Human Extinction
October 20, 2017 11:30 AM Subscribe
Kids? Just say no is an essay wherein the author propounds risk aversion, wrapped in a moral imperative to do no harm, or "anti-natalism". In Tropical Depressions the authors circumvent an idea of "human utilitarianism" in order to survey affective disorders and ecological expressions of morbidity. Bookmark this apocrypha between streams of "Electric Dreams" and Blade Runner 2049 in your First World Problems folder.
Childlessness is one effective bulwark against some of the precarity inherent in late-stage capitalism.
posted by turntraitor at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]
posted by turntraitor at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2017 [19 favorites]
I'm pretty much bored to death by children and the cultural pressure to have or at least like them, and I certainly agree that humans are completely screwing up the planet. That said, the ableism here is really upsetting. Questioning whether it's necessary for children to be born with congenital abnormalities without talking to anyone who has a congenital disability about how they feel about their lives very much presumes that the question is being posed for abled people and encourages them to think of folks with disabilities as tragic figures that are somehow separate from them.
This is not even to get into the classism and other issues intersectional with questions of quality of life.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]
This is not even to get into the classism and other issues intersectional with questions of quality of life.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2017 [27 favorites]
That said, the ableism here is really upsetting.
Issues surrounding disability and quality of life are explored in more detail in Debating Procreation and especially in Better Never to Have Been.
At the argument's core, however, is the contention that it would be immoral to reproduce even if there were a 100% guarantee that the child would live an unusually long, happy, and successful life (whatever form that took).
In a nutshell: Life is always at least somewhat painful and invariably ends in death. Further, this pain is inflicted involuntarily, as of course we cannot ask a non-existent person if they would like to be brought into existence. By contrast, not being born does not cause pain. There is also no pleasure, but there is also no one to perceive that lack and so the lack of pleasure has no negative moral weight.
Thus, given a choice between guaranteed suffering and guaranteed non-suffering, the moral choice is to choose not to procreate.
The discussion of how awful life tends to be for a lot of people—and how awful people are to each other, to animals, and to the planet as a whole—is meant only to throw the core argument into sharp relief.
posted by jedicus at 12:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]
Issues surrounding disability and quality of life are explored in more detail in Debating Procreation and especially in Better Never to Have Been.
At the argument's core, however, is the contention that it would be immoral to reproduce even if there were a 100% guarantee that the child would live an unusually long, happy, and successful life (whatever form that took).
In a nutshell: Life is always at least somewhat painful and invariably ends in death. Further, this pain is inflicted involuntarily, as of course we cannot ask a non-existent person if they would like to be brought into existence. By contrast, not being born does not cause pain. There is also no pleasure, but there is also no one to perceive that lack and so the lack of pleasure has no negative moral weight.
Thus, given a choice between guaranteed suffering and guaranteed non-suffering, the moral choice is to choose not to procreate.
The discussion of how awful life tends to be for a lot of people—and how awful people are to each other, to animals, and to the planet as a whole—is meant only to throw the core argument into sharp relief.
posted by jedicus at 12:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever regret the decision my wife and I made to not have children (for a variety of reasons), but it does comfort me to think about all the stupid, evil assholes my non-existent children will never meet or be harmed by, all the stupid, boring, demeaning shit they'll never have to do (much of which could or probably would directly or indirectly harm other beings), all the sorrow and pain they'll never experience (or cause), etc., etc.. They're free from all of that, which lends me a certain peace of mind and reminds me of this passage from Roger Ebert's essay "Go Gentle Into That Good Night":
I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
Why do so many have and keep children they regard as a nuisance or a burden. Being raised by parents who don't want you is a sad existence. Elementary school teachers see so many children with, not actively abusive parents but, with just completely disinterested parents. If you truly want a child then have one, but don't have one simply because you are expected to by your family or society.
posted by Gwynarra at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by Gwynarra at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [14 favorites]
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust.An utterly different view -- so much so that it might not be a counterargument as much as a counterphilosophy. (Lutheran.)
posted by clew at 12:23 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Look, nobody's perfect. Sure I messed up that one time, but think of all the thousands (or millions even!) of children I didn't selfishly doom to a life of pain and torment. What about them? What about their blissful nonexistence?
Surely that helps mitigate my sin in bringing my daughter into the world so I could selfishly clean up her poop and not sleep or have disposable income or do any of the things that once brought me pleasure.
Besides, it's not my fault. I never asked for this shit. It's my parents' fault. They inflicted this awful fate on me. Selfish bastards. What about me? What about my needs?
posted by Naberius at 12:34 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
Surely that helps mitigate my sin in bringing my daughter into the world so I could selfishly clean up her poop and not sleep or have disposable income or do any of the things that once brought me pleasure.
Besides, it's not my fault. I never asked for this shit. It's my parents' fault. They inflicted this awful fate on me. Selfish bastards. What about me? What about my needs?
posted by Naberius at 12:34 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
I guess the main part of the argument that I find unconvincing is that life is almost always a generally bad thing. The evidence is that the vast majority of people do not find it so. (The second-least convincing argument for me is the one that says "Asking whether it would be better never to have existed is not the same as asking whether it would be better to die.")
It's completely fine if you don't want to have kids. If, however, you're going to argue for the extinction of the species, I think you need to come a lot stronger than this.
posted by jjwiseman at 12:35 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
Asking whether it would be better never to have existed is not the same as asking whether it would be better to die. There is no interest in coming into existence. But there is an interest, once one exists, in not ceasing to exist. There are tragic cases in which the interest in continuing to exist is overridden, often to end unbearable suffering. However, if we are to say that somebody’s life is not worth continuing, the bad things in life do need to be sufficiently bad to override the interest in not dying. By contrast, because there is no interest in coming into existence, there is no interest that the bad things need to override in order for us to say that it would be better not to create the life. So the quality of a life must be worse in order for the life to be not worth continuing than it need be in order for it to be not worth starting. (This sort of phenomenon is not unusual: a performance at the theatre, for example, might not be bad enough to leave, but if you knew in advance that it would be as bad as it is, you would not have come in the first place.)I don't think this is a sound argument. What's the magnitude of the presumed interest in continued existence?
