I don't deny there are pessimists in history. But a more organized version of this has only come in the guise of religion, and with a whole lot of other baggage (Cathars, Buddhism to some extent, etc.) But even these allow for escape hatches (humans must live to become enlightened and escape the cycle). There were poets and aphorists going back to Near Eastern Wisdom literature and Greek philosophers that thought the best course of action was to have never been at all. I'm sure there are equivalents in the East. And if there were records in Africa and South America, you can probably find an old man or a contingent of the disgruntled.

Can you explain the difference between the shamans and most people with cameras jammed in neckholes? Is it the difference between those who wipe their ass an those who don't or those who put their hands in the spaghetti and those who don't? — schopenhauer1

That's a great question with an endless answer. I'm using 'shaman' somewhat metaphorically when I say that comedians and some philosophers are shamans. A 'shaman' will say out lout (to the right people) what others might not say in the privacy of their mind. I think of people who know both the angels and the devils, while being neither. I'm tempted to call all great drama shamanic in that it conjures spirits within the magic circle. What is it to watch a simulacrum of MacBeth? I just reread Dostoevsky's Demons, and that's 'shamanic.' Spirits are summoned for my mind's eye, mad with the madness of this world. To see it calmly, to contemplate it...detachment, transcendence, some kind of dark laughter that lifts one out of one's petty little life.

I'm still waiting for your response to this:

I just don't get why you want to respond anymore. What do you care? Obviously I care a great deal on this topic, but why do you care so much to rebut it? For some reason then this topic resonates with you as well, even if just to be contrarian.. However, I can't but feel if it is just to be contrarian, you do have a bugaboo to put me in my place rather than want to have a non-zero-sum-game conversation. That then makes me resentful and posts become hostile, and tedious. But maybe that is your aim- to wear me out... I've been doing this for a while. Clearly that's not something I do easily on this topic. — schopenhauer1

And did you read the NYT article and how it frames humans as a some agenda of productivity?
Here it is again: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/opinion/coronavirus-baby-bust.html

@Bitter Crank What do you think of the idea that we are just productivity-agents for the superstructure? Screw it if you don't want to engage with it, people need to be around so production happens. Plastic needs to be made! I believe it was George Carlin and The Graduate that revealed this.

That's a great question with an endless answer. I'm using 'shaman' somewhat metaphorically when I say that comedians and some philosophers are shamans. A 'shaman' will say out lout (to the right people) what others might not say in the privacy of their mind. I think of people who know both the angels and the devils, while being neither. I'm tempted to call all great drama shamanic in that it conjures spirits within the magic circle. What is it to watch a simulacrum of MacBeth? I just reread Dostoevsky's Demons, and that's 'shamanic.' Spirits are summoned for my mind's eye, mad with the madness of this world. To see it calmly, to contemplate it...detachment, transcendence, some kind of dark laughter that lifts one out of one's petty little life. — norm

So what if a serious (not comedic) shaman said, "Don't force others to have to engage with the socio-economic-political structures of life". Survive, find comfort, find entertainment all through the social structures historically situated.. Why should more people deal with this at all? If people can evaluate the very activities needed to survive as negative (I hate doing this task, etc.), then why create these evaluative creatures? Hope in some positive experiences and positivity-in-struggle is just an ideology as much as any antinatalist one that people should be not forced into this.

To have children is to squarely believe life to be worth continuing and expanding, and perpetuating. So we have two sides of the debate.. the procreationist typical view (those think this is good or at least agnostic) and the antinatalist. One is forcing the situation of the socio-cultural-economic way of life (You have to work, get comfortable, find entertainment, suffer throughout all this and repeat basically). But why put forth this way of life over and over as a necessary or good thing as if this is decidedly so? — schopenhauer1

If you got some parents drunk, maybe they'd confess that it's selfish to make babies. What in this world is more delightful than a happy baby? I don't have any (for reasons that include the guilt and the risk of it) but I adore them when I see them (friends' kids, siblings' kids). Maybe it's like the meat industry. Many knows it's 'bad' but in the end it's what most people still do. Rationality is something we can strive toward occasionally, but we seem to be animals only dimly aware of what we are up to. As I see it, people like you and me are freaks to spend the energy we do articulating these things.

