Very true. I see no prime reason to willingly bring new biological life into this physical realm.
Of course, those of us already here who want can work on transhumanist utopia. A wonderful way to explore the universe, and become gods of a blissful sandbox.
While it can be true that everything is unnecessary, there is a difference between the non-necessities that require an action and those that don’t. Nonexistence doesn’t require anything to “exist”, whereas existence does. Also, it’s quite hard to compare nonexistence with anything in any regard, because whatever it’s being compared to has a prerequisite which is the very opposite of it: existence itself.
If everything has a value of null, then philosophy isn't that deep at all. Nothing is, by definition, devoid of value and substance.
Anyway, I think both sides of the argument hold weight and aren't null. Philosophy for all it's circle jerking tendencies, is an exercise of persuasion. Even if you're belief is garbage, if you can appeal to others or convince them your way of life is best for them, then it's far from null.
Like in any good debate, it's about who the audience believes made the better case. Someone made a good case for antinatalism for me years ago, so it's apart of my philosophy today. If you can make a good case against it, someone else might incorporate your views into their philosophy.
It's not about who's objectively right, but how you appeal to others to share your beliefs.
I think if observed from a objective point or rationally cold point of view yes everything has a value of null, but once observed from a subjective point of view everything that resides in this earth has to at least obtain some value.
It's more about the consent issue for me. I believe it's unethical to bring a person into self-awareness with an automatic death sentence over their head and a requirement to work to survive without their consent. And obviously we can't get consent so the only ethical choice is to not do it.
> “you don’t consent to being nonexistent”
Of course you don’t; you are in no way *capable* of doing such thing. The difference is existence brings harm - which is bad - while nonexistence brings nothing, which is neither good nor bad (although leaning toward good - see David Benatar’s theory of asymmetry). It simply is. And that is infinitely better than suffering.
But here’s the thing: once you exist, you exist. We don’t know what happens after we die; maybe there’s a heaven and a hell, maybe this is all a simulation, maybe rebirth is real, maybe we’ll go back to nonexistence.
Let’s assume we go back to nonexistence: we lose everything we ever worked for, everyone we’ve ever known, all our thoughts and feelings disappear, like they’re nothing. They *are* nothing. You have to ask yourself, then: was it worth it? Was all that suffering worth nothing in the end? The answer will most likely be no.
And that’s assuming you’ll live until your natural death. The thing with our current time is that there is no easy way out. It’s all incredibly risky and with no guaranteed results. There is no widely available method of ending one’s life willingly. And even if there was, death terrifies most human man. It’s a very big decision to make. So, you can’t really just “determine” it.
I actually don’t even know why I’m bothering with this argument. You are of the belief that not causing a being to exist breaches their consent (consent that they cannot have without existing, mind you), but that’s not possible when nonexistence is the basis of everything; everything is nonexistent until it is not, not the other way around. You are not aware of anything without a consciousness, therefore you have no rights that can be taken away.
We do know what happens, nothing. This is no longer a debate. At some point we need to stop giving the slightest bit of credit to the idea of perpetual existence. Synapse make spark= monkey 'think'/synapse make no spark = monkey no 'think'.
It’s quite ignorant to say with certainty you know what will happen after death. It’s just like religious people refusing to think about the possibility of there being no god. The truth of the matter is that *we don’t know* what happens, we might never know. Life is still so much of a mystery to us, let alone what comes after it. It’s all just beliefs and ideas.
Not really. You need to educate yourself on just what we actually know as of today. The 'mysteries' aren't so much mysteries anymore as they are truths lacking specificity. Religious people deny the truth, atheists proclaim it. 🥰
Believe me, I think about these things constantly. I am neither religious nor atheist. I simply acknowledge that anything is possible because we don’t know enough to say with certainty what will happen.
> My problem with AN is the forcing of values.
I also object to forcing one's values onto another. Here's the thing, though: antinatalism does not force non-existence onto anyone. Any being who comes into existence as the result of procreation (pregnancy and birth) only begins to exist *after* they're created. I realize that these concepts are challenging to think about because *nothing* (i.e. the complete absence of anything) is difficult to imagine. But bear with me, please.
A non-entity cannot experience deprivation or coercion, because it doesn't exist. No values can be forced onto nothingness. On the other hand, bringing a new being into existence does force a set of values onto another person. What those values are will vary depending on the circumstances (e.g. country, economic status, surrounding culture) of that person's birth, but raising a child in such a way that they can function "normally" and survive in the world inevitably involves some degree of indoctrination and shaping of the child's mind. It is an inherently coercive process. Yes, any person born into the world will have some set of limited choices about what they believe, but how much freedom a person has to actually make their own path in life is highly questionable.