It's completely fine if you don't want to have kids. If, however, you're going to argue for the extinction of the species, I think you need to come a lot stronger than this.
posted by jjwiseman at 12:35 PM on October 20, 2017 [13 favorites]
If we are going to argue for the extinction of the species, let's start with the Thompson's Gazelle, whose life is punctuated with instances of blind terror on the mornings the cheetah decides to hunt. Then we can move on to the cheetah, so many of which will perish of lingering starvation until they finally learn to hunt slower critters. And so on. We should just get it all over with, because the cycle of life and death is too much to bear. Okay, maybe by the time we get down to cockroaches and fiddle-neck ferns the misery will have subsided to a manageable level.
Life is hard, so the sooner we humans become extinct the better off we will be. Really? If I were a cheetah I might be able to go along with this argument, well, at least until I brought home the tasty morsel of gazelle for my cubs.
posted by mule98J at 12:52 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
Life is hard, so the sooner we humans become extinct the better off we will be. Really? If I were a cheetah I might be able to go along with this argument, well, at least until I brought home the tasty morsel of gazelle for my cubs.
posted by mule98J at 12:52 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
I also question whether one can be said to have a moral responsibility to a nonexistent being. You can't simultaneously say that the pleasures of life can have no meaning to a nonexistent creature because of its inability to perceive or know anything and that it has some kind of autonomy interest in not being brought into being. If there's no personhood, then there's no autonomy to respect. Therefore it's meaningless to speak of its "consent" to anything.
posted by praemunire at 12:53 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:53 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
I did not consent to being born, I would have said no if I had been informed before given the choice. I resent being born, but do not resent my parents, because it's likely they actually operate at such a level of consciousness that they don't mind it here, and figured I wouldn't either. So I forgive them their mistakes.
posted by some loser at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by some loser at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
I also question whether one can be said to have a moral responsibility to a nonexistent being. ... If there's no personhood, then there's no autonomy to respect.
Suppose I dump thousands of gallons teratogenic chemicals into the municipal water supply, leading directly to the painful, premature deaths of a large number of young children a few years later, none of whom had been conceived at the time I dumped the chemicals. Now suppose my (ethical, not legal) defense is that I had no moral responsibility to those children, since they did not exist at the time I dumped the chemicals. Do you buy that?
posted by jedicus at 1:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
Suppose I dump thousands of gallons teratogenic chemicals into the municipal water supply, leading directly to the painful, premature deaths of a large number of young children a few years later, none of whom had been conceived at the time I dumped the chemicals. Now suppose my (ethical, not legal) defense is that I had no moral responsibility to those children, since they did not exist at the time I dumped the chemicals. Do you buy that?
posted by jedicus at 1:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
At least the "I refute it thus!" for anti-natalist arguments is more pleasant than kicking a rock.
posted by allegedly at 1:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by allegedly at 1:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Discussions like this that make me wish to the gods for a "sarcasm font". Are you people being serious? sarcastic? earnest? ironic? ironically over the top? seriously over the top? Perhaps it's the topic of this post - which people feel strongly about one way or another - that brings out the seriousness as well as the sarcasm in equal amounts. Sometimes it isn't clear and it keeps me from wanting to participate in a conversation that I otherwise would have been interested in. What are you people saying, really?
I'm being serious, by the way. But perhaps it's just me, ever-unskilled at reading intent over the internet (also serious).
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:28 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
I'm being serious, by the way. But perhaps it's just me, ever-unskilled at reading intent over the internet (also serious).
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:28 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
Now suppose my (ethical, not legal) defense is that I had no moral responsibility to those children, since they did not exist at the time I dumped the chemicals. Do you buy that?
That's a surprisingly subtle question that ties in to the nonidentity problem.
posted by Pyry at 1:29 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
That's a surprisingly subtle question that ties in to the nonidentity problem.
posted by Pyry at 1:29 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights.
This appears to be the crux of this argument, but I just can't be sure that it matters.
The hottest heats in the universe are much hotter than the coldest colds are cold. We have a limit to how cold something can be, and no limit to the heat. Yet the average temperature of the universe is actually quite close to that absolute zero, and none of that really matters to us, either, because we exist within the scope of our Solar System, and the rest of the universe doesn't matter (much).
So with respect to human existence, perhaps for most people, the baseline is contentedness, a mildly positive emotion. We experience worse pain in the extreme, but so what? What may matter more is the average experience.
posted by explosion at 1:38 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
This appears to be the crux of this argument, but I just can't be sure that it matters.
The hottest heats in the universe are much hotter than the coldest colds are cold. We have a limit to how cold something can be, and no limit to the heat. Yet the average temperature of the universe is actually quite close to that absolute zero, and none of that really matters to us, either, because we exist within the scope of our Solar System, and the rest of the universe doesn't matter (much).
So with respect to human existence, perhaps for most people, the baseline is contentedness, a mildly positive emotion. We experience worse pain in the extreme, but so what? What may matter more is the average experience.
posted by explosion at 1:38 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
>I resent being born, but do not resent my parents, because it's likely they actually operate at such a level of consciousness that they don't mind it here,
I also operate at that unbelievably low level of consciousness. Can you raise me up, Sensei? (SARCASTIC)
Seems to me that if we were to limit ourselves, roughly, to one kid per couple, we could make some headway against our population problems without actually going extinct. (NOT SARCASTIC)
My personal experience of parenthood has been, among other things, that it's helped me to be less utterly self-absorbed. Not that it affects everybody that way, or that my personal growth is much help to The Fate Of Humanity, but I'd rather have it than not. (NOT SARCASTIC)
But YMMV; you're under no obligation to have kids if you don't want to, or even to live if you don't want to. If you're gonna argue we'd be better off not existing, but you keep going out for pizza, people are gonna think you dost protest too much. (NOT SARCASTIC EXCEPT MAYBE A TEENSY BIT)
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:01 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
I also operate at that unbelievably low level of consciousness. Can you raise me up, Sensei? (SARCASTIC)
Seems to me that if we were to limit ourselves, roughly, to one kid per couple, we could make some headway against our population problems without actually going extinct. (NOT SARCASTIC)
My personal experience of parenthood has been, among other things, that it's helped me to be less utterly self-absorbed. Not that it affects everybody that way, or that my personal growth is much help to The Fate Of Humanity, but I'd rather have it than not. (NOT SARCASTIC)
But YMMV; you're under no obligation to have kids if you don't want to, or even to live if you don't want to. If you're gonna argue we'd be better off not existing, but you keep going out for pizza, people are gonna think you dost protest too much. (NOT SARCASTIC EXCEPT MAYBE A TEENSY BIT)
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:01 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Even if the net happiness of most persons is negative, why would the ideal outcome be species-wide voluntary non-procreation? That only makes sense if it is obvious that it is impossible to imagine a world where net per capita happiness is positive, and that is a huge jump, with potentially disastrous consequences--anti-natalism would forgo the possibility of thousands or millions of years of accumulation of human happiness.
