schopenhauer1

Are you kidding? That whole article is saying that the idea that there is an innate instinct to procreate is actually wrong. Actually, thank you for p...

I am glad you at least find them interesting :smile: . This raises a good point that philosopher David Benatar has also raised. The negative aspects o...

Will they? I've been debating this for a while. People are not like other animals- we CAN deliberate. Some people due to personality, culture, and may...

The descendants lives are spared any suffering by not being born. The people who are living have to deal with it, not use people, and break the very c...

Okay, so we both agree government-sponsered antinatalist policies would be immoral. We both seem to agree that a personal decision to prevent one's ow...

Why should anyone have children? It is all Draconian- making decisions on others behalf. If you say because some hypothetical "majority" like it.. I w...

How is it we cannot? In your next sentence you just said how we can prevent the next generation's bad decisions by not having them.

That makes no sense actually. Do you pine over the happiness not being realized by the non-existent aliens on Mars?

That is precisely the thinking that gets us into this position. You would be using the suffering of the next generation (by having them knowing the wo...

I think you are agreeing then. It is a choice to not procreate, thus choosing to not have a possible fuckwit politician that might force people not to...

I agree, and again I don't think it should be forced. But as I said to unenlightened, ironically, not forcing a ban on procreation lets some people fo...

That I agree with. I am not for Draconian measures that other people force. It is up to the person, not the state. However, you realize the irony that...

If you think "liberal innovations" are bad.. So are "free-market capitalism". Antinatalism scoffs at both of these as FORCING more people into the wor...

So this DIRECTLY gets at points I'm making in my thread about society being an ideology. Why do you think SOME people should procreate in the first pl...

So, people think they live in a vacuum. You live in a SOCIETY. You probably birthed in a hospital, with doctors and nurses and care units. You probabl...

That's the POINT. That even the idea of bringing more people into a society IS an ideology- the ideology of thinking people SHOULD BE playing the game...

If you asked a million people why they had sex, I doubt they would say "the instinct to survive". You'd have to majorly qualify that.

Preferences are majorly studied in psychology and neuroscience. What are you talking about? Also, what do you mean "derived from" empirical science? N...

Preferences are not "derived" from empirical science- they are just a fact of human deliberation. People have choices and they choose certain things b...

Besides the fact that Freudian theory is almost universally derided as the most unscientific modern theories due to its limited subjects (middle class...

You're trolling if you meant to not quote anything.. And Freudian theory certainly doesn't fall under the empirical evidence you seem to want.

What would be your criteria that this is an instinct? Also, please use the quote tool; otherwise I have no idea if you answered me. You can use the "R...

I don't get your question. Prove to me, procreation is anything but a preference.. I've already gave some reasons for why it is preference, not instin...

No, the "need" to procreate in humans is (actually) driven by want.

You are conflating procreation with actual instincts. An actual instinct is the feeling that you must go to the bathroom. An actual instinct is hunger...

Any society needs at least three things: A way to survive (hunting and industrial trade would be the two sides of the spectrum I guess), maintenance/c...

It's hard for me to discern what you are talking about here. However, as far as society being an ideology, my point is that by having more children, p...

Yes, I think you are misunderstanding my argument to mean only this society should be questioned. My point is questioning if any society should be per...

Perhaps words need help from other words along with pictures in the mind. If a word is thought about, you probably get a quick picture in your mind.. ...

Hold on though, you are jumping off on an interesting but slight tangent. If we can make the argument that perpetuating society is like perpetuating a...

Understatement. If there is an emergency or underlying condition, they get squeezed a lot until they are out of the middle class.

American healthcare is like feudalism.. Your Lord provides you the ability to access healthcare. If you cross the Lord and get fired, you will suffer ...

Clearly its not just a bad idea but a catastrophe in waiting. This kind of interaction of so many species, including ones as you describe should be ju...

@"Bitter Crank"@"csalisbury"@"Marchesk" Has anyone discussed yet the ethics of these "open markets" in China? It seems pretty terrible for everyone in...

Schopenhauer did mention many times the asceticism of Catholic monks and nuns and the concept of grace being similar. He just didn't actually believe ...

Bingo. It is actually a dualism. We are positing that some things (processing things like brains) have a dual aspect to them, which seems contrary to ...

Yes, it is kind of a sudden, even spontaneous understanding of the Big Picture, and then a kind of change in character from being will-driven to being...

If Will is what brings dissatisfaction, will-lessness is what brings the salvation. The cognition comes from a sort of recognition of what is happenin...

You get the analogy though.. Always adult diapers. Birth control is readily available. There is still choice, no matter the mitigating circumstances. ...

So bringing a new person into the world is not a political decision? You may not think of it like that, but that's exactly why I started this thread, ...

Sex and reproduction are different. People have sex because it feels good. People find others attractive for all sorts of social and biological reason...

Hunger certainly is. Continued survival is too broad, but generally we don't like the pain associated with dying and we may add fear of death. However...

How is reproducing an instinct? What natural interests? How can you prove wanting a child is natural? Also, this example is oddly eugenic sounding. To...

That's an interesting thought. Is the assent to perpetuate society (through procreating more people) an instinct? I say no. It is a preference and thu...

So it is about having children in that, by having children, a parent is assenting to the current society and its ways of life. They are agreeing with ...

Ill abide. How about the unnecessary trolling?

I don't agree there is no causal link. You are making a conflation (category error?) between intention and cause. Living definitely contains/entails s...

No it is definitely not. In the procreational decision, everything is in the abstract, including the fact that harm (whatever it is) will take place f...

This I find to be totally misplaced and irrelevant. It does not have to be the proximate cause for a particular instance, but it is a necessary condit...

C'mon dude. You know what my argument is. If it is a well known fact that If I do X and people will get hurt from it, why would you bother with this k...