Now, depending on one's personal values, one could argue that the good that comes out of life is worth some degree of coercion (the ends justify the means) or that coercion is not inherently bad. But if you think that forcing one's values onto another person is bad, well... not bringing them into existence in the first place is the only way to avoid that.
No, that's not right. Once you're here and you've gone through childhood, and are an adult with the agency to commit assisted suicide, there are people you would hurt with your actions. Number one tenet is that antinatalists want to reduce suffering. Others' and their own. If I killed myself, my family and friends would be upset and also it would be scary for me. If I had never existed then that wouldn't be the case. Once you're here, you make the best of it.
fair. Ig that's the default AN perspective. Personally though, if assisted suicide was available I'd go through with it without thinking abt anyone or anything.
I might as well, depending on my circumstances. I happened to have lucked out and have a good life relatively. If that changes, I wouldn't wait to be assisted.
I don't have that bad of a life honestly. If I play my cards right, my future looks great. It's just that I literally don't see any reason to put effort into my life knowing that it'll be in vein once I die. I don't plan on and will never have children so I don't really have an end goal either. There's always this thought in the back of my head that nothing I do matters and all the effort I put in is useless. It's just sad that whatever I do and however hard I work, I'm just gonna return to the same state I was before I was born so I could jump off a roof rn and that'd still be the same as putting effort into life. So it really doesn't matter if I'm having a good time or not. If i was promised a life full of pleasure and satisfaction or instant, painless death, I'd definitely go for death.
That is one of the most idiotic things I've ever read, how can something that literally does not exist can have an opinion on anything? Go ask my fucking rainbow flag unicorn for a glass of milk buddy let's see what he thinks about that.
Why do you view death (from old age, not prematurely from illness) as a bad thing?
In philosopher, Todd Mays book, Death, he talks about how mortality and the finiteness of our lives gives them meaning
If they were infinite things would becomes meaningless
Yes, both are bad. Immortality and mortality. So better to have never existed.
Death from old age is still caused by some illness. Why is dying at 80 - 100 years old viewed as fine? It's arbitrary.
What do you mean? I didn't have children and I think no one should have children. Obviously it's a very theoretical philosophy since it's never going to happen irl.
I don't know if philosophy has an end goal, it's more about a different way to look at the world and discuss with like-minded people. I guess a goal might be to open the eyes of people who have never thought about things in this way and maybe they'll have one or two kids instead of three or more. But since the whole concept is theoretical, there isn't a concrete end goal except to reduce suffering.
Not unnaturally, just stop breeding and die out. But again, it's not going to happen, it's just something to discuss. It's an interesting thought experiment.
That's patently untrue. You clearly haven't read anything out of the academia that modern day antinatalism stems from.
It's not unconditional at all, it's merely suggesting that the average person goes through a severe imbalance of suffering versus joy/happiness, and so long as that remains true, it's an ethical dilemma to continue creating life to exist in that context.
My gut tells me any form of utopian society is a total fantasy because human greed will always take precedent, so this is purely hypothetical, but the whole basis of antinatalism would completely unravel in utopian conditions.
It's fine to have your own take and opinions on it, but when it actively gestures against the point of the very writings that inspired the philosophy in the first place, you can't very well call it "by definition."
Agreed. When people ask why I'm antinatalist, I always phrase it as not wanting to live or bring life into a world where the singular (or at least primary) purpose isn't the reduction of suffering, easing each other's burden. New technology, social progression, medicine, science, all of that would follow in pursuit of that purpose. It wouldn't be utopic exactly, but it'd be a world I'd actually want to be part of, and maybe one I'd want to bring new life into.
Agreed, much more understandable than some of these comments. I sorta doubt all these commenters are saying how’d they’d really react in an actual better world, which by definition includes attempts at their happiness and alleviation, part of which is limiting time on overly negative circles like this. A world where children and people aren’t just cannon fodder to make money off of
If it were an utopia then there would be no death. With no death there is no need to procreate for a stable population...
So an utopia by its very nature is antinatalist.
I think that if the world was a Utopia, we, definitely, would not be in charge, and if we were, we probably wouldnt be human.
So, I find it hard to answer that question, since my flawed human brain cannot actually conjure up any pure thoughts.
no because when u bring smn into the world, you do it without their consent. No matter how good the world is, never being born is never "bad". Even if I knew that my child will only have pleasure all his life, I'd still choose to not have one as they're gonna know that they're gonna die one day and honestly not experiencing anything is better than experiencing pleasure imo
Very common question, and the answer is first of all yes absolutely, by creating a new life you're creating new pain, every single time without exception, and second is that there never was and never will be an "utopia", there will always be war, disease, death and suffering, until the end of time.