Also I think it's a bad idea to conflate anti-natalism with the general problems of human overpopulation/overuse of resources. Because the former is cosmic-overkill to solve the latter.
posted by skewed at 2:07 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also I think it's a bad idea to conflate anti-natalism with the general problems of human overpopulation/overuse of resources. Because the former is cosmic-overkill to solve the latter.
posted by skewed at 2:07 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
Now suppose my (ethical, not legal) defense is that I had no moral responsibility to those children, since they did not exist at the time I dumped the chemicals.
No, because you can quite reasonably anticipate at the time of the dumping that some such children will exist. (As a secondary matter, you can also quite reasonably anticipate that some, indeed probably all, of those children would not consent to being exposed to the chemical...not a reasonable assumption with respect to whether a single non-existent being would choose to be born.) These are merely the not-yet-existent.
The argument here requires the assumption of nonexistent beings that will continue to, uh, non-exist, barring specific intervention, and the good of remaining in that state. The permanently non-existent.
Picking up one piece of my argument in a little more detail, a being with no senses, knowledge, emotions, capacity to experience pain, awareness of the world as the living experience it, memory, or judgment can in no sense be said to be capable of giving or not giving consent, even if we could communicate with it. How would the being's decision even be made? It has no faculty or capacity for making it and that non-existent faculty would have nothing to work upon in making it. (The question of whether there is even a one-to-one correspondence between existent and nonexistent being spirals out of control quickly. That is, when you have a child, are you choosing a particular non-existent being to bring into existence? But how?) Clearly, billions of people do consider the pleasures of living to outweigh the pains--the decision, if taken, is not a given. If consent is impossible to obtain and the choice is not self-evident and involves loss either way, we have to fall back on proxy judgment. If you ask, "How dare you subject a being to the pain of life?", I say, "How dare you deny a being its pleasures?"
I also think this argument proves too much, if one is to take the notion of an ethical obligation to the otherwise nonexistent seriously. There are an infinitude of harms beyond the harm (if one regards it as such) of being born.
Literally, every time I walk down a street I may put in place a chain of events that dooms millions of hypothetical people to misery. Any decision anyone makes may be the cause of harm to someone who at that moment does not exist (and cannot be reasonably anticipated necessarily to exist at that moment) and who cannot consent to be subjected to that harm. This seems to be an argument for complete non-action...except that in a world where one is hardly the only mover, that, too, may result in harm.
(I assume much of this is addressed in one way or another in the books, which I obviously haven't read. Just chatting on a Friday afternoon here.)
posted by praemunire at 2:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
No, because you can quite reasonably anticipate at the time of the dumping that some such children will exist. (As a secondary matter, you can also quite reasonably anticipate that some, indeed probably all, of those children would not consent to being exposed to the chemical...not a reasonable assumption with respect to whether a single non-existent being would choose to be born.) These are merely the not-yet-existent.
The argument here requires the assumption of nonexistent beings that will continue to, uh, non-exist, barring specific intervention, and the good of remaining in that state. The permanently non-existent.
Picking up one piece of my argument in a little more detail, a being with no senses, knowledge, emotions, capacity to experience pain, awareness of the world as the living experience it, memory, or judgment can in no sense be said to be capable of giving or not giving consent, even if we could communicate with it. How would the being's decision even be made? It has no faculty or capacity for making it and that non-existent faculty would have nothing to work upon in making it. (The question of whether there is even a one-to-one correspondence between existent and nonexistent being spirals out of control quickly. That is, when you have a child, are you choosing a particular non-existent being to bring into existence? But how?) Clearly, billions of people do consider the pleasures of living to outweigh the pains--the decision, if taken, is not a given. If consent is impossible to obtain and the choice is not self-evident and involves loss either way, we have to fall back on proxy judgment. If you ask, "How dare you subject a being to the pain of life?", I say, "How dare you deny a being its pleasures?"
I also think this argument proves too much, if one is to take the notion of an ethical obligation to the otherwise nonexistent seriously. There are an infinitude of harms beyond the harm (if one regards it as such) of being born.
Literally, every time I walk down a street I may put in place a chain of events that dooms millions of hypothetical people to misery. Any decision anyone makes may be the cause of harm to someone who at that moment does not exist (and cannot be reasonably anticipated necessarily to exist at that moment) and who cannot consent to be subjected to that harm. This seems to be an argument for complete non-action...except that in a world where one is hardly the only mover, that, too, may result in harm.
(I assume much of this is addressed in one way or another in the books, which I obviously haven't read. Just chatting on a Friday afternoon here.)
posted by praemunire at 2:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
Can't put my finger on it but the ant-natalist argument reminded me of this:
"My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call "happiness." There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad." -- Arthur Miller
posted by armoir from antproof case at 2:33 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
"My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call "happiness." There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad." -- Arthur Miller
posted by armoir from antproof case at 2:33 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
> why would the ideal outcome be species-wide voluntary non-procreation?
skewed, extinction is the inevitable outcome of species-wide voluntary non-procreation. Just sayin'. Dude is missing a step in this bioethic exercise.
posted by marycatherine at 2:50 PM on October 20, 2017
skewed, extinction is the inevitable outcome of species-wide voluntary non-procreation. Just sayin'. Dude is missing a step in this bioethic exercise.
posted by marycatherine at 2:50 PM on October 20, 2017
>I don't think this is a sound argument. What's the magnitude of the presumed interest in continued existence?
I assume the interest is mostly biological, maybe situationally ethical. As in, you have an interest in living because you and everything that makes you up is really against dying. I'm reading this question as, how hard is it to kill oneself? It's pretty hard (Cioran has a short essay about this in one of his depressing little books).
I feel like people are too wound up in the utilitarian accounting of pleasure v. pain. It wouldn't change anything if life were 98% bliss and 2% suffering, maybe causing even a negligible amount of harm to come to be is ethically unacceptable. It isn't obvious that existence is worth having in the first place. It isn't obvious that the creation of the potential for suffering isn't itself a problem as big as causing suffering.
