes too hot or too cold or arid or flooded? What will you defend yourself against the beasts of the Earth with and who will make and repair it? You can't avoid work with any economic model real or imagined. Life as a game or otherwise not worth living is far from a new concept, though any biases can be identified by a truthful answer to a simple question: Have you never experienced a moment or period in your life you enjoyed and wish to repeat?
There is some good in this world, but it's not worth fighting for.
Generally, people invest vast amounts of time and effort in order to distract themselves. Life as it is usually lived is, basically, all about distracting oneself from the painful realities of life.
Apparently there's something worth talking about and promoting, that is your version of the truth. What makes your version greater than that of another? Something of value to you, that doesn't warrant life, whereas something of value to another does warrant life. You see the dilemma an observer faces when trying to process your argument.
You sound downtrodden. What makes you so certain life isn't like a sandbox or a community pool, just because you showed up when it happens to be full of piss, doesn't mean it wasn't once before and never can be again, despite those who preach the same.
I asked before, but nobody wants to reply:
Quoting baker
Quoting baker
Is happiness a matter of chance, or can it be learned?
Noted, thank you. However, I think it is a human condition. Hunting-gathering or anarchism or communism or whatever non-industiral-capital form won't change the condition of the needs of survival. It is life itself that puts (de facto) us all in a position of need, and work is one of the biggest (de facto) inescapable set of needs that cannot be overcome without dire consequences. You don't want more people put into this injustice, don't procreate more people (workers) then.
Is it really veering from what I've described in past posts?
Unnecessary
Inescapable
Other people take more due care
The inescapable can further be examined (at least in the case of work) to mean -If not done, leads to dire circumstances.
This is simply self-servingly convenient ignorance.
That is more accurate.
There is no difference if the injustice is caused by the de facto situations of being alive in the world as a human animal or by the hands of a person. That is the big leap that's hard for people to understand. Do not put people in these circumstances in the first place. Why is that so hard? Can a human prevent this for someone else?
Also, why the hell would it matter if everyone started from the same unjust position? It's still unjust, just for everyone, instead of one particular set of people. Global antinatalism doesn't discriminate.
This is where I'd disagree then. It seems unjust to put others in a circumstance X whereby X means if they do not do X, they will die or other dire consequences. Solution, don't put more situations of X in the world (don't procreate and thus don't put more workers in the world in the first place).
I'll just answer with what I said to someone else.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Outlander
This doesn't justify unjust positions on someone else's behalf (like putting others in a lifetime of X situation, like work, otherwise they die or other dire circumstances).
Because in one instance (the antinatalist), no new person is put in an unjust (and harmful) situation. In the other instance a new person is put in an unjust and harmful situation. As my example of the happy slave shows, you can have unjust situations despite people's subjective reporting post-facto.
Anything that does NOT recognize the injustice of this situation simply has their own political agenda.. They want to see X society/way of life enacted just because they think it's somehow "good" or "necessary" (when it is neither).
This is just a weirdly veiled ad hominiem on me.. And doubly so here:
Quoting baker
How is it slothful? What do you even mean? Why does that even matter? Is this relevant to anything? Can you provide some context to this odd remark?
What makes this post frustrating is you are not paying attention to the argument. The persuasion here would be that it is okay to procreate people in X circumstances (like needing to work) that lead to dire circumstances if it is not followed. Is that just? Obviously my position is that is unjust, whatever people feel subjectively about work post-facto, like a happy slave scenario. You may not convince the happy slave (worker) they are in some way exploited, but that can be the case non-the-less and the non-recognition of this has no bearing on the injustice.
However, the weird ad hominem way you are making your argument seems like this point itself is not relevant. So what is your fuckin point? That clarification my help first, unless you are too slothful to fully make one.
Yes I think I've read parts of it long ago.. I believe he is for anarchism of some sort. I still don't think it solves the inescapable work problem. As I've stated here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I was actually furthering your point.
By that standard, eating is unjust.
Indeed. He that doesn't work should not eat.
Ok, can you just summarize your main point in a simple paragraph then?
Quoting baker
Yes, now you are getting it.. Know of Schopenhauer's position on the matter?
But also, do you see a difference between food that was absolutely always available no matter what and the set of challenges of work to get the food (possibly what baker was alluding to).
Quoting baker
I've been trying to get to answer whether it is possible to deliberately learn to view life as a blessing and worth living.
What if we're all actually reincarnated from a truly worse place, and this is sort of our proving grounds to see if we've learned our lesson, plus a few legacy punishments here and there, we simply just don't remember it by divine power yet the nature that originally damned us, rather that led to the actions that did, remain ie. our vices, bad habits, negative inclinations, etc. and the point of this life is to overcome them to truly escape this 'unjust and harmful' situation, one that can not be escaped, perhaps even perpetuated by simply not having kids. Sure you or I don't know that, but not long ago a young man just like you looked out toward the edge of an ocean shore and dismissed the possibility of anything beyond what he could see too. We'll call him Frederick. Please don't be Frederick.
It is technically work to put the food in your mouth, chew, and swallow. And then sometimes food has consequences on our digestive system and it is additional work to resolve the stomach or intestinal problems. Point being, your problem here seems to be that we are human, we can't get away from work of some type.
You could never point to this “someone else” you’re saving from this so-called injustice, because they do not exist. In other words, you’re not preventing people from being put in these circumstances. You’re not preventing pain and suffering and injustice at all. You cannot save imaginary people.
-I will agree with your conclusions. Its a condition that all animals(including us) must follow...except from our pets and livestock (maybe parasites too).
One problem though. Not all humans work since economic inequality is currently one of the last if not the only form of discrimination that's still acceptable by human societies. So human condition is defined by the position one has in his "environment".
We constantly have been inventing technical solutions that have alleviated or render human effort unnecessary for specific tasks and jobs. Unfortunately our economic system doesn't allow human ingenuity to offer technical solutions that could render repetitive boring works a thing of the past.
Working or to be more descriptive... doing a specific activity to earn your living might appear to be a human condition, but it is the main reason behind the collapse of our societies and the distraction of human relationships and our ecosystem.,
-"You don't want more people put into this injustice, don't procreate more people (workers) then."
Its nice to see that you also identify this injustice!...and yes consciously me and my wife took the decision not have children for this exact reason and I am amazed that other people also see that as a solution to this ethical dilemma.
My point is easier to argue for.
Right...Not much to say with this. Even in that scenario not bringing more people into the world would effectively end more people coming into the world.
So two things..
Point 1) As I asked before, can you please let me know that one can make a distinction between working-to-survive and a kind of "trivial" work of lifting a hand (unless disabled or other caveat)?
Point 2) You bring up the larger point of the injustice of the human condition. I have argued that many atime.. Schopenhauer's main argument of striving and unrest of existence. I am focusing on a sub-set of inescapable (without dire consequences) situations.
I am not explaining my objection yet again to this kind of argument.
Glad to see! It sounds though that under different economic conditions (socialist/communist/anarcho-communist?) you WOULD reproduce though? My position would be that no economic system by de facto nature of being an inescapable condition/system/phenomenon (unless dire consequences) is going to "solve" this problem. By the very nature of having to exist in a world of scarcity and how our bodies survive, we would need some sort of inescapable system which is the injustice. It's not that this particular economic system is unjust but any economic system by de facto circumstances of what living entails.
But what's the alternative? Is the government to serve all our needs? I would love to experience a technocratic utopia where robots and artificial intelligence take care of humans.
