Creating work for someone is immoral
Premise: Making people work is immoral.
When alive, we must make others work or we die. Sure, a few people might be able to scrounge a living as a hermit off somewhere making everything themselves in some survivor man way, but for the most part, we need other humans to survive. However, for the most part, we need people to "do their part" in making society function- whether by an invisible hand, tradition, or the iron fist of a dictatorship. So, in a market economy, we force each other to work by having demands. Consumption needs production. Producers need consumers, and so on. Once a human is born, they are just added to more demand and supply. There is no escaping making others work really (unless the hermit scenario) if we are to live as humans usually do (in a society, that is). Therefore we are always making others put forth more energy so that they can sustain our demands and others are making us put forth energy so as to sustain their demands.
However, not having new humans eliminates this dilemma of being forced into working for others demands (and vice versa). Thus antinatalism prevents people from having to work. No need for need if there is no one to need.
When alive, we must make others work or we die. Sure, a few people might be able to scrounge a living as a hermit off somewhere making everything themselves in some survivor man way, but for the most part, we need other humans to survive. However, for the most part, we need people to "do their part" in making society function- whether by an invisible hand, tradition, or the iron fist of a dictatorship. So, in a market economy, we force each other to work by having demands. Consumption needs production. Producers need consumers, and so on. Once a human is born, they are just added to more demand and supply. There is no escaping making others work really (unless the hermit scenario) if we are to live as humans usually do (in a society, that is). Therefore we are always making others put forth more energy so that they can sustain our demands and others are making us put forth energy so as to sustain their demands.
However, not having new humans eliminates this dilemma of being forced into working for others demands (and vice versa). Thus antinatalism prevents people from having to work. No need for need if there is no one to need.
Comments (106)
People would like working for each other's needs more if we could get rid of the invisible hand in the iron glove concealed in an economics textbook.
As for your solution, it's a "one solution to all problems" solution, no matter what the problem is. "Let's all just die out and then every problem will be resolved by our absence. Except, of course, the problem that this creates for those who rather liked being alive -- despite all the deplorably dangerous disasters to which we are positively prone. Nobody thinks it's a perfect world, but a lot of people like it, and your "reprehensible reproduction rigamarole" just isn't appealing to most people.
Most people get your theory that life can be quite unpleasant. Yours is not an original insight. You are unique in being as persistent as you are in pursuing your proposals to cease and desist.
Birth.
A symptom, I think, of the increasing shittiness of capitalistic society is the alarming degradation of aesthetics to something that is merely consumed, "force fed" into us. People don't go to movies, or listen to music, to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of it, they go the theaters or buy the next album as a means of escaping or distracting themselves. Watching movies with a deep or ambiguous messages, and unique cinematography, or spending an hour listening to a classical piece, is too hard for the working class.
Life isn't great but it's made intolerable through capitalism.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
More like life.
I'm with Bitter Crank -
We're not making you or anyone else work except slaves and prisoners. If you don't want to work, go ahead and starve to death. Most of us work because we want to live and have reasonably happy lives. In order to do that, we have to trade our work. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with our current economic system, but that's a whole different issue.
You're so cute, I just want to pinch your cheek or give you a hug. @ArguingWAristotleTiff says I should. Where do you live?
Yeah...well.... no.
Never
Yet we measly humans can choose to not perpetuate it, that is where the difference is between bacteria and the rest.
Quoting Bitter Crank
How so?
Quoting Bitter Crank
What is it they like so much? All this energy leading to disappointment, suffering harm.. All for a bit of pleasure. What a short-sighted vision this happiness principle is.
Correct
I just don't see it. Work for what? Sustaining oneself, to work, to sustain, to work, to sustain. We are tragically too self-aware for this scheme- anarchic, communist, mixed economy, capitalist, what have you.
No, you are too self-aware for this life. Some of us love the world. For some of us, it is a pleasure to live. Sometimes living is just fun. Please don't project your despair onto the rest of us.
This is pretty pitiful. Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but his is so hideously self-indulgent. Intellectually dishonest.
Not really.
Hey, I came from the working class and I like 'art films' and classical music. Who attends serious films and listens to classical music? All sorts of people -- but it sure isn't limited to the upper crusts of society. (By necessity the big donors to art institutions are all upper class--or filthy rich).
Why don't more ordinary sods go to the ballet, opera, and symphony? It's too expensive, for one thing. For another, it's offered as elite goods to which only some people are welcome. Put it down where the goats can get at it, and they'll like it.
When opera and drama were mass entertainments, the masses enjoyed and appreciated them. People like Verdi sometimes gave the musicians the music for an aria he knew would be popular just minutes before the premier of an opera, so that it wouldn't leak and every stevedore would be whistling or singing it in the streets before the opera opened.
Shakespeare's theater was crowded, with the ground in front of the stage reserved for the cheapest -- SRO tickets. People packed this area, anxious to watch his plays.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Work is holy, except when it is alienated, perverted, debased, and made a suffering by capitalism. (It's in Marx--the short Manifesto or the short Value Price and Profit will explain it to you).
Except where we volunteer our labor because we value the cause, and a scattering of paid jobs which happen to be human, we do not know what unalienated work feels like. But, most of us have had at least a taste of good work, and it tastes good.
Really.
But many times not.
I'm not sure causing other people to be born to have goals to fulfill is really good, especially in the light of the fact of contingent harms that will take place.
Work is good, thus antinatalism is bad since it prevents a good.
