“Let's say you did the calculus and indeed the greatest number of people would be saved if he did this. There is something wrong with this. But what?”

but isn’t this just another Omelas situation but a little different? In some fantastical situation for the sake of an argument, if someone was forced to run a business forever and doing so saved 5 million people from the Agony Box, I personally feel like forcing them was permissible. Not doing so would mean 5 million people are in constant pain and suffering. If to you it’s still wrong then I respect your moral intuitions but It just doesn’t seem like a safe alternative is possible to me. Your moral system and Khaled’s system lead to 2 giant bullets I’ll have to bite, and the aggregate amount seems more appropriate.

To me it’s like taxing the shit out of Jeff Bezos to redistribute the wealth. Bezos, his family, and all of the Amazon higher ups are going to be absolutely miserable they’re forced to lose a fortune everyday but the people need it. The guy forced to run the life saving business might be miserable too, but the alternative (not forcing him) is much worse and seems unfair. To me this highlights the shortcomings of both deontology and consequentialism

Cool, so if a majority of people like baseball should people be force recruited to play the game? — schopenhauer1

Like it or not, this is exactly what is happening.

I'm in a philosophy forum, where people make arguments about things like morality.

Yes, and all too often, they wander off into lalaland.

Actually, all of life is a big argument and whether you know it or not, people's arguments are affecting/effecting your life.

And I've got my neighbor's chimney and AC exhaust into my living room and bedroom windows to prove it.

Okay.. slavery not just being the natural course of things also seemed alien for many generations, mainly before the Enlightenment and even then it took until the mid-1800s for it to really start being considered legitimate moral sentiments.

It's not comparable. People arguing against slavery were arguing against just one aspect of the until then unquestioned socio-economic project called "life as it is usually lived". You're questioning the whole project.

Some say it's naive, childish to wonder about whether something is just or moral.
— baker
Really? Why?

Who has the problem here: you, or the pronatalists?

It doesn't compute in _your_ mind. It computes in so many other people's minds.
— baker
Well, let's take two outcomes from the different computations.

1.) If MY computation is right, no ONE suffers (cause no one is born, of course).
2.) If the procreator-sympathizers are right, SOMEONE suffers.

So? It's still your problem.


Face it: You're miserable. That's all there is to this.

No person. No exploitation. Period. — schopenhauer1

The dangers of AI

I'm sure you know this but you can have two things be true. Your parents labored for you, and now that you were born, you must work-to-survive. You choose to labor or you die from neglect and starvation. That is the situation.

Laboring to avoid neglect and starvation is one thing, forced labor and exploitation is quite another. Either my parents forced me to labor or they didn’t. They exploited me or they didn’t. In fact, they took care of me when I couldn’t do so for myself, and equipped me with the knowledge to survive.

that’s a new one. Well it’s definitely not “clearly” wrong. Seeing as you’re literally the only person I’ve ever asked that suggested they are outside of political reasons (in the case of taxes)

There is something wrong with this. — schopenhauer1

I disagree. Not in principle. Only contingently.

We don’t need the lifeguard to teach lifeguarding for the rest of his life because we have enough people that can swim.

where before you did not when it was just to wake him up to save the drowning child. — schopenhauer1

Why not? Because it was “just” to wake him up? I don’t see how one is ok and the other not on principle. They seem to just be contingent. Waking him up is fine because it’s a small imposition without which much greater suffering would befall someone. But forcing him to teach lifeguarding lessons is not because we don’t need him to. There is no shortage of lifeguards. And it’s a much larger imposition.

if for whatever reason we DID need to force the Lifeguard to teach life guarding lessons (there’s a shortage) would it then be okay? Personally I think it would be, if let’s say the government estimates that 100000 children will drown in a year

Laboring to avoid neglect and starvation is one thing, forced labor and exploitation is quite another. Either my parents forced me to labor or they didn’t. They exploited me or they didn’t. In fact, they took care of me when I couldn’t do so for myself, and equipped me with the knowledge to survive. — NOS4A2

So you selectively choose to ignore earlier questions I had in this thread like here:

