Ok, I get you. "why would even a little sadness make life worse than painfree non-existence? If it can be proven that they will live a life of mostly positives, isn't that by default better than not existing". Yeah it does feel that way to me too, but then I think living people like us are too prone to bias when judging whether existence or non-existence is better. The thought of never living life does sound quite miserable to us, but then you can't experience any sadness before you're born at the thought of never living life, so it'd make no difference to a not-yet-living person. Same with when you say that feeling something is better than feeling nothing, the thought of never feeling anything sounds empty to us, but it'd make no difference to a non-existing person.
I do think it is a bit extreme alright though to say that it wouldn't be worth being born, if you were guaranteed a mostly happy and easy life. I like the idea of antinatalism just to encourage people not to have kids if they can't give them a decent upbringing. But even though I can't find any fault with their argument that no one at all should be born, no matter what life they'd be born into, I still don't take it seriously.
Oh yeah, they would need to know their genetics and general health as well alright, I forgot about that. And I suppose their home may not necessarily be ok just because they're in a generally good community, so maybe they should know that too. I'd say that'd be enough information for them to make an informed decision though. But even with this information, I don't think they'd always choose to be born, especially with the very good chance of encountering some serious pain in life, like developing cancer or watching a spouse/child die or something. Not to mention the guaranteed anguish of eventually dying yourself anyway.
I'm not saying nonexistence is miserable, just that it's nothing. I make some subjective arguments, but saying that a life needs to be perfect to be worth being born into is a pretty huge fault in their argument, since that is itself very subjective. Antinatalism describes nonexistence as a wholly positive state, and not just slightly positive, but positive enough to require a perfect life to make up for losing it. The fault in their argument is exactly that.
For them to know that cancer exists without someone in their family having it, you would need to tell them that. The bigger the list of things you're telling them, the more open to bias the information gets. Present them with "you'll die eventually and it's probably going to hurt" and "people you love will die", and they will probably say no. Present them with "you will feel great pride as you accomplish things" and "you get to have orgasms", and they will probably say yes. It goes back to what I meant before about how they shouldn't trust anything we say. It also relates to the previous paragraph about attributing a wholly positive value to nonexistence. For all we know, you could present a completely negative view of life and they will still always choose to be born.
Basically, the idea that they would likely choose not to be born is entrenched in the idea that nonexistence is great. Not merely nothing. It's actually great.
Well I guess they think that because of what I wrote in my original post, that non-existence is perfectly pain-free, and that you don't miss the absence of positive emotions. So it's perfectly non-distressing. Plus the very fact that they hold that opinion but you don't, shows that people have different opinions about it, which means the non-existent person may not want to be born if he knew all the information and could somehow make that choice, and so they believe that we shouldn't give birth to them since we can't get their opinion or consent.
Well yeah, I guess if we told them about life then it would likely be biased either way. A happy person would tell them how great it is, while an unhappy person would tell them how miserable it is. The only way they would be able to make the decision really would be if they were born and got to experience it first, but then obviously they wouldn't be non-existent anymore.
Consider this: I'm taking more of an absolutist stance on the opinion nonexistent persons might have, since attributing any individuality to them would start getting into religion and spirituality. They can't really otherwise be individuals because they don't exist. They can't have pre-existing opinions, so it's all or nothing. Given the same information, all of them would react the same way, so the only difference is what information they're given.
If you look at it that way, their consent isn't important because it can be easily bought. It's more about making a valid decision yourself (as the parent) based on your own circumstances, since that's the information that you would likely be passing onto them, anyway. The moral argument of whether it's right to bring them out of nonexistence in the first place basically just circles back to my original post about "0 != 1".
"Given the same information, all of them would react the same way". I'm not sure they would. Maybe they would if that information was biased, but if they were to get a fair view of the world, through experiencing it themselves (even though that doesn't make sense because they'd have to be born to do that), then they would all make different choices depending on their opinion.
"their consent isn't important because it can be easily bought". I don't know what you mean here tbh. I guess their consent wouldn't be important if they would all make the choice to be born, but like I said, I don't think they would.
What I meant with that is that if you wanted them to be born, convincing them would be easy because all you have to do is present them with positive information. They can't get a fair view of the world without living in it first, but since we already know they can't do that, it would come down to what they're told and who's telling them. I assume an antinatalist would say something similar except, under that idea, all of the unborn would say "No" rather than "Yes" (since adding any more variance would make the ideology way more immoral, since ultimately we're making the decision for them either way).
Even if you prescribe them with individuality, you could look at any regular human's reaction to the same thing. Given an activity you know absolutely nothing about except the name, how easily could you be swayed in one direction or the other to engage in it?
Oh ok. Well I don't disagree that it'd be easy to sway their decision if you gave them an unbalanced view of life, but if they somehow experienced it for themselves first then they may not choose to be born.
"They can't get a fair view of the world without living in it first, but since we already know they can't do that, it would come down to what they're told and who's telling them". But it's impossible for them to be told anything before they're born either, so neither of these scenarios make sense. They're both hypothetical.
I'd say most people would be wary to engage in an activity without finding out more about it than what just one person tells them.
What do you think of antinatalism?