How is making others work good in and of itself other than appeal to some arbitrary divine command theory? It's only good in a hypothetical imperative.
I didn't say making others work, I said work itself is good. Forcing someone to work (like the Nazis did in concentration camps) is not good.
By having people, how is that not forcing them to work de facto? I mean sure, they can always go against their instincts to live, especially when enculturated for a lifetime in a social setting, but that's not going to happen for the majority except the practically non-existent suicidal hermit-ascetic.
Boring.
Simply because there are distinctions between forcing someone and not forcing someone. If I don't put a gun to their head, or take a whip and threaten to whip them if they don't work, then I'm not forcing them.
I don't think so. It's pretty basic that by having a child, that child is going to have to find a way to maintain its survival in a social setting- aka work. It is not like it is so far removed- it is very much wrapped into what it means for the child to live its life out.
Sure, I don't see that it's a problem. Again, work is good. I'm not putting a gun to their head to work. So I'm not forcing them to do anything. I cannot force someone who doesn't yet exist.
By having the child, it is well-known that the child will eventually have to find a way to survive. Having the child, means knowing that the child will have to work to survive. Thus, having a child is forcing the child to eventually have to work to survive. If we look at the fact that humans are animals, and animals that have the same instinct to survive as other animals, not working and starving/dying of exposure seems to not be an option for most.
This is utterly false. You cannot force anything upon someone who doesn't yet exist.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying, once the kid is born, they have been forced. The main word being "once". But, beyond this debate of non-identity, the bigger question you brought up, is that work itself is good in and of itself. What is your justification for this?
Yeah, by mother nature maybe.
Didn't really answer my question.. It's also not just a matter of "work" in the formal sense of going to work, but all the things necessary to maintain- the hut needs patching, the electrical circuit needs rewiring, the roof needs fixing, etc. So it can include anything where more energy is needed to keep oneself surviving and comfortable.
At the most basic level it would seem as though most if not all pleasure (hell, even pain for that matter) is in some way dependent on certain structural illusions, one of which is the apparent requirement that life, or at least our lives, continue for as long as possible.
Given that suicide is not usually a viable option for whatever reason, it shouldn't be controversial to see the practical importance of making an intolerable situation less intolerable. Your form of pessimism, while it certainly does point out real existential issues (such as this instrumentality you keep bringing up), is actually somewhat dangerous in my opinion, because it seems to lead to a sort of defeatist complaining. Capitalism is a bad thing, and making the alternative (socialist-anarchism) seem like an incoherent pipe dream threatens to sustain the very thing that needs to go, the thing that makes life so much worse.
You might as well just say "socialism doesn't work". Well, clearly nothing is going to "cure" us of life but capitalism is making things abhorrent. A person who gets sick in a socialistic system worries about their health and their relationships and projects. A person who gets sick in a capitalistic system, in comparison, ends up also worrying about their debt. It's grotesque how people fear disease, for instance, not simply because it's a disease but because it will induce an economic crisis. And when it comes down to it, when a person gets seriously sick, they care far more about these things than anything like "instrumentality", because their life is on the line and they don't want to die. Nobody really wants to die. They just want to stop suffering.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I got that quote from the Internet, and of course there's something to it, because birth, and what follows it, isn't easy, is often uncomfortable and always entails suffering. But it isn't possible to objectively weigh the suffering against the good parts of a life, or to say it isn't worth it.
In the sense of a disease as being something undesirable or wrong with us, I don't perceive life that way.
Sure, the Eastern traditions seem to imply that. Nisargadatta said that birth is a calamity, and I don't doubt that the peaceful and quiet sleep at the end-of-lives, for the (rare) life-completed person is a good thing.
It seems to me that we're each here in life because there's a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story about us, as its protagonist...a hypothetical experiencer who wanted or needed life, or was in some way inclined or disposed toward it, at least subconsciously.
Maybe that want, need, inclination or disposition was misguided, and it would have been better to leave well-enough alone, but that's moot now. We're in life now, involved, and sometimes the more we do, in an effort for satisfaction and completion, the deeper we get involved.
It's a bit reminiscent of the Uncle Remus story about Bre'r Rabbit punching it out with a dummy made of tar, which had been set up for him as a trap The more he punched it, the more he got stuck to it.
...so we must punch it out with the gummy-figure until we really achieve life-completion. ...having gotten started in life..
...until we resolve life, the situation that we've gotten into by our want, need, inclination or disposition.. It's obvious that that resolution isn't usually going to happen in one lifetime.
I can't prove that there's reincarnation, though my metaphysics implies it.
But if we're in life because we're the hypothetical protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, and therefore someone disposed toward life...and if that disposition is unchanged, or even increased at the end of this life, then the reason why we're in a life will remain at the end of this life.
If we're still wrapped up in life, then next will it be that peaceful quiet rest, or will it remain life, because we're still slugging it out with, and stuck to, the gummy-bear?
Shakespeare said, "...to sleep, perchance to dream." Maybe it's the eventful, emotional dream, instead of the quiet, peaceful deep sleep, for people who haven't yet resolved the dream.
Anyway, if we aren't yet life-resolved, which would we prefer?
Speaking for myself, I think a next life would make perfect sense. Sure, It would be a bit scary, both from my point of view now, and from how it would seem then. But, if there's a sequence of lives, then the good and bad would at least average-out, right?