Not putting anyone into the economic system in the first place. You should know my answer by now...
But I don't. Who are these masters who place me into economic systems?
I do not require you to do so. But I will state it anyways. You’re preventing no suffering and no injustice. Your behavior effects no one but yourself, so as far as ethics go, it’s all self-concerned and self-congratulatory.
What do you expect from him? To fix society? :lol:
He's part of the academic coffee shop community. I'm not because I don't fit in well with them. :wink:
C'mon, you're full of shit if you don't know that I'm going to say that potential parents should prevent their future children from entering into it by simply not having them. Injustice averted.
We went over this haven't we? I have responded to this haven't I? You don't believe people can prevent future outcomes. Essentially your (weak) argument is basically.. "I don't believe in conditionals.. wah wah wah". But even other forms of ethics relies on "Could happen IF.."
:gasp:
I think we'll end the conversation right here.
What did you expect the answer to be? Of course my main answer of the injustices of life is to prevent future children. That is how we prevent it.
It was never my intention to cooperate with you. You've dug yourself into antinatalism, I know that. All I'm am doing is commenting.
Excuse me...
To go further.. anything short of preventing future people is basically saying
"I have a political agenda.. I WANT to see a way of life perpetuated.. and I don't care that this future person's personhood and any X injustice/suffering entailed is considered a furtherance for this agenda". Ends justify the means.. because no one THINKS about the means carefully enough.
Unfortunately differing policies or systems don't get rid of the underlying problem itself. That's where a lot of the disagreement is going to come from.. People may think'..."If we just tweak this or that or overhaul all of these things.. then problem goes away".. There's always going to be the problem of work though. People will THEN justify the injustice by saying work is necessary and good for people and thus THERE lies the political agenda being enacted on others.
This is why someone like @Bitter Crank and I will always disagree :smile:. His kind of answer will be "overthrow/reform the system!" but the underlying implication is that "WORK IS STILL GOOD FOR THE SOUL!!".. and thus he won't mind throwing more grist in the mill.. more workers..more political agenda being enacted for others.. My policy bypasses all of that by simply not starting it.. No one misses out too.
From my position right now (because I have no access to powerful people or institutions), antinatalism (as you formulated it) can be categorized fairly as a psudo-problem because like @NOS4A2 saidQuoting NOS4A2
Why should we continue discussing this?
I believe people can prevent future outcomes, I just don’t believe you can prevent suffering and injustice without other people involved. The question of “whose suffering are you preventing” still remains.
There is no "trivial" about it. If you reject the modern system, a lot of work goes into keeping food safe without the modern practices of having a house with electricity and plugging in a refrigerator. And once again, dealing with the end process, we either need running water and sewer or we deal with a lot of work disposing of waste and cleaning ourselves to prevent disease. To solve all these problems we have created a modern system which yes, requires work, but that work doesn't disappear if you leave modern society, it instead becomes harder. We have made working to live easier, not harder, hence you have the liberty to argue about working to survive. I somehow don't think this is a conversation the starving poor of the world would ever think to have.
See my responses to NOS then previously. I'm not bringing the non-identity problem up yet again.
Why do you suppose I am suggesting we change our system?
Read all my previous responses to this. You should be able to quote it now like an English teacher to Shakespeare.
What circumstances precisely? It is very hard to understand what your talking about unless you're a professional philosopher (and many of us aren't). All I see here is wild and vague abstraction, philosopher talk, with no relevance to our sex lives, and how we choose to raise a family.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Another ridiculously abstract philosphical concept...
My arguments still stand from the previous conversations. I remember your analogy about preventing suffering in the future by removing an explosive someone might step on. If there is no one to step on the bomb you’re not preventing the suffering of anyone.
To prevent the suffering of X, X must first exist. You claim to prevent the suffering of X, but X does not exist. So whose suffering are you preventing?
What if a baby was guaranteed to be born into a lava pit and you can convince the parent not to do that? You would, correct? The thing is you are not seeing life as properly that volcano.
Then I suppose I question the point of this entire discussion, to simply point out life is unfair? I can accept that proposition.
In what world does, "Do not have kids" count as philosophically abstract? Pretty concrete to me. Unjust in that the person cannot escape the work-game without dire consequences (death, starvation, etc.).
Yes, life is "unfair".. I would say "unjust".. unfair brings about certain connotations.. In this case, I am highlighting the pervasive feature of life we call "work" or "participating in an economic system as a laborer". This cannot be bypassed without starvation, death, etc. It is unjust to give someone the "gift" of a no-opt game [set of challenges] whereby one must do X,Y, Z to survive. It is an intractable problem. It is not changed by a restructuring of the economic system, it is a feature of life as we know it. Thus, to protest, to perform a metaphorical "strike" against it, don't put more people into the situation in the first place.
So basically you actively have a vasectomy or are otherwise willfully abstinent. That's cool. Just don't try to come at me with your legal papers and ribbons to mandate the same.
It's kind of of ironic almost. By not ensuring your most deeply held belief is prolonged beyond the span of your own life by facing your fear or perhaps crossing into your taboo, you ensure and seal the fate that it will never happen. I wish I had the time to write a novel, this is as good as it gets. Pure gold.
Is this a moral imperative?.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is simply an oversimplification of the human condition.
An ethical stance doesn't mean political force. Vegans would love if people stopped eating meat.. Doubt that will become a political mandate.
Quoting Outlander
Not sure what you mean here.
To prevent injustice taking place, yes.
Quoting Wheatley
Now who is making it complicated :wink:.
Now all you have to do is pass a law forbidding the public from having children. Good luck!
It is a complex issue.
Simply a moral stance not a political policy. I used veganism as an example. I'm sure many vegans would want people to stop eating meat. Doesn't mean that will be a political mandate any time soon.
It is your moral stance which does not affect me at all.
So the issue I am discussing right now is the unjust situation of the de facto fact of an inescapable set of challenges that cannot be opted out without dire consequences (death, starvation, free-riding, dying in the wilderness, homelessness etc.).
That's part of life. I accept the suffering that comes with life.
See my points about happy slave earlier in the thread.
Quoting schopenhauer1
^^^
So just borrow another poster's response? Weak..
But anyways, I responded to him in kind explaining how a slave can be happy on a daily level, but be in an unjust situation.. The slave has a right to be happy, but that doesn't change his situation as unjust. Two things can be going on. I know, crazy.
It's good enough for me. :cool:
And you ignored my response. No problems if you ignore them.
Good.
A lot of things get overlooked when you do that. Your response is then stick fingers in ears.
What's funny about this is there is a strong Judeo-Christian connotation to your stance, and as such I'm inclined to agree but in a way you would most likely dislike. The story in Genesis is Adam and Eve had all the food they could possibly desire, but because they chose sin (injustice), they condemned mankind to hard labor. And here we are today, arguing about why we aren't still in the garden of Eden and how unjust (sinful) the world is. So there you go, I agree with you.
I don't doubt that you have valuable things to say.
I think there are a lot of metaphors in Genesis, if one allows it to be read that way. Ever read E.M Cioran's The Temptation to Exist?
Of course it can be read that way, but it isn't anti-work: if anything it's the opposite, we need to work now because of our sin (injustice) but there is hope to return to the place of peace (heaven). Whenever the new testament talks about "the world" it is talking about this game you mention. It tells us we must live in it, but simultaneously don't be part of it. Anyway, once I saw you taking a secular approach to a religious concept thousands of years old I found that interesting.