I speculate that anti-natalism is also driven by a contempt for vulnerability. Humans are so disgustingly fragile. Maybe it's not only pity but also even hatred. If we can't roam the world like gods, then fuck this place. We think we are such clever monkeys, but we sit in traffic for hours and can't keep the heat on in the cold, etc.

Rationality is something we can strive toward occasionally, but we seem to be animals only dimly aware of what we are up to. As I see it, people like you and me are freaks to spend the energy we do articulating these things. — norm

Speaking truth here.

I speculate that anti-natalism is also driven by a contempt for vulnerability. Humans are so disgustingly fragile. Maybe it's not only pity but also even hatred. If we can't roam the world like gods, then fuck this place. We think we are such clever monkeys, but we sit in traffic for hours and can't keep the heat on in the cold, etc. — norm

I liken it to this: Is it worth perpetuating a life that is anything less than (and not even close to) a paradise? In a paradise, one would either want for nothing (you would be all things at once or nothing at all), or you can turn the dial of harm wherever you wanted at any given time. Clearly we are none of those things in this actual world.. In fact, we are so gaslighted about suffering that we have to say bullshit like "Suffering leads to more meaning".. If that's true, what does that say to live in a world where "meaning" is obtained through suffering? Fuck that shit.

So what if a serious (not comedic) shaman said, "Don't force others to have to engage with the socio-economic-political structures of life". Survive, find comfort, find entertainment all through the social structures historically situated.. Why should more people deal with this at all? If people can evaluate the very activities needed to survive as negative (I hate doing this task, etc.), then why create these evaluative creatures? Hope is just an ideology as much as any antinatalist one that people should be not forced into this. — schopenhauer1

I can't pretend to answer this neutrally. For me the 'spirit of seriousness' is a fallen state, which is not to say that it can be avoided, or that we should never be serious. I also don't like the ideology of hope. When Caesar heard that his troops were afraid of an enemy, he would gather them and assure them that the enemy troops were worse than they currently imagined, much worse. That makes me smile.
Personally I'd be OK with state-funded suicide boxes that painlessly killed the willing and vaporized them. One of the things that annoys me about suicide is the rude mess that one is forced to leave behind. The guy that jumped into the volcano...that sticks with me. Dissolve like a ghost, what I say, but when the time is right. I believe that this kind of talk is considered creepy. Somehow it's more respectable to end up helpless in diapers (and we agree to pretend to think so, etc.)

You can probably grasp that I don't see a justification for human life, and I don't subscribe to an ideology of hope.

I liken it to this: Is it worth perpetuating a life that is anything less than (and not even close to) a paradise? In a paradise, one would either want for nothing (you would be all things at once or nothing at all), or you can turn the dial of harm wherever you wanted at any given time. Clearly we are none of those things in this actual world.. In fact, we are so gaslighted about suffering that we have to say bullshit like "Suffering leads to more meaning".. If that's true, what does that say to live in a world where "meaning" is obtained through suffering? Fuck that shit. — schopenhauer1

I agree with Blake that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost. Fuck this shit, indeed. But also...fuck the shit out of this shit. I like Cioran and Schopenhauer for not being saccharine. Our ears are stuffed with the sounds of salesmen, or therapist who fix the workers like malfunctioning machines who need to quickly return to the Amazon Warehouse, until robots replace them next spring. 'This great stage of fools,' including the bitter fools like Lear's, like us. But I guess I'm bittersweet, because I'm wired wrong. I tend to get happy when I talk about death and comedy. I suppose that I do find a piece of paradise when the weather is good and I can have bittersweet conversation with a true friend. We agree about the commiseration clubs. I just find it is fleeting genuine friendships. Even if they last 10 years, they tend to dissolve eventually in the nightwaters of life.

Yes, hence I think there should be opportunities for communities that allow for catharsis. — schopenhauer1

Yes, indeed. And we are doing that here. It's not the same as in-person, but it's not nothing. Anonymously people can tell some truths. You don't want your next employer to know that you are as proud as Lucifer and think that the company is a piece of smoke.

