On marriage and having children

[Someone here]

Just now, zurew said:

Why do you put more weight on potential suffering compared to potential happiness here?

I don’t have the credentials to answer this question. I have, however, read a little and find Schopenhauer's stance on this topic quite persuasive:

“The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.”

[Someone here]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

And I would also say that you're also only thinking about the child, but in a different sense. Because once we stop having children, the amount of lives you're going to put through a 100% certainty of hell is certainly not ethically neutral. Once you run out of young people, you're stuck with a bunch of lonely and helpless old people in a collapsing society. The last person that will ever be born will experience a life only describable as death and decay. So which one do you value more: personal consent or global suffering?

Global suffering.  But in the opposite of the way you described .because I live in a country  1.3 billion people people. With more immigrants and rural to urban migrants coming in every day, it’s a very bad idea to have kids. The schools also have metal detectors so you can’t bring a cell phone.

I will be honest..I fucking hate humans and i think we're the worst thing that could ever happened to earth and nature in general. Look at those selfish bastrads killing each other throughout the whole bloody history .WWl and WWll and this  Russo-Ukrainian War. 

Maybe not all humans coz there's still true “good” people out there or at least what i consider not be a piece of shit, i truly hope coronavirus fucks us all and nature can finally be in peace just as it was before we came into existence.

[Someone here]

13 minutes ago, KH2 said:

Would you say that it would be worth it extincting human race, if it meant minimizing universal suffering? How far would you be willing to go with this? Maybe nonexistence is the ultimate state of nonsuffering. I mean, according to your philosophy, it would for sure eraducate suffering - maybe that's the ultimate pleasure. Should we strive to just cease existing?

 

 Yes .ceasing to exist forever is the perfect state.  That's what Leo calls "melting into infinite love " . He doesn't want to blunt about it and tell you that you will have no form forever.

Do you remember before you were born? Weren't you peaceful back then? I don't see why people are afraid of it. Either it's the beginning of another exciting part of a human being's life or it's nothingness and you won't care because you won't know. So I don't think it's anything to worry about. 

20 minutes ago, zurew said:

So why should we value the minimization of suffering over the maximization of happiness?

I answered below :

13 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I don’t have the credentials to answer this question. I have, however, read a little and find Schopenhauer's stance on this topic quite persuasive:

“The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.”

 

[Loba]

On 5/6/2022 at 7:50 AM, Someone here said:

What's your thoughts on marriage, having kids and abortion? 

Marriage - I think other people can get married if they want.  Doesn't matter what sex, either.  Straight, gay, trans, whatever.  But for me personally, I like my freedom.  I love the idea of pair bonding with someone, but not if it comes with a contract that prevents either one of us from ending it - if it doesn't work out in the long term.  I view allowing other people the option to leave or stay to be very important.  I want them to stay because they can choose to leave, not because there is a law preventing them, and that would cost a lot of money in order to remove.  Divorce is expensive.  I also don't like the idea that my partner has to get up in front of their entire family and say their vows, give me a kiss and some silly ring - that I will probably lose because I have a hard time holding onto jewelry - in order to prove to everyone that we know that our relationship is "legit".  I hate that shit.  Plus, rings to me, are uncomfortable.

I like the idea of having my own personalized ceremony that means something special to me.  I like the idea of a collaring ceremony, just for the couple, where the woman wears a thin gold or silver band around her neck that can be unlocked if the connection doesn't work anymore.  It has the same spirit of marriage, but without the permanency and getting other people involved who have no business sticking their nose into my relationship.  Plus, I have no emotional connection or desire for some big party or ceremony centered around just me - this is why I avoid birthdays as well - I like traditions where it is centered around everyone so that the focus isn't on my shit.  That stuff weirds me out.

