[HN Gopher] Having children is not life-affirming: it's immoral ...
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Having children is not life-affirming: it's immoral (2017)
Author : elorant
Score : 19 points
Date : 2021-04-01 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aeon.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
| zaknil wrote:
| The guy is doing his best trying to eradicate from the gene pool
| the kind of people receptive to arguments like his. In other
| words, he's doing God's work.
| mjfl wrote:
| I'm good hearted, but too stupid to understand his argument, so I
| will continue having as many children as I possibly can. The
| world in 400 years will be filled with my descendants, living
| good hearted lives stupidly, being harmed, causing harm, and
| reproducing rapidly!
| king_magic wrote:
| By this same logic, myself drinking a glass of water is immoral.
| My entire existence is immoral.
|
| Absurd philosophy, absurd reasoning, absurd conclusion.
| anm89 wrote:
| It's amazing how someone's entire life can revolve around
| philosophy(ie being a philosophy academic) and they fail to
| grasp basic tenets or really be any good at it at all.
| virgulino wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
| pmastela wrote:
| > The question is not _whether_ humans will become extinct, but
| rather _when_ they will. If the anti-natalist arguments are
| correct, it would be better, all things being equal, if this
| happened sooner rather than later for, the sooner it happens, the
| more suffering and misfortune will be avoided.
|
| By this rhetoric, life itself will one day end and since life is
| the source of all suffering, one might even argue hurrying along
| the process of destroying life. This I cannot get behind so I
| guess that makes me a pro-natalist.
| sneak wrote:
| There is a huge difference between destruction and failing to
| create.
| inpdx wrote:
| "Life is simply much worse than most people think..."
|
| What a weird statement. Your life is literally exactly as good or
| as bad as you think it is.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Judging other people's lives is a constant feature of my
| existence. Is starving yourself to be a model a good life, is
| being a porn star better than my life, should Donald Trump be
| happy with his life, were British coal miners' lives worth
| living. I worry that I'm getting my own life wrong and think
| I'm hot shit when I'm a loser, or that I'm living the life of a
| loser when I could be enjoying it. Basically, a social animal
| should constantly be evaluating whether its opinion of its own
| life is correct, so as not to have unwarranted confidence or
| low self-esteem.
| digital-cygnet wrote:
| This does not appear to be an April Fool's Day joke or otherwise
| satirical. It is, however, hard to make seriously. If I'm
| understanding him right, the claim is that it is a moral wrong to
| being someone new into the universe and the supporting evidence
| for this is: - The worst pain is more bad than
| the greatest pleasure is good - Satisfaction is fleeting
| - Lifespan is limited and bad things happen more than they
| ideally ought to - Humans cause ecological and social
| damage.
|
| What astounds me is that nowhere in this 3400 word piece does the
| author consider (a) the frequencies of pain vs pleasure, or (b)
| the _good_ done by humans in the world. He notes that "daily
| life is filled with dishonesty, betrayal, negligence,... Of such
| harms, everybody is, to varying degrees, a perpetrator," but
| misses the obvious corollary: life can also be full of honesty,
| loyalty, love, etc. These too would not exist without people.
| This focus only on the debit side of the moral ledger of humanity
| is an oversight bordering on intellectual dishonesty.
|
| The point about ecological damage, and the existence of adoptable
| children, are both more reasonable critiques of "natalism". That
| is a nuanced topic worthy of discussion, but this article doesnt
| add much to the discourse there, more adding them as an
| afterthought to the overwrought "existence is pain" thesis.
|
| Edit: formatting and clarity
| theodric wrote:
| We don't need no people, we need fewer people. A lot of our
| problems would be less pronounced of we simply reduced their
| scale.
|
| https://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/
| sneak wrote:
| There is no consensus or scientific basis for the claim "we
| need fewer people".
|
| Pure opinions such as this should, IMO, come with an argument
| for holding such a view, especially when presented as a
| statement of fact.
| falcolas wrote:
| Any attempts to create a consensus or scientific basis
| would, based on our current society's views towards
| science, only further to harden people's stance that
| science is wrong. Especially if it agreed with the
| principle that fewer people would be better for the
| environment.
|
| Which makes sense, logically. Fulfilling a human's basic
| needs involves world-wide supply chains filled with oil-
| guzzling vehicles. Fulfilling their entertainment needs
| requires even more of the same.
| raarts wrote:
| Human population will peak around 2065, and drop off
| afterwards. This is the consequence of birth rates dropping
| (even in Africa) wherever people get our or poverty, and
| women can afford birth control.
|
| There is no need to be worried about overpopulation in the
| long run. If the trend continues we'll be extinct in a few
| thousand years.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/world-population-
| sh...
| sneak wrote:
| I don't think it's hard to take seriously, and at least one of
| the claims you make about TFA is factually incorrect.
| kbelder wrote:
| Yeah, I've always found these nihilists to be fairly shallow;
| they're stuck working from a bad perspective and can't allow
| for others. If you tell them that your life is mostly good and
| a net positive, they'll think you're lying or deceived.
|
| I get that their life sucks; but my kids are happy, just like
| me, and a universe without them is a poorer place. Also, their
| existence allows for indefinitely more descendants, the
| overwhelming majority of which will be happy to be alive.