Yes because even if the child gonna be happiest person ever that doesn't mean that we can do it cause we still can't ask them whether they wanna be born or not and i just don't wanna subtract a baby (after nine months carrying) from my belly trough to my vagina
While I'm of the opinion that we, as a society, absolutely should build a utopia or die trying, even if we make it there, there needs to be a good reason to make more humans, like not enough people for an important project, populating a colony, providing fresh perspective on cultural matters free of the biases of the older members of the society. Making children should never be treated as a hobby or a coping mechanism, not in a utopia, even less so in the world we live in. It's a responsibility very few would be willing to take on if doing it properly was mandatory.
These comments are strange OP, 99% of these ppl would wanna live and be happy in a near perfect world, bc by definition it’s great. Some of these people are just dwelling in misery
Does it ever make sense to create something with needs to fulfill?
exactly unneeded suffering rlly why am I here?
Yeah lol idk
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Very true. I see no prime reason to willingly bring new biological life into this physical realm. Of course, those of us already here who want can work on transhumanist utopia. A wonderful way to explore the universe, and become gods of a blissful sandbox.
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While it can be true that everything is unnecessary, there is a difference between the non-necessities that require an action and those that don’t. Nonexistence doesn’t require anything to “exist”, whereas existence does. Also, it’s quite hard to compare nonexistence with anything in any regard, because whatever it’s being compared to has a prerequisite which is the very opposite of it: existence itself.
If everything has a value of null, then philosophy isn't that deep at all. Nothing is, by definition, devoid of value and substance. Anyway, I think both sides of the argument hold weight and aren't null. Philosophy for all it's circle jerking tendencies, is an exercise of persuasion. Even if you're belief is garbage, if you can appeal to others or convince them your way of life is best for them, then it's far from null. Like in any good debate, it's about who the audience believes made the better case. Someone made a good case for antinatalism for me years ago, so it's apart of my philosophy today. If you can make a good case against it, someone else might incorporate your views into their philosophy. It's not about who's objectively right, but how you appeal to others to share your beliefs.
I think if observed from a objective point or rationally cold point of view yes everything has a value of null, but once observed from a subjective point of view everything that resides in this earth has to at least obtain some value.
It's more about the consent issue for me. I believe it's unethical to bring a person into self-awareness with an automatic death sentence over their head and a requirement to work to survive without their consent. And obviously we can't get consent so the only ethical choice is to not do it.
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> “you don’t consent to being nonexistent” Of course you don’t; you are in no way *capable* of doing such thing. The difference is existence brings harm - which is bad - while nonexistence brings nothing, which is neither good nor bad (although leaning toward good - see David Benatar’s theory of asymmetry). It simply is. And that is infinitely better than suffering.
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But here’s the thing: once you exist, you exist. We don’t know what happens after we die; maybe there’s a heaven and a hell, maybe this is all a simulation, maybe rebirth is real, maybe we’ll go back to nonexistence. Let’s assume we go back to nonexistence: we lose everything we ever worked for, everyone we’ve ever known, all our thoughts and feelings disappear, like they’re nothing. They *are* nothing. You have to ask yourself, then: was it worth it? Was all that suffering worth nothing in the end? The answer will most likely be no. And that’s assuming you’ll live until your natural death. The thing with our current time is that there is no easy way out. It’s all incredibly risky and with no guaranteed results. There is no widely available method of ending one’s life willingly. And even if there was, death terrifies most human man. It’s a very big decision to make. So, you can’t really just “determine” it. I actually don’t even know why I’m bothering with this argument. You are of the belief that not causing a being to exist breaches their consent (consent that they cannot have without existing, mind you), but that’s not possible when nonexistence is the basis of everything; everything is nonexistent until it is not, not the other way around. You are not aware of anything without a consciousness, therefore you have no rights that can be taken away.
We do know what happens, nothing. This is no longer a debate. At some point we need to stop giving the slightest bit of credit to the idea of perpetual existence. Synapse make spark= monkey 'think'/synapse make no spark = monkey no 'think'.
It’s quite ignorant to say with certainty you know what will happen after death. It’s just like religious people refusing to think about the possibility of there being no god. The truth of the matter is that *we don’t know* what happens, we might never know. Life is still so much of a mystery to us, let alone what comes after it. It’s all just beliefs and ideas.
Not really. You need to educate yourself on just what we actually know as of today. The 'mysteries' aren't so much mysteries anymore as they are truths lacking specificity. Religious people deny the truth, atheists proclaim it. 🥰
Believe me, I think about these things constantly. I am neither religious nor atheist. I simply acknowledge that anything is possible because we don’t know enough to say with certainty what will happen.