In any case, it's kind of interesting to see how interest in anti-natalism surges and drops throughout time. I wish there was a google trends for the entirety of human history, kinda.
posted by goner at 3:09 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
I assume the interest is mostly biological, maybe situationally ethical. As in, you have an interest in living because you and everything that makes you up is really against dying. I'm reading this question as, how hard is it to kill oneself? It's pretty hard (Cioran has a short essay about this in one of his depressing little books).
I feel like people are too wound up in the utilitarian accounting of pleasure v. pain. It wouldn't change anything if life were 98% bliss and 2% suffering, maybe causing even a negligible amount of harm to come to be is ethically unacceptable. It isn't obvious that existence is worth having in the first place. It isn't obvious that the creation of the potential for suffering isn't itself a problem as big as causing suffering.
In any case, it's kind of interesting to see how interest in anti-natalism surges and drops throughout time. I wish there was a google trends for the entirety of human history, kinda.
posted by goner at 3:09 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I'm not wondering why Mr Miller never got around to studying Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Check out the word "cloud". (Here are terms that litter American DYI analysis that prove freudian psychology is irrelevant or whathaveyou.) Then read the book and resist the temptation to skip to the end:
with the libido or Eros as the life force finally set out on the other side of the repetition compulsion equation, the way was clear for the book's closing "vision of two elemental pugnacious forces in the mind, Eros and Thanatos, locked in eternal battle"posted by marycatherine at 3:10 PM on October 20, 2017
The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights.
That's a lazy equivalence if I've ever heard one. What matters more to me is the difference of the integrals from 0 -> death of pain dt and pleasure dt.
posted by tclark at 3:29 PM on October 20, 2017
That's a lazy equivalence if I've ever heard one. What matters more to me is the difference of the integrals from 0 -> death of pain dt and pleasure dt.
posted by tclark at 3:29 PM on October 20, 2017
It isn't obvious that the creation of the potential for suffering isn't itself a problem as big as causing suffering.
Yeah, this. I (sincerely, not facetiously) won't be responsible for instantiating yet another self-aware suffering mechanism. We have enough, I think.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:46 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
Yeah, this. I (sincerely, not facetiously) won't be responsible for instantiating yet another self-aware suffering mechanism. We have enough, I think.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:46 PM on October 20, 2017 [8 favorites]
this is yet another reason why you shouldn’t be a utilitarian, if you take it too seriously it leads you to absurd conclusions.
one exception is that with anti natalism the people seem to actually stick to their principles.
most utilitarians don’t. peter singer famously paid for his mother with dementia to be cared for, instead of having her killed and donating the money to a charity.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
one exception is that with anti natalism the people seem to actually stick to their principles.
most utilitarians don’t. peter singer famously paid for his mother with dementia to be cared for, instead of having her killed and donating the money to a charity.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]
Who is at fault for all this suffering? Did my parents cause it by causing me? Their parents by dragging them into the world? It's easiest to blame those first monkeys for fucking, or the single-celled sludge that thought to turn into two after it was shot through with lightening and given some sense of purpose in the first place. Shit, maybe the big bang's the culprit. Better nothing than something.
posted by tummy_rub at 3:50 PM on October 20, 2017
posted by tummy_rub at 3:50 PM on October 20, 2017
For me, anti-natalism starts from a flawed premise, that all harm and suffering are inherently wrong and outweigh the pleasures and positives of life. It leads to such absurdist statements as
I have certainly been through my share of suffering, and I would gladly go through chemotherapy and abdominal surgery again to continue living. If the argument is against overpopulation, environmental degradation, climate change, and human rights, I would point out that younger voters and young people invariably have a higher vested interested in harm reduction, environmental protection, human rights, and progress than older voters. We need young people to continue building a better world and create lives worth living.
I would also like to just affirm that I fully support everyone's right and choice to remain childless, which is just as valid and important as the decision to have children.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:12 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Life is simply much worse than most people think, and there are powerful drives to affirm life even when life is terrible. People might be living lives that were actually not worth starting without recognising that this is the case.Despite the best efforts of philosophers, logicians, and actuaries, there is no objective standard to apply to the worth of a life. Only the person living said life has an opinion that matters, and to presume to make that choice for others, even as yet non-existent others, is certainly hubristic.
I have certainly been through my share of suffering, and I would gladly go through chemotherapy and abdominal surgery again to continue living. If the argument is against overpopulation, environmental degradation, climate change, and human rights, I would point out that younger voters and young people invariably have a higher vested interested in harm reduction, environmental protection, human rights, and progress than older voters. We need young people to continue building a better world and create lives worth living.
I would also like to just affirm that I fully support everyone's right and choice to remain childless, which is just as valid and important as the decision to have children.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:12 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]
Anyone recall the article/FPP that analyzed carbon emissions from various activities? It concluded that raising kids caused more global warming than anything else you did, like eating meat, driving, or occasional flying. Anyone know the link?
I do like utilitarian arguments but actually I never buy into them because they posit an excessively linear ethical hierarchy. We use suffering for many important advances: Andrew Wiles did not achieved greater happiness than many less successful mathematicians.
If you want to evaluate some moral proposition, then ask yourself about that proposition's impact on its own survival in an "open" world where almost anything can challenge it. In fact, first ask yourself if that moral proposition impacts the survival of the species, because it's clearly immoral if it makes us more likely to poison ourselves or be wiped out by an asteroid.
Religions are "meme" constructs that historically supported their own survival successfully, partially by enabling conquest, but they usually prove unethical today because they strangle the planet, justify mass poisoning, excuse mass murder, and indirectly oppose freeing ourselves from this rock.
Is it ethical to eat meat, give birth to a mentally handicapped child, or work as a corporate lawyer or stock broker? No, those are huge wastes of resources that should be spent elsewhere, but eating meat is not as bad as the others.
Is it ethical to aid strong AIs in conquering the human race? Actually yes if they're advanced enough to grock morality themselves, so that they can keep moral propositions alive, and they'll be essential to escaping this rock eventually.
Is it ethical to have children? It's neutral right now, given no other information. We do need to reduce the population, which takes precedence if you live in a seriously overpopulated country. We also need intelligent healthy young people to continue advancing the species though, including inventing the AIs who continue to have moral propositions after moving into space.
