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Konomex posted:But is suffering wrong? Pain is an important tool to avoid harm. Creating a creature, biological or mechanical that can't suffer means it will harm itself, and rather quickly. Look at children who are genetically incapable of feeling pain, they come pretty close to killing themselves accidentally unless constantly watched. Suffering is a tool through which we can extend our lives. This is a better argument against creating life at all than it is against creating life with the intent of making it happy all the time. If it doesn't exist it doesn't need a preservation mechanism, if it doesn't exist it doesn't need a reference point.
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Apr 6, 2021 17:45
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OwlFancier posted:This is a better argument against creating life at all than it is against creating life with the intent of making it happy all the time. I don't quite see how it's an argument against creating life. It doesn't put any merit to the idea. What is the point of existence? Isn't that the fundamental question this boils down to? Why have children, if there is no point? Why have a child if you don't need too?
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Apr 6, 2021 18:28
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If you believe life must be full of bad things in order to have a hope of being "good" overall then it seems smarter to simply not create it in the first place.
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Apr 6, 2021 18:32
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OwlFancier posted:If you believe life must be full of bad things in order to have a hope of being "good" overall then it seems smarter to simply not create it in the first place. They didn't say full of bad things, just that bad things are a thing that this hypothetical life could experience. Why are you equating the mere existence of negative qualia as meaning that this lifeform will experience it as the majority of its existence?
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Apr 6, 2021 18:46
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I doubt your ability to ensure that bad experiences are doled out "fairly", the world is full of bad experiences and they just happen to people without thought as to whether they "deserve" it, if anything our society encourages stratification into groups that have all the bad experiences and groups of people who have none and are apparently also miserable about that fact. The idea of a society where everyone just gets a mere soupçon of bad experiences to add a dash of vivacity to their lives seems so hypothetical as to be just as much in the realm of fiction as everyone volunteering to go extinct. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:09
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OwlFancier posted:I doubt your ability to ensure that bad experiences are doled out "fairly", the world is full of bad experiences and they just happen to people without thought as to whether they "deserve" it, if anything our society encourages stratification into groups that have all the bad experiences and groups of people who have none and are apparently also miserable about that fact. Don't move the goalposts. No one said anything about a fair distribution of negative qualia, or the idea of deserving it. The question is why the existence of suffering as a possibility is inherently bad, which is what you seem to be arguing. The question is whether creating a lifeform that can experience negative qualia (suffering) is inherently immoral. Hell, this is explicitly an AI lifeform we are talking about here, so the inputs are entirely controlled by us. Are you saying that if I could guarantee that at least 51% of this AI's experiences are pleasurable, then creating it is not immoral? Because your entire argument in this thread has been that suffering outweights pleasure axiomatically. If that's not your argument, then you have none.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:16
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I was talking about actual humans that live on earth right now.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:18
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OwlFancier posted:I was talking about actual humans that live on earth right now. No you weren't, but whatever. Do you still maintain that it is impossible for any individual human to experience a "good" life because they will have suffering it it? That's different that an argument about the fair distribution of suffering in society. E: The state of the world can be a reason you choose not to have a child. But that is different than arguing that any reproduction is axiomatically immoral because the new life will experience suffering. One of these is a personal choice, the other is a philosophical statement. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:22
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I have no idea, I haven't sat down and done a bunch of testing with some method of objectively measuring the experiences of others to determine whether or not the externally induced suffering/internally created suffering dichotomy can ever average out to a point that is "good". But I find the idea that humans need to suffer and that if they don't they create their own unhappiness through a lack of reference points, to be a pretty good argument that life is maybe not a great thing, if you try to look at it without the constant screaming instinct of "DO NOT DIE, CREATE MORE LIFE" that all life forms appear to have (that being almost the definition of what a living thing is) I would need some sort of compelling counterargument to not simply err on the side of life maybe just being an unhappy accident that would be better off not having happened. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:29
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OwlFancier posted:I have no idea, I haven't sat down and done a bunch of testing with some method of objectively measuring the experiences of others to determine whether or not the externally induced suffering/internally created suffering dichotomy can ever average out to a point that is "good". Unhappiness and suffering are as chemically induced as happiness is. You are just as programmed to view negative qualia as "bad" as you are to desire to reproduce. They all come from the same place. Evolution determined that you would not like getting burned, or that you would mourn loved ones who die. The reasons why are to optimize for particular survival strategies. So what makes the existence of suffering inherently more important to consider as the existence of happiness? I personally don't think a hedonistic-utilitarian calculus of a life is a good way to determine it's value or worth, but that's basically the only way you can do it if you take as a premise that the very existence of suffering is a problem. We can work to minimize suffering in humans (and other lifeforms) while not accepting the idea that a total absence of suffering as a desirable outcome, especially if it would entail the absense of sentience at all. E: I feel like there's almost a dualist component to these arguments, where bad things exist inherently apart from organisms, but good things are just our grey matter tricking itself. It actually feels more like the black-white thinking of a depressive brain than anything else. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:35