Just wanted to say you have some really interesting thoughts here and I enjoyed reading them. However, I myself have found questions demanding a justification for human life to be kind of strange. What kind of justification do people want? A god given purpose?

Have you seen The Truman Show?
— baker

Yes, but what is the tie in? — schopenhauer1

So there is this character Truman who is living on a set of a tv show -- except that he's the only one who doesn't know it, he thinks he's living in the real world. Millions of people are watching this show. Then, he begins to discover that something isn't quite right, like when a reflector falls from the sky, or people keep moving in predictable patterns. And he pursues this, he wants to figure out what's gong on. And the tv viewers are cheering him on, rooting for him, they are thoroughly enthusiastic. Then he escapes the set. The tv audiences go crazy, they are sooooo happy for him. Go Truman! Then their elation wanes, in a matter of minutes. And then they forget about him. Completely. Switch to another channel. A character they have followed for years, and they forget about him in seconds, and move on to other things.

You said:

I want to understand the origins of this group-think, deconstruct it, show it bare for what it is, and expose the harmful political assumptions of perpetuating this package. — schopenhauer1

And I'm thinking that your doing the above, "showing it bare for what it is, and expose the harmful political assumptions of perpetuating this package" would go over like Truman's discovery of the real world and departing the fictional one: your deconstruction of group-think, your showing it bare for what it is, your exposing of harmful political assumptions of perpetuating that package would likely be met at first with elation, enthusiasm, that "Yes! This is the truth!" -- and then forgotten about it.

I'm still waiting for your response to this:
I just don't get why you want to respond anymore. What do you care? Obviously I care a great deal on this topic, but why do you care so much to rebut it? — schopenhauer1

Sigh. You know what you’re right. You keep making the same argument, and you don’t want to hear the same response. Ok have fun in your echo chamber. As you dismiss any objection to your position as “I’ve heard that before, you should be trying to agree with me here!”

Why must I justify to you why I respond to a post on a public forum in the first place? Why must I justify caring to rebut your post but you don’t have to justify caring to make it over and over?

And did you read the NYT article and how it frames humans as a some agenda of productivity? — schopenhauer1

No. Why would I read a random opinion article that does something as ridiculous as treat people as an agenda of productivity. “We should have more kids to make more stuff” is exactly the kind of “harm to concepts” argument that I despise.

Rather, I am framing the usual view of life as a political view, not just a life choice or a preference or a lifestyle choice. To have children is to squarely believe life to be worth continuing and expanding, and perpetuating. — schopenhauer1

No, it's more complex than that.
In first-world countries, about a half of all pregnancies is unplanned, and about a half of all pregnancies is aborted. So that doesn't look very pronatalist.
Secondly, if you talk to parents in more detail, they will possibly have misgivings about having children at all, but they would not say so right away or in public.
Further, many people have children for some practical reason: to have someone who will look after them when they're old, to produce workers who will help them with their business, to gain social influence over other people. Some are more insidious: to collect child support or welfare, for a woman to prevent her boyfriend from abandoning her. So people who have children for such practical reasons don't believe in pronatalism per se, but in their practical reasons, even if those people are nominally pronatalists.

All in all, I have the impression that people are generally ambivalent about having children, but will rarely admit to this ambivalence in public.

It seems to me that by the time people realize they shouldn't have children or not that many children, it's too late, because they've already produced them.
And it's generally not considered a nice thing to tell your child, regardless of their age, that you wish you didn't have them.

I think many pronatalists are also defending their past bad choices, rationalizing them, so as to make it easier to live with them. This can explain their vitriol toward antinatalists.

If politics is about how to get large groups of people to do things, if we compare the antinatalist to the procreationist sympathizer, the antinatalist does not force anything on anyone, the procreationist sympathizer does. — schopenhauer1

The procreationist sympathizer probably feels otherwise, feels that the antinatalist is forcing on them their view.

If you like the whole "project" of the socio-cultural-economic enterprise of human existence, why must then others be pressed into this?

Because it's a big project that requires the cooperation of many many people.