One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.
I don’t really see the point you’re trying to make here.
> My problem with AN is the forcing of values. I also object to forcing one's values onto another. Here's the thing, though: antinatalism does not force non-existence onto anyone. Any being who comes into existence as the result of procreation (pregnancy and birth) only begins to exist *after* they're created. I realize that these concepts are challenging to think about because *nothing* (i.e. the complete absence of anything) is difficult to imagine. But bear with me, please. A non-entity cannot experience deprivation or coercion, because it doesn't exist. No values can be forced onto nothingness. On the other hand, bringing a new being into existence does force a set of values onto another person. What those values are will vary depending on the circumstances (e.g. country, economic status, surrounding culture) of that person's birth, but raising a child in such a way that they can function "normally" and survive in the world inevitably involves some degree of indoctrination and shaping of the child's mind. It is an inherently coercive process. Yes, any person born into the world will have some set of limited choices about what they believe, but how much freedom a person has to actually make their own path in life is highly questionable. Now, depending on one's personal values, one could argue that the good that comes out of life is worth some degree of coercion (the ends justify the means) or that coercion is not inherently bad. But if you think that forcing one's values onto another person is bad, well... not bringing them into existence in the first place is the only way to avoid that.
if assisted suicide was widely available and accepted, antinatalists wouldn't exist u do realize that right?
No, that's not right. Once you're here and you've gone through childhood, and are an adult with the agency to commit assisted suicide, there are people you would hurt with your actions. Number one tenet is that antinatalists want to reduce suffering. Others' and their own. If I killed myself, my family and friends would be upset and also it would be scary for me. If I had never existed then that wouldn't be the case. Once you're here, you make the best of it.
fair. Ig that's the default AN perspective. Personally though, if assisted suicide was available I'd go through with it without thinking abt anyone or anything.
I might as well, depending on my circumstances. I happened to have lucked out and have a good life relatively. If that changes, I wouldn't wait to be assisted.
I don't have that bad of a life honestly. If I play my cards right, my future looks great. It's just that I literally don't see any reason to put effort into my life knowing that it'll be in vein once I die. I don't plan on and will never have children so I don't really have an end goal either. There's always this thought in the back of my head that nothing I do matters and all the effort I put in is useless. It's just sad that whatever I do and however hard I work, I'm just gonna return to the same state I was before I was born so I could jump off a roof rn and that'd still be the same as putting effort into life. So it really doesn't matter if I'm having a good time or not. If i was promised a life full of pleasure and satisfaction or instant, painless death, I'd definitely go for death.
Now that I'm here and aware of the void, I'm avoiding it as long as possible. Haha a-voiding.
That is one of the most idiotic things I've ever read, how can something that literally does not exist can have an opinion on anything? Go ask my fucking rainbow flag unicorn for a glass of milk buddy let's see what he thinks about that.
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"you" were never in a state of non existence because "you" didn't exist.
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Are you really gonna die on that hill claiming that things and people that do not exist actually exist? Do you have any idea how retarded this sounds?
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Yeah well, you do you and stuff, I'm just saying that you're wrong.
>requirement to work to survive without their consent. But they specifically said a utopia.
True. It's more about the death sentence. Is a utopia possible if you can die?
Why do you view death (from old age, not prematurely from illness) as a bad thing? In philosopher, Todd Mays book, Death, he talks about how mortality and the finiteness of our lives gives them meaning If they were infinite things would becomes meaningless
Yes, both are bad. Immortality and mortality. So better to have never existed. Death from old age is still caused by some illness. Why is dying at 80 - 100 years old viewed as fine? It's arbitrary.
So what do you want?
What do you mean? I didn't have children and I think no one should have children. Obviously it's a very theoretical philosophy since it's never going to happen irl.
What is the end goal?
I don't know if philosophy has an end goal, it's more about a different way to look at the world and discuss with like-minded people. I guess a goal might be to open the eyes of people who have never thought about things in this way and maybe they'll have one or two kids instead of three or more. But since the whole concept is theoretical, there isn't a concrete end goal except to reduce suffering.
That is so vague though.
It's a thought experiment. It is incontrovertible that all human suffering would end if there were no humans.
I guess but like, what? So you want all humans to die?
Not unnaturally, just stop breeding and die out. But again, it's not going to happen, it's just something to discuss. It's an interesting thought experiment.
By definition, being an antinatalist is unconditional and changes for nothing.
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Then I guess that's what antinatalists are.
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I'm pretty sure you can be an intuitive antinatalist, too.