I am also bringing up the idea of exploitation in terms of people forced into labor. Why is this not an issue? In any other case where someone is forced into a situation when not necessary, this would be unjust. However, why does generalizing this concept to life itself rather than a particular circumstance get an exemption? What about the generalization makes it "too general"? There really doesn't seem to be a good answer for forcing in a particular instance unnecessary and the more general instance of bringing into life itself. — schopenhauer1

And it’s a much larger imposition. — khaled

And this is a major part of my point. Imposing life onto another person, because you think it will in some general sense "help society" is using that person. In the case of deciding on a new person, there is no person that needs to mitigate for anyone. But now, this person will be put into the world and indeed will have to mitigate, creating a whole lifetime's worth of negative/lacking situations for which there has to be ways to overcome etc, when there didn't have to be. At its most fundamental level, you are not recognizing in my argument the distinction between starting a life (and challenges and problems that a person would face), and helping people out who are already dealing with the challenges.. That is a huge factor in all of this.


This alone I would say is enough of an answer, but if you add in gambling with other people's lives, and that people don't always turn out the way you think, etc. It gains more strength.

But going back to the individual person-centered vs. aggregate person-centered... The lifeguard may very well make the most positive impact if he was forced to train other competent lifeguards for the rest of his life.. But by using people to such a degree, you are indeed overlooking that person's dignity as a PERSON. I don't believe waking the lifeguard is overlooking the lifeguard's dignity. But certainly overly imposing on someone.. let's say, by creating new status of someone's state of being and whereby someone must work-to-survive, find their way in a society, overcome challenges etc., is indeed going over that threshold.

if for whatever reason we DID need to force the Lifeguard to teach life guarding lessons (there’s a shortage) would it then be okay? — Albero

I'd like to see that answer too.

. If to you it’s still wrong then I respect your moral intuitions but It just doesn’t seem like a safe alternative is possible to me. Your moral system and Khaled’s system lead to 2 giant bullets I’ll have to bite, and the aggregate amount seems more appropriate. — Albero

No, because I believe you can mitigate to a degree lesser harms for greater harms (waking a life guard to save a drowning child's life), but not to such a degree where you are indeed violating dignity.. It does sound elusive.. what then is this "threshold of dignity"? I think it is at a point where someone is profoundly forced into a situation of negative circumstances, and the person themselves is overlooked for the outcome people want to see from that person. Perhaps it is a gradient rather than binary.. But it is not straight out utilitarianism where the greatest good is had by the greatest number. Dignity-based, as I am describing it, would be individual person-based, not aggregate-based.

yea me too. It if was actually necessary. But pay the guy. You can afford that.

you are not recognizing in my argument the distinction between starting a life (and challenges and problems that a person would face), and helping people out who are already dealing with the challenges — schopenhauer1

Because both can be the latter.

But by using people to such a degree, you are indeed overlooking that person's dignity as a PERSON. — schopenhauer1

So for you there are impositions that are simply “too much” and having children is one of them.

You could’ve just said that.

I am also bringing up the idea of exploitation in terms of people forced into labor. Why is this not an issue? In any other case where someone is forced into a situation when not necessary, this would be unjust. However, why does generalizing this concept to life itself rather than a particular circumstance get an exemption? What about the generalization makes it "too general"? There really doesn't seem to be a good answer for forcing in a particular instance unnecessary and the more general instance of bringing into life itself.

The main reason why “generalizing this concept to life itself” is untenable is because living is not forced labor. Living is not suffering. Living is not a “situation of negative circumstances”. I am not convinced there is any overlap between the concepts “life” and “forced labor”, let alone a 1-to-1 ratio, so I am unable to equate one with the other and move forward with your logic.

Forced labor and exploitation each require a beneficiary, someone who benefits from your forced labor and exploitation. Someone must be forcing you to labor or someone must be exploiting you. If not, then no forced labor or exploitation has occurred.

I suppose that in your scenario the exploiters are the parents, but then I see parents carrying and feeding children as if they were the most precious things in the universe, and am forced to laugh.

So for you there are impositions that are simply “too much” and having children is one of them.