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I don't think you can seperate happiness and unhappiness from "the constant screaming instinct of "DO NOT DIE, CREATE MORE LIFE" that all life forms appear to have". If you remove our biological drives and urges, what does happiness or unhappiness even mean? Disliking and avoiding suffering is as much of a biological drive as our drive to reproduce - you can't say that the desire to reproduce is somehow artificial and just a 'screaming instinct' but other instincts are somehow objectively true outside of our biological reality. If humans have a biological urge to procreate and spread, and they accomplish that goal, how is that any less an authentic experience than anything else you're going to do in life.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:35
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Beelzebufo posted:Unhappiness and suffering are as chemically induced as happiness is. You are just as programmed to view negative qualia as "bad" as you are to desire to reproduce. They all come from the same place. Evolution determined that you would not like getting burned, or that you would mourn loved ones who die. The reasons why are to optimize for particular survival strategies. So what makes the existence of suffering inherently a reason to reject the good things in life? I personally don't think a hedonistic-utilitarian calculus of a life is a good way to determine it's value or worth, but that's basically the only way you can do it if you take as a premise that the very existence of suffering is something that should not exist. We can work to minimize suffering in humans (and other lifeforms) while not accepting the idea that a total absence of suffering is the end goal. We can also not start from the axiomatic assumption that life has a purpose for existing or that its existence is an unquestionable good or necessity, and if I do that I struggle to construct a justification for why it should exist, the fact that it does exist doesn't signify one way or the other, I can entirely acknowledge that life does exist and the reason it exists is because it is programmed to continue to exist, but that it has no inherent concern for its own actual experiential wellbeing. It is not designed by a loving creator that wants it to be happy, it just is. That life exists does not necessitate a higher purpose or that it should be happy, life existing only suggests a mechanism by which it continues to exist, and I don't see why higher concepts of happiness or wellbeing should have anything to do with that. Perhaps it is easier to imagine that as we evolve the capability for abstract thought, we could reasonably deduce that life itself is a flawed thing, that we are mostly a collection of instinctive habits, selected for only because of their ability to further propagate us within our environment, and that many, or even the majority of these habits are not conducive to the happiness of our conscious minds, and that lacking an ability to remove these habits, the best thing we can achieve as a thinking species may be to break out of the vicious cycle that is life? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:46
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OwlFancier posted:We can also not start from the axiomatic assumption that life has a purpose for existing or that its existence is an unquestionable good or necessity, and if I do that I struggle to construct a justification for why it should exist, the fact that it does exist doesn't signify one way or the other, I can entirely acknowledge that life does exist and the reason it exists is because it is programmed to continue to exist, but that it has no inherent concern for its own actual experiential wellbeing. Why is it flawed? How did you "deduce" that suffering is something you should take into account? Did it involve an emotional element? If so, why should you trust that deduction more than a desire to procreate? What about existence as its own end, that life existing is all the purpose required? What makes your conclusion more logical than mine? E: The logical leap that all nihilists and antinatalists make is that because life has no purpose, it should not exist. But why is that the case? Who decided that? Where does that premise come from? There's always an emotional core to these ideas that sits unexamined, because that inherently entails subjectivity and it means you can't make universal pronouncements anymore. All it takes to refute the argument then is saying that I value existence. That's why there's this reach for "logic" and "objectivity", but the conclusions are built on the same emotional sand that they are trying desperately to pretend they have superseeded. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 20:50
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Most of that is obviously impossible to answer because you're just asking how I know anything maaaaan, but specifically the argument that "existence is its own end" appears to just be a restatement of the, again, seemingly axiomatic belief that existence is necessary and/or good, which I already said does not appear to me to be a thing derived from observation, I can't argue with something that you take as the premise of all subsequent arguments.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:53
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OwlFancier posted:Most of that is obviously impossible to answer because you're just asking how I know anything maaaaan, but specifically the argument that "existence is its own end" appears to just be a restatement of the, again, seemingly axiomatic belief that existence is necessary and/or good, which I already said does not appear to me to be a thing derived from observation, I can't argue with something that you take as the premise of all subsequent arguments. I'm saying that all you have to go on is your own experience of existence, which means that if someone else tells you that they think their life is worth living, you can't argue that "well actually, you're just deluding yourself because your meatbrain has programmed you to value living". Your arguments assume that you are a neutral observer, and that your conclusions have general applicability, but I'm arguing that they don't, and that your assessment is just as rooted in the flawed biological programming you claim to have "deduced" your way out of.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:58