|
| As a capper, I have four kids, so I've MORE than replaced
| myself.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Hey, not all of us nihilists are pessimists. Some of us enjoy
| existence, whether or not it is an illusion or serves any
| purpose.
| rayiner wrote:
| I'm trying to take the article seriously on my own terms, but it
| seems to me to fall short even then. It mentions that people
| suffer, and that non-existence may be preferable to suffering.
| Even insofar as that's true, don't people also experience
| happiness and joy, and isn't that preferable to non-existence?
| Why ignore one side of the equation. Surely it's the net balance
| that matters?
|
| In polling, most people around the world rate themselves as
| "happy" or "very happy." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-30629478.
| In Africa, a poor continent where many people experience
| suffering, 83% of people rate themselves as happy or very happy.
| The simplest things in life, including having children and
| forming families, makes people happy, regardless of the suffering
| that might also be a part of their life.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Does that mean sleep is a bad thing, because it cuts off so
| much more happiness and joy than suffering? As important to
| eliminate sleep as death? I'd rather sleep forever and never
| know happiness than stay awake and ever feel pain. It just
| doesn't matter what you forgo if you aren't around to miss it.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Even insofar as that's true, don't people also experience
| happiness and joy, and isn't that preferable to non-existence?
|
| Unless you're implying an argument from personal incredulity,
| it seems the quote in the 2nd paragraph of the article fully
| answers this question.
| gregjor wrote:
| Living and procreation are natural processes. All living things
| strive to survive and procreate. Morality does not apply to
| natural processes: an earthquake that kills people is neither
| moral nor immoral, it just is.
|
| To call procreation immoral assumes some moral standard human
| beings have all agreed to, or one we are subject to whether we
| agree or not. No such moral standard exists. The dominant systems
| of morality throughout history have placed great value on life
| and having children, so on the whole it seems human beings have
| decided reproducing is not immoral. Hardly surprising since
| nature arrived at that "decision" without any moral question.
|
| I have three children.
| sneak wrote:
| Dying in terrible agony of preventable childhood diseases are
| also natural processes. An appeal to nature is not an argument
| for something's inherent goodness.
| vimy wrote:
| This must be this year's April Fools article.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > This must be this year's April Fools article.
|
| No, it's just the continued folly of the publish or die mantra
| of academia; this guy is a professor of philosophy and probably
| wrote that to cash in the 'controversy sells' narrative that
| has made so many otherwise mediocre people come into the
| limelight.
|
| Academia is known for this kind of trite, esepcially in the non
| Sciences, hence all the trolling for SJW woke, fem-nazi BS that
| universities in the West have been pumping out all while China
| has been focusing on sending their kids to the best
| universities in the West's STEM fields to take advantage of the
| native's perpetual navel gazing and outrage culture tantrums.
|
| It's gross, and I saw the uptick of it when I left University
| in before the 2010s and it already looked bad, I'd later visit
| several prominent university years later (including CalTtech)
| and all but a place like Caltech had the same thing--safe
| spaces, genederless bathrooms, outrage culture firings etc...
| It was pathetic to see as a person that had to struggle just to
| get a seat in impacted classes just to graduate in 5 years that
| this much effort was put on such vapid things.
|
| The joke is what academia has become, this is just a symptom of
| it.
| shishy wrote:
| It's from 2017.
| postalrat wrote:
| http://www.philosophy.uct.ac.za/philosophy/staff/benatar
|
| Can't help to feel this guy is some sort of maxed out internet
| troll.
| yakubin wrote:
| Is there a browser extension for filtering out HN submissions
| from nonsense domains like aeon.co?
| anm89 wrote:
| Sounds great. The other extension Id love is to filter out
| everything related to Gordon Ramsey on the entire internet.
|
| I would venture a guess that half of a percent of all internet
| content I encounter is Gordon ramsey related and for some
| reason this really bothers me that I have to be constantly
| exposed to the ramblings of this moron.
| [deleted]
| ac42 wrote:
| And should that noble standard apply to humans specifically, or
| to life in general?
|
| First world problems, my guess.
| dqpb wrote:
| Moral philosophy is immoral.
| honkycat wrote:
| I don't like anti-natalism for the same reason I don't like anti-
| theism and militant veganism: It isn't an effective strategy for
| convincing people, and does little other than make people more
| set in their ways due to the backfire effect. [0]
|
| A lot of this conversation leads from the millennial baby bust.
| There is a podcast called "Chapo Trap House" that talked about
| the baby bust ( they are pro-natalist if you were curious ), and
| I think they put it well:
|
| We have stopped believing in the future. Constant economic
| downturns, the rise of fascism, the continued destruction of our
| environment and seemingly NOTHING being done to fix any of it.
|
| We don't have ANY WEALTH. The ultra-wealthy have sucked up all
| excess capital in the country and people are pissing in bottles
| while being chirped at from their smart-watches while making
| pathetic pay. All of this so they can go home to their house
| where they have multiple room-mates.
|
| We would rather not have children than watch them starve in the
| event of any number of possible ecological doomsday scenarios end
| up happening.
|
| 0: Nice pamphlet effect about the backfire effect:
| https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
| [deleted]
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