And still speaking for myself, I can say that, with a lot of help from parents, culture, and peers, I thoroughly botched my early life, from as early as I remember, didn't know what I was doing, how to interpret, regard, and conduct life.
You, Schopenhaur1, sound like you, too, have had a rather sour experience with life. What happened?
...and what do you expect, and what would you prefer, after this life? Quiet sleep? But do you feel calm, quiet, completed, resolved and restful enough for that to be likely?
Michael Ossipoff
Presumably that we suffer only for us to continue to suffer. We don't go anywhere, nothing changes. It's a whole lot of effort for nothing.
How awful. You really believe that?
What should change? Why should there have to be a purpose? Why is it bad if there isn't one.
As we all know, life isn't all bad.
Michael Ossipoff
We're in life because our parents had sex, an egg was fertilized, we were successfully carried to term and born, and we haven't died since.
Thank you,, Mr. Science-Worshipper.
Yes, that's what they told you in school, and it's true, as far as it goes.
No one denies the material account, the science. But this is a philosophy forum, not a science forum.
Of course, if you're a Scientificist, then you're a Materialist, and you're legitimately expressing your metaphysics of Materialism. Acknowledged.
But your Materialist metaphysics has (or is) a big brute-fact.
Your belief in a cause-less brute-fact is an act of faith.
And, even if the causeless, brute-fact, fundamentally-existent, physical world that you believe in objectively exists, then it superfluously exists alongside, and duplicates, the inevitable complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts whose events and relations it matches. ...making the proposal of your objective physical world an unverifiable and unfalsifiable proposition.
Michael Ossipoff
I'm not a science worshipper. See my posts on other threads. What I am is a smarty pants.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
In a discussion of transubstantiation over on the Shoutbox right now, I'm supporting exactly that position.
Then I apologize for misunderstanding you. You were kidding, and didn't mean that biological explanation as the full explanation.
Michael Ossipoff
As I said, I was being a smarty pants. I didn't mean to mislead you.
Life is not exclusively sexually transmitted, so...no.
Quoting darthbarracuda
How awful. You really believe that?
What should change? Why should there have to be a purpose? Why is it bad if there isn't one?
As we all know, life isn't all bad. Most any life has good parts, and some lives have mostly good parts.
If there's reincarnation, then it averages out. If there isn't, then you needn't now be concerned with birth, and it doesn't matter what other lives are like, because this is your only one. One finite life, followed by quiet, peaceful deep sleep.
Some argue that that sleep isn't available if you still feel agitatedly-inclined.
Anyway, by my metaphysics, but maybe other Idealisms too, what is, is good.
Michael Ossipoff
This makes sense to an extent. I still say it was better never to be put into the position of a system, of course, but if put in this position, certainly, I agree, it is grotesque how there are opportunities to cure/help/alleviate harm for people, yet they are denied full access to this due to economic circumstances.
The meaning is related to the term. Instrumental in the fact that there is no finality. Survival, regulating comfort, and entertainments are simply inputs that need to be constantly maintained, over and over and over.
Interesting points. To sleep that peaceful deep sleep is something that is not an option, though the hope is there in Eastern thought. Yes, the gummy-bear is a good analogy. Survival, boredom, and regulating comfort leads to so much more and more and more, and on and on and on, the "instrumental" nature of things. Work begets more work, energy needed begets more energy needed. We cannot help it, there is no other option once born.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
No, this would be a grotesque horror show when seen from an objective viewpoint. Not only instrumental for 80+ years, but for eternity. Ugh.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Well, here is the crux of antinatalist dilemma. People rather have eternities of experience in all its forms than some sort of non-existent sleep. However, in the meantime, more people are born that need to expend energy to maintain their comfort, deal with their own personal burdens, entertain their minds, and survive.
It seems like your motivation to make this argument is not being based on you actually trying to prevent future 'suffering experiences' from coming into existence, but rather is a way of you trying to convince others that life is bad. As in, you don't primarily want to prevent suffering (acting out of compassion/empathy), rather you want to convince others that your view on the world is the correct one.
I mean do you really care possible future sufferings experienced by others you will never meet or know about? Do you weep now for all the suffering that will be experienced in the future? Are you really that compassionate?
I’ve missed the definition of “instrumentality” that’s being used here. According to dictionaries, “instrumentality” means “use for a purpose”.
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I don’t understand what is meant by that word’s use here. If everything you do is for a future purpose, then you don’t have a life. If you’re saying that all of a person’s life is like that, there are people who say that we needn’t live that way, and that it’s a reliable formula for unhappiness.
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1. Life needn’t, and shouldn’t, be primarily instrumental. Sure, we plan for the future and do things for the future, but plainly the present, not the future, is what life really is. Not everyone lives in or for the future. As stated above, that’s a reliable formula for unhappiness.
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2. If life would be bad with more than one life, then it’s also bad with one life. If any life is bad, then your message is gloom and doom. Presumably you’re saying that a rational person regards this life as something to just somehow get through, in order to have the sleep at the end of life? (…with the assumption that there’ll just be this one life.)
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But what’s the consequence of a life that’s regarded only as something to get through, to get overwith, for something better later? Of courses that’s another instance of living for the future. …a recipe for misery, as described in #1 above.
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…because the future never arrives, as you well know.
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3. According to the Eastern traditions that speak of reincarnation, the sequence of lives isn’t eternal. It’s always finite. Everyone eventually achieves life-completion, life-resolution (often called “Liberation”), and the resulting end-of-lives. But, the Easterners (reasonably) say that you won’t reach that by wishing for it and living for the future.
