Come see the dis-logic inherent in the statement! Help! Help! I’m being recessed…
Seriously…do you not see the contradictions here? If life is so worthless, why do you still cling to it? Why are you still alive? And if, miserable as you are, you still DO cling to something you say is so worthless as life, then does that not tell you something? It certainly tells me something important about both you and the discussion…that being that you really don’t believe the line you are putting out, and that neither do the others (including the OP), because if you did we wouldn’t be having these discussions, because you’d be dead and I’d be off playing with the kids…
Yes, I’ve nonexisted. I nonexisted before I was born. Unfortunately, since I didn’t exist, I don’t know what that was like. So … after I die, and I don’t exist anymore, I figure it will be a lot like that. And since the only frame of reference I have is existing, and armed with the knowledge that once I don’t exist anymore there is no coming back from it, much like WHAM!, I choose life. And all it’s suffering.
I’m not sure what your problem is, but I don’t think I’ve given you any reason to be rude to me.
Firstly, I am certainly not miserable. To say that, over the course of a lifetime, the joy of life isn’t worth the pain, does not imply that a person must currently be miserable, or even slightly unhappy.
Secondly, I think that suicide is a perfectly reasonable course of action for a person who thinks the way I do. Taking into account only my own best interest, yes, it would be a logical thing to do. However, I also consider the interest of my loved ones, and, for now, I’m willing to remain alive in order to spare them from pain.
FWIW, I think it’s very likely that I will, at some point, voluntarily end my life. Perhaps if I was diagnosed with a serious illness, or perhaps when I’m older, after my parents are gone.
This is a matter of opinion, with which I happen to violently disagree. I know there are possibly quite a lot of people in the world for whom the equation doesn’t balance, and maybe some more who just perceive it that way for one reason or another, but I, for one, am happy to be here. Without life, there is no suffering, but without life, there is also no possibility to appreciate happiness, joy, elation, ecstacy, love, passion, laughter, comfort, chocolate, cheese, beer, orgasms, sunsets, custard, etc, etc.
Obviously I would not be here to be sad that I was missing all of those things and more if I was not here, but I am here, and I am glad of it, therefore, in at least one case, having a child was not unethical.
No, the point is to eliminate the “clinging” or “neediness” within yourself that is making you experience life as suffering.
The sort of inner adolescent who says stuff like “I’m sad, and so I think everyone would be better off if they had never been born”. This is an attitude which everyone has a bit of - the notion that our thwarted desires (for health, for goods, for meaning, whatever) are fundamental laws, like gravity.
It offers a plan to avoid this: the so-called “Eightfold Path” divided into three basic divisions, basically: thinking ‘correctly’ about the true causes of suffering (clinginess); to act correctly and ethically; and meditation.
Now, I’m not a Buddhist, because though I think they make some good points, I do not see the world as composed of “clinging”.
In short, it is not that the buddhist never wants or needs anything, it is rather that the buddhist is not overcome or driven by wants or needs, to the point where they dispair about life. Rather, Buddhism is supposed to liberate the buddhist from the wounds of existence, so that they can actually experience life as joy and not as suffering.
Ah, so it is God’s fault. Actually, our society devotes a good bit of effort into helping women who have a hard time having children to do so.
Huh? Are you calling my daughter’s advisor Eve or the serpent? They actually get along quite well.
As I said, they were both trying, but 60 years ago people didn’t discuss the details of their reproductive life quite as freely as they do today. I can conceive ( ) of cases where women were pressured to have kids, but we both were quite wanted.
I think love is quite independent of who works. Couples who both have to work don’t do it to get an Xbox. Don’t you think a parent who is forced to give up a career he or she loves to stay home with a kid might not give as much love as someone who is happy both working and parenting?
Of course it is ethical to not have kids. It is not ethical to force someone to have kids, and I doubt it is very ethical to force people to not have kids. A population crash would not be a good thing, since we need a decent number of young people to support older people. If everyone had two kids at most, the population would soon decline to reasonable levels since there will always be people who cannot or who do not wish to have kids. (I have two also.)
I argued above that it is ethical to have kids you can support. I think I might be able to argue that having too many kids for the world to support if everyone did it is not all that ethical.