Ad populum doesn't mean anything here to me as justification just that might makes right. Again, that is just political then. — schopenhauer1

What if this is the mistake, thinking that ad populum/ad baculum is "just political"?

The fact is, we as humans can evaluate something as negative while we are doing those things. — schopenhauer1

We can, but this doesn't already mean we do or that we will.

This isn't limited to having children, it's much more general: from career planning to retirement planning, in failing to prevent a bad habit from forming, in making poor choices in terms of romantic or business partners, ...

Just wanted to say you have some really interesting thoughts here and I enjoyed reading them. However, I myself have found questions demanding a justification for human life to be kind of strange. What kind of justification do people want? A god given purpose? — Albero

Deep question, and we could talk about it forever. But yeah, a god-given purpose of some kind given by some kind of god. Maybe the god is just History. For most, the justification should include some restitution, like the resurrection of the dead or the arrival of the Federation (but without the Klingons).*

*To me a big question is whether a society can be strong and cohesive without some external threat, but that's a different issue.

Because I clearly care about this TOPIC. You don't seem too keen on the TOPIC but of specifically trying to personally tell something to ME. It does then seem personal, and it does seem to be taking a page from Isaac, albeit without all the dramatic histrionics. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you think you have something over me, but it doesn't make sense to keep telling me about it except for some targeted reason. You aren't engaging with others on the thread, we aren't exploring any common ground, so I'm sorry there seems to be some sort of trollish thing going on here, otherwise I don't get it. And you can go ahead and turn it around and say why is me posting about AN any different..but its well known I like this TOPIC, so its not like there's some other motivation here regarding what I feel I need to say to another individual poster. In other words, I'm not trying to stick it to any one poster that they better know whats right. I'm not saying it's wrong to disagree just wondering about the motivation once that disagreement is already known.

Bitter Crank What do you think of the idea that we are just productivity-agents for the superstructure? — schopenhauer1

As Uncle Karl said, one of the tasks of the working class is to reproduce society. And that's what we do -- not merely replacing dead bodies with babies, but diapering, feeding, protecting, and teaching them from 0 through graduate school. The whole society -- individuals and institutions -- has to be replaced IF the bourgeois classes are to continue accumulating wealth from the labor of the working class. Producing wealth is, of course, the other task of the working class.

We are not for ourselves, we are for others' purposes. If the bourgeoisie (the wealthy owners of everything that's worth having, pretty much) could produce everything with machines, they wouldn't need workers at all. And in fact, fewer workers are needed per pound of production than in the past. One farmer can operate a large farm [with large machinery. A computer and sensors on board the tractor guided by GPS keep track of yield by the square meter, and plant and fertilize accordingly.] Robots perform many of the tasks on the assembly line. Computers have replaced a lot of functions in the office.

Millions of working class men, white men in particular, have come face to face with their economic irrelevance. Their irrelevance is literally killing them (leading the men to drink, drugs, etc.)

The essential task, at this point, of much of society is to consume. 70% of the GDP goes into consumption. Were 'the people' to turn to thrift and a simpler lifestyle that wasn't organized around consuming, the economy would crash. There is a gradually increasing level of anxiety among people as they discover that going to work in order to consume is not very meaningful.

In the good old days, religion provided an anodyne for this discomfort. It provided meaning for people's lives. Martin Luther declared that all work was sacred. Farming, mining, carpentry, street cleaning, collecting garbage -- whatever -- is as sacred as the work of priests--that's the Protestant Work Ethic: work is a sacred activity. Luther (1483-1546) lived before our economic world began to come into existence. Still, one can look at work as sacred, because it contributes to the common good of all men. It does that IF it does that. One can certainly argue that a lot of work does not contribute to the commonweal. It's essentially pointless, or contributes to the wellbeing of a very narrow portion of 'men'--mostly very rich ones.

You don't seem too keen on the TOPIC — schopenhauer1

How come I’m on every AN thread then?

If you wanna play the victim go right ahead. It isn’t personal. I replied to your OP because I found it interesting nothing more. And you took it as an attack. I don’t understand why you prefer to spend more time psychoanalysing my intentions than respond to my actual critiques. Culture not being the main reason we reproduce for example being one.