:fire: What an excellent metaphor!
Quoting schopenhauer1
But if he is happy the whole argument breaks apart because antinatalism presumes the unhappy misery of your offsprings. You accomplished nothing with your "happy slave".
Oh Wheatgrass, no no. You can have an unjust situation and have someone enjoy their life. Precisely why my argument is more than the simplicity you deem it as. It is hard for some people to wrap their heads around an unjust situation that people can still feel happy subjective states. Someone who feels joy despite X activity that's Y (bad/unjust) doesn't mean that X activity is a good state of affairs.
Seeing as you've refused to commit to any position no matter how many times I asked you "How do you differentiate between ok and wrong impositions", and instead preferred to "delineate the arguments" the whole time, yes it's a breath of fresh air.
I'll take this as a "yes". So your criteria, so far, is:
Quoting khaled
Ok, now another question, would having a child in a utopian society, where there is 0 suffering be wrong?
You have a point! If life is so pretty, why the heck is there religion, promising escape (nirvana) or a better deal (heaven)?
This is swinging to the other extreme. Let's start small - is it possible to make life, on balance, happier than sadder? What say you?
By the way, you have conceded the point expressed in the following question cum statement:
Quoting TheMadFool
Can you define utopia here? What are the implications as far as dire circumstances if no X?
The way to show that ridiculous statements are ridiculous is to show their ridiculous consequences. The point is that a utopia is just as difficult to escape as life currently (only suicide works). But I don't think anyone would be against having children in a utopia. That would mean this standard isn't sufficient to tell apart wrong and ok impositions either.
Quoting TheMadFool
Because it's not perfect. And those are ways to a better life supposedly.
There are no consequences to not doing something. No need to work, no need to do anything you don't want to do. Let's start with that.
Answer the question Khaled, friend, is Utopia possible?
Surely, before you get any takers for your offer to put children in Utopia, you'll have to show them that it's not all in your imagination. Ridiculous? :chin:
False. I just didn't reply to it at first because it wasn't addressed to me.
Quoting TheMadFool
This makes as much sense as "If bikes are fast why are there cars???!?!??!?". See my full reply.
Quoting TheMadFool
That wasn't the question. And it is an insignificant question for what I'm trying to say.
The question was:
Quoting TheMadFool
And the answer is: Obviously.
But my whole point is simply this: @schopenhauer1 Thinks that certain impositions are "not bad enough" to impose. Things become bad enough to impose above a certain level of "inescapability". Point is, it is possible to lead a happy life, or at least one that the individual thinks is worthwhile. And also, that life will be just as inescapable as one full of suffering. So by shope's standard, even a life you know will be good (by a utilitarian standard, or any other) would be wrong to impose from the outset. But that's ridiculous, no? A utopia is used to highlight this, nothing more.
But you asked about Utopia.. In this case: Quoting khaled
So is it Utopia or not? Are there dire consequences of not doing X?
Then why bring Utopia up at all? Make the case that life can be made happier than sadder in this world and not some hypothetical one.
Quoting khaled
Yes, it does make sense. Bikes just don't cut it when you mean business - a comfortable, smooth and pleasant trip.
Quoting khaled
Sorry for the mix up. Thank you for correcting me. Are you taking back what you said about children and Utopia?
Quoting khaled
How? Details or at least a sketch of your strategy?
Wanting the unjust situation doesn't make it magically unjust. I am sure many a slave master wanted to keep slavery. Doesn't make it right. Their "right" to want slavery is negated. However, in a milder sense, this goes back to the idea of the "political agenda" of some "way of life" is favored above the injustice.
So how is this situation just, because it is a biblical reference? This seems like a biblical version of "Is something good because the gods like it or do the gods like it because it's good"?
What a petty game this god has set up.. Work for your salvation or suffer the consequences.. and sometimes working isn't good enough... because Job.. right? So even the petty game (systemic suffering) isn't enough, there is the contingent harm (statistical suffering) as in the case of Job, who apparently did all the right things. But, fuck it right?
Yes it is a utopia. No there are no consequences to not doing anything. I don't understand what you're asking?
If there are no dire consequences, then it wouldn't be violating the injustice I am talking about, at least in the example of work.
If other contingencies were met, sure (no impositions of harm, etc.).
The point is "If this is X, why can it not be made more X? Therefore this is not X" is not valid at all.
Quoting TheMadFool
Depends on your standard I guess. In other words, life is not pretty because you choose to compare it to something better.
Quoting TheMadFool
For the purposes of discussion, sure, since you seem so convinced utopias are impossible and I don't care to argue that. They serve well enough for a thought experiment.
Quoting TheMadFool
Experience and observation of others' experience.
Also the fact that it's physiologically possible should imply that it's possible.
Not really.. I don't know the nature of this nebulous Utopia. If people can snap their fingers and leave the Utopia without any problems (internal strife).. So the opt out would have to be there.. In other words, it would literally have to be world where questioning the very basis of opting in can never be on the table.. That would be similar to how most non-human animals work.. One cannot even know one's own position.. But then Utopia just seems like non-human humanity.. But since Utopias are inherently not feasible.. Sure.. Let's just assume this Utopia has all contradictions inherent in it.. If all these contradictions of somehow never having the ability to question the game...Or alternatively, if one doesn't like the game, one dies with no inherent internal struggle or strife.. and no big deal... just snap fingers and gone, and no one is negatively affected..
But who are you to call something clearly the majority of people enjoy (seeing as they don't check out) 'unjust' in the absolute sense, as in the eyes of any other than your own? Lots of people enjoy life. It's not your place to decide that life is "too dangerous" to be lived. What on Earth makes you think you could place such definitive and absolute definitions on something no person has even yet to adequately explain?
Quoting schopenhauer1
This only furthers my point, you deny the option that some people appreciate the way things are, more often than not. Who are you to dictate that pleasure is not worth the pain? An individual? Sure, that's fine then, for you, as an individual. But please, let others choose.
The ultimate argument is not lost, in a scenario when possible outcomes are liable to be worse than a guaranteed positive, you call that unwarranted, unwise, or cruel. That's reasonable enough. You're not a gambling man. Yet, like we continue to ignore, or at least shy away from admitting, if you care so much about ending suffering by ending all life on Earth, you can't (at least it's extremely unlikely that you will) do that in the span of a single lifetime. So, it's kind of a self-defeating philosophy, really.
It's some sort of fallacy to think that because people don't go through with suicide that thus life is great..
Quoting Outlander
Simply put, I am asking people not to put other people into an inescapable game (without dire consequences). I am not talking about only suicide, but in the case of work, following the rules of survival in some sort of economic system, lest slow painful consequences. The path of "least" resistance is following the system, but doesn't mean it was just to be in the system. The slave's path of least resistance is also to simply follow the system. What on Earth would make you think you should put someone else through that kind of no-opt out scenario? Following my way leads to none of these outcomes on behalf of other people.. No no-opt out situations in my scenario.
Quoting Outlander
Excuse me, but "who" is actually being "denied" the option? The non-existent person not born? Bentarian asymmetry...look it up.
That they cannot do. But they can snap their fingers and leave any suffering they may be experiencing and thus, no one has ever complained. Call that what you will, utopia or not. Now what?
I'm not defending it because I think it will take like wildfire, I just think it's right.
It seems to me in this world that they can sufficiently change the game without dire consequences. In effect, they can sufficiently "escape", so barring other information, this seems permissible.