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4. A life has good parts. And remember that life needn’t and shouldn’t be instrumental. Do you really think that there aren’t things that you like, for their own sake, not for a future purpose?
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5. Whether people who reproduce are causing births that otherwise wouldn’t happen, depends on your metaphysics. You’ve agreed about that. If you could achieve a goal consisting of convincing everyone on Earth to not reproduce, that will prevent some births if you’re a Materialist. By my metaphysics it won’t prevent any births, but will just remove one planet, in one possibility-world as a birth-location.
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6. What’s the conclusion of that gloom-&-doom view? You seem to be implying that, not only is life bad, but what is, must be bad too. …a nightmare conclusion. Do you really think it’s that bad? Even suicide won’t help anyone escape from that bad Reality that you claim. It’s just plain doom.
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By the metaphysics that I propose, what metaphysically (describably, discussably) is, is insubstantial, ethereal. …implying an openness, looseness and lightness that’s opposite to grim Materialism.
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That’s a reason why I say that what is, is good, beneficent, implying benevolence.
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— Michael Ossipoff
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Well, here is the crux of antinatalist dilemma. People rather have eternities of experience in all its forms than some sort of non-existent sleep.
[/quote]
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Then you’re saying that you don’t believe in sleep at the end of life, for anyone? …and that everyone has eternal experience?
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Well sure, that can reasonably be argued. You’ll never experience a time when you don’t experience. Oblivion never arrives. Of course that’s the problem with rejecting life, and waiting and hoping for the end of experience. It never arrives.
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As I’ve said, at the end of lives (the end of this life if there’s no reincarnation), there comes a time during the death shutdown, when the person doesn’t remember that there ever was, or could be, such a thing as a worldly life, identity, time, or events. That person has reached Timelesssness. Yes, their body is about to shut down, after which their survivors will know that they aren’t experiencing anything. But by then (but before the complete shutdown of awareness) you don’t even know that there ever was or could be a body or a life anyway.
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(If there’s reincarnation, then most people won’t reach that deep stage of shutdown, because, while (and because) you still have your subconscious needs, wants, inclinations and dispositions, you’re someone who is starting a life, in some life-experience possibility-story. In other words, the reason why you’re in a life now, will still obtain at the end of this life.)
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No, they don’t only need. They also like. That’s what you people are missing. There are things that you like and enjoy, in the present, in this life.
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Michael Ossipoff
You get up, you do stuff to keep yourself alive, make sure your environs is more comfortable, find stuff to entertain yourself. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. To link it to work- you must put in energy to keep yourself going. Why is this a good thing? You are born, you put in the energy to keep all these functions going and to entertain yourself. You die. Between the born and die, why is it important for more people to put energy in to keep functions going?
It's more about posing the question than the result.
Instrumentality isn't necessarily about living for the future. It is simply the repetitious nature of surviving and keeping our mind's entertained between birth and death. Putting in energy to maintain survival, comfort, entertainment, this day, then the next, then the next, then the next.
It's about doing something for a reason other than because you like it.
But there are things that you like.
Working for survival is doing something for the future, as we always must (unless we're food-gatherers in a paradise-like environment).
Admittedly, the getting-by task can be a pain. But it isn't everything. Also, many people can find a job that they don't hate, or even one that they like.
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You make that sound like another chore. "Oh great, now I have to have fun."
There are things that you like. In this discussion you're ignoring that basic fact.
"Repetitious"?
If your "entertainments" are repetitious, then they aren't entertainments. If they're repetitious and boring, and you don't like doing the same entertainments all the time, then vary them. There's no one forcing you to keep repeating the same entertainments that you're tired of.
Negative.
Experience doesn't end at death. You never experience a time when you don't experience.
Don't expect death as a relief, an impatiently longed-for end of experience, because, as I've emphasized, there's no such thing as oblivion. You never get there.
As Rajneesh (and maybe others) pointed out, your death won't be better than your life,. if your life is bad because of a rejecting attitude toward it.
(Whatever else is said of Rajneesh, he said a some good things)
You'll say, "So here I still am." Really, what did you expect.
...reminding me of Christopher Plummer's line in Wolf: "Well here you still are."
Though experience never ends, life does. Enjoy it while it lasts. Otherwise, you'll feel plenty silly later.
But I'm not saying that you instrumentally should enjoy it to avoid feeling silly later. A lizard will get out of the sun if he feels too hot, and out of the shade if he feels too cold. Learn from him, and don't keep to a routine that you don't like.
Purposely living a routine that you don't like, and objecting to it, rejecting it as you adhere to it, doesn't make sense.
I say that you're in life because you had, and still have, a predisposition toward it, or even a want for it.. But whether or not you agree with that, you're in it, and it's temporary, so, while here, you might as well allow yourself to like it. That's just being realistic and self-honest. And there are things that you like. Build a model ship, Read a more cheerful philosopher. There's got to be something that you like.
Michael Ossipoff
An interesting thought. If life has no meaning (and here I refer to salvific, objective meaning, not the created, subjective meaning of the existentialist), then it doesn't matter whether one has children or not or whether the human race dies out or not. Absent such meaning, there is nothing, no God and no law of karma, keeping track, as it were, of all the suffering of human beings and other creatures. Suffering leaves no imprint in a meaningless world. Were the antinatalist's ultimate desire met, there would be no perspective available to anyone or anything to judge that the extinction of human beings was a good thing. It is therefore no more or less good than their continued existence.