And even when I dropped the whole “Why are you responding to me” line you specifically brought it back up in a separate comment saying “I’m still waiting for a reply to this”. For what? And you accuse me of not engaging with your arguments and not trying to find common ground, while being more interested in debating my intentions than the actual arguments I put forward? What a joke.

You choose to see a personal attack. I even apologized first thing for my unintended passive aggressiveness. But no, that’s still not enough for you. You seek to prove, indisputably, that khaled has no reason to be commenting here. That khaled is targeting you because he’s a mean bully. And no matter how many times I tell you it’s not personal, and no matter how many times I try to respond to anything new you’re saying, you choose to see it as an attack, while ignoring the actual responses. And you would rather prove this than actually address what khaled is saying.

I’m not going to waste my time debating my intentions for commenting on a public forum with someone who would rather argue (in bad faith) about said intentions rather than address the arguments against the positions they put forward. Have a good one.

How come I’m on every AN thread then? — khaled

That's my point, why? You are interested in debating me specifically it seems. But why? You keep wanting to tell me the same thing. You think I'm wrong, and you want to make sure I know it at every turn. Got it.

And you took it as an attack. I don’t understand why you prefer to spend more time psychoanalysing my intentions than respond to my actual critiques. Culture not being the main reason we reproduce for example being one. — khaled

Because you all you do is critique. This isn't UFC fight all day forum.. It's a forum.. More than just knock down disagreements have to take place.. at least for me. It's not like we haven't indulged the form you prefer- the toe-to-toe debates all day all the time. We've done that.. So no we just continue in this mode forever?

And even when I dropped the whole “Why are you responding to me” line you specifically brought it back up in a separate comment saying “I’m still waiting for a reply to this”. For what? And you accuse me of not engaging with your arguments and not trying to find common ground, while being more interested in debating my intentions than the actual arguments I put forward? What a joke. — khaled

Yes, I don't get why it's debate mode all the time and am trying to understand this now.

That khaled is targeting you because he’s a mean bully. And no matter how many times I tell you it’s not personal, and no matter how many times I try to respond to anything new you’re saying, you choose to see it as an attack, while ignoring the actual responses. And you would rather prove this than actually address what khaled is saying. — khaled

To repeat, because I know how this plays out. I even did a mock debate that pretty much encapsulates it in an earlier post. But you seem to want more than just debate. You specifically do want to target me to prove me wrong.. To stick it to me. You want something from me... but not sure what.. I am not a video game boss that you have to try to defeat over and over here.

I’m not going to waste my time debating my intentions for commenting on a public forum with someone who would rather argue (in bad faith) about said intentions rather than address the arguments against the positions they put forward. Have a good one. — khaled

Good use of my terms there.. But I'm not arguing in bad faith, but rather am telling you how I prefer to engage in the topic with you as we've already done the toe-to-toe thing where everything we say is just a volley back and forth. Are you able to engage in a different manner? If you're not interested, then totally fine with that too. I think you have a good analytic mind, but it doesn't mean let's just keep doing the same thing.

So people who have children for such practical reasons don't believe in pronatalism per se, but in their practical reasons, even if those people are nominally pronatalists. — baker

True.. but how can this topic be elevated from these practical reasons to be seen as actually a political choice? By having the child, you are promoting the fact that someone else needs to experience life, and that they should engage with the soci-economic-cultural superstructure. This idea though seems so remote to certain mindsets. Why do you suppose some people cannot think in these more abstract terms? I guess socio-economic status and environment have a lot to do with it. If one isn't exposed to philosophical thinking, one doesn't engage with it naturally..

I think many pronatalists are also defending their past bad choices, rationalizing them, so as to make it easier to live with them. This can explain their vitriol toward antinatalists. — baker

Yes, very true. I don't see AN as a personal attack on them though, but many take it as that. What already happened happened. I think a lot of the vitriol though has to do more with questioning the "goodness" of life itself. Also, there is the idea that things are always improving, and it isn't so bad, don't tell us to end it by passively not procreating.. etc.

