Wouldn´t an utilitarian support the creation of a new life under any circumstances? Or is there a degree in which a new life not being born is better than it being born?

We are constantly comparing ourselves to others in order to judge what our place in the social hierarchy is. It is an instict that has been around since humans have been a thing, and you can imagine how important it used to be. We judge so we can know who do we associate with and so on.
This instict is not so celebrated anymore because of the connotation that the word judgement has: it is almost always negative. In a society in which diversity and emphaty are key, one should not judge others, or at least, not make one´s judgements public. We know, however, that that is not possible.
I support the idea of judgement, of categorizing individuals, but keeping them to myself. I use stereotypes to navigate social situations, such as talking about soccer when there is a group of male young adults on the basis that the majority enjoys talking about sports.
Instead of keeping your gaze fixed at the negative aspects of judgement, I recommend that you take in the whole picture. I cannot walk in nobody´s shoes, but I can still judge their decisions and decide that I do want or do not want such an outcome

While you are correct, desire should not just be thrown overboard because it may lead individuals into doing nefarious things to get what they want. Instead, desire should be also seen as force of change, be it for good or bad. We enjoy many pleasures, such a better quality of life, due to the desire of many individuals to be better.
Indeed, desire is not a synonym of perversion and should not be trated the same

Yeah you are right. Thiese emotions are way too general, but they are not worthless, since they at least guide us into the real emotion. That is why is important to learn about feelings and emotions, how do they feel and how to express them

They are indeed subjective as in the intensity of the emotion felt and under which circumstances is the emotion being felt, but there is a baseline from which you can easily draw from. For example, while an injustice done to me differs from an injustice done to you, they are injustices altogether, so we will both feel anger and/or sadness. Our response to them also differs. You may seek revenge while I may seek to rebuild

I would not refer to the particular need of survival. We do not really think on survival terms, rather, we think on what is good for us, in a self-interested kind of way. The best way to persuade someone is to appeal to their self-interest, creating the illusion that there is something on it for them as well

o be a friend is to love the same things and reject the same things — bcccampello

I agree with most of the ideas in the text, yet I dislike this sentence. It is true that we should associate with people that want to grow, that have similar goals and that want to be great, however, surrounding ourselves with people that do and act the same way as us inhibits growth.
Hate and love are such strong words and so are their assimilation to things. Befriending people that stand on the gray area between love and hate can prove more benefitial than to limit our kinship to those who stand on the same place as us.

I am an aspiring vlogger and instead of talking about gibberish, I like to present important, well thought and discussed concepts. However, my mind can only think so much, so I like to skim these forums in search for inspiration. Needless to say that I did not only found it with your post, but I think the concept is brilliantly presented. May I quote you?

Whilst no pain, whether emotional or physical, would indeed make life much easier, I am more than willing to argue that the lack of emotional pain would take away more from life than it would add.
Both pain and suffering, however hurtful, are the best teachers and the best life engines.
If what you desire is to not feel emotional pain, you would have to not feel feelings nor emotions to begin with. Concepts of love, hate, happiness become abstract and unattainable. Relationships would only be made on the basis of usefulness, eliminating key concepts such as friendship and kinship.
Can you imagine a life in which you felt no connection to anything? Such a life is surely not worth living. Mistakes hurt, some more than others, but, with the correct perspective, one can easily realize that there is much to learn from this suffering, making one better than one was before. Do not be afraid of pain. On the contrary, it is sometimes a good idea to welcome it

Asking the why of something is always a good way to begin a conversation with the intend of changing someones mind. You must first understand where are they coming from. For all I know, they will always buy the same jar of peanut butter because thats the peanut butter that their now deceased mom used to make their sandwiches or they simply find the taste fascinating.
Once that you understand why do they do this or that, which is rarely simple, you may then make suggestions. By making suggestions I do not mean that you bluntly show stats, data or evidence and tell them they are wrong, but rather you make suggestions into the air, progressively showing new information and different point of views.
For example, lets say your friend always bets on the Cowboys, irrelevant or how they have performed. In the case that, say Patriots, are doing better and one could potentially profit off them with a higher degree of probability, any reasonsable being should drop the Cowboys and back the Packers. However, irrational behaviours such as undying loylaty or more complicated situations will prevent this decision from even being considered. This is precisely the point when you ask why.
Why do you bet on the Cowboys? Why do you even bet to begin with? Why this why that. Guide them into questioning themselves on their beliefs. Show them the path with easy questions.
Once your friend is questioning wether he should bet to begin with, you may show him that the Patriots are doing better, starting with simple suggestions and moving on into presenting more structural data. This process may result on your friend betting for another team, thinking and trying something different. You did not force him into doing anything, you just asked him, indirectly, to step out of his ways and try something new