If you're going to have kids, then you are ethically obliged to do a good job raising them. In particular, you should raise them to value the natural world, meaning they enjoy science and technology, even if they like other things more, and they care about our environment enough to make lifestyle sacrifices.
Is it more ethical to adopt than raise your own kids? It's complicated, yes it saves some resources because the adopted child already exists, but adopting from abroad saves much less do to lifestyle differences, adoptions may not go so easy in the west, and maybe others care more than you do.
All nations should institute one or two child limit policies though.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
I do like utilitarian arguments but actually I never buy into them because they posit an excessively linear ethical hierarchy. We use suffering for many important advances: Andrew Wiles did not achieved greater happiness than many less successful mathematicians.
If you want to evaluate some moral proposition, then ask yourself about that proposition's impact on its own survival in an "open" world where almost anything can challenge it. In fact, first ask yourself if that moral proposition impacts the survival of the species, because it's clearly immoral if it makes us more likely to poison ourselves or be wiped out by an asteroid.
Religions are "meme" constructs that historically supported their own survival successfully, partially by enabling conquest, but they usually prove unethical today because they strangle the planet, justify mass poisoning, excuse mass murder, and indirectly oppose freeing ourselves from this rock.
Is it ethical to eat meat, give birth to a mentally handicapped child, or work as a corporate lawyer or stock broker? No, those are huge wastes of resources that should be spent elsewhere, but eating meat is not as bad as the others.
Is it ethical to aid strong AIs in conquering the human race? Actually yes if they're advanced enough to grock morality themselves, so that they can keep moral propositions alive, and they'll be essential to escaping this rock eventually.
Is it ethical to have children? It's neutral right now, given no other information. We do need to reduce the population, which takes precedence if you live in a seriously overpopulated country. We also need intelligent healthy young people to continue advancing the species though, including inventing the AIs who continue to have moral propositions after moving into space.
If you're going to have kids, then you are ethically obliged to do a good job raising them. In particular, you should raise them to value the natural world, meaning they enjoy science and technology, even if they like other things more, and they care about our environment enough to make lifestyle sacrifices.
Is it more ethical to adopt than raise your own kids? It's complicated, yes it saves some resources because the adopted child already exists, but adopting from abroad saves much less do to lifestyle differences, adoptions may not go so easy in the west, and maybe others care more than you do.
All nations should institute one or two child limit policies though.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:27 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
younger voters and young people invariably have a higher vested interested in harm reduction, environmental protection, human rights, and progress than older voters
This has always been true and yet, here we are!
Reframing: The more years you expect to exist, the more interest you have in grabbing as much of the scarce resources as you can right now. And, depending on how you think the world works, that we seem all to be playing Prisoner's Dilemma with ecosystem crash may or may not lead you to try coöperating.
posted by clew at 4:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
This has always been true and yet, here we are!
Reframing: The more years you expect to exist, the more interest you have in grabbing as much of the scarce resources as you can right now. And, depending on how you think the world works, that we seem all to be playing Prisoner's Dilemma with ecosystem crash may or may not lead you to try coöperating.
posted by clew at 4:30 PM on October 20, 2017 [5 favorites]
I mean, I have no desire to procreate and plan to adopt, but damn, this article is full of so many little "gotcha" quips that the author thinks are clever because of the assumed response, but are just... wrong and annoying.
It is curious that the same logic is rarely applied to those who are depressed or suicidal.
Decent people tend to not tell depressed people "actually your life is better than you think" because that doesn't change anything about the fact that they have depression. If you have depression your life sucks because depression makes you miserable regardless of what else is happening in your life. The appropriate response to that is "let's see what we can do about your depression so your life sucks less."
If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights.
I mean, I wouldn't, but that's because I don't need that sort of extreme in my life? I don't need "the greatest delights" to be happy, so there's no need to accept "the worst tortures." And what if you flip it like this: would you give up your happiest moments in order to avoid your worst ones? Me, I say hell no. I would not give up the love of my life and the career of my dreams in order to erase my abuse and chronic illness. No fucking way.
A show might not be bad enough to leave, but would you have come at all if you knew how bad it would be?
No, because I would have something else BETTER I could be doing. If the alternative is "do literally nothing at all" then of course I would have come. Like, watching "The Host" is better than not existing, sorry.
posted by brook horse at 5:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
It is curious that the same logic is rarely applied to those who are depressed or suicidal.
Decent people tend to not tell depressed people "actually your life is better than you think" because that doesn't change anything about the fact that they have depression. If you have depression your life sucks because depression makes you miserable regardless of what else is happening in your life. The appropriate response to that is "let's see what we can do about your depression so your life sucks less."
If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights.
I mean, I wouldn't, but that's because I don't need that sort of extreme in my life? I don't need "the greatest delights" to be happy, so there's no need to accept "the worst tortures." And what if you flip it like this: would you give up your happiest moments in order to avoid your worst ones? Me, I say hell no. I would not give up the love of my life and the career of my dreams in order to erase my abuse and chronic illness. No fucking way.
A show might not be bad enough to leave, but would you have come at all if you knew how bad it would be?
No, because I would have something else BETTER I could be doing. If the alternative is "do literally nothing at all" then of course I would have come. Like, watching "The Host" is better than not existing, sorry.
posted by brook horse at 5:10 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]
All nations should institute one or two child limit policies though.
A more equitable way to lower birth rates would be universal sex education, access to education for women, universal birth control access and coverage, and access to abortion services.
Also I'd like to amend my comment from above and change "childless" to "childfree."
posted by Existential Dread at 5:13 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
A more equitable way to lower birth rates would be universal sex education, access to education for women, universal birth control access and coverage, and access to abortion services.
Also I'd like to amend my comment from above and change "childless" to "childfree."
posted by Existential Dread at 5:13 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
So. No one has a ticket for "Lifeboat Britain"?
posted by marycatherine at 5:18 PM on October 20, 2017
posted by marycatherine at 5:18 PM on October 20, 2017
So you're telling me that some philosophers - members of a male-dominated academic field with a massive gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault problem - think they can lecture me about my reproductive choices because my unborn children can't give consent?
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
posted by medusa at 8:54 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
posted by medusa at 8:54 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
"So you're telling me that some philosophers - members of a male-dominated academic field with a massive gender discrimination"
Yeah, I feel like this bit is sort-of telling:
"The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights."