You could’ve just said that. — khaled

Yeah. All that @schopenhauer1's argument ever seems to boil down to is that being born is a terribly bad thing for one to have happen to them - whether that's framed in terms of 'harms', 'suffering', or 'dignity', it's always in a league of it's own, and as such it cannot (unlike the impositions we normally make on others) be considered acceptable for any reason at all, no gain is sufficient to justify it.

If one has, as a premise, that birth is an imposition greater than any other, then one is going to be antinatalist. It's not a conclusion, as it's presented here (and in every other such thread), it's just a restatement of the premise. We can simply assume that, having decided something is more bad than any consequent gain could justify, one would be unconditionally anti-it. So that leaves nothing of substance here beyond the premise itself.

So are you like, @khaled anti-antinatalist liaison or patron or something? Are you curating arguments for him? You always follow him into my threads. I'm sure you can see why I would view you then as a ridiculous poster. Why don't you just ignore my threads if you think the argument not worth your time? But you don't so that's even doubly absurd :lol: . I see a whole bunch of threads on here. I even see a professional philosopher, David Pearce. You can argue you heart's content at other people and things.

Look at someone like @Banno or @Baden They probably don't agree, they may even think along the same lines as you, yet you are the one who continues to write on my threads. Your hostility and emotion are so abundant teaming-over about this that you are "compelled" to write on this? Interesting, then that means that you may not be too different than the antinatalist compelled to write about antinatalism.. Too close to home perhaps.

Anyways, you are wrong here because khaled is looking for a conclusion with a premise. It is the other way around.

@Isaac
And for the record, it's not that you disagree that I think you are ridiculous, it is that you are so against the topic, and me writing about the topic in general, that to comment on the thread is just trolling and trying to annoy me. It's pretty damn apparent. So just stop.

This is kind of a random question, but I like your responses so I’m interested in seeing what’d you have say. What if there came a time where human beings all became sterile, but babies started popping into the world out of thin air-no procreation required and no parents who made a conscious choice to put another human here. What do you think humans would do in such a predicament? Now there’s nobody to blame if my life turns out to suck. I’ve always wondered how the pessimistic anitnatalist would react to such a thing

The situation is still bad. In this case it is not a moral issue as much as it is a metaphysical one. Humans are then just destined to suffer, and there is nothing to do about it. Indeed, Schopenhauer would have been close the mark on this in that there would only be Representation/Will and Salvation (through asceticism), but there can be no prevention aspect as to what actions we can do to prevent the suffering in the first place.

Just to be clear though, I am not "looking" for someone to blame. It just so happens that procreation is the initiation of the suffering thus a large part of the focus for its wholesale prevention. It is always after-the-fact, because we the "already-born" now have to deal, even if suicide is one of those ways or just following the guidelines of whatever society etc.

Why don't you just ignore my threads if you think the argument not worth your time? — schopenhauer1

Well at least for me: because it’s irritating seeing someone make (what I thought was) a flawed argument over and over again. Now I just think it’s begging the question.

I see a whole bunch of threads on here. I even see a professional philosopher, David Pearce. You can argue you heart's content at other people and things. — schopenhauer1

It’s also irritating to see someone repeatedly playing the victim when they post on a public forum and their post gets a response that shows the weakness of their position. You said the same thing to me too. Is this how you react with everyone who disagrees with you. “You didn’t have to say that stop being such a meanie!”

If you don’t want a particular person to respond, don’t post at all as there is a chance they will. Or if you post don’t be surprised that they do. It’s contradictory that you spend 3 paragraphs psychoanalyzing why your opponent responded to your thread but when Baden starts psychoanalyzing you you say something like “why not take it at face value”. Why don’t you take it at face value and assume Isaac is being a perfectly friendly commenter who happens to have a different view from you?

If you don’t want your motivations to be talked about, and would rather focus on the argument, don’t talk about the motivations of others and instead focus on their argument.

Speaking of ignoring arguments and focusing on psychoanalyzing opponents: Is the reason you always play the victim when someone disagrees with you repeatedly that you don’t want people seeing the disagreement and being driven away from AN? Are you a preacher?