Seeing the use of clothes from a pragmatic point of view, clothes do offer many advantages. They allow one to be protected from the environment, with there being special clothing for different scenarios and they may have pockets so you can free your hands whilst carrying items.
Clothes are also an incredible expression of oneself. I am not focusing on the judgements one may perceive from his peers regarding one´s clothes, like wearing a swimsuit inside an office, but rather the transformation of meer sheets of cloth into something new and spectacular. I have deep respect to fashion designers that aim that high

I wish you the best of luck on your endeavour! I personally started something similar, but I have since abandoned it. Unfortunately, individuals are too fixated on their way of thinking and I decided that to spend so much time and effort on vainly trying to convince my fellows on the importance of tools such as critical thinking would be very foolish of me.
I do not wish to undermine your work nor your plans, but rather take my comment as a warning of what there is to come. I hope we get to see more of your content!

The main thing would be to approach ideological beliefs the same way people approach decisions about whether to take an umbrella, or whether their team has a shot at the playoffs this year, or which brand of peanut butter to buy. — Srap Tasmaner

You see, the examples you just gave would take too much time and effort to think them through..
Imagine this: You are in a hurry and just as you are walking outside the door, you notice that the sky is cloudy. You already know that a cloudy sky does not necessarily mean that is going to rain, but the probability is much higher than when there are no clouds in the sky. Similarily, you know that an umbrella is always a burden to carry, unless when it is raining, then it becomes a valuable possesion. Now that these, and more, statements have rushed all around your mind, you must make a decision: Do you take the umbrella or not?
Say, in order to correctly decide wether you should or shouldn´t take an umbrella would require for you to check the weather forecast, check the probability of rain and establish a percentage of risk that you would be willing to assume. Even in a hurry, you may pull out your phone to quickly glimpse at the weather app and some even offer probabilities of rain, but you know, at the back of your head, that the weather cast is often wrong, so you are back in square one.
I could go on and on, but I think that I have made my point. An untrained mind, a mind without support tools, like critical thinking, will always base its decisions on preferences or on irrelevant factors, so it may very well bet on its favorite team even if its not looking too good, be it by pride or by a sense of loyalty, or buy the same jar of peanut butter they have always bought because it is a tradition

So this is how vast a philosophical debate can get huh.

What do you believe in? I see you trashing so many things. Do you feel hatred?

Suffering is generally regarded as something bad because the very short term future looks hopeless and bleak. When we are in pain, we are quite incapable of looking away from our suffering or even understading why are we suffering in the first place. Just think about any physical pain that you have experienced and you will remember how overwhelming it felt.
However, as many great thinkers have realized, suffering is not only natural, but necessary, and one can obtain so much from it. Viktor Frankl, in his book Man´s search for meaning, presents a theory that the inmates in the concentration camps that gave meaning to their suffering were more likely to survive that those who only saw pain and destruction on their suffering.
I am a firm believer that suffering is the best (and even only) tool that allows us to really make our lives meaningful. I will never run from it, instead, I shall embrace it and welcome it.

I have no idea what are talking about now

Agreed. To assume that something was granted instead of earned only damages the cause of having everyone to have the same opportunities

I think it's very unlikely that those who are so privileged will use their privileged position to benefit others (beyond their friends and family) to any significant extent, though there may be some small number of them who will make an effort to do so. — Ciceronianus the White

You really think so? I believe that if the approach is correct, as in those who do not have the privilege ask to work together instead of demanding to strip the privilege of others, a lot could be accomplished

That was a step up from what I had in mind, thats for sure. Yeah, I understand what you are saying and it really is the problem. But focus on only one race, one game if you like game theory. It is a fact that I have a headstart and that I am initially slow. Eliminating my headstart can only be done by me right? This indeed leads to everyone having the same opportunity. However, if I do it, I will lose the race because I do not have the same abilities that the others may have. So why would I let go of my advantage, in which not only me but another individual can benefit from, in the first place?