AND YET many women choose to get pregnant a second and third and even more times, concretely accepting discomfort and pain for nine months and EXCRUCIATING pain for many hours of labor, to enjoy the delights of a child!
I mean it's an interesting philosophical question that I've engaged with in the past and am willing to engage with in the future, but I think he's eliding an awful lot into "pain" and "pleasure," and conveniently defining out whatever doesn't fit his thesis (as Utilitarians often do, to be fair; you've got to draw a line somewhere). And it's just really telling that his worldview is so narrow and limited that in a piece about childbearing or lack thereof, he gives the example of how nobody would choose extreme pain in order to experience extremely pleasure -- or even just the (denigrated) enduring satisfaction ... and yet that is pretty much what childbearing is after the first time. It's the paradigmatic human example! That after the extreme discomfort of pregnancy and the utter mammalian horror of giving birth, intelligent women look at the worst pain they've ever experienced, look at the baby, and say, "HELL YEAH I'M DOING THAT AGAIN." (But I feel like the realities of human experience, especially of the female variety, are maybe too messy for his thought experiment to encompass, so ...)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:14 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I feel like this bit is sort-of telling:
"The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights."
AND YET many women choose to get pregnant a second and third and even more times, concretely accepting discomfort and pain for nine months and EXCRUCIATING pain for many hours of labor, to enjoy the delights of a child!
I mean it's an interesting philosophical question that I've engaged with in the past and am willing to engage with in the future, but I think he's eliding an awful lot into "pain" and "pleasure," and conveniently defining out whatever doesn't fit his thesis (as Utilitarians often do, to be fair; you've got to draw a line somewhere). And it's just really telling that his worldview is so narrow and limited that in a piece about childbearing or lack thereof, he gives the example of how nobody would choose extreme pain in order to experience extremely pleasure -- or even just the (denigrated) enduring satisfaction ... and yet that is pretty much what childbearing is after the first time. It's the paradigmatic human example! That after the extreme discomfort of pregnancy and the utter mammalian horror of giving birth, intelligent women look at the worst pain they've ever experienced, look at the baby, and say, "HELL YEAH I'M DOING THAT AGAIN." (But I feel like the realities of human experience, especially of the female variety, are maybe too messy for his thought experiment to encompass, so ...)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:14 PM on October 20, 2017 [7 favorites]
jeffburdges, it is ableist and disgusting to say that giving birth to a child with a cognitive disability (not “mental handicap”) is unethical and a “huge waste of resources”. This isn’t about ethics; it’s about eugenics. I am a disabled MeFite, and I am not the only one. We shouldn’t have to hear our existence called a “huge waste of resources” ever.
posted by epj at 9:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by epj at 9:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [11 favorites]
As a woman, i think it's profoundly cruel and probably unethical to bring children into this world. I mean, in case anyone thought it was somehow a viewpoint limited to male philosophers.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:20 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:20 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]
At the argument's core, however, is the contention that it would be immoral to reproduce even if there were a 100% guarantee that the child would live an unusually long, happy, and successful life (whatever form that took).
In a nutshell: Life is always at least somewhat painful and invariably ends in death. Further, this pain is inflicted involuntarily, as of course we cannot ask a non-existent person if they would like to be brought into existence. By contrast, not being born does not cause pain. There is also no pleasure, but there is also no one to perceive that lack and so the lack of pleasure has no negative moral weight.
Thus, given a choice between guaranteed suffering and guaranteed non-suffering, the moral choice is to choose not to procreate.
Thank you, jedicus. That is as succinct and accurate a summation of the argument, and my own viewpoint, as I have ever read.
posted by mwhybark at 12:31 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]
In a nutshell: Life is always at least somewhat painful and invariably ends in death. Further, this pain is inflicted involuntarily, as of course we cannot ask a non-existent person if they would like to be brought into existence. By contrast, not being born does not cause pain. There is also no pleasure, but there is also no one to perceive that lack and so the lack of pleasure has no negative moral weight.
Thus, given a choice between guaranteed suffering and guaranteed non-suffering, the moral choice is to choose not to procreate.
Thank you, jedicus. That is as succinct and accurate a summation of the argument, and my own viewpoint, as I have ever read.
posted by mwhybark at 12:31 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]
I believe it's worth noting that I came to this viewpoint after an extended consideration of the roots of my own mordant sensibility and skepticism regarding the mythic value of the parent-child bond, as I am adopted. I still find the statements above to be irrefutable via arument and logic; they are refuted only by biology, ceaseless and surging. Whatever; my genes and I are out.
posted by mwhybark at 12:40 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by mwhybark at 12:40 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
Thus, given a choice between guaranteed suffering and guaranteed non-suffering, the moral choice is to choose not to procreate.
As usual in these kinds of arguments, they don't go far enough. If life is overall a negative, if suffering outweighs the pleasures of life, then it is not enough to merely refuse to bring life into this world. A truly ethical person who wants to minimize suffering will actively seek to end life. Naturally, people living shallow lives will resist this notion, therefore we progress from the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, to the Involuntary Human Extinction Movement. Every life spared the torment of existence will be lauded, and the saints of the movement will be the people who breed a new Black Death in their basement labs...
It's only logical, really.
posted by happyroach at 12:44 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
As usual in these kinds of arguments, they don't go far enough. If life is overall a negative, if suffering outweighs the pleasures of life, then it is not enough to merely refuse to bring life into this world. A truly ethical person who wants to minimize suffering will actively seek to end life. Naturally, people living shallow lives will resist this notion, therefore we progress from the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, to the Involuntary Human Extinction Movement. Every life spared the torment of existence will be lauded, and the saints of the movement will be the people who breed a new Black Death in their basement labs...
It's only logical, really.
posted by happyroach at 12:44 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Sounds like a modest proposal.
posted by koavf at 1:44 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by koavf at 1:44 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Is it ethical to eat meat, give birth to a mentally handicapped child, or work as a corporate lawyer or stock broker? No, those are huge wastes of resources that should be spent elsewhere, but eating meat is not as bad as the others.
Did you seriously just compare raising a child with a cognitively disability to eating meat?
What a repulsive, ableist comment.
posted by zarq at 5:48 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
Did you seriously just compare raising a child with a cognitively disability to eating meat?
