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I nominate as PF's team cheerleader. I believe he is the best suited for this role, although if you really want this position I'm sure he'll understan...

An excellent proposition. I will warm the benches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvKjpGP6P5Y

Sounds like swtor basically. The only reason I play it is because I am a Star Wars fan.

Last time I checked (which was aeons ago) ESO was kind of a disappointment. I play swtor for free but I am about to subscribe for a month so I can get...

David Benatar is credited with the origination of the term "antinatalism" as an analytic normative ethical position. As I have attempted to point out ...

If you have not already read Cabrera's paper, I would recommend you do so. Benatar is attempting to avoid the subjective calculus of life that his pes...

Not sure if that is something to be proud of... :s

I am apt to agree with him that all harm is bad, but to say that the lack of bad is good and the lack of good is not-bad is question begging. Benatar ...

Found them! Foundation and I, Robot series. Also found my copy of Dune.

Dammit! I can't find my Asimov books.

There's a difference between starting out with basic axioms to argue on and the manipulation of axioms to fit your needs. What I meant was if the only...

It is not hair splitting because it shows that Benatar has a goal in mind (to show that birth is immoral), and then proceeds to construct an argument ...

I don't think it is splitting hairs, though. I think it is pointing out flaws where flaws exist. Benatar's asymmetry has been systematically misinterp...

Although I agree with this partly, there are certainly cases in which people who were living life normally were thrust into conditions in which they c...

Again, though, this falls into the counterfactual abuse. If there does not need to be an actual person for the deprivation of bad to be good, then the...

This seems like an excellent point. To a certain degree, governments and the media can twist the image of reality to suit their needs, so that revolut...

Whatever brings about the most nostalgia... ;)

Agreed. Thus, the "asymmetry" of Benatar (which isn't really an asymmetry but rather a symmetry) depends on the fact that life is filled with sufferin...

And it only makes sense to say that a deprivation of pleasure is not-bad if you don't consider pleasure to be good. I say, scrap the asymmetry, it's m...

If it is not bad if there is no actual person who is deprived of good, then it is not good if there is no actual person who is deprived of bad.

Benatar actually doesn't say this specifically, he uses counterfactuals to get around the absurd conclusion that the barren, icy wasteland of Pluto is...

I firmly believe that delusions of varying degrees are necessary to maintain a psychological equilibrium. Freud introduced the idea of repression, and...

So you are essentially saying that it's better to save them from the pains of life. You say it's better not to give birth, but how do you get around t...

What are you saying, then?

PC, laptop specifically.

Is Vikings any good? I don't have cable television or anything like that, but I have seen the first episode online somewhere and I thought it was okay...

At the same time, though, if you can't take away the opportunity to live from a potential person, then neither can you save them from future suffering...

What I meant was that it is unfortunate that pleasure only exists when in couple with suffering. I didn't actually mean that lack of pleasure is an un...

I do admit that the lack of pleasure is an unfortunate thing. If, for example, we could perfectly forsee how someone's life would turn out, and we saw...

Books are better than the show tbh. Definitely recommend them, the characters are even worse in them, lol.

Any fans of Game of Thrones/ASOIAF here? Screw the politics, imma join the Night's Watch or the Faceless Men. 8-)

I do not contend that there is a duty to not cause positive experiences. Positive experiences are supererogatory, and the lack thereof is simply a by-...

I contend that there is no duty to bring pleasure into the world.

"Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good." - Ernest Becker.

Then apparently being beaten by life did not convince them. Or did they just not get beaten enough... I am sorry you feel this way about your parents,...

Moral nihilism =/= moral anti-realism.

Under that logic, those who procreate have not been beaten by life.

It seems from this that you believe in a kind of moral nihilism or moral sentimentalism. However, holding such a position seems to be mean that you ca...

Not at all, although such a position may induce a sense of melancholy. There is no duty, at least in my view, to prevent suffering when such an action...

Because you are consistently aware of the precarious nature of the human condition and act responsibly to compensate.

Well of course you can feel happy about your philosophy. It's more about living a more responsible life though.

Thought this might be relevant to the discussion, regarding how to live as a pessimist/antinatalist/"negative ethicist", from Julio Cabrera: "The nega...

I don't think psychopathy is necessary to rule, per se. I have a hard time imagining Lincoln being a psychopath, for example. It may be, though, that ...

I agree.

That is why it would require a society-wide change.

A tornado hits your house and destroys it. For a brief amount of time, you probably feel rage at the tornado, until you realize that the tornado had n...

I was kind of thinking around the same way as you regarding punishment. It's not possible to abandon punishment; not only do we, the victims, need clo...

What the f*ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrK1f4TsQfM

There is ample evidence to support the hypothesis that the repression of death is an unnatural, yet necessary psychological phenomenon. If you are abl...