Kids - Unless you are financially stable, genetically healthy and still viable, mentally sound, you and no one else should be bringing more people into this overpopulated world.  The thing is, there is no ethical way to prevent stupid people from breeding.  And in some cases, there is no access to contraceptives or sex education, or having large families is what is considered appropriate for that culture - but for people who have a choice in the matter and can think their options through, if you're not someone who has everything together in order to raise the best person possible, then you shouldn't be doing it.  Life is rough.  Children need the right circumstances to succeed in this world, to turn into healthy adults.  We have enough dysfunction and genetically unsound people because evolution is no longer culling weaklings, so everyone is allowed to reproduce.  But you can't ethically just force people to stop, either, so I don't know what the solution is for this, other than for people who can make intelligent choices for themselves, if they have the right morality, they will understand that we don't need more people on the planet.  Unless your genes are so outstanding that actually creating another person would be a benefit to the human race, most people don't really need to be having kids.  I have autism, bipolar, a bad heart and an autoimmune disease, plus I am in my mid-30's.  I also, fortunately, don't really have the desire for children.  None of these things deserve to be passed down to future generations.  It seems cruel to have a child when they could end up having a mental disorder or disease that cuts their life.  On top of that, I come from a dysfunctional family and am not fully healed from it.  I get frustrated easily, I lack flexibility and I tend to worry about my needs first.  I child absolutely deserves someone who is over these hurdles in life.  It's fine to have these issues as a standalone, but once you add another dependent person into your world, if you can't give them the very best of you, how fucking fair is that?  It's not.  There are also many children in the world who would love to be adopted, who need a home, why aren't these valuable homes scooping these kids up?  What is it that makes people think that their genetics are even worthy of creating the next generation of humans?  My view is that until people start to actually think about these things, and take ethical approaches into who they are bringing into this crazy, underdeveloped and cold world, that we will eventually cause our own extinction.  There won't be enough to go around.  As it is, disaster in the next few generations for some of these poor and overpopulated countries is looming on the horizon.  Just because it isn't here right now doesn't mean it won't be soon, and people seem to only think about what is happening for them right now and not about the future of mankind.  On top of that, with what we have done to the planet, do we even deserve to go on as a species?  What makes us more deserving than the animals that we destroy?  We don't even care for our planet or our own species.  Unless we can make changes to the way we do things, which I don't ever see happening, then I question the validity of humanity's right to even exist.

Abortion - I am in the middle on this.  I am pro-life in the sense, that if you can find a family for that baby who will adopt it, if you were just irresponsible and had the means to prevent the pregnancy from happening, that you should seek alternatives.  There are a lot of families looking to adopt newborns.  I had a friend in highschool who was too young to keep her baby and she did this.  But I don't think that people should be banned from having abortions, even if I don't agree with them.  Because I am not that person myself, I will never fully know what it is like to be in their shoes and so I don't have the right to tell them what they should be doing with their own body.  There are also circumstances, like where the child would come out so disabled that the parent's life is essentially turned into that of a caretaker until they die, or where the mother could die if she keeps the child, to rape and incest and if you make laws preventing abortions from happening, then you're going to be killing people or forcing people to have children that they can't care for, or can't afford.  When you make abortion laws, there will be dangerous underground abortions, women trying to do it on their own, or children being abandoned in odd places and you can only hope that someone finds them in time.  There is a solution to this, that pro-lifers also, stupidly prevent from happening, which is allowing well funded and detailed sex education to youth in school, so that they understand their bodies, the ramifications of sex, how to prevent pregnancy and STD's, so they can make the right choice - and access to free contraceptives for any woman who needs them.  When you give people the tools and the education to make proactive choices for themselves, most will take it, and this literally solves the abortion problem.  Abortions would become a lot less common if education and contraceptives were made widely available.  But what pro-lifers want to do is prevent people from getting the education they need, prevent them from getting the contraceptives to help them plan out their families, force them to keep the children, and then offer little to no help at all once these babies are born, and then you wonder why these children end up messed up when they are raised in poor households to mothers who never even wanted them in the first place.  Can you imagine, being a child of a parent who didn't want you?  That must be horrible.