The procreationist sympathizer probably feels otherwise, feels that the antinatalist is forcing on them their view. — baker

But it's not forcing because there is no actual forceful stopping of anyone. It is simply stating the view and they can take it or leave it. The ironic thing though is the instant the procreationist actually has a child, that is indeed literally forcing the view onto someone else. Now the child is literally pressed into existence. The AN has no such analog. They are not literally forcing anything on anyone. So there is an asymmetry here for the consequences of one vs. the other in terms of force.

Because it's a big project that requires the cooperation of many many people. — baker

And why must it be that people need to exist to pursue the project?

What if this is the mistake, thinking that ad populum/ad baculum is "just political"? — baker

Can you explain? I just mean that people think because the majority thinks it, it must be the right course of action. The political consequence is that the YAYs win out by default by voting with their procreation.

We can, but this doesn't already mean we do or that we will.

This isn't limited to having children, it's much more general: from career planning to retirement planning, in failing to prevent a bad habit from forming, in making poor choices in terms of romantic or business partners, ... — baker

But we still have to do this habit forming and prevention. This isn't inbuilt, wrote anything. You are forcing people to grapple with this. It is deliberation and grappling. One can still evaluate all the way through that they don't like this.

You can probably grasp that I don't see a justification for human life, and I don't subscribe to an ideology of hope. — norm

Yes, I think we are on the same wavelength here. Also, as much as I do advocate for grappling with AN as an UNAVOIDABLE political topic (as it is the foundation for all existence and therefore all socio-economic-cultural and experiential things that ensue), there the moroseness of the matter does still get me down. I don't revel in it like a horror writer might revel in the morose. I simply think it is the most accurate aesthetic synthesis of the whole existential situation, DESPITE its unfortunate moroseness.

I suppose that I do find a piece of paradise when the weather is good and I can have bittersweet conversation with a true friend. We agree about the commiseration clubs. I just find it is fleeting genuine friendships. Even if they last 10 years, they tend to dissolve eventually in the nightwaters of life. — norm

Commiseration clubs.. I like it :D. Communities of Catharsis. It is a good antidote to the usual "self-help" which tries to say YOU have a problem for not finding the LIFE program good, necessary, and worth the engagement. Rather, something is wrong here, let's talk about it, whether in serious manner or in "bittersweet" comedic tragedian style. Indeed, even the Commiseration Club brings its own enactment of the bittersweet brevity of the fact that no person can really "commune" with the other. Rather, we are like porcupines that don't want to get too close because we tend to bother each other, but we still want some closeness with others to entertain our social minds.

What interests me too is molding this social mindset in becoming a compliant worker for an entity. We can't but NOT do this if we need to survive as we humans do (by social effort), yet just as the OP states, here we are KNOWING and EVALUATING dislike for this effort WHILE we do it. What an insane world. Have you ever read Peter Zapffe? He talks about how we have an "over abundance of consciousness" that provides us more evaluative reflective capacities than is needed for an animal to survive. This meta-evaluation gives us that much more to grapple with. We don't just "do". We don't just go from garbage can to garbage can looking for food, and finding shade under a tree like a racoon. We KNOW we are doing something and can say, "Ah shit, not this X task again...". Why!?

Yes, indeed. And we are doing that here. It's not the same as in-person, but it's not nothing. Anonymously people can tell some truths. You don't want your next employer to know that you are as proud as Lucifer and think that the company is a piece of smoke. — norm

:fire: YES to this. The character of Lucifer is a good one here. I rather like the the Gnostic concept of reversing this. The NAYsayer of life is the hero. It is the pro-life (suffering that comes from life) that is the "opponent" here. I think people are driven somewhat by superstition. It just make sense that if someone is having a relatively good day (Sunny out, reads a good book, plays a good video game, does some exercise, finds a girl/guy they like, eats a good meal, does some project at work that was fulfilling, listens to good music, stick any X good here) they don't want to then say, "DESPITE the goods that are contingent on living life, it still allows for negative evaluations of various tasks.. it STILL has suffering that is built-in and suffering that is contingent and can be wrought at any time"... This will get the person out of the good mood, and why would they want to do that? The intellectualization of the pessimism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I kind of get why people at a particular POINT OF TIME might not want to let these thoughts in their heads. But I would say they don't have to perseverate on it, but simply keep it in the background that it is not always like this. There is a bigger thing going on here and this is not a paradise. These people don't want to tempt the "gods" to then give them a bad time for thinking these pessimistic thoughts. Maybe the gods of fate will strike them down with idiocy, and they won't be able to intellectualize at all.. Keep your head down, boy.. Don't fuck with me, says the gods of fate. I gave you GOODs that ARE POSSIBLE, don't look a gift horse in the mouth!