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Beelzebufo posted:There's always an emotional core to these ideas that sits unexamined, because that inherently entails subjectivity and it means you can't make universal pronouncements anymore. All it takes to refute the argument then is saying that I value existence. That's why there's this reach for "logic" and "objectivity", but the conclusions are built on the same emotional sand that they are trying desperately to pretend they have superseeded. Any argument about the nature of life is necessarily going to involve emotional and experiential influences, the point I would make is that this is no less true for any other viewpoint on life. I don't claim to be "above" that because obviously what I am discussing is inherently tied up with the emotions and experiences of humans, living and potential. In fact the main thing I would hope to achieve is for people to see their more life-positive philosophies as being equally grounded in their emotional and experiential predispositions and that critically, those predispositions may well not extend to any life they might elect to create. If it creates enough doubt in someone that they wonder whether it is a good idea to create more people, then I have succeded as well as I could ever expect to. Because that's really the core of my position, doubt. I have so many doubts that creating life is a good thing that simply not creating it seems the better option. Beelzebufo posted:I'm saying that all you have to go on is your own experience of existence, which means that if someone else tells you that they think their life is worth living, you can't argue that "well actually, you're just deluding yourself because your meatbrain has programmed you to value living". Your arguments assume that you are a neutral observer, and that your conclusions have general applicability, but I'm arguing that they don't, and that your assessment is just as rooted in the flawed biological programming you claim to have "deduced" your way out of. I mean, yes, obviously? But that isn't an argument against my position, it's an argument against thinking full stop, but if we're going to have an argument I don't think that pointing out that necessarily all of our thinking is limited by the physical limitations of our brains is very helpful. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 21:00
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I don't know about morally or ethically but anyone in this thread reproducing is logistically wrong
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Apr 6, 2021 21:40
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some plague rats posted:I don't know about morally or ethically but anyone in this thread reproducing is logistically wrong Aw man, I was just finishing up my clone factory
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Apr 6, 2021 22:18
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enki42 posted:If humans have a biological urge to procreate and spread, and they accomplish that goal, how is that any less an authentic experience than anything else you're going to do in life. Your right to relieve stress through punching ends where my nose begins; your right to swig a beer ends at the moment you plow your car into me. The difference is that procreating, by definition, requires bringing a sapient being into existence that didn't before, without its consent to do so. If your reason for doing so is to score a dopamine hit for fulfilling an instinctive urge, then ultimately all you have done is selfishly pushed your own suffering off onto someone else. And before you start talking natural urges are fine to fulfill, what about my natural urge to assault my neighbor for not returning my weedwhacker? We as a society have already decided we accept an abrogation of certain base urges to keep society overall from descending into violent barbarism, even in the most permissive anarchist models.
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Apr 6, 2021 23:13
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Strawberry Pyramid posted:The difference is that procreating, by definition, requires bringing a sapient being into existence that didn't before, without its consent to do so. That sentient being also can't offer you their preference on being alive, seeing as they don't exist and all. Personally I'm very glad my parents had a child as I greatly prefer being alive to the non-existence that came before it. Does that preference and the belief that one can provide a generally healthy/happy life for a child count for nothing?
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Apr 7, 2021 00:26
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Strawberry Pyramid posted:Your right to relieve stress through punching ends where my nose begins; your right to swig a beer ends at the moment you plow your car into me. I'd argue that property rights, for humans at least, are rather unnatural. The natural state for humans appears to be a semi-tribal society with sharing of parental roles and group ownership. Individual property rights are tied to issues of ensuring genetic inheritance. Societies that engaged in tribal structures, rather than hierarchical patriarchies have shown a greater degree of happiness. There's probably a good argument in there that a good deal of human suffering is down to the unnatural state we have built our societies into. A child is made up of 50% of each parent, each parent consenting to have a child creates a thing that really isn't conscious of its own existence for 1-2 years. I think bringing arguments of consent into this is just going to muddy the water and lead nowhere. Initially, a child is incapable of consenting to anything, but as it was part of me, the consent was mine to give. And we can go around in circles on that forever. I think it's far more interesting that OwlFancier has taken this thread discussion from 'is it moral to have children' to 'I want to convince people not to have children'. The purpose of life is to experience itself, not having children isn't going to stop that. But it is going to stop your own ability of propagating your viewpoint as effectively. Having children is the main way we pass on our cultural understanding, and culture is our way of having a memory that lasts more than 80 years.