Exactly. And let's be honest how many times have your thoughts resolved to anything of use. Just kidding. :razz:
But seriously, just because you think of an idea that resolves or otherwise manifests itself as concrete and measurable affect in the real world, what makes you think it's anything less than transient? Caesar ushered in what is arguably the basis of modern society, reliable agriculture via advanced irrigation, popularized indoor washrooms, and not the least of which that allows us to communicate to and fro now, a more or less open and democratic system of government. And now, his former stomping grounds are either in ruins and/or being quite literally defecated upon by invaders. Not the most powerful counterargument to your original suggestion of the futility or cruelty of life at first glance sure, but just an opportunity for some introspection to your own views.
Under this criteria, anything goes as long as it spreads like an internet meme. I'm after something different.
Quoting Outlander
Not sure your point, but you are right, nice examples of futility and history :).
Actually now that I read this again, you are just saying, things are futile in the long run.. The vanity of existence, etc.
No, no. Not quite. Just that as even a man of eternal prestige and power has to question his own beliefs, perhaps so should you. At least, that your own may not be as infallible and unquestionable as you may believe.
Funny you ask that.. I just asked this in the Philosophy of Religion:
Who here thinks that if they question the "game of life" that god setup and call god immoral, that they will be cursed by that very same god for calling him immoral? I am just wondering how deep-rooted people's superstitions go.. I suspect even atheist-types have some deep-rooted superstitions.. Perhaps a feature of human life even, but certainly institutionalized and redistributed en masse under religion. Yaweh seems very pissy, and doesn't like being called immoral.. He has "things" in mind for little peons who call out the king....
If you found out there was a god and let's say you deemed him immoral (let's say he set up an unjust and petty little game of working for salvation and doing X, Y, Z). As Socrates asked, "Is something good because the gods like it, or do the gods like it because it's good"?
Quoting khaled
You emphasize this here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
So again, your issue is not with how difficult it is to escape the game, but how difficult it is to escape suffering within the game.
It isn't, and that's the point.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Actually, we set it up. For what it's worth, you don't have to play. No matter what you do, you will still die, same as everyone else.
Si let me know when life is that utopia
Okay, even if you succeed in demonstrating that having kids is bad and unjust (in a philosophical sense), I can accept that. But that alone isn't sufficient to convince me not to have kids. Having kids is not nearly the worst thing I can do.
Here are three arguments:
A1. P is forced to experience L.
Therefore
A2. P is forced to experience something.
B1. P is forced to experience L.
B2. L is inevitably in part bad.
Therefore
B3. P is forced to experience something that is inevitably in part bad.
C1. P experiences L.
C2. L is inevitably in part bad.
Therefore
C3. P experiences something that is inevitably in part bad.
You are arguing that (B3) represents an injustice. What about (A2) and (C3)? Are both or either of them unjust?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Quoting khaled
That's the nub, the heart, of the issue. :chin:
Quoting khaled
That doesn't quite do the job of helping you make your case. Why...I forgot what I wanted to ask.
Quoting khaled
I'm afraid that won't do.
Food for thought: assuming our imagination bears the mark of experience in the real world, ever wonder why our conception of hell has exquisite detail compared to our idea of heaven?
Beforehand you made it seem like the difficulty of escaping the game is what determines whether or not it’s ok to inflict. Obviously a game that requires you to kill yourself to escape is too difficult to escape. But now we know that what you’re really concerned with is the difficulty of escaping suffering within the game, not the game itself. So it’s not at all obvious anymore that life is “too hard” in that sense.
I would think everyone agrees that forcing people into a game where it’s too difficult not to suffer is bad. It’s true by definition (that’s what the word “too” is used for). And the majority still aren’t AN.
Agreed. I’m not pushing for a particular position though. You and shope are trying to convince others of AN. So you must show why the standard by which you judge life as bad enough not to bring any more people in, should be objective. I’ve been asking shope for many threads now and he cannot come up with a consistent standard even, one that doesn’t lead to ridiculous side effects like having kids in a utopia being wrong, or wearing crocs on Sunday specifically being wrong. Much less explain why that standard is objective.
Quoting TheMadFool
Why doesn’t it? And what would? Would a happiness survey suffice? Because those always come back positive.
And even if we give that life on balance has more suffering (against all evidence), now what? Because that doesn’t logically lead to AN. You would need to explain why we should use a purely utilitarian standard with no other considerations.
Quoting TheMadFool
Where did you get that our conception of hell had more detail than heaven?
And “bears the mark of experience in the real world” is vague hand waving. What exactly do you mean? That if I can imagine something in more detail, that means my life had more properties of that thing? That seems like a completely unsubstantiated claim to me.
First off, which hell and heaven? Christian? In that case it has nothing to do with our imagination and everything to do with how many words God dedicated to describing them in the Bible. Same with all the rest of the Abrahamic religions. And non abrahamic religions don’t usually have heaven/hell in tue first place, and when they do, their descriptions are not left to the followers’ imaginations.
Or you could be saying that all that stuff is made up, in which case, your argument still doesn’t hold. Even if we accept your terribly hand wavy statement above and accept your logic, all that would show is that the authors of the holy books felt it more appropriate to describe hell in more detail than heaven. Not that their imagination of hell was more detailed than their imagination of heaven.
This food for thought is way past its expiration date I’m afraid.
You would only prevent the baby from being born in a volcano if you convinced her to have birth elsewhere. You cannot prevent a baby from being born in a volcano if there is no baby.
None of this is to say that life is good, or that one should have children, only that an antinatalist could never prevent harm and injustice by not having children. It could be said that his efforts go as far as preventing fertilization, or maybe pregnancy or birth, but that’s about it. His efforts cannot be stretched beyond that.
Not sure where you are going, but A would be an injustice if that something was bad (like B). If C is a known fact, then it conflates into B, essentially.
So I'm going to essentially disregard the "Most people" argument at the end there because as we've discussed at length, I don't think that a majority of people thinking something at a particular time makes it right.
As for the "too difficult" question and the "suffering" vs. "escape" dichotomy, your utopia example gave plenty of ways to escape the game. You are automatically thinking escape means suicide. That is one escape, and it's a DIRE one. That is the key word there. I said "without DIRE consequences". Suicide is a dire consequence (along with others that I mentioned). The example you provided gave escapes without dire consequences. That world is precisely the world I am saying this is not. You are more proving the case, if you will.
You must be conservative, you really don't think what happens to people after birth :rofl:. That whole "conservatives only care about the "person" prior to birth with focus on abortion" argument. You seem to be doing that here. Anyways, so I am saying life presents certain negative experiences that will happen to the child after birth (analogous to the danger of the volcano). You would have prevented that baby from burning up in a volcano pit. You would have prevented that person from experiencing the negatives of life.. Same in that regard.
Please read my profile, it explains essentially the answer to your question, both the general description and the quotes I provide from Schopenhauer.
I will add to what you read there this:
I find it funny that one of our needs is the need for overcoming challenges to give our mind engagement.. Flow states or simply taking up mental space with X. Schopenhauer described this phenomena when he said "What if every Jack had his Jill.. everyone had what they wanted".. People would kill each other (read as make more strife for themselves) because our wants and needs are never really satisfied. There seems to be a "lack" at the heart of everything..
Most people are sort of aware of this.. However, because of group-think and the need for social pressures to keep "things going" in its own self-perpetuating fashion via culture.. People try to pretend like this is something to embrace and a "good" when, in fact, it is simply existential/metaphysical turmoil within our self-aware animal nature.