This is sort of scary if you think about it for too long, because it doesn’t seem like it would be a million-mile journey from there to “I think it would be better if everybody stopped living”. Maybe it’s just my imagination.
I think the question is misleading. I think your choice to have or not have children is ethical or unethical depending on the intentions behind your choice. For example, knowing that you would be a unfit parent, or that you live in an environment unfit for a child, not having children would be an ethical decision. On the other hand, if you are confident in your potential ability as a parent, and you have made efforts to create an enriching environment for a child, then that person having children would be just as ethical a decision as the last person not having children.
Wel, yeah, that’s how most people look at it - as an individual issue.
But if I understand the OP correctly, they are asking a different question - namely the ethics of bringing a new life into the world, irrespective of personal factors: the thesis being that having children is wrong per se, even if you are the best and most loving parent in the world. In a word, antinatalism.
Sorta reminds me of the sect imagined by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, I believe in * A Universal History of Infamy*, modeled on the Gnostics, that thought that ‘mirrors and parenthood were both abhorrent’ because ‘they both sinfully multiply the image of humanity’.
I don’t follow your logic. There are too many people for us all to drive Range Rovers, true - but instead of limiting the amount of children people can have, why not conserve resources by outlawing Range Rovers? I don’t see why the push is to reduce total birth rate rather than reducing general wastefulness. We few Americans use more resources than billions of people in poor countries, yet we worry about ‘overpopulation’…
I’m not saying that at all, and I don’t think lurking guest was saying it either. If I read his screed correctly, it boils down to “love makes you do the whacky”. That is to say, loving your partner, or yourself, or X leads you to have kids, in spite of the notion that the odds are stacked against the happiness of the child.
I’m not sure where you read that in my words. Love’s extremely nice. It’s a wonderful feeling to, err, feel. I’m just aware that it doesn’t ultimately stem from an objective or reasonable part of me. When I say love isn’t rational or objective, this is not a put down or a judgement of value.
Again, not dismissing. I’m extremely fond of love ;). But you’re right, reality is probably not the right word. Reason would be more adequate. IOW, emotions (good or bad) make you do the whacky. And I’m fine with that.
I wasn’t talking about the universe as an entity, but if there is any other form of life out there inhabiting the universe it is probably better off not meeting us, particularly if it is less technologically advanced than us.
Look at all the examples of where colonists have decimated indigenous populations that were less technologically, not culturally, adavnced than themselves. We, the Brits, did it, you Americans did it and still are.
What I should have said was, we should stay here and die out because any hypothetical inhabitants of the universe will be better off not meeting us.
I can’t imagine how awful life must be for someone to believe that life is nothing but toil and no matter how many good things happen it is still full of suck and no one should be brought into the world ever again. Seriously, have you never had a piece of chocolate cake? Have you never laid in bed and listened to the rhythmic sound of your lover breathing as you drifted off to sleep? Have you never built a snowman? Have you never seen this youtube video? Never snorgled a kitten’s belly? If someone told me tomorrow that I had to endure several hours of torture a day but after that I got to eat some cake, pet a kitty, build a snowman and make love to my husband I would totally consider that a win. Considering that I can do all those things (weather permitting) without the hours of torture I think my life might just be perfect and I thank all that is holy in this world that my parents didn’t try to spare me from the horrors of life.
Since this is never going to happen, it’s not relevant. We are not leaving this solar system. This is our home, and that is it. My descendants will live and die on Earth. We’re not even leaving this planet in substantial numbers. Mars would be a huge, huge accomplishment to put people on on a permanent basis, and anything further won’t be done. In the billion to one chance that some of our descendants DO leave this solar system, their civilization, and perhaps even biology, will be unrecognizable to us. They won’t be human in the sense we currently understand it.
Adopting a stance of antinatalism 'cause you’re worried about what we’ll do to the hapless natives of 54 Piscium Gamma is very much like deciding you’re not going to go out to play golf because you’re worried you might be eaten by a velociraptor. It’s absurd.
Actually, our society devotes a good bit of effort into helping women who have a hard time having children to do so.
) of cases where women were pressured to have kids, but we both were quite wanted.