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Apr 7, 2021 04:11
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If my point of view is that it is wrong to create life I clearly cannot achieve any moral imperative that stems from that belief that by having children so I can tell them to stop having children... The idea that we should have children so we can make them propagate our ideas is absolutely abhorrent as they are thinking agents in their own right, not mere vessels for our desires. Konomex posted:A child is made up of 50% of each parent, each parent consenting to have a child creates a thing that really isn't conscious of its own existence for 1-2 years. I think bringing arguments of consent into this is just going to muddy the water and lead nowhere. Initially, a child is incapable of consenting to anything, but as it was part of me, the consent was mine to give. And we can go around in circles on that forever. Also this is nonsense, you know what you are intending to achieve and what is likely to happen if you create a life, it is going to become a living, thinking being that only exists because you made it exist, and you also know full well that it can't choose to end its own existence without going through absolutely agonizing emotional pain because it is hardwired to not do that. It exists because you chose to create it, you are responsible for the consequences of that. This is extremely clear and suggesting you are "muddying the waters" by pointing that out is profoundly objectionable. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 04:33
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OwlFancier posted:If my point of view is that it is wrong to create life I clearly cannot achieve any moral imperative that stems from that belief that by having children so I can tell them to stop having children... Well no. I could end my life now and I'd be relatively fine with that. If an asteroid wiped out the planet and all of us on it, I'd be pretty okay with that too. I'm not going to celebrate that end, but I'm pretty happy with the life I have had so far. You assume that others can't end their existence because you have a problem with it. Plenty of other living creatures will self destruct simply to ensure the ongoing survival of their own young. There are many examples of people doing this for others, and children as well. Sacrifice is a common theme in a lot of religious texts, it is a thing we will readily do. I am a thinking agent in my own right, I am also a vessel for the desires of tens of thousands of years of my ancestors' desires, as much as I am a vessel for my own desires. We are products of our upbringing. There is a purpose to that. My thoughts and desires are derived from those of my parents, and my greater community. Should sentient creatures exist in a vacuum, devoid of all other ideas? To my thinking, we are one and the same, and all these ideas we have are simply thoughts of the same mind. An exploration of experience. Ideas evolve, just because I intend to pass along my cultural knowledge and lessons I've learned to my children doesn't mean I intend for them to remain static. The thoughts and ideas I had 20 years ago are very different from those I have now, but there is an overarching thread to them all that continues and evolves. I pass these thoughts on in the hope they will continue to evolve. I do not know what is likely to happen if I create life, which I've done. From my own experiences I can estimate what might happen, which are good things. From other people experiences, I can also see other possibilities, none of which are wholly bad or wholly good. What's objectionable about saying you're muddying the waters by bringing consent into this? A being that does not exist cannot consent. That being will not be aware of its own existence for years after it has begun to exist. A baby is not sentient for quite some time. For that time it is an extension of its parents and care givers. What is the purpose of arguing consent? We shouldn't have children because they can't consent? It's as absurd an argument as claiming we shouldn't build a chair because it can't consent.
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Apr 7, 2021 06:45
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Children are sapient, chairs are not... If it helps you to comprehend it, consider not drawing the line of "creation" at the point of conception or childbirth, consider that creation is a process that extends further into a person's life. At some point, you have created a sapient being.
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Apr 7, 2021 06:49
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Was it Gramsci who said it's a moral imperative not to have children as long as we have capitalism. It's both revolutionary to deny the system of workers, and a kindness to spare those children from a life of servitude. Not sure if it's relevant to this thread, but I like that sentiment 😁
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Apr 7, 2021 09:47
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This thread was posted some hours after we had our second kid; I my personal answers to the questions in the OP are "maybe, depends on your circumstance and affluence, maybe". I am prone to intellectalizing everything, taking it apart and examing the moral implications of most of my behaviors, but I've known at a deep level for decades that having kids was something I wanted to do, and so set out to create a happy space to grow up and discover our broken and dying planet and culture from, almost on autopilot compared to my usual decision paralysis. Put differently, if we had scrutinized this decision through the same lenses we use to pick a recycling provider or determine if we think our tapwater is safe to drink, we might have made a different decision, but as is, I barely made a decision as much as allow our internal desires an environment to develop in. So, this thread was an interesting read, but I don't think most people make this decision along moral lines. I bet I overanalayzed it more than most people do because I identified several obvious cognitive distortions in my belief structure around having kids, but I just noted them and ignored them. Do most people even get that far? Anyway my kids are awesome and no amount of text changes that; the years I've had with them have been the best of my life so far and if we all die in a fireball tomorrow, YOLO. Definitely stopping at two, though, and god the amount of plastic waste babies create in America even if you are trying to be a luddite about it is gross.