I have focused less on this core philosophy lately because I think there are simpler ideas like the injustice of putting more people into an inescapable game, and inevitable harmful experiences that can and should be argued for. No amount of economic or political change overrides the negative existential situation itself. The animal with the pendulum between pain, boredom always needing that pendulum to get in the middle somewhere but it never stays.. as Schopenhauer analogized.
And I wasn't saying that. I was pointing out that despite everyone agreeing with your principle, they don't agree with your conclusion. That doesn't make them right. But it puts your correctness under much more doubt. I was only pointing out that it's not clear at all that AN can be logically derived from: Quoting khaled
Quoting schopenhauer1
Pray tell what other ways are there of escaping life? Unless you mean, escape suffering.
Your point was that life is a game where one must work to survive. The only surefire way of escaping this game is suicide or starvation. However we now know that what you are really concerned with isn't escape from the game itself, but escape from suffering within the game. Which is an important departure form your op:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Now it's more like: Any forced, inescapable game, where it's too difficult not to suffer, is a target for scrutiny and criticism. If so: Life as is right now, in many places, offers easy enough ways of escaping suffering within the game.
In real life the escape from suffering is pretty easy in a lot of places (which would make imposing the game ok in those places). You think this statement is false. Show why this statement is false.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes you're saying this. You're not showing it. I know the world isn't a utopia, but you've yet to show life is a difficult enough game not to impose. You think that life is too difficult a game. It's too hard not to suffer in life. I, (and the majority of people) disagree. You want to convince this majority that you are correct. Simply stating your opinion does not suffice for that purpose. Show that life is too difficult a game. We all understand you think it is, that alone is not convincing.
Is that a no to both then, neither of the others are in themselves unjust?
I have, and it does. But perhaps not in the way you might think. It'll be taken care of in due time.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Funny? That sounds entertaining, aka enjoyable. Who are you trying to fool here.
That's a velocitous point (the Jack and Jill thing) but easily refuted by the counter-argument that since as you say things are undesirable, Jack sometimes settles for Jane instead of Jill for multiple reasons perhaps lack of education, dire circumstance, desperation, ignorance, you can take your pick. If you get the metaphor, which I'm sure you do. So, back to my original question which perhaps is already answered, what needs to be changed? I suppose the stock question would be, if you were God and wish to make this possible, suffering free world to your hearts content and your minds eye, what would have to happen? What would it be like? How would it differ from now?
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's a nice analogy. Yet we still seem to be deviating or at least dismissing (which if you choose to admit and broadcast will result in utter failure of any alleged important goal) the fact that some people like how it is, the good and the bad, the give and take, the uncertainty. That's great that you don't and see yourself as some person above those who disagree with you who must achieve this conquest for a greater good us ignorant and blind animals could never understand, but again I ask a simple question: who are you to think so let alone do so in a life you claim to be negative and worthless? And more importantly why should others listen to you? You have to have some worth and positivity from somewhere, even if you choose to ignore it.
Regardless of whether I agree with them, hasn't shop1 shown tons of reasons in other posts why life is too difficult a game to be played?
They talked about it a few comments above:
Schopenhauer himself stated that no matter where you are, life sucks because the pendulum swings from striving for goals because of boredom, and feeling boredom after you've strived for it. He thought (and I'm guessing Schop1 does too judging from these posts) that life was just dealing with dissatisfaction, annoyance, toil, and seeking comfort and entertainment to avoid boredom that's always hanging over our heads. To me this sounds like the game shouldn't be played for anyone. I would like to see what you think since I've been enjoying your debate here. I remember you stating you don't agree with pessimistic arguments for AN, but I've honestly been wondering why? Where I disagree with Schop1 is that these seem way more convincing than injustice, pain/pleasure asymmetries, consent, etc
I’m just pointing out there is no recipient to your behavior. It affects no one but yourself. The suffering you prevent, and the beings you’re saving, are imaginary. So why pretend?
Absolutely right. Everyone knows that, for us, maybe because we didn't evolve for it, utopia would suck. There's that Star Trek movie where Kirk is dumped in some fake utopia and it dawns on him out horseback riding that he never misses a jump. Whatever that is, it's not real life at all.
Quoting Albero
I really don't think I've ever been bored for more than five seconds at a time in my entire life. I have more goals than I know what to do with. I just wish I didn't have to sleep.
Quoting schopenhauer1
"Antisocial" is someone who is against the laws and/or customs of a society and also who is considered an annoyance to and is disapproved by the society. So, if someone fits these criteria, he can be certainly called antisocial.
Now, about what kind of people's position are you talking? Young or old? The first ones, have not worked yet a lot or not at all and are still carefree and in their period of controversy against society, and have not yet met the difficulties of life. The second ones have been thrown in the arena of life where they have to work, often hard, to earn a living. Also, are you talking about poor, middle class or rich people?
As for the term or subject of "anti-work", I have never met it or even heard people talking about it. So I assumed it means "refusal of work" and I looked it up in Wikipedia: " behavior in which a person refuses regular employment.". Much better than what I thought, which was "refusal to work in general" and which of course lacks any logic! Although, in reality, the two of them don't differ much.
I don't know though how exactly yourself see "anti-work", except that you are talking "an economic system that runs on work" and as a "condition of life".
Quoting schopenhauer1
I can see that you mean that from the moment we are born we are forced to play this game. And that no one asks us if we wanted to. So, maybe your question is not really about "anti-work" --since there are a lot of things in our society and economic system that one can object to-- but our choice about living. I remember we have talked about that (Re: your topic "Is never having the option for no option just?")
Quoting schopenhauer1
The slave has no choice: he cannot choose his job or be on strike or refuse to work.
The laborer has: he can do all of them! :smile:
No. Because everything he said, everyone is already aware of.
The conversation typically goes like this:
shope: Having kids is an action of type X and actions of type X are wrong! (X can be, for example, "unconsented imposition", in this case it's "putting someone in inescapable game" typically, why actions of type X are wrong is left unexplained, but barring that...)
Me: But *insert activity here* is also of type X and you don't think that's wrong
shope: Well, this activity is not X enough to be wrong!
Me: So how can you tell between activities that are X enough and ones that are not X enough? We all agree that activities that are too X are wrong (true by definition of the word "too"), but we just don't think life qualifies as too X.
shope then proceeds to either "delineate" the argument for 20 replies, or outright not respond, then comes back in another week with another X and we do the same thing all over again. Repeat ad nauseam.
Quoting Albero
Thing is, it has never been my experience that this is the case. Never has it seemed that way in my own experience or others' experiences.
But even if we accept this, it is absolutely not the case that:
Quoting Albero
This has 0 proof. If it were the case that we're all deeply dissatisfied animals only pretending to be happy, you wouldn't expect anonymous happiness polls to come back positive. You'd expect people to "break" and show their "true feelings" of deep dissatisfaction at a much higher rate than they are. You'd expect therapists to be the most paid and sought after profession in the world. This makes it seem like we're all miserable Oscar worthy actors pretending we're not miserable. Most people are not Oscar worthy actors.
The consequence of "life is an escape from boredom or dissatisfaction" isn't necessarily "we're all deeply unsatisfied animals pretending otherwise", there is 0 evidence for that. Even if we accept the first statement, it could just be the case that NOT everyone is a lying Oscar worthy actor, and instead, it's just easy to escape boredom and dissatisfaction so on the whole people find the game worthwhile.