[zurew]

@Someone here Schopenhauer doesn't argue in favour of the minimanization of suffering there.

24 minutes ago, Someone here said:

nature can finally be in peace just as it was before we came into existence.

Nature and peace being in the same statement is strange , because nature with or without humans is a fucking battlefield.

[Carl-Richard]

27 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Global suffering.  But in the opposite of the way you described .because I live in a country  1.3 billion people people. With more immigrants and rural to urban migrants coming in every day, it’s a very bad idea to have kids. The schools also have metal detectors so you can’t bring a cell phone.

I will be honest..I fucking hate humans and i think we're the worst thing that could ever happened to earth and nature in general. Look at those selfish bastrads killing each other throughout the whole bloody history .WWl and WWll and this  Russo-Ukrainian War. 

Maybe not all humans coz there's still true “good” people out there or at least what i consider not be a piece of shit, i truly hope coronavirus fucks us all and nature can finally be in peace just as it was before we came into existence.

Shame, despair, disappointment, fear. Where is the courage? The love?

[Someone here]

15 minutes ago, KH2 said:

Why have we decided to imagine this world then, why has God created us into existence? If nonexistence was so great, we wouldn't be here. There's no "you" to experience pleasure or pain when you're not existing, or to experience experience. There's no purpose behind not existing. God would just be bored for eternity.

 

Very profound question. Why is there “something” instead of “nothing”?

You can ponder this for a while, and most of us have, to greater or lesser degree. But those of us who have not gone crazy trying to answer this, have eventually come to the conclusion that “It just is!”.

In answer to the question “Yes but why?” we have to accept everything has a cause, some things just are, and “everything” (that exists) simply exists! Sorry! No more answer.

These are no longer questions about reality itself, these are questions about our own mind, and how it can possibly understand anything. Well this is one “thing” that our mind will never understand, you can choose to agonize over it for the rest of your life, or you can just accept it as a given fact and and move on.

Good question! Very profound! Had me cycling for many cycles before I finally gave in to factual reality and the rest of my life. Still worth asking, even if there ain’t no answer! Good question none the less

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Shame, despair, disappointment, fear. Where is the courage? The love?

I'm a realist .I don’t recommend fantasy. Love ? That sounds like Santa Claus. I'm not an advocate for pink unicorns and butterflies.  

Reality Is tough.  At some point it will hit you . Maybe because you are still young and healthy and have received a good care from your parents and society. But you wil get sick .you will get old .you will die .think about that .picture your own death. The levels of fear and mania will reach infinity.

Think about all the absolutely insane and fucked up scenarios that your life could turn into if you are not being careful.  I'm simply rejecting the whole gamble.  Sorry life is harsh. I would be a bitch if i Bring an Innocent soul to this universe to suffer all the weird shit we humans have to  face inevitablely in our life. 

[thepixelmonk]

5 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I'm a realist .I don’t recommend fantasy. Love ? That sounds like Santa Claus. I'm not an advocate for pink unicorns and butterflies.  

Reality Is tough.  At some point it will hit you . Maybe because you are still young and healthy and have received a good care from your parents and society. But you wil get sick .you will get old .you will die .think about that .picture your own death. The levels of fear and mania will reach infinity.

Think about all the absolutely insane and fucked up scenarios that your life could turn into if you are not being careful.  I'm simply rejecting the whole gamble.  Sorry life is harsh. I would be a bitch if i Bring an Innocent soul to this universe to suffer all the weird shit we humans have to  face inevitablely in our life. 

This is nothing but a projection of your own fear and insecurities onto someone else. Love is certainly not a "pink unicorn or butterfly", you've just become too jaded in your own life to see it any other way. With you as the parent, yeah maybe you shouldn't have kids.

[Someone here]

39 minutes ago, zurew said:

@Someone here 

Nature and peace being in the same statement is strange , because nature with or without humans is a fucking battlefield.