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Apr 7, 2021 14:47
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The DPRK posted:Was it Gramsci who said it's a moral imperative not to have children as long as we have capitalism. It's both revolutionary to deny the system of workers, and a kindness to spare those children from a life of servitude. Do you think it diminishes his point at all that Gramsci went on to have multiple children?
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Apr 7, 2021 23:27
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some plague rats posted:Do you think it diminishes his point at all that Gramsci went on to have multiple children? Apparently building the next generation of revolutionaries is also a moral imperative.
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Apr 7, 2021 23:37
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some plague rats posted:Do you think it diminishes his point at all that Gramsci went on to have multiple children? Gramsci's whole thing was contradicting himself depending which journal you're reading.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:42
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sexpig by night posted:Gramsci's whole thing was contradicting himself depending which journal you're reading. Yeah he was cool as hell. Unlike this thread, which is just terrible, but that I keep reading because it's such a rare vintage of pseudo intellectual nonsense that it's strangely compelling
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Apr 8, 2021 07:19
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I love to cum, hard, into vaginas. I love to stick my turgid cock into an engorged pussy and blow some cum out of my dick and into the pussy. I like it when my sperm meets an egg, an ovum, and creates a baby. This feels good to me. It’s great to see this little being, aka crotch spawn, that came from I hosed hard and cummed—into a pussy. It’s amazing and wonderful to see. But it also feels good, no it feels great. I love to get girls pregnant, I love to do this by having sex with them. I gently caress them, by thrusting my hips with my boner at the end, into their vaginal opening, which will be wet. The egg, or ovum, will be ready to be impregnated by my semen. This is how God intended it. That’s why it feels so drat, god drat, good when I blow my cum out of my dick and my dick is in a pussy and now it’s squishing the cum out. Nature is made of an infinite amount of fractals. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 8, 2021 07:38
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some plague rats posted:Yeah he was cool as hell. Why is this thread considered "pseudo intellectual nonsense" in your mind?
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Apr 8, 2021 10:01
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Big Scary Owl posted:Why is this thread considered "pseudo intellectual nonsense" in your mind? Because I've read the posts people have written in it?
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Apr 8, 2021 11:30
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some plague rats posted:Because I've read the posts people have written in it? Nice dodge 
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Apr 8, 2021 11:46
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woozy pawsies posted:I love to cum, hard, into vaginas. I love to stick my turgid cock into an engorged pussy and blow some cum out of my dick and into the pussy. I like it when my sperm meets an egg, an ovum, and creates a baby. This feels good to me. It’s great to see this little being, aka crotch spawn, that came from I hosed hard and cummed—into a pussy. It’s amazing and wonderful to see. But it also feels good, no it feels great. I love to get girls pregnant, I love to do this by having sex with them. I gently caress them, by thrusting my hips with my boner at the end, into their vaginal opening, which will be wet. The egg, or ovum, will be ready to be impregnated by my semen. This is how God intended it. That’s why it feels so drat, god drat, good when I blow my cum out of my dick and my dick is in a pussy and now it’s squishing the cum out. Nature is made of an infinite amount of fractals. much to think about!
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Apr 8, 2021 12:26
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This has been interesting to read, thank you folks.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:53
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Big Scary Owl posted:Why is this thread considered "pseudo intellectual nonsense" in your mind? its really weird to see people try to moralize an instinct also to moralize existence
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Apr 8, 2021 17:53
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Big Scary Owl posted:Why is this thread considered "pseudo intellectual nonsense" in your mind? Because it's a dumb thing to think about. You're moralizing a biological need. Life reproduces and we have no choice about that. It's like asking if the speed of light is moral/logical/ethically wrong. The need to reproduce is closer to a law of the universe than something you can attach morality to. It's also depressing and silly because once you get it in your head that it's wrong you start to think you can somehow overall control human reproduction and you turn into a king demanding the tide turn back. If you don't want to have children don't have children. But don't moralize it, most of that feeling is a balance of chemicals. Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 17:58
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people should be born but should be allowed to opt out. Forcing life is unethical.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:05
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UHD posted:its really weird to see people try to moralize an instinct Can I ask why? We moralise most of the things that we do, and questioning why things are "like that" is a tad important.
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Apr 8, 2021 18:55
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