Well obviously life's meaning is subjective. It's for the person whose life it is.
I looked up "Salvific", and it means "Having the intent or power to save or redeem." That sounds like Biblical Literalist religion, which i don't subscribe to.
...but I have no idea what the subjective meaning of the Existentialists is.
The usual definition of Existentialism that I've seen is: The belief that existence precedes essence.
Because "existence" isn't metaphysically-defined, I have no idea what that definition means.
Merriam-Webster defines Existentialism as::
"A philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines, but centering on an analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe, and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong, or, good or bad."
First of all, that's really silly. How can (let alone "must") someone assume responsibility for a matter on which s/he doesn't (and presumably can't?) know what's right or wrong, good or bad?
Anyway, from those two definitions, I don't know what the Existentialist's subjective meaning of life is.
Quoting Thorongil
Probably not, by any objective measure (but I don't know what objective measure there could be).
But if the human race dies out in a manner that results in physical suffering or undesired premature death of individuals, then that's subjectively undesirable for them (us).
...so let's not avoidably worsen global-warming.
And let's have in place surveillance for, and means to deflect, an asteroid or comet that is on a collision-course with the Earth.
But If the human race dies out because everyone becomes an antinatalist, who'd complain?
I have no problem with antinatalism, because there are too many people on the Earth.
Atheism is a separate topic. As for keeping track, I don't subscribe to the over-anthropomorphic Biblical Literalist notion of God. Atheists are always talking about the anthropormorphic God of the Biblical Literalists.
So, without an objective meaning for life (and I have no idea what that might be), there's nothing keeping track of all the suffering of human beings and other creatures. Because I don't know what that objective meaning would be anyway, or what form of keeping-track there would otherwises be, I can't disagree or agree with that statement.
There are organizations and NGOs that do keep track of suffering and harm to human beings and other creatures. They do so even if there's no objective meaning to life. Why should they? How about because they just feel like it, and they just don't like harm to living things (a feeling that they can have without life having an objective meaning).
But you're going a bit too far when you say that there's no law of Karma, without an objective meaning for life. The burden is on you to explain why what Hinduism and Buddhism say about Karma isn't valid if there's no objective meaning for life. If you harm people, that has subjective meaning for them. People don't like being harmed, regardless whether life has objective meaning.
In fact, actually, why must there be meaning anyway? People can do things that they like. Maybe many people would prefer to do so in a way that doesn't harm others. But if someone is harming others, then maybe those others will manage to avoid harm to themselves, individually &/or collectively.
But no need for meaning.
...but it can lead to prosecution and imprisonment of the perp.
...maybe thereby providing some deterrence.
It is therefore no more or less good than their continued existence.[/quote]
That issue I'll leave to you and the antinatalists. But antinatalism is an undeniably good thing, because it could reduce population, on a more and more overcrowded planet.
Michael Ossipoff
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So why give people "stuff" to do. The "stuff" isn't so innocuous. Essentially a new person is created that must put forth the energy of maintaining their life. I don't see the point in doing this for someone, and in fact don't think it's even right to do for someone. There is the possibility of birth (every sperm/egg combination perhaps?), and death. What's with that "stuff" in between? Why does a person have to do this stuff?
I don't see how the repetitious maintaining of whatever systems, objects, processes, needs to happen. Novelty schmoevelty.. it's all the same- MAINTENANCE. Why provide a person to put forth the energy of maintaining their survival, finding entertainment, etc. It just doesn't seem like a good thing to for someone else. It's not about the outcome in this case, simply the question. I don't care if people literally don't have any more kids as much as asking the question of why having more people should take place in the first place. This is where you fundamentally miss me. Same with @Thorongil but we have been over the idea before of not the outcome but the question being important as the philosophical crux of the issue.
I don't really get what you're saying. If I was to interpret, you are saying people don't have to work, but they should. I guess the presumption is why should anyone be born at all to work? Why is someone existing to work better than not existing and no work?
Are you ever going to deal with the reality that this could be your minority opinion. Maybe what you see as repetitious maintenance is something most folk are evolved to enjoy?
I mean, according to you, it would make no sense that I would ever have spent hours a day laboriously hitting a tennis ball back over a net, time after time. And if I couldn't find a hitting partner, I would even just use the wall. Yet no one ever forced me to do this.
Sure, you can also point to an imperfect world where jobs are dull and unrewarding. Life can involve a lot of necessary chores. But that just says something about those particular forms of activity. The fact that "work" and "repetition" can also be highlights of our existence means your basic thesis is flawed. The problem isn't with existence in general, it is with particular situations that we might feasibly improve upon.
I mean why do you keep repeating the same basic lament, laboriously re-typing the same sentiments? Why do you feel so compelled to maintain this system of anti-natal protest?
Is it work that you ... enjoy? :-O
It can't merely count as a distraction from the truth of existence if anti-natalism claims to be that truth.
It certainly is, and I wish more people raised it, particularly philosophers and theologians. But that shouldn't inhibit one from seeking an answer. Having been on both sides of the debate, I feel the intractability of the question all too well. I presently regard antinatalism as false, but even if there is no definitive answer, that too is a kind of tacit rejection of it. There is a danger in believing that the profound and anomalous nature of the question in itself entails antinatalism's truth, as though such a question couldn't possibly admit of the answer the vulgar masses would give to it. However, sometimes truth corresponds to the intuition of the brute and not to the rarefied intellects who pose such questions, which isn't to demean the latter mind you. It seems to me that if one believes antinatalism to be true, one ought to robustly argue on its behalf.