Then why put more gas on the fire ?

[Someone here]

16 minutes ago, thepixelmonk said:

This is nothing but a projection of your own fear and insecurities onto someone else. Love is certainly not a "pink unicorn or butterfly", you've just become too jaded in your own life to see it any other way. With you as the parent, yeah maybe you shouldn't have kids.

Look ..i have no problem with people having kids . My objections are ethical ones .and its for myself primarily. I don't want to bring kids into this cruel world to suffer and die in without taking their permission.  I say I won't do it .I'm not preaching that everyone should do it .

[zurew]

9 hours ago, Someone here said:

Then why put more gas on the fire ?

I think thats not the right question, because you can't stop survival and the fights in nature, even if you kill all humans.

I also think that humans being alive doesn't necessarily implies, that we have to cause more suffering than if we weren't alive.

9 hours ago, Someone here said:

My objections are ethical ones .and its for myself primarily. I don't want to bring kids into this cruel world to suffer and die in without taking their permission

I think you can't use permission and consent as an argument, where there is none. This argument could go both ways, maybe they would want to have a life but maybe they don't, the point is that you don't know, and you can't make your moral argument based on the assumption, that maybe they wouldn't want to live.

You are basically the decision maker here no matter what you do:

• If you want to have a child you make the decision them coming to life without their consent
• If you don't want to have a child you make the decision them not having a life at all (and this is also your deicison)

You are responsible in both cases, and you make a choice without the child's permission or consent.

Edited September 11, 2022 by zurew

[Someone here]

3 hours ago, zurew said:

 I think thats not the right question, because you can't stop survival and the fights in nature, even if you kill all humans.

I also think that humans being alive doesn't necessarily implies, that we have to cause more suffering than if we weren't alive

If one views the continuation of the species as a good that overrides the evil of creating life without consent then you can decide that having children is justified.

3 hours ago, zurew said:

think you can't use permission and consent as an argument, where there is none. This argument could go both ways, maybe they would want to have a life but maybe they don't, the point is that you don't know, and you can't make your moral argument based on the assumption, that maybe they wouldn't want to live.

You are basically the decision maker here no matter what you do:

• If you want to have a child you make the decision them coming to life without their consent
• If you don't want to have a child you make the decision them not having a life at all (and this is also your deicison)

You are responsible in both cases, and you make a choice without the child's permission or consent

Yes exactly. It's my choice .not theirs .so how can that be moral ? It would be like being forced to attend a birthday party without your permission.  You could want to go or you could not want .but in any case you shouldn't be forced to make that decision from outside. 

Bringing new bundles of mostly unmet needs into this already overpopulated world seems selfish, foolish, or careless to me, depending on whether you do it on purpose or just follow the natalist programming as most people end up doing.

I think that too many people don’t consider how big of a deal it is that they can create someone who might wish they didn’t exist. As someone who has struggled with depression I can’t say that I’m altogether thankful that I was born. Depends on the day lol 

[Tyler Robinson]

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

think that too many people don’t consider how big of a deal it is that they can create someone who might wish they didn’t exist. As someone who has struggled with depression I can’t say that I’m altogether thankful that I was born. Depends on the day lol 

I think I can relate. I have suffered from depression and I've been through moments where I didn't want to live and that can be a horrible place. 

[Someone here]

11 minutes ago, Tyler Robinson said:

I think I can relate. I have suffered from depression and I've been through moments where I didn't want to live and that can be a horrible place. 

Sorry to hear that . Yeah life sometimes can be gross pain in the ass .and sometimes you have nothing to do about but to just accept it and surrender to It. And helping people with depression isn't always easy.I feel helping others is a skill.

You can get better and better and it's not something that everyone can do effectively.

I've talked to people who've said things like, "I suck at helping people. I just don't know what to say."

"I get so frustrated and impatient so I just don't help people."