A is lacking enough information and C is ignorant of the connection. Unjust remains but the connection of the birth to the situation of inescapable situation is not recognized.
I don't think I have an answer for that. All I know is this is not that world. I guess if the main problem is lacking in a self-aware animal, it would be not lacking. No need or want for anything, yet somehow knowing it. No contingent harms and no religion too (sorry.. I felt like I was in the lyrics for John Lennon's Imagine...Imagine all the people.... :D).
Quoting Outlander
To put this another way that you don't seem to see..
Who are other people to claim that life, with its entailed harms needs to be lived out by X person? My path assumes nothing on NO ONE. The other way assumes everything for SOME ONE. If you are trying to raise the specter on antinatalism of presumption, my whole point is the presumption is actually the burden of those who are the ones who presume they should affect someone else (by procreating them).
Thank you.. This should be noted. It is good to know someone else is also paying attention :).
Quoting Albero
I also agree that the more convincing argument is one from a Schopenhaurean perspective, but as you noted, I have written a lot about this already, and am sort of looking at other arguments as well.
I just don't find this argument relevant of the morality of preventing future person from suffering. The fact that no person exists with an identity doesn't take away from anything.. We talked about ridiculous conclusions.. You can do whatever you want as long as they don't exist yet under your conception. That is very weird.
Anyways, if it helps you out, what you are doing is preventing an injustice. I agree that this isn't anything heroic. You are simply taking due care.
I interpret @Albero's idea about pessimism in that why don't I discuss pessimism in more exposition rather than making these tit-for-tat microarguments (like the ones we have)..
Quoting khaled
I don't have a name for this fallacy.. But if there is a rabbit and you say it is a dog, that doesn't make it not a rabbit. The idea of lacking in the human animal is shown over and over in daily life too much and is too true a truism to just dismiss. I understand you need for such global claims of denying "animal lacking nature" to make sure you refute any argument that makes a positive claim (at least if I or other people of similar views are making them).
Quoting khaled
That isn't necessarily the claim. Rather, it is the dissatisfaction at the heart of being an animal in the world with needs and wants. The very fact of pursuing this or that..
However, interestingly, the weaker argument you do bring up has some validity too. There are reasons for therapists and all the self-care things.. People are often not as happy as they need to present themselves to others. There are constant reminders of that.. which is why pessimistic comedies/comedians resonate with people (part of the reason anyways).
Quoting khaled
Again, the root of the problem is the need for X at all and that it is constant except for very few moments (pendulum in middle moments, sleep, unconscious states).
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Yes I am talking mainly about that kind of "work". I am saying, DON'T create more WORKERS who HAVE to WORK to survive. It is an unjust thing to put people in an inescapable game of challenges (like work) lest dire consequences (death of starvation or suicide). There is no opt out.. once born, people (generally) must work. Do not create this situations for OTHER PEOPLE. Quoting Alkis Piskas
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Exactly, this is just one example of a larger theme...
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Right, but what if he chooses not to work again? The dire consequences is as I spelled out:
Homelessness, starvation, free-riding (making it another person's/people's burdens), suicide, hacking it in the wilderness and probably dying there.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Enough information for what? You could be claiming that being forced to experience anything is unjust. Are you?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Connection to what? C is only about experiences that are inevitably in part bad; would you describe having such an experience as an injustice? It's a simple question.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There's no birth at all in my questions. I'm trying to ask about the general case of which procreating is supposed to be an instance.
OK. What solution do you propose for all that?
A would not necessarily be unjust. But the inevitability of B and C is going to be the case though (at least in this non-utopian world).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So what is the point of C? It is just stated as to what is happening.
Too late for the already born. However, recognizing our common suffering is one thing we can do. Of course, not bringing more people into the unjust situation is the main thing. Prevent future cases of injustice (in this regard the injustice of the work situation).
Quoting khaled
I want to address this because this is mischaracterizing the argument to make your point. By the way, have you ever read Arthur Schopenhauer's The Art of Being Right?
It's about not escaping without dire consequences. In the utopia example you said:
Quoting khaled
That is literally saying that there is no forced game at all.. You are by definition taking away the very thing that one cannot in this world.
I see. Stop reproducing ... But there will always be rich people who could find means to make people reproduce and governments who could force people to reproduce or forbid the use of contraceptives and abortion, as it was done in Nazi Germany ...
Besides, our world might be totally destroyed or the conditions for life on Earth cease to exist in one way or the other, before reaching such a state ...
Just making sure.
And I reply to his pessimism point later. This was in response to “Doesn’t shope give many reasons why life is too difficult a game”? No, you give none.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Everyone agrees that people feel lacking sometimes. But that it’s all pervading affliction that never goes a way isn’t at all the case. Not in my experience at least. Just how many people would you think agree with:
Quoting Albero
You have a habit for claiming that something is the case with no evidence. You claim that the above is shown to you in daily life over and over. Most people wouldn’t make the same claim of their daily lives. Then it seems that it’s not so much a truism, as a sign of depression. But even if we accept it as true, the rest of what I say follows.
Quoting schopenhauer1
And I’m telling you these dissatisfactions are too easy to satisfy and so the game is fine to impose. You disagree and offer no reasoning. Despite it being you that’s trying to convince others.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Going to therapy has nothing to do with how “presentable” you are. In fact, oftentimes people are perfectly presentable and seem happy but actually are suffering. Those are the most common patients.
Quoting schopenhauer1
False. And we’ve been over this. Your issue is not with the need to do X (the game). Your issue is that doing X is too difficult. If X were incredibly easy you wouldn’t have an issue with imposing the game (utopia example. You still need to snap your fingers to make the suffering go away, that’s an X you need to do). And so I tell you: X is too easy to do in life, enough to make it ok to impose the game. It’s on you to SHOW why this is not the case, instead of effectively assuming your conclusion and stating that it is.
Quoting schopenhauer1
How exactly is it doing so? Which thing have I attributed to you that shouldn’t have been attributed to you? I’m very interested in seeing you answer this. And it would be hilarious to me if you just ignored it as usual.
Quoting schopenhauer1
False. Living itself is a forced game. The only way to escape is suicide. And there is no euthanasia option. I did add that caveat didn’t I? I know you remember. It’s just that, in the utopia example, the game is incredibly easy (easy not to suffer in).
Now I’m saying that in real life the game is already plenty easy to bring in more people. You disagree. So show why it’s the case that life as is is too difficult.
It’s getting tiring going over ground we have already agreed upon.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You said this particular argument is just a case of "no suffering" when rather it's about not escaping.. yet you clearly said:
Quoting khaled
It is precisely those dire consequences that make the game inescapable. You took that away.
You are changing the argument to this:
Quoting khaled
The argument is about the injustice of an inescapable game.
The problem is perversity.
A metaphor...
Reddit Philosophy is just a propaganda outlet that hastily shuffles away good threads into the recycle bin.
The subreddit is paid to showcase content that supports certain regimes.
It isn't fun at all because it serves special interests.
The case is, a platform for fun, serious discussion is hijacked by mischievous people who, themselves, hog all the fun. The majority is overwhelmed by their tyranny and must conform or suffer dishevelment, loneliness.
The same goes for the Economy.
The main reason why I think this is wrong is because the only apparent benefit from this stance and this course of action is a certain satisfaction of the antinatalist's ego.
Since not procreating means there will be no future entities that would suffer, the whole issue of their suffering becomes moot.