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Ok, I get you. "why would even a little sadness make life worse than painfree non-existence? If it can be proven that they will live a life of mostly positives, isn't that by default better than not existing". Yeah it does feel that way to me too, but then I think living people like us are too prone to bias when judging whether existence or non-existence is better. The thought of never living life does sound quite miserable to us, but then you can't experience any sadness before you're born at the thought of never living life, so it'd make no difference to a not-yet-living person. Same with when you say that feeling something is better than feeling nothing, the thought of never feeling anything sounds empty to us, but it'd make no difference to a non-existing person.
I do think it is a bit extreme alright though to say that it wouldn't be worth being born, if you were guaranteed a mostly happy and easy life. I like the idea of antinatalism just to encourage people not to have kids if they can't give them a decent upbringing. But even though I can't find any fault with their argument that no one at all should be born, no matter what life they'd be born into, I still don't take it seriously.
Oh yeah, they would need to know their genetics and general health as well alright, I forgot about that. And I suppose their home may not necessarily be ok just because they're in a generally good community, so maybe they should know that too. I'd say that'd be enough information for them to make an informed decision though. But even with this information, I don't think they'd always choose to be born, especially with the very good chance of encountering some serious pain in life, like developing cancer or watching a spouse/child die or something. Not to mention the guaranteed anguish of eventually dying yourself anyway.
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Anonnet
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I'm not saying nonexistence is miserable, just that it's nothing. I make some subjective arguments, but saying that a life needs to be perfect to be worth being born into is a pretty huge fault in their argument, since that is itself very subjective. Antinatalism describes nonexistence as a wholly positive state, and not just slightly positive, but positive enough to require a perfect life to make up for losing it. The fault in their argument is exactly that.
For them to know that cancer exists without someone in their family having it, you would need to tell them that. The bigger the list of things you're telling them, the more open to bias the information gets. Present them with "you'll die eventually and it's probably going to hurt" and "people you love will die", and they will probably say no. Present them with "you will feel great pride as you accomplish things" and "you get to have orgasms", and they will probably say yes. It goes back to what I meant before about how they shouldn't trust anything we say. It also relates to the previous paragraph about attributing a wholly positive value to nonexistence. For all we know, you could present a completely negative view of life and they will still always choose to be born.
Basically, the idea that they would likely choose not to be born is entrenched in the idea that nonexistence is great. Not merely nothing. It's actually great.
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JellyBeanBandit
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Well I guess they think that because of what I wrote in my original post, that non-existence is perfectly pain-free, and that you don't miss the absence of positive emotions. So it's perfectly non-distressing. Plus the very fact that they hold that opinion but you don't, shows that people have different opinions about it, which means the non-existent person may not want to be born if he knew all the information and could somehow make that choice, and so they believe that we shouldn't give birth to them since we can't get their opinion or consent.
Well yeah, I guess if we told them about life then it would likely be biased either way. A happy person would tell them how great it is, while an unhappy person would tell them how miserable it is. The only way they would be able to make the decision really would be if they were born and got to experience it first, but then obviously they wouldn't be non-existent anymore.
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Anonnet
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Exactly.
Consider this: I'm taking more of an absolutist stance on the opinion nonexistent persons might have, since attributing any individuality to them would start getting into religion and spirituality. They can't really otherwise be individuals because they don't exist. They can't have pre-existing opinions, so it's all or nothing. Given the same information, all of them would react the same way, so the only difference is what information they're given.
If you look at it that way, their consent isn't important because it can be easily bought. It's more about making a valid decision yourself (as the parent) based on your own circumstances, since that's the information that you would likely be passing onto them, anyway. The moral argument of whether it's right to bring them out of nonexistence in the first place basically just circles back to my original post about "0 != 1".
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JellyBeanBandit
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"Given the same information, all of them would react the same way". I'm not sure they would. Maybe they would if that information was biased, but if they were to get a fair view of the world, through experiencing it themselves (even though that doesn't make sense because they'd have to be born to do that), then they would all make different choices depending on their opinion.
"their consent isn't important because it can be easily bought". I don't know what you mean here tbh. I guess their consent wouldn't be important if they would all make the choice to be born, but like I said, I don't think they would.
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Anonnet
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What I meant with that is that if you wanted them to be born, convincing them would be easy because all you have to do is present them with positive information. They can't get a fair view of the world without living in it first, but since we already know they can't do that, it would come down to what they're told and who's telling them. I assume an antinatalist would say something similar except, under that idea, all of the unborn would say "No" rather than "Yes" (since adding any more variance would make the ideology way more immoral, since ultimately we're making the decision for them either way).
Even if you prescribe them with individuality, you could look at any regular human's reaction to the same thing. Given an activity you know absolutely nothing about except the name, how easily could you be swayed in one direction or the other to engage in it?
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Oh ok. Well I don't disagree that it'd be easy to sway their decision if you gave them an unbalanced view of life, but if they somehow experienced it for themselves first then they may not choose to be born.
"They can't get a fair view of the world without living in it first, but since we already know they can't do that, it would come down to what they're told and who's telling them". But it's impossible for them to be told anything before they're born either, so neither of these scenarios make sense. They're both hypothetical.
I'd say most people would be wary to engage in an activity without finding out more about it than what just one person tells them.