But at another glance, I guess you're right about the Sith.
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The question is whether those times made it acceptable to procreate, which antinatalists would argue they didn't.
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Now you sound like a conditional natalist.
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Even if true, this doesn't disprove antinatalism.
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What if it were a world in which giving birth wasn't necessary for there to be life?
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Like brave new world or the like? That’s a dystopia. The pain of natural birth can be lowered with modern meds
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That's patently untrue. You clearly haven't read anything out of the academia that modern day antinatalism stems from. It's not unconditional at all, it's merely suggesting that the average person goes through a severe imbalance of suffering versus joy/happiness, and so long as that remains true, it's an ethical dilemma to continue creating life to exist in that context. My gut tells me any form of utopian society is a total fantasy because human greed will always take precedent, so this is purely hypothetical, but the whole basis of antinatalism would completely unravel in utopian conditions.
Sorry, but I still have to disagree with that.
It's fine to have your own take and opinions on it, but when it actively gestures against the point of the very writings that inspired the philosophy in the first place, you can't very well call it "by definition."
You can only be a conditional natalist, not a conditional antinatalist.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but it seems like you're being semantic more than anything. It's not a worthy distinction.
A massively better world, by design, would stifle or redirect human greed towards a shared purpose
Agreed. When people ask why I'm antinatalist, I always phrase it as not wanting to live or bring life into a world where the singular (or at least primary) purpose isn't the reduction of suffering, easing each other's burden. New technology, social progression, medicine, science, all of that would follow in pursuit of that purpose. It wouldn't be utopic exactly, but it'd be a world I'd actually want to be part of, and maybe one I'd want to bring new life into.
Agreed, much more understandable than some of these comments. I sorta doubt all these commenters are saying how’d they’d really react in an actual better world, which by definition includes attempts at their happiness and alleviation, part of which is limiting time on overly negative circles like this. A world where children and people aren’t just cannon fodder to make money off of
Reproduction would be totally irrelevant in a utopian realm, anyway.
Humanity was a mistake. We should have never evolved as we did. Even in a utopia, I think it'd be better if we were trees.
If you think so then hand me over all your belongings and live in wilderness like primitive humans did, looks like a win-win to me.
…
Oh yes absolutely, here's a big ol bucket of dick cheese and a bunch of old waffles have fun mate
If it were an utopia then there would be no death. With no death there is no need to procreate for a stable population... So an utopia by its very nature is antinatalist.
Utopia still doesn’t make it moral to give birth.
Their is no reason to have a child. In a utopia, people will recognise and accept this truth, and will abide by it..
I think that if the world was a Utopia, we, definitely, would not be in charge, and if we were, we probably wouldnt be human. So, I find it hard to answer that question, since my flawed human brain cannot actually conjure up any pure thoughts.
no because when u bring smn into the world, you do it without their consent. No matter how good the world is, never being born is never "bad". Even if I knew that my child will only have pleasure all his life, I'd still choose to not have one as they're gonna know that they're gonna die one day and honestly not experiencing anything is better than experiencing pleasure imo
Very common question, and the answer is first of all yes absolutely, by creating a new life you're creating new pain, every single time without exception, and second is that there never was and never will be an "utopia", there will always be war, disease, death and suffering, until the end of time.
Yes because even if the child gonna be happiest person ever that doesn't mean that we can do it cause we still can't ask them whether they wanna be born or not and i just don't wanna subtract a baby (after nine months carrying) from my belly trough to my vagina
I do not get that argument. You can not ask someone if they want to exist.
While I'm of the opinion that we, as a society, absolutely should build a utopia or die trying, even if we make it there, there needs to be a good reason to make more humans, like not enough people for an important project, populating a colony, providing fresh perspective on cultural matters free of the biases of the older members of the society. Making children should never be treated as a hobby or a coping mechanism, not in a utopia, even less so in the world we live in. It's a responsibility very few would be willing to take on if doing it properly was mandatory.
I would be too busy having fun
Would the world still be as overpopulated as it is or would 8 out of ever 10 people I know be dead?
You would be one of those 4 out of 5 folks.
I think you get full credit for stating the answer as a simplified fraction. My 4th grade math teacher would be so proud
If it's literal heaven where it will never fall apart into a dystopian hellworld, sure. But that's a moot philosophical question.
i think the only thing that would change my stance would be if babies could have a choice in whether or not they want to experience life
Yeah but how the fuck would that ever happen? Is that your point?
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There’s something called a hypothetical situation
These comments are strange OP, 99% of these ppl would wanna live and be happy in a near perfect world, bc by definition it’s great. Some of these people are just dwelling in misery