Yeah, I haven't given any robust arguments before... I prefer mine a bit pithier these days. I'm all ears if someone wants to expand though. As I've said, there is potential birth and death. Why does the stuff in the middle need to take place?
Do I? I guess I believe giving people work to do is not right. Giving someone a constant chore of maintenance is not a gift. To put a new person in a constant need for upkeep and stimulation where there was no need before, is no good. Why must an all new situation of expending energy need to take place? Let sleeping dogs lie.
Life is not necessary, but it does indeed involve a lot of necessary chores. What is with this need for people to improve on things? Why expend energy in the first place, let alone needing to improve on the kind of energy output? Why excite the electron to the next level when you can just keep it at its lowest state :p. All this enthalpy.. running around, over and over. Is it good, or is it just what we know? Non-existence is tricky. People think of stifling darkness, disassociation, suffocation, etc. Of course the repetitive acts of survival, regulating comfort, and boredom seem "ok", it's all there is, in this animal's purview of what is metaphysically even fathomable.
I'm assuming this is sarcastic. From my perspective, you haven't adequately addressed and refuted the criticisms of such arguments. What you do is attempt to shift the burden of proof by asking different variations of the same question, namely, why do we need to have children? If there are people who say that we do, the question is certainly relevant to them. But there doesn't need to be a need to have children for antinatalism to be false, so your question is irrelevant to me and most people here.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's the conceptual way you look at it now. You're talking adult-learned concepts. But that isn't what life was when you were younger. You know that.
You aren't accurately describing life.
Ok, that's your main emphasis. You're talking about whether life is/was a good idea. I don't think that can be discussed in the context of Materialism. Sure, the Buddhists and Hindus have said or implied in the negative. Nisargadatta said that birth is a calamity. But that's misleading. Hindus don't really say that, because they know that each subsequent life starts because the person is already involved, has already gotten involved, and isn't done. Some things, once started, can't be stopped till they're done.
But what about the the start of lives? The start of the whole involvement with life? Maybe you have a case there, in a way, but it's a moot point now, because we're already involved. By my metaphysics, as I said, you're here because there is a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story whose protagonist is the hypothetical person that you were/are. Maybe that hypothetical person that you were was unwise to want, need, &/or be predisposed to life. But, as I said, that's moot now.
That's my answer to your question about the advisability of life. Whether it was advisable to start the sequence of involvement is moot now, because it's already a fait accompli and now you're in it, for better or worse, till you're done.
As for the unfairness of bringing new people into the world, I agree that it's undesirable to overpopulate this planet. There are already too many people,and it's highly commendable to not add to that problem. I'm in favor of antinatalism. It would be great if enough people would adopt it.
But, as regards the unfairness to your offspring,by bringing them into the world, you're looking at it from the Materialist perspective. By Materialism, it's as you say. But not by my metaphysics. Someone is born for the reason that I outlined above, not because two particular people created a life. That person was going to be born anyway.
Still, i wouldn't want to be part of the direct cause of someone being born, and so I'm inclined toward antinatalism for that reason too.
Other related topics:
I admit that, though it would be better to not live instrumentally, nearly everyone does, including all of us at this forum, at least to a large extent, much of the time. Though I talk non-instrumental living, it's to at least some extent all talk.
And actually my experiences largely support your attitude. For some reason (we'll never know exactly why) we were all born in this world full of really undesirable people to share a world with!
What did we do to deserve that? No one knows the details.
In my case, Ii wasn't resistant to it at all, and the thugs and trogs who mostly populate this world, the ones consisting of family, culture, and school peers, basically killed me just starting out.
And still now, of course, just like all of us, I still live in that world of thugs and trogs.
Of course now it includes the larger society, the political world that I ignore as much as possible. i want nothing to do with their hopeless and farsical politics.
I won't pretend to like that. But I don't have your attitude about it, because I realize that, for whatever reason, this sequence of involvement started, and, for some other reason, I drew a bad world this time. What can I do? Just make the best of it, while I'm in this one. Rejecting it won't accomplish anything, no matter what my opinion of the people I have to share this world with Just get through it, making the best of it.
That last clause, the emphasis on making the best of it, is the difference between our attitudes. The life-rejection attitude just wouldn't do any good, and would make things worse.
Michael Ossipoff
Use your imagination. You can contemplate before-birth imaginatively, and death imaginatively. To simply ask why the in between matters as that is going on with you right now. It is deep down, a religious sentiment, or at least an axiological one.
Let me ask it this way, why do you think it is permissible or right or a good idea to create a new being that must maintain its survival and regulate its comfort and boredom?
But isn't this just de facto what we do, because the counterfactual of suicide is repugnant? Just because suicide is usually culturally/biologically not an option for most, doesn't mean that the opposite (having things matter) is good. It is what we do yes, but why is mattering something good in itself other than its the default state of a human mindset?
Sure it was. It was preparing for maintenance. It was enculturation, cultural preparation. Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I just don't believe the narratives given about the mattering, mentioned earlier. We are trapped in a mattering cycle I guess. To know that is at least part of the key here. To flinch and give into the mattering stories as something that is necessary, desirable etc, is to miss the point that it is forced work that we integrate as wanted work. You mentioned children- it starts young and continues until you just get into a mattering pattern. Is it philosophical to not question this pattern? The final hurdle is the adulthood mindset- acceptance that the patterns of maintenance are what "matters". I don't think so. Just because it is in the realm of the pessimistic, does not mean that the worth of this questioning is suspect. Quite the opposite- it can be the enema of the mind necessary to clear and restore existential perspective.