Just wanted to say you have some really interesting thoughts here and I enjoyed reading them. However, I myself have found questions demanding a justification for human life to be kind of strange. What kind of justification do people want? A god given purpose? — Albero

So let's just reduce the socii-economic-cultural thing to one thing to keep it easy. There is thing called "work". What is work? Work is a cultural phenomena built from historical contingencies of civilization. Hunting-gathering was "work" but really it was so built into the existential practice of living (as an animal that needs to do stuff to survive) that it may be inappropriate to call hunting/gathering "work". Work is a phenomena of civilziations that developed from property and specialization. So, when someone is born in a society that has "work" in this environment, is that something that we should "put" more people into? Should more people have to be made to "work"? If you start giving the stock reply that you can simply become a freeloader, homeless, or try to hack it in the wilderness, I will just say that the harm that ensues from this alternative lifestyle to the norm, would also be a part of this phenomena. The choice is sub-optimal "work" (which you must integrate as something you like or just "deal" with it), OR you must make the sub-optimal choice of harm and shame of other forms of living (homelessness and hacking it on your own in the wilderness).. SO why are we foisting this lifestyle (part of the socio-economic-cultural superstructure) on more people? Certainly it is a POLITICAL choice that work is something acceptable, as it is an intricate part of living as an embodied, culturally integrated animal as we are, but why must more people be pushed into existence to engage in it (and yes I use "push" loosely here.. so let's not get caught up in that semantics of non-existence being "pushed' into existence.. that's a focus of a different metaphysical topic).

And I'm thinking that your doing the above, "showing it bare for what it is, and expose the harmful political assumptions of perpetuating this package" would go over like Truman's discovery of the real world and departing the fictional one: your deconstruction of group-think, your showing it bare for what it is, your exposing of harmful political assumptions of perpetuating that package would likely be met at first with elation, enthusiasm, that "Yes! This is the truth!" -- and then forgotten about it. — baker

Yes, it is the forgetting that is the mystery here. What does one do once it is exposed? I am advocating for communities of catharsis, of commiseration.. What does it mean for the superstructure itself? Of work? Of needing to survive? Of still having to live life knowing these ideas?

Deep question, and we could talk about it forever. But yeah, a god-given purpose of some kind given by some kind of god. Maybe the god is just History. For most, the justification should include some restitution, like the resurrection of the dead or the arrival of the Federation (but without the Klingons).*

*To me a big question is whether a society can be strong and cohesive without some external threat, but that's a different issue. — norm