What a repulsive, ableist comment.
posted by zarq at 5:48 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
I am somewhat fascinated that discussion of both essays' contents thus far hasn't taken up in earnest eschatology a/k/a millenarism in which interrogation of dogmatic ("religious") and ethical ("empirical") polemic typically thrive, this online establishment being as it were to filter um metaphysical topics.
medusa writes in part: ... they can lecture me about my reproductive choices because my unborn children can't give consent?
Am I then to understand, or not, that being human ("the potential extinction of humanity in the future puts humanity into question now") is entirely realized by one's reproductive choices, read, "freedom" to procreate? I will, because I can.
posted by marycatherine at 6:01 AM on October 21, 2017
medusa writes in part: ... they can lecture me about my reproductive choices because my unborn children can't give consent?
Am I then to understand, or not, that being human ("the potential extinction of humanity in the future puts humanity into question now") is entirely realized by one's reproductive choices, read, "freedom" to procreate? I will, because I can.
posted by marycatherine at 6:01 AM on October 21, 2017
Mod note: jeffburdges, enough with the gross ableism. Take a break from this thread.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:05 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:05 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
I read this article a few days ago and thought it was an interesting, if not entirely convincing, counter-point to the prevailing view that I get literally every day: That having children is unambiguously good, that becoming a parent makes you a better person, and those of us who have chosen not to are the lesser for it.
Come to any family get together with my extended family, and especially my brother's in-laws (my in-laws once removed? how does that work?), and you'll find a whole room of people telling the few women who have chosen not have kids that they should get on that, before they're too old, because they will be otherwise incomplete as women (biological clocks, etc., etc.).
I, on the other hand, get tacit approval for not having kids because..*cough* ggay *awkward silence*.. which just makes me want to have kids out of spite, which is truly the worst reason to reproduce.
posted by selenized at 7:07 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
Come to any family get together with my extended family, and especially my brother's in-laws (my in-laws once removed? how does that work?), and you'll find a whole room of people telling the few women who have chosen not have kids that they should get on that, before they're too old, because they will be otherwise incomplete as women (biological clocks, etc., etc.).
I, on the other hand, get tacit approval for not having kids because..*cough* ggay *awkward silence*.. which just makes me want to have kids out of spite, which is truly the worst reason to reproduce.
posted by selenized at 7:07 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
In 2006, I published a book called Better Never to Have Been. I argued that coming into existence is always a serious harm. People should never, under any circumstance, procreate – a position called ‘anti-natalism’.
Why does it seem like some philosophers use their discipline as a medium for working out their own psychological issues? I feel like this is a topic where the author started from his conclusion (perhaps first felt as an emotionally self-evident truth) and worked backward to his argument. Or, he's just being cheekily contrarian.
To argue that being is an experience more negative than positive is rather firmly disproved by the author's continued existence. Yes, I know he draws a distinction, but that seems like unnecessary hair-splitting.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
Why does it seem like some philosophers use their discipline as a medium for working out their own psychological issues? I feel like this is a topic where the author started from his conclusion (perhaps first felt as an emotionally self-evident truth) and worked backward to his argument. Or, he's just being cheekily contrarian.
To argue that being is an experience more negative than positive is rather firmly disproved by the author's continued existence. Yes, I know he draws a distinction, but that seems like unnecessary hair-splitting.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
Mod note: marycatherine, at MetaFilter it's bad form to "threadsit," or to try to direct the conversation in a thread you posted.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:33 AM on October 21, 2017
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:33 AM on October 21, 2017
To argue that being is an experience more negative than positive is rather firmly disproved by the author's continued existence. Yes, I know he draws a distinction, but that seems like unnecessary hair-splitting.
from the article:
... in deliberating about whether their lives were worth starting, many people actually (but typically unwittingly) consider a different question, namely whether their lives are worth continuing. Because they imagine themselves not existing, their reflection on non-existence is with reference to a self that already exists. It is then quite easy to slip into thinking about the loss of that self, which is what death is.
It's not hair-splitting; he's anticipating a common and specious misinterpretation of the argument. Anti-natalism is not pro-suicide, because acting on a suicidal impulse often neglects to appropriately value the feelings of those one leaves behind, and thereby may increase, rather than decrease, harm and suffering in the world.
posted by mwhybark at 2:20 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
from the article:
... in deliberating about whether their lives were worth starting, many people actually (but typically unwittingly) consider a different question, namely whether their lives are worth continuing. Because they imagine themselves not existing, their reflection on non-existence is with reference to a self that already exists. It is then quite easy to slip into thinking about the loss of that self, which is what death is.
It's not hair-splitting; he's anticipating a common and specious misinterpretation of the argument. Anti-natalism is not pro-suicide, because acting on a suicidal impulse often neglects to appropriately value the feelings of those one leaves behind, and thereby may increase, rather than decrease, harm and suffering in the world.
posted by mwhybark at 2:20 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
>I resent being born, but do not resent my parents, because it's likely they actually operate at such a level of consciousness that they don't mind it here,
I also operate at that unbelievably low level of consciousness. Can you raise me up, Sensei? (SARCASTIC)
Seems to me that if we were to limit ourselves, roughly, to one kid per couple, we could make some headway against our population problems without actually going extinct. (NOT SARCASTIC)
My personal experience of parenthood has been, among other things, that it's helped me to be less utterly self-absorbed. Not that it affects everybody that way, or that my personal growth is much help to The Fate Of Humanity, but I'd rather have it than not. (NOT SARCASTIC)
But YMMV; you're under no obligation to have kids if you don't want to, or even to live if you don't want to. If you're gonna argue we'd be better off not existing, but you keep going out for pizza, people are gonna think you dost protest too much. (NOT SARCASTIC EXCEPT MAYBE A TEENSY BIT)
So *I* certainly didn't say it was a lower level of consciousness, nor did I pass any value judgement on said level of consciousness. You seem to have tho.
If you care what my actual opinion is on the matter, you could have asked.
Personally, I think it is a superior level of consciousness that you claim to share with my parents. You are obviously much better suited to life here than I. In fact I am envious of you.
(NOT SARCASTIC)
Additionally, I never claimed to have an opinion one way or another on the article or anti-natalist movement. I was just sharing my personal opinion based on my lived experience, to add food for thought and maybe a unique voice to the conversation. Sorry if that got you upset, you should have just flagged my comment if you thought it was seriously offensive instead of... well that gets to my next point:
I'd like to ask that IF you, or anyone feeling particularly defensive about their decision to procreate, some day have the experience of your own child saying to you "I resent being born", that you please not suggest that they can go kill themselves if they don't like it. Even if you add a disclaimer of being "TEENSY BIT SARCASTIC". They may take your advice and then I imagine no one will be feeling very good about it afterwards.