If indeed most people are hardwired (by evolution's long project) to feel like life is worth it, then perhaps there is something right about people who feel life is worth living.
I mean, you have granted that it is normal, natural, to feel good about existing, then you sneer at the 98% or 99% who feel that way. Maybe you are sneering at the wrong group.
But this is the naturalistic fallacy. Isnis not an ought. Unless you think we individual human organisms are morally bound to carry out nature's program. Is it really feeling good that's going on, or just a default for living? This question is one step abstracted from the daily will to live that we clearly feel. It is rather, what is it about this will to live that needs to be carried out.
This isn't a response to what I said.
Of course. That's what i said about my own experience. And i agreed that, for some reason, we're born into a world with some really harmful, undesirable people to share a world with. Certainly they can successfully do their worst when someone's life is just starting out.
The things that you mention above are mostly from parents and school, but also from the overall culture around you.
But, as destructive as all that can be, it isn't life. It's a life-destroying environment, but don't confuse it with life itself.
I said that I won't pretend to like the adverse company we have in this world, but, as bad and pervasive and sometimes life-destructive (in various ways) it is, you're making a big leap when you adopt a life-rejecting attitude because of it.
About mattering, of course it legitimately subjectively matters to an individual what happens to him/her.
But that's it. I don't believe that talk about there being a meaning, or about there being a need for meaning. I guess people adopt that belief by reading certain kinds of philosophers,
(Would that be Existentialists? They're the ones people seem to usually talk about when they speak of the search for meaning, or the gloom of no meaning)
Life doesn't have meaning, or a need for it. If anyone claims life has or needs meaning, then the burden is on them to support their claim.
Sure, explicit and implicit indoctrination, early in life, about what matters is arguably what does the most damage.
Michael Ossipoff
The opposite of mattering is not suicide, it's not mattering. Actually that is not quite correct. Heidegger says (using different terms) that even not mattering is a kind of mattering in the sense that they both involve world disclosure. A rock can neither matter nor not matter, since for it, unlike us, world disclosure is not possible. So the opposite of mattering (which includes not mattering) is "neither mattering nor not mattering".
Also mattering (and not mattering) is neither good nor bad, it just is. It is a default fact of our thrown existence; it is beyond good and evil as Nietzsche would say. Here is a profound point Heidegger makes: we don't choose what matters to us, rather we are thrown into it, which is why it is fundamental or basic; it is out of our control.
In this sense the only reason I can see why somebody would kill themselves is because of this "mattering". Either there would be a painful disconnect (impossibilities) between their world and their mattering, or due to angst or depression they would find themselves completely overcome with "not mattering" and see no point in carrying on.
So life takes MAINTENANCE- survival, comfort, and boredom regulating activities. To create a new life which NOW must MAINTAIN itself perpetually until death is forcing a work regimen onto a being that previously was non-existent ergo did not have to work to maintain itself. I think one of the best quotes on this subject was from a random poster from the interwebs, so I'll quote him here:
Nope, it's about not giving OTHER people the "gift" (sarcastic quotes) of MAINTAINING a lifetime's worth of work (survival, comfort, boredom regulation).
This is about the gift being not a gift correct.
It is a position that giving someone work is always an intrinsic bad. In the intra-worldly affairs of living, it cannot be helped. Our whole survival, comfort, boredom maintenance is based on this premise. However, the unique ability to prevent it from happening at all is available. Why is giving someone work an intrinsic bad? It is harder to get more basic than a formula like, "giving someone a burden is bad, giving someone the groundwork for all burdens is very bad".
If work is defined by maintenance (of survival, comfort, boredom)- it is creating situations where people must maintain their well-being where there was none before. This is inherently giving a problem to be fixed where there was none, and I consider giving the problems of regulation a burden. No problems to fix, no burden, but lo- life is full of problems that need to be fixed (hungry, need place to live, need things to do, and on and on).
Good point
Since when has "the rest of humanity" been the root of morality? Do I even have to say the fallacy of numbers?
Philosophy is inherently on the borders and limits of certain topics. When you get to things like "Is giving people a burden to overcome, or a whole lifetime of burdens moral?" well, have people even really addressed the issue as a philosophical one, or is it chalked up to other more "down-to-earth" thought processes? Not much, especially birth is thought about philosophically. The point is to think about it this way, and not just assume that what is must be the correct case.
The argument is that causing burdens of work for others is inherently wrong. Burdens are inherently bad, and therefore causing burdens is wrong. Now this does fly in the face of certain "everyday" notions of burdens. For example, causing someone to struggle through homework to get better is not wrong, as it will make the student's skills stronger in the future. But indeed, though it is inherently wrong in an absolute sense, it is relatively necessary for cultural-survival-maintenance reasons. So, though in an absolute sense it is wrong, in a relative sense of necessity for survival-in-a-culture, it is required. (If it isn't homework, it would be something else- it is inescapable for any functioning society). And the example of homework is not even an example of the numerous externalities of struggles that occur from unexpected circumstances causing more strain on the initial efforts. So, there is not only the intended struggles but the unwanted struggles that compound the burdens. Struggle itself contra Nietzsche (whether from intended goal seeking or through unexpected circumstances) is not inherently good. The only way to prevent all forms of struggle, burdens, work for others is to prevent birth. Since de facto, birth creates the very struggles that are in question here, non-birth is the best state of affairs to have occurred. No one needs to be born for struggles to be overcome, achievements to be made, nor pleasures to be fulfilled. People continually fall into the assumption that there is a necessity to being, when in fact there is not. There is indeed rather an imperative to prevent burdens for others though.