Even with friends, people can struggle with it.Sure you care for them but you don't know how to help them in a way that's reasonable.You can't fix or cure anyone.Not even a therapist can do that.

Too often when someone suffers from depression, or any mental illness for that matter, there is a stigma that comes into play. The stigma being that a person has erred to function in a "normal" way. This makes people uncomfortable and then they need distance.

People who suffer from depression, myself included, do a fine job of putting distance between themselves and others. We don't need more distance. What we need is people to show up and be there for us.

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

If one views the continuation of the species as a good that overrides the evil of creating life without consent then you can decide that having children is justified.

Its only evil if you start with the 'minimization of suffering' axiom. That axiom necessarily leads to anti life positions, and to killing everyone, but it seems to me , that you don't truly want to live up to that , because if you would truly believe in that moral axiom, you would have already murdered some people.

 

So because of your axiom, you basically have a position where you don't consider the mass murder of the entire human race as evil, but you consider creating life as evil.

Edited September 11, 2022 by zurew

[Someone here]

@zurew look dude ..Despite all  the mental gymnastics people try to do to justify their own existence or cursing their children with the unfortunate state of existence without their consent, antinatalism is objectively true. There is no justification for our existences or for imposing existence on new individuals. It's just a fact .

Any amount of pain, however small or insignificant, negates any value of existence. Even if our lives were 99.999…% pleasure and 0.000…01% pain it would STILL be better never to exist due to that small amount of pain. It matters not how much “good” there is in life, it does not make up for even the slightest amount of pain.

Alas, there is no such life. There is no such life that is more good than bad. If we were to look at our lives objectively we’d see there is much more bad than good in even the best of lives. We just do not realize how bad our lives really are. We are totally unaware of most of the pain and suffering we endure on a day-to-day basis. 

[zurew]

@Someone here None of your reasoning is applied in practice, because you don't truly believe in your own morality.

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Any amount of pain, however small or insignificant, negates any value of existence. Even if our lives were 99.999…% pleasure and 0.000…01% pain it would STILL be better never to exist due to that small amount of pain

If this would be objectively true, we would have killed ourselves a long time ago.

[Kksd74628]

@Someone here

You're thinking this from biased lens and wrong mindset. Because for you life has seemed to be suffering, you don't want that to anyone, but remember that to person whose life has been incredibly beautiful having children would just be giving gift. Also wouldn't you want to have awesome sex if that'd cost a little pain? You're looking life from bad perspective, because it shouldn't be about minimizing suffering, but increasing love and happiness. As I said, fix your life before trying to rationalize deep moral questions, because otherwise you'd come to wrong conclusions.

[Someone here]

8 minutes ago, zurew said:

 If this would be objectively true, we would have killed ourselves a long time ago.

And thousands of people take their own life away every year . Do you know that suicide is the 2nd most common cause of death globally every year ?

Why do you think suicide even exist?  If life is meant to be lived happily then why does bad shit keep happening to you but just because you are afraid of death you delay your suicide because of fear of a worse situation after death than your current life . That's really all it boils down to .

4 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

@Someone here

You're thinking this from biased lens and wrong mindset. Because for you life has seemed to be suffering, you don't want that to anyone, but remember that to person whose life has been incredibly beautiful having children would just be giving gift. Also wouldn't you want to have awesome sex if that'd cost a little pain? You're looking life from bad perspective, because it shouldn't be about minimizing suffering, but increasing love and happiness. As I said, fix your life before trying to rationalize deep moral questions, because otherwise you'd come to wrong conclusions.

Well..Im aware that it has both negatives and positives  . I'm here specifically focusing on the negativity of it .

assuming more people choose not to have kids, there will be less instances of screaming babies in theaters and restaurants. There is a benefit.

There will also be less babies taking up resources so more for the rest of us.

There will also be less infants suffering due to being unwanted and likely in abusive households or orphanages whose quality of life is absolute shit .