Not the weather itseld, but being able to enjoy it rather to save your house

That is a very nice argument. If only there was an easy way to do so

Trickling down on the unprivileged... That'll work. — Banno

I do not understand. Is that good or bad?

Im really talking about any kind of privilege really. However, it is true that the conversation has strayed. Let us refocuse in another example. Take this heavy rain season. Some individuals are glad to have rain and enjoy the weather. Some are having their houses flooded. Now, knowing that the second statement is true, are we then allowed to enjoy the weather and the rain, while taking notice of those affected and reaching out to help, or should we not be able to enjoy the rain because some are not?
The privilege is granted to those who want to enjoy the rain, while those who are having their houses flooded have none.

Take any small to medium business. You know, local restaurants, bars, local service providers and the like. You have the owner(s), the supplier(s), the customers and the employee(s). If this business is the only one of its kind, as the economy is, then its importance is indispiutable. Here is precisely the difference. If your favorite restaurant closes its doors and goes bankrupt, the effect on the macroscale is null. Even in the microscale the effect is tiny if there are enough substitutions (other restaurants). The owners may find somewhere else to work, the same goes for the employees. Customers will just go to other businesses and life goes on. You see, I numbered only 4 groups that are affected by the restaurant operation, and they are quite small. For an economy, to have a no more fossil fuels policy implemented, you will leave thousands of people without jobs, many companies going bankrupt, many suppliers with their hands full of unsellable product and customers with no idea on how to fill their car´s tank. The impact of any policy made by economists is huge and the effects are in no way comparable to the effects of a business

We believe that we understand the past and think the same about the future. The precautions that we take are all based on the past. You never think that the river will flood past the mark, even if had flooded past many other marks. That is how we think, sadly

Knowledged is to be seeked. You will never acquire it if you are not actively searching for it. As for the schooling system, private education may have better tools to present you with knowledge. However, since we live in an age of information, the limits of knowledge have been dented, and that is something good

But instead we take advice from people who've never even started their own business on how to govern the whole country? — Gitonga

As an economics major myself, I can tell you with certainity that running a business is NOTHING like running an economy. I understand and somewhat agree that economists rarely have practical experience in the field, because there is none for us to acquire. We do not have labs where we can test certain policies. We only have history, and as you have probably already realized, history is not really the best tool for us. Policies that seemed great 30 years ago may now be trash.
Another reason for why economists may be perceived as doing a bad job is due to the nature of the economy itself. Economies are insanely complicated, so we must take many variables for granted and creat core ideas, such as that individuals are always maximizing, which in turn may even be wrong.

My point is that the economy is not as simple as it seems. It requires a lot of time and patience, disciplines that may outlast even the greatest entrepreneurs. If you jump the gun as an entrepreneur, you may loose your business. However, if you jump the gun as an economist, many lives may be destroyed. Cut us some slack, read about the basics of economics, such as inflation and interest rates and as long as we don´t get a pandemic every year, you have nothing to worry about.
Hope this helped!

Dewey felt that philosophical thinking in large part involves abstraction, reification, and a tendency to treat as insignificant, and perhaps even as less than real (not really real)--or even unreal, that which is non-cognitive or pre-cognitive. — Ciceronianus the White

The same is true for economic models. The reason behind it is that it is just impossible to create a workable and applicable model if you do not have some constants or assumptions, as changeable as they may be. One of the fundamental assumptions that economics make is that every individual is rational and maximizes his utility. This is very easily refutable when you walk into a supermarket and buy goods based on preferences and pangs of desire instead of optimizing you disposable income.
I suppose that the same kind of logic applies to philosohpy making

Also, following up my initial idea, social psychology presents the concept of self-presentation: The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one´s ideals.
We always strive to be perceived as good and capable as possible. My judgement is that social media is the perfect tool to do as such

I think you are talking about the self-serving bias, the tendency to perceive oneself favorably.
“Absurd presumption in their own good fortune … [arises from]…the overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their own abilities." I do not remember where I took this quote from, but I think it illustrates your point nicely

Are you saying that we validate our existence by receiving attention from other people?