Suffering is bad. We suffer in various ways, near constantly. Sometimes very mildly (bodily discomfort, thirst, hunger, boredom,work, etc), sometimes majorly (mental illness, massive bodily harm, despair, abuse, exploitation, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc).
We don't want to suffer. Suicide will end your suffering, and the resulting 'death-state' will not harm you (because there is no you to be in that state).
So here we have suicide putting an end to a bad experience (life in general), with no real downside. There is no you existing anymore to be deprived of the good in life.
Why bother even caring about these non-existent 'potential lives' you are trying to prevent from coming into existence, when right now you could literally just prevent your future suffering from being experienced by necking yourself.
Life is mostly bad.
Death isn't.
Ergo, end it.
Why not just bite the bullet and advocate full blown suicide. Anyone with any shred of compassion already advocates for antinatalism. Why bother convincing the non-compassionate. Given that antinatalism is the right course of action, what's the course of action for the living? Suicide?
Awful, condescending post that entirely misses the point of the thread. Jog on.
[quote=]I like hard work. On Saturdays I volunteer planting trees, tearing out invasive plants, and carrying water buckets. It beats office work.[/quote]
Note how you qualify your enjoyment of this manual labour in relation to the negativity of office work. You aren't saying "this is good in itself", you're saying "this is good in contrast to how bad this other thing is".
[quote=]I get that some people enjoy being lazy, but that just describes some people. Feel free to go about being lazy, and I'll go about feeling superior,[/quote]
You now get some sort of satisfaction about feeling better than idle people. Again it's not the hard labour you are enjoying, but the sense of superiority you have in your mind thinking you are better than others.
[quote=] which is that some find the business of living a positive experience.[/quote]
Note the words choice, the "business" of living. You might as well be writing the "task" of living, the burden of living.
At no point do you discuss the joys of back pain slogging water buckets, the sweating and tiredness of hard digging, etc. Why?
Note here I genuinely hope to be completely wrong and you do genuinely enjoy life. I just have these deep suspicions that a lot of people have these walls of cognitive biases, optimism biases, entrenched pollyannaism - an almost religious fervor that life is above all good - nay great!
Perhaps we are just born on either side of the bell curve. Perhaps some people are just born with an innate ability to experience more pleasure than others. Perhaps not.
Also I apologize for being blunt and rude in my previous post, it was uncalled for.
That may be true now, but probably won't be true in the near future. With the way technology is advancing, it is entirely possible that robots could do the labor we all do today. Certainly all manual labor could be replaced by robots, and virtually any labor that involves a lot of math could also be done by robots.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This seems to be an extreme response to the work "dilemma." It's kind of like burning one's house down in order to kill a spider in it. I think there are better ways to reduce (and maybe one day eliminate) work. First off, we need to get rid of this ridiculous Protestant work ethic. Next, we need to reduce the number of hours people work and replace as many jobs as possible with robots. Third, tax those robots and give the money to humans in the form of a universal basic income.
People are so unoriginal, even in the unlikely scenario we can outsource work to robots, people would still hold on for dear life to their dear occupations, not necessarily out of liking them but out of existential despair with their free time. Work brings regularity to peoples' otherwise directionless life. Also, how can people fulfill their desire to "prove" themselves by running a successful business or making a lot of money (almost always "one day" way off into the future when they'll "really" make things happen). Again, people's unoriginal ways of dealing with existential realities that must be faced without socially defined success.
Quoting czahar
I agree with getting rid of Protestant work ethic. But my definition of work is really much broader than just survival related activities.. it is regulating comfort and seeking entertainment. It is about the maintenance of one's life. I don't think creating people who have to maintain their lives, including survival but not only survival-related activity, is not a good thing. Nothing wrong with no one existing. I don't believe in creating a problem for someone (of maintaining life) is a desirable thing.
If that is your definition of "work," then I don't necessarily see work as a bad thing. Sure, some people can be obsessed with finding pleasure that it causes them pain, but I don't think that is the case for most or even all people. Your definition seems a bit too broad.
By the way, are you a fan of David Benatar?
I don't think so. It is simply not giving problems where there weren't any. No problem needs to be created to overcome. Certainly, the very real understanding of life being a constant pursuit of survival, comfort, and boredom regulation is a problem created to be overcome. Add to this the contingent harms of things like disease, negative circumstances, and negative decisions, and there is a strong case against giving burdens to new people that did not need or have burdens to be given or endured in the first place (to be overcome).
Your assumption implicitly is that there is a necessary component that individual humans need to carry out about life. Yes, I'm very familiar with David Benatar's antinatalism. I think he has some interesting contributions to antinatalism through the asymmetry argument, but I don't think it is airtight or the best reasons for antinatalism. I consider my thoughts on antinatalism as "aesthetic pessimism". One sees the instrumentality (the repetitive maintenance of life) and this causes a questioning. Admittedly, other than seeing the aesthetic, there is no further promotion other than painting the picture. People then make up their own minds. I liken it to vegans who make their argument but don't force their argument.