So the only thing that remains is the satisfaction that the antinatalist feels in the here and now. And it's perverse to argue that people should not procreate so that the antinatalist could get some satisfaction.
An injustice did not happen to someone. Why is the idea of “bad thing did not happen to someone” somehow not legitimate? The opposite is something bad happened to someone. We are preventing that scenario.
When there is noone to whom the injustice could happen, there is no injustice.
When there is noone to whom the injustice could happen, you haven't prevented the injustice. Because when there is noone to whom the injustice could happen, the notion of injsutice does not apply.
Huh? This doesn’t make any sense.
Let’s start slowly. You use the term “the game of life” quite often so when you say “game” that’s what I assume you’re referring to.
Is the game of life escapable in the utopia example? What is the method of escaping the game in the utopia example?
Is the game of life escapable in the real world? What is the method of escaping the game in the real world?
You will find that your answer to both questions is the same. Except in the one case you think having children (imposing the game) is ok and in the other you don’t. Which means that:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Isn’t a good indicator. Both the utopia and the real world are equally inescapable. The only way out is death or suicide.
Furthermore, you agreed that your problem isn’t with inescapable games, but inescapable games where it’s too difficult not to suffer. You agree right here.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So I ask you to show that life qualifies as “too difficult” and you fail to do so.
Again, it’s tiring repeating the same thing over and over. I didn’t “change the argument” we arrived at this point through simple questioning. The utopia example demonstrates that a forced game is not in itself bad, as you’re still being forced to live in the example. Your problem is with forced games that are also difficult. But you cannot show that life qualifies as such, so you attempt to reset the conversation.
So suicide is not the escape because it is suicide. You are getting caught up on that. Rather, in this world, since there are very few options, suicide is one of the only actions to escape. However, in your utopia, you can snap your fingers and don't have to play the game of life to stay alive. The "game" is "the game of life" (set of challenges to overcome to survive.. what one must do in an economic system whether hunting-gathering or "laboring" in a mixed market capitalist society or communism or any other economic system).
I was purely going off what you said here:
Quoting khaled
Maybe I misinterpreted how this utopia worked then?
Quoting khaled
In the real world, one cannot escape from the survival game. The closest one can come is independently wealthy, or free rides off something. If everyone escapes this way, the game itself is ruined and no one free rides. But really, there is no escape in this world of playing the game of life (producing/consuming/surviving via an economic system of labor/exchange etc.).
Quoting khaled
No, I said without dire consequences and then named several such as suicide, homelessness, etc. You can opt out of the game, but you will have a hard time of it in our world.
Quoting khaled
Again you are misinterpreting what I mean by escape. Can one opt out of the economic game of life without death in utopia? You seemed to indicate yes. You don't have to play. You snap your fingers and you have what you want. Or perhaps I didn't understand this utopia you were describing. There ARE NO DIRE CONSEQUENCES in the utopia as I interpreted it.
Quoting khaled
That was me answering offhandedly with limited time.. The utopia has a way to escape without dire consequences. And it's true that is not this world.
Quoting khaled
Too difficult is if you don't play the forced game, dire consequences ensue (which apparently doesn't happen in your utopia). You die, starve, hack it in the wilderness (and then probably die), or some other crappy fate.
Quoting khaled
And it's tiring repeating over and over how I HAVE emphasized from the beginning that the game is inescapable because of DIRE CONSEQUENCES of not playing it. Keep up.
False, there's two parts here:
A) Someone preventing an injustice.
B) Someone for which an injustice could happen.
The part I am discussing is A.
A is causing B not to happen.
Situation is good.
Let's give an example.
A)Baker prevents a baby from being born in horrible conditions.
B) A baby was not born into horrible conditions.
Situation is good.
You would like me to think that this state of affairs is somehow off the table as far as evaluation. I don't see how. It is good that X prevented a baby from being born in horrible conditions.
False. You are still alive hence playing the game of life. If you stop snapping your finger, you will suffer exactly as you would IRL.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes you still do all of this in the utopia. It’s just exceedingly easy to do so. All you have to do is snap your fingers. That’s your labor.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Ok I’m getting that what you mean by “game of life” is really just “work”. Still the example stands. In the utopia you don’t escape work. You still have to snap your fingers. It’s just that work is exceedingly easy.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Neither can they do so in the utopia. The only difference, is that the survival game in very easy in the utopia. IRL you have to do more than snap your fingers to survive.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That’s playing. An easy game.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No it doesn’t. You still have to play the incredibly easy game of survival. You haven’t escaped it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Exactly the same case in the utopia. If you refuse to snap your fingers all that will happen to you. But we have established that having children in a utopia is fine. Hence showing that it’s not about the sheer magnitude of the punishment for failure, but also how difficult the game is. As again, the magnitude of the punishment for failing at the survival game is identical in both cases (starve, hack it in the wilderness and die, etc)
Quoting schopenhauer1
I understand you’ve emphasized this. And I’ve shown repeatedly how it makes no sense. The consequences are EXACTLY as dire in the case of the utopia. The only difference is the difficulty of the game, which you refuse to acknowledge as a variable because doing so would mean you have to show that life is too difficult which you cannot do.
Fact, bears eat beets. Bears beats Battlestar Galactica...
False. That was not how I was defining the game.. This thread is about "work" in particular. that part of the game of life to do with working in an economic system of some kind to keep alive.
Quoting khaled
Notice I said here to 180:
Quoting schopenhauer1.
If snapping fingers is a set of challenges, then it would be wrong. Can we agree that the world we live in now at the least, is a set of challenges? I am not sure about your utopian world, but this one certainly is.
Quoting khaled
Right I get your one trick pony... Like a kid who learned a joke and uses it over and over cause someone laughed the first time. What's black and white, and "red/read" all over??
Quoting khaled
Right, is that a set of challenges to overcome? Are there dire consequences? I would say no to both. If snapping your fingers is a challenge (disabled?) then it is wrong. Are the challenges so minimal as to the consequences being de facto, not dire (due to their easy obtainability)? I think that makes sense.
Quoting khaled
Yes, I would agree hence "Set of challenges" was my more detailed definition as given to 180..You're not giving me the Socratic "aha" moments you probably think you're doing bud...You're just "sweeping the leg" and I'll just give you the "crane kick" every time :).
Quoting khaled
I have explained the set of challenges here as I now understand more about this utopia you've created (which isn't this world, right?).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Oh wow, not like I pointed that out specifically:
Quoting khaled
Quoting schopenhauer1
It certainly comes off that way when you cannot comprehend a simple argument so I have to repeat myself over and over. The fact that you make the same thread once a week and then complain about getting the same reply, also helps make the impression.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So I guess having kids in this utopia is wrong then?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Of course.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What's there to not be sure about? Of course it does. The challenges are laughably easy, but they're there.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Absolutely.
Quoting khaled
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, it doesn't. The ease of the challenge does not make starvation any less dire. How would it? Also you accept that they are challenges here, although minimal. You can't say "they're not challenges" and then turn around and say "they're challenges that are so minimal that they make the consequences less dire". Pick one.
If you're going to say that the ease of the challenge makes the consequences "de facto less dire" and this makes the imposition ok then I'd argue that's exactly what's happening IRL as well. Starvation is a big deal, but what you need to do to avoid it isn't that difficult, therefore starvation is "de facto not a dire consequence" which by your definition would make life ok to impose (since it doesn't have de facto dire consequences). How would you show that I'm wrong in this case? Same question as before: How would you show that life is too difficult so as to make it wrong to have children?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Which is met.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Which part of this is not met in the utopia? Unavoidable? Yes they're just as unavoidable as they are IRL. Set of challenges? Yes as you say yourself:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Some unknown some known? Yes, all known. If these challenges are not overcome one has a very hard time of things including death? Yes.
