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Big Scary Owl posted:Might be a weird brain worms issue of mine, but I've always thought that reproducing seems wrong/bad in general, either for the children or for yourself. Life is pretty bad in general imo, some of us get lucky but even then the baseline is not great, and the pain and suffering people feel seem to far outweigh the positives. For example, is the best thing that's ever happened in your life worth a disease like cancer or mental illness? If most of life is suffering or if there's more bad then good, then are parents not morally/ethically/logically wrong? Modern Buddhism takes the viewpoint that we are stuck in an endless cycle of rebirth, that existence is suffering and that we should seek to a) reduce this suffering b) end the rebirth by reaching Nirvana. From a logical viewpoint, this makes sense, by reducing the overall suffering in the world you are likely to reduce your own suffering in a future reincarnation. In Buddhism, though you are not merely reincarnated as a sentient human, you could be reincarnated as a Raven or an ant who is also considered sentient. Simply refusing to reproduce will not reduce future suffering, it will likely have no impact upon it. The only way to end it totally is to reach Nirvana. Whilst we exist we should all seek to reduce suffering. By having children, if that is a choice you make, we can seek to reduce overall suffering by passing on cultural learning to our children in the way of reducing suffering. You can also do this by not having children and contributing to your community though. From a personal spiritual viewpoint, where people get the Buddha wrong, and an older version of Buddhism posits that there is one continuous soul that strings everything together. Escape is not possible until the end, and Nirvana is merely a connection to this larger stream of the self. I'll sound like a crazy person and tell you that I've experienced Nirvana, so I'm not merely musing on it here. Objectively life was worse in the past. We are now at a point in history where we are able to do something about our suffering in a meaningful way. The morality of parenthood is moot, it is neither good or bad. Nothing is good or bad to the whole, only to the individual. You should ask yourself instead, how can I reduce my own suffering, and that of others who are different manifestations of myself? I should probably point out here that the point of existence is not to reduce suffering, suffering will always be a part of existence because we live in an imperfect world. Entropy exists and there is a defined endpoint to it all. The purpose is to experience so that upon rejoining the stream we can be born and make decisions with the full wealth of experiences. Some of the suffering balances out, when you're both the eagle and the rabbit, sucks when you were the rabbit, awesome when you were the bird. But now that we're people, we don't have to take from ourselves to enjoy our lives, we can enjoy our lives by helping others. Some of the sufferings is inherent to existence - death, disease, luck. I can't blame someone if I'm struck by lightning, that just sucks. But I also can't attribute wonder and love to other people, those things come from within. And personally, to love and be loved makes all the lovely parts of my life immeasurably worth it - my cancer, the death of loved ones, the diseases I've had, the times I've been in so much pain that death seemed like a preferable option (yay for painkillers). Worth it, I would do it all again. And if I'm willing to live my life again, I'm willing to have children to experience love and wonder as I have. Put it this way, thought experiment. There is a plant called the suicide plant. Touching this plant ignites your nerve endings in such a way that you wish for death, it is that painful. This pain can last for years. If you do not know of this plant, you might touch this plant. People have touched this plant, that is how we know. Now that we know, we can pass this knowledge on to others. No one needs to touch this plant again, and as our knowledge grows, we are better able to treat this pain should someone touch it in the future. Not having children won't fix this suffering. Eliminating human life won't fix this suffering. Knowledge will fix this suffering. We can put that suffering aside and focus on better things, like how great the Snyder cut of Justice League is, right?
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Apr 4, 2021 02:25
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Cicero posted:Isn't it the opposite? People remember negative experiences much more strongly than positive ones? I think the thinking logic goes that was the 'reset' was between lives. Some people's lives are a lovely weekend, but the majority of peoples lives are the weekdays of torture. That's how I interpreted it. If most people are going to have lovely torturous lives, then why have children? But here we are and we can't even come up with a metric for shittiness or goodness. Everything is subjective.
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Apr 4, 2021 12:26
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Harold Fjord posted:What about ai? Is it ethical to invent a creature which can suffer? 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. From a philosophical point, it is also something that can give greater meaning to joy. Endless paradise and orgasms probably suck. With no reference point, it's just existing, and you can get used to pretty much anything. I'd argue suffering is an integral and important point of existence. Creating a creature incapable of suffering would be foolish.
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Apr 6, 2021 17:18
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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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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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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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OwlFancier posted:For the howevermanyth time, I think the best way to reduce the human population is to give people every possible ability to not reproduce of their own volition, which I think also involves making their lives materially better because better healthcare and reproductive rights and the option to do something with your life other than raise children and breaking down social and cultural expectations that people should do that are all good things in and of themselves because I think they increase the quality of life of people who have them. And I also think that if everybody does do that and the global population shrinks then it will make it easier to take control of environmental factors which cause humans to suffer. Wait. So your view is that by improving peoples lives, they will then choose to not have children? People with fantastic lives will opt out of having children because of other things?
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Apr 9, 2021 03:36
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Vasukhani posted:actually being alive is good because all the suffering goes away once you die, so nothing bad can come of it. Live, might as well. Most people would argue there is no evidence the suffering goes away once you die. That's quite the gamble. Also, you're weirdly fixated on easily accessible suicide, are you okay?
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Apr 9, 2021 06:26
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Have any of you considered the moral imperative that exists to have goon children so they can continue posting on this dead comedy forum into the next hell century?
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Apr 10, 2021 02:54
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