SO I came up with a neologism called "minutia-mongering". I think humans don't usually reflect existentially. Rather, due to the need to "fall into place" In a social setting, and specialization required to be important to a company/employer/community, we need to specialize in the minutia of a particular topic. Instead of asking daily "Why do I even exist and who cares about all this".. Rather, the chemical process of making plastic, or making sure the widget needed so an engine can run so a car can move, so a product can be transported on a truck, so the warehouse can palletize and store the product, so the product picker can grab the inventory, so the inventory clerk can reorder, so the manager can keep track of the numbers, so the accountant can see the accounts payable, so that the payroll can keep track of cutting checks, so the people can deposit their money so they can pay bills so they can save and invest to get extra money for future expenses, so that they can buy houses and cars and gas and groceries and entertainment and vacation trips, and food and restaurants, and so that they can read about philosophy books and science topics (or just blank their minds out with tv, video games, and booze, and drugs), so that they can go back to school to learn more about the intricaicies of the copper alloy needed to create a better CPU processor with cache and memory so that electric pulses can turn on and off to move the micro-wires on the CPU to locations so that it can be retrieved to allow for machine code that allows for compilers to make programming code show up on a screen that uses very specific chemicals to allow for hexedecimal colors to display in a way that creates a user interface experience so people can access programs, so they can type stuff for their businesses and buying more goods and entertain themselves on social media and to write word documents and keep track of minutia in a spreadsheet for more work and budgets and schedules, and to do lists, and meeting people so that they can do their kickball tournaments, so they can take their kids to the extra curricular activity so they can learn the intracies of throwing a curveball so they can get good at baseball so they can be integrated in a team sport in their high school and college, so that they can go to classes so they can learn minutia about physics, economics, or the really soft social science of sociology.. but their best friend is learning the minutia of phlebotomy so they can draw blood to survive, to pay some bills so that they can go to the local store to pick up a certain kind of bread for the recipe needed to create a family recipe, so that their children can eat it and then go play and annoy the neighbors by being too loud, while the roads need to be paved, and news anchors need to tell everyone about the unions, and intellectual property, and the latest news on politicians, and so that people can develop semi-shallow relationships to keep this all moving.

There is a gradually increasing level of anxiety among people as they discover that going to work in order to consume is not very meaningful.

In the good old days, religion provided an anodyne for this discomfort. It provided meaning for people's lives. Martin Luther declared that all work was sacred. Farming, mining, carpentry, street cleaning, collecting garbage -- whatever -- is as sacred as the work of priests--that's the Protestant Work Ethic: work is a sacred activity. Luther (1483-1546) lived before our economic world began to come into existence. Still, one can look at work as sacred, because it contributes to the common good of all men. It does that IF it does that. One can certainly argue that a lot of work does not contribute to the commonweal. It's essentially pointless, or contributes to the wellbeing of a very narrow portion of 'men'--mostly very rich ones. — Bitter Crank

Very good insights here. Do people who believe in the Protestant Work Ethic, really sustain this thinking throughout their work life? At no point does the good Protestant worker go, "God I really don't care today to do this"? Also can one be in what is considered really "necessary" line of industry (a doctor for example) and still find it to be unfulfilling to do the work? Is the Prot. Work Ethic just a way to get certain people to not think about the existence itself? Zapffe observed that all humans have the ability to access the truth that we don't need to do anything at all, that we know our existential dilemma.. isn't the PWE just another trope to get people to limit their thoughts. to anchor them so that they don't run into an existential meltdown?

Also, there is no shangrala at the end of the road. We work to work to work to work. I just don't believe work itself is the reason we must be at all. It is a weird fetishization. Even Marx fetishizes it but says work is a "good" in itself as long as one is doing it as sort of a hobby. But I think any activity is not self-justified "goods" that are just "there" in existence necessarily (though I kind of vacillate on this idea of "goods" that are objective to existence).

Messy reply incoming, but this is a good question. I have no idea where you lean economically (you don't have to say) but the way I see it is that in an ideal world, nobody should HAVE to work if they really don't want to. You could back on what you said and call this simple freeloading, but I see it more as someone who would rather do the things they enjoy doing. Should anarchists and socialists like me who think the same way as me be child-free? I think so because why make more meat for the neo-liberal grinder?

However, after the "revolution" (though thats a pipe dream let's be realistic here) I'm inclined to disagree and see no issue with work in itself, and I believe that in an ideal world your problem wouldn't be that much of a problem at all. In the modern economy, there is lots of work that "must be done" FOR NO REASON. There's a growing movement nowadays called "anti-work" or simply The Right to Be Lazy. Doing nothing all day if one really wants should not be something we shame, and in a world of billions there's always going to be people who enjoy the labour the smart man thinks is just "grunt work" or "bullshit jobs".

All in all, I have no problem with work, but I do have a problem with people being born to live as a wage slave. I like your pessimistic neo-Schopenhauerian posts even though I don't agree with it all the way, but if what you're really asking me is "society constantly relies on a system of upkeep to sustain itself. Why are we putting humans in this imperfect world!?" then I will concede I simply don't have an answer there since I don't think work itself is wrong.