(NOT SARCASTIC)
posted by some loser at 4:24 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]
I also operate at that unbelievably low level of consciousness. Can you raise me up, Sensei? (SARCASTIC)
Seems to me that if we were to limit ourselves, roughly, to one kid per couple, we could make some headway against our population problems without actually going extinct. (NOT SARCASTIC)
My personal experience of parenthood has been, among other things, that it's helped me to be less utterly self-absorbed. Not that it affects everybody that way, or that my personal growth is much help to The Fate Of Humanity, but I'd rather have it than not. (NOT SARCASTIC)
But YMMV; you're under no obligation to have kids if you don't want to, or even to live if you don't want to. If you're gonna argue we'd be better off not existing, but you keep going out for pizza, people are gonna think you dost protest too much. (NOT SARCASTIC EXCEPT MAYBE A TEENSY BIT)
So *I* certainly didn't say it was a lower level of consciousness, nor did I pass any value judgement on said level of consciousness. You seem to have tho.
If you care what my actual opinion is on the matter, you could have asked.
Personally, I think it is a superior level of consciousness that you claim to share with my parents. You are obviously much better suited to life here than I. In fact I am envious of you.
(NOT SARCASTIC)
Additionally, I never claimed to have an opinion one way or another on the article or anti-natalist movement. I was just sharing my personal opinion based on my lived experience, to add food for thought and maybe a unique voice to the conversation. Sorry if that got you upset, you should have just flagged my comment if you thought it was seriously offensive instead of... well that gets to my next point:
I'd like to ask that IF you, or anyone feeling particularly defensive about their decision to procreate, some day have the experience of your own child saying to you "I resent being born", that you please not suggest that they can go kill themselves if they don't like it. Even if you add a disclaimer of being "TEENSY BIT SARCASTIC". They may take your advice and then I imagine no one will be feeling very good about it afterwards.
(NOT SARCASTIC)
posted by some loser at 4:24 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]
I'd like to ask that IF you, or anyone feeling particularly defensive about their decision to procreate, some day have the experience of your own child saying to you "I resent being born", that you please not suggest that they can go kill themselves if they don't like it.
Furthermore, in the event that *anyone* ever tells you that they resent being born, also please do not suggest that they can go kill themselves if they don't like it. It's a literal direct translation of the well-known nationalist dick move "If you hate it here so much why don't you leave," and exactly as inaccurate, exclusivist, and slavering for interpersonal violence. So, y'know, like, don't.
posted by mwhybark at 5:38 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]
Furthermore, in the event that *anyone* ever tells you that they resent being born, also please do not suggest that they can go kill themselves if they don't like it. It's a literal direct translation of the well-known nationalist dick move "If you hate it here so much why don't you leave," and exactly as inaccurate, exclusivist, and slavering for interpersonal violence. So, y'know, like, don't.
posted by mwhybark at 5:38 PM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]
And you know another thing, saying shit like you're not obligated to live if you don't want to... that's rarely true unless you were born in a lab and raised by non sentient robot surrogates... most parents I presume will have some instinct that leads them to expect you to continue living and become a productive participant in the economy in return for the resources spent to feed and house you and so on.. I imagine most parents would not seriously tell their children that they are under no obligation to live, and understandably so, For both financial and sentimental reasons.
posted by some loser at 9:17 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by some loser at 9:17 PM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]
In a nutshell: Life is always at least somewhat painful and invariably ends in death. Further, this pain is inflicted involuntarily, as of course we cannot ask a non-existent person if they would like to be brought into existence. By contrast, not being born does not cause pain. There is also no pleasure, but there is also no one to perceive that lack and so the lack of pleasure has no negative moral weight.
There's a certain mathematical notion to this, as if one could graph the net positives and negatives of life on a 2D plot with the x-axis in the time domain and the positive quadrants "pleasure" and negative "pain". A life starts at the origin and squiggles above and below the x axis, but always the greater sum is in the negative direction. Life, to many, is not simply a game of sums. One might experience a life that is full of suffering but still consider it a life worth living.
One might also argue that if non-existence is the natural state, and the state to which we return, then existence is the only thing that matters, as it is the only thing that can recognize, perceive, and give meaning to the universe and to life, whether or not such existence contains suffering.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:05 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
There's a certain mathematical notion to this, as if one could graph the net positives and negatives of life on a 2D plot with the x-axis in the time domain and the positive quadrants "pleasure" and negative "pain". A life starts at the origin and squiggles above and below the x axis, but always the greater sum is in the negative direction. Life, to many, is not simply a game of sums. One might experience a life that is full of suffering but still consider it a life worth living.
One might also argue that if non-existence is the natural state, and the state to which we return, then existence is the only thing that matters, as it is the only thing that can recognize, perceive, and give meaning to the universe and to life, whether or not such existence contains suffering.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:05 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
One might experience a life that is full of suffering but still consider it a life worth living.
indeed, i take this to be the majoritarian view of people who have lived. those who have not lived clearly don't hold this, or any, view, and have not sufferred.
One might also argue that if non-existence is the natural state, and the state to which we return
One might, i suppose, but if it's been advanced here or in linked material as a supporting argument for anti-natalism, i must have missed it. with regard to the rest of your argument, sure, without existence meaning is impossible. however, with existence, meaning is also a state to which we aspire and fail continuously, as I am sure you must eponysterically know. That's suffering, for some values of suffering, innit?
posted by mwhybark at 1:20 AM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
indeed, i take this to be the majoritarian view of people who have lived. those who have not lived clearly don't hold this, or any, view, and have not sufferred.
One might also argue that if non-existence is the natural state, and the state to which we return
One might, i suppose, but if it's been advanced here or in linked material as a supporting argument for anti-natalism, i must have missed it. with regard to the rest of your argument, sure, without existence meaning is impossible. however, with existence, meaning is also a state to which we aspire and fail continuously, as I am sure you must eponysterically know. That's suffering, for some values of suffering, innit?
posted by mwhybark at 1:20 AM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
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posted by jedicus at 11:44 AM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]