So the entire definition is met. But that won't stop you from claiming they're not challenges. So which is it: They're not challenges? Or they're challenges but they're so easy they make the consequences of failure "de facto" not dire? Pick one.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would never think I'm giving you any Socratic moments. Not with the level of comprehension you're displaying.
Quoting schopenhauer1
A fantastic analogy! I high kick wouldn't connect if I'm sweeping your leg. In other words, your "rebuttals" are not addressing the arguments I'm making.
The only person who benefits in any way from this is the antinatalist.
Antinatalists are people who seek happiness in life from other people not being born. Antinatalists get an ego boost when other people aren't being born.
Which is a rather shitty way to pursue happiness.
When do you believe that life/personhood starts? At conception, birth, 18 years of age ...?
Suppose there would a Lebensborn kind of maternity camp for prospective mothers. A new building, ready for use, and a couple of buses of women of childbearing age on the way to said camp. These women are already pregnant, or intend to become pregnant at said camp (which has all the facilities necessary for that). Schopenhauer2, resentful of the maternity project, poisons the drinking water at the camp with a poison that would make the women abort, become infertile, or give birth to defective babies. Yet he gets caught, as Hilda the Chief of the Maternity Ward catches him in the act.
What injustice did Schopenhauer2 do? Remember, the women are still on the way in the buses.
He committed acts against public health, he committed attempted manslaughter, attempted grave bodily harm. But he did not commit manslaughter, murder, or grave bodily harm. The law has a special category for _attempted_ criminal acts. And this is the extent of Schopenhauer2's injustice, nothing more.
Let's say life starts, idk, 8 weeks after conception such that abortion after that point is wrong. Now, say the genetic modification was done on week 0. Does that make it ok? Point is, if the genetic modification was done before life starts, is it then ok? After all, there is no one to suffer an injustice right?
Your example is about someone poisoning people. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
No, "idk" is not good enough. In your scenario, everything hinges on where you place the beginning of life/personhood.
Secondly, your scenario is partly analogous to putting poison in a well and claiming that as long as nobody drinks from the well, there is no injustice. But what if you don't warn people about the poisoned water? What if people have no other well to drink from, except this one?
Right. So:
Quoting khaled
It doesn't matter when you say life starts there is always a point before that when the genetic modification could have been done. This is why you read a paragraph until the end and don't nitpick the start to dismiss the rest.
Quoting baker
That's not my claim that's yours:
Quoting baker
Imagine, for a moment, that I'm just trying to make the conversation more concise.
Okay, you could even genetically modify the sperm before it meets the ovum.
If you did it with the intention that the man/the sperm would produce defective offspring, that would, at that time, make it an attempt to cause harm to the prospective offspring. Since you did the genetic modification with the intention to hurt someone (even though that person may not even exist yet), the principle "When there is noone to whom the injustice could happen, there is no injustice" does not apply. Once the offspring would be born and it could be shown that their defects are due to your genetic modification, you would be guilty of causing harm (the degree of the guilt depending on the degree of the defect).
The key terms in such a case are intention and attempt.
The problem with such cases is, of course, that they can be very difficult to prove. (However, every day, the police lock up terrorists who are caught attempting an attack.)
Also, if something is a process with a temporal duration, then the process needs to be taken as a whole, not as discrete, separate parts that have nothing to do with eachother. For example, if you set a bomb to a car and set it so that it will go off when the car is started, that doesn't mean you're innocent for as long as nobody gets into the car and turns the key.
When would you say someone intends to do harm? If they know their actions will result in harm, does that automatically mean they intend to do harm? If this genetic modification is some religious ritual, and so the intention isn't to harm, but to fulfill the religious duty, in other words, there is no malice behind it, would it still count as "intent to harm"?
Back when we were a young species: Work, if it did have any meaning, meant foraging, hunting and farming and the point of it all was simple - calories.
Now: Work is not just for calories, there seems to be something more to working, not all of it good.
When they intend to do harm. Sometimes, people make this intention clear, like when they say in public "I'm going to shoot Frank Miller dead".
Quoting khaled
That looks more like negligence.
Would that make it ok?
Yes.
With negligence, there is no issue of permissibility; negligence "just happens". We wish it wouldn't happen, but it does.
It is, of course, possible to speculate about the reasons and motivations for negligence, but that brings us into a highly ideologically specific discussion.
I highly doubt this is how you see childbirth. Do you wish people stopped having kids? Do you think it’s wrong to have kids?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Your lack of imagination here, makes you look like the "unhappy" slave in your ending analogy.
Well yes, I am an ardent antinatalist.
Quoting Sheffwally
A forced game with some more options is still a forced game. You cannot choose not to play the game unless you die of suicide or slowly from starvation from not playing the game.
Quoting Sheffwally
I cannot imagine away the thrownness of the given. See here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10842/willy-wonkas-forced-game/p1
Ah, this makes it a lot more clear. I have a question for you then. Do you find it likely, in any sense, that your way of framing reality distances you from obtaining "objective truth" about the nature of life? As a philosophy your antiwork argument works very well. However, in a pragmatic sense it is the most detached conception of the world one can actually have. A philosophy born in absolute detachment from the world and it's more artistic elements. A philosophy that assumes far too much about the origin of things. In your willy wonka example, there's no way to be clear about his intentions and that's where it seems like you fall short. The arrangement of society/reality does not necessarily make the intentions behind that arrangement clear and so we have to do some serious digging here. Almost finished, I think what I'm struggling to understand from the two posts that I've seen from you is, what element of life do you apply the most value to in both your anti work argument and your Willy Wonka example?
And the only one you're making happy with that is yourself, and even that not very much.
This is excellent. I'm surprised I've missed this thread for so long.
Two small points:
1) I'd differentiate "work" from a "job." You seem to be using "work" to mean a job, and it's important to differentiate. Why? Because I find it's simply part of human nature to want to do creative/productive work. Commuting into a building to do a Bullshit Job for a wage, on the other hand, is a specifically modern phenomenon.
2) Starvation, suicide, being stigmatized, homelessness -- all real possibilities. But there's another that's more common for average folks like me: destruction of credit. So while I might not literally starve or be homeless (I have friends/family to rely on), since they've gotten rid of debtor's prisons, and since there are charities, food pantries, and a weak social safety net, the major consequence of rejecting a "job" is the "red flag" placed on your record -- you won't get credit anywhere, whether a mortgage or personal/car loan or credit card. This stays on your record a long time indeed, and bankruptcy doesn't always wipe it all away (student loans, for example) and, even if it did, it too stays on your record for several years.
So it's a forced game indeed, and you're absolutely correct in raising it for criticism.
But the thought of having to work all my life for the major sole purpose of survival does feel like a massive trap as well.
Think our need to eat to survive has been a major curse for us. If we somehow transform into beings that don't need to eat, think we'll see a major shift in how the human society functions.
Don't make people play the challenge/harm/imposition overcoming game unnecessarily.
Thank you. Glad to bring it to light.
Being born, it's the human condition to want and to know you want. Deprivation theory. You are deprived and that leads you to need and want what is not present now. Schopenhauer discussed this.