Anyways, you are wrong here because khaled is looking for a conclusion with a premise. — schopenhauer1

What does this even mean?

Well at least for me: because it’s irritating seeing someone make (what I thought was) a flawed argument over and over again. Now I just think it’s begging the question. — khaled

That was to Isaac.. Although you seem to do similar things, you actually just debate the topic and not make this a meta-argument about the topic. That's just poor forum etiquette.. Ignore the thread if it's beneath you. I don't know if you can see where I'm coming from, but maybe you can. Isaac seems hopeless though.

It’s also irritating to see someone repeatedly playing the victim when they post on a public forum and their post gets a response that shows the weakness of their position. You said the same thing to me too. Is this how you react with everyone who disagrees with you. “You didn’t have to say that stop being such a meanie!” — khaled

No you two specifically do the same thing! ANd like i said, you at least argue the fuckn case rather than making speeches about the me arguing the case in the first place. Again, I don't know if you see my side but try to.

Why don’t you take it at face value and assume Isaac is being a perfectly friendly commenter who happens to have a different view from you? — khaled

Because he is NOT.. HE is hostile. That is another difference. You are not being hostile, but just debating. I do find it curious when you follow threads and we've already disagreed using the same debate, but I don't think you are being a hostile prick.

If you don’t want your motivations to be talked about, and would rather focus on the argument, don’t talk about the motivations of others and instead focus on their argument. — khaled

But then why do they get to run roughshod all over me like a POS, and I can't comment on the fact that they are doing THAT? I'm not doing this "higher ground" bullshit..

Look, I'll admit when I've stepped over the bounds.. for example bringing up AN in threads that don't seem to be about it (though I can argue that they are).. But I've NEVER went to another thread just to say that they shouldn't write their thread, and that they are essentially a POS for doing so.

What does this even mean? — khaled

That you were looking for my premise (dignity, etc.) an explanation of that, not the conclusion. But maybe not.. You can say whatever you want. THat was how I was interpreting it at least.

sorry I didn’t mean blame as in people who have kids deserve punishment, but that people who have kids are morally responsible.

You called?

It's not a conclusion, as it's presented here (and in every other such thread), it's just a restatement of the premise. — Isaac

Isaac captures the reason I don't bother with your threads. It is worth pointing out, if only in the interests of forum quality.

He can just say that without all the theatrics though.

sorry I didn’t mean blame as in people who have kids deserve punishment, but that people who have kids are morally responsible. — Albero

No, I knew what you meant, I think my answer addresses what you intended.

:up: enjoyed your response

you actually just debate the topic and not make this a meta-argument about the topic. — schopenhauer1

You’re the one making a meta argument about the topic. Someone responds to you and you question their motives in responding instead of addressing the response. You did this to me and Isaac.

No you two specifically do the same thing — schopenhauer1

When did I say “You shouldn’t have said that stop being such a meanie”. I never questioned why you post until you questioned why I respond.

ANd like i said, you at least argue the fuckn case rather than making speeches about the me arguing the case in the first place. — schopenhauer1

I do. Though a second ago you said I didn’t, and that I did the same thing....

And in this scenario Isaac was arguing a case. He didn’t say you shouldn’t post. He said your premise basically begs the question.

But I've NEVER went to another thread just to say that they shouldn't write their thread, — schopenhauer1

But you’ve went to my comments saying I shouldn’t write them because I already wrote them before. But when Isaac does that targeting your OPs you complain. And he isn’t even doing that right now.

That you were looking for my premise (dignity, etc.) an explanation of that, not the conclusion. — schopenhauer1

Yea ok I get you now.

So clearly I don't like what Isaacs doing here and unfortunately he mentioned me while addressing you thus not easily extricating me from the conversation I was having with you. I'm going back to ignoring his trolling ass..if you want to discuss the actual argument at hand any further go ahead but if this involves Isaac anymore, meaning he has conversations directly with me or talks to you about me, I'm not gonna bite again and feed the troll more than I have.

Yeah, no wonder one hates life and wishes to never have been ...

Yeah, no wonder one hates life and wishes to never have been ... — baker

Care to explain, keeping in mind a productive conversation rather than simply ad hom?