4 ms·

I don't disagree with the reasoning: The Earth would be much healthier, there would be no suffering, the "Universe" wouldn't care. But for good or bad, we huma

by croon 9y ago

I don't disagree with the reasoning: The Earth would be much healthier, there would be no suffering, the "Universe" wouldn't care. But for good or bad, we humans have an inherent drive to procreate and survive. I think while his question/answer might be correct in a vacuum, it misses the point. Now that we're already here and can't consciously stop existing, how do we best move forward and maximize collective utility and minimize suffering and our damage to our habitat? Disclaimer: the environmental effect is my addition, to his psychological effects.

orblivion 9y ago
One answer would be to call it a day, no?
- croon 9y ago
  That's an easy answer on paper, not so in practice.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Keep pulling at the thread. Why is it not so in practice?
pqh 9y ago
If life isn't worth creating, why is it worth preserving? Why not take this to the logical conclusion of voluntary total extinction? Furthermore, how could one even discuss good or bad without a frame of reference?
- perfmode 9y ago
  Benetar argues death is often worse than life. It is non-existence that is better than both.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Non existence comes after death. Death can be painless. How, then, is death worse than non-existence?
    - scbrg 9y ago
      Death is not just a simple transition from life to non existence. Death has a whole bag of unpleasantness associated with it. Fear, angst, pain (in theory it can be painless, in practice it's not that easy) and perhaps most importantly sadness and a feeling of loss among the people you leave behind.
    - perfmode 9y ago
      These are terms used in a philosophical argument, so you have to be precise about definitions. In this case, non-existence is not possible once life begins. Non-existence is the alternative to creating new life. So , as far as we are concerned, in this context, non-existence is not considered to be what occurs after death.
jerf 9y ago
Following his logic, "life is a net negative" has no reason to be limited to humans. Under this level of nihilistic anti-life sentiment, "Children damage the environment" is thus an argument in favor of having children, and damaging the environment as much as possible in general (in ways other than having children). Humans may suffer but at least we are pre-empting as many other life forms as possible, so by damaging the environment we are altruistically taking the suffering on to ourselves. Under this logic, extinction of all life on Earth would be an ideal, one that he probably doesn't consider only because it's relatively infeasible at this time. This is some seriously toxic shit. This is not a call for environmentalism, this is its exact opposite, driving all known life to extinction, watered down only slightly by claiming to not want to actually kill anyone or anything currently alive. However, I find the philosophical bulwark protecting that slight watering down to be very weak, very contingent on a particular assignment of utility that will not be shared by everybody else, and if this philosophy were to spread widely, likely to fail to hold that line utterly.
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
>The Earth would be much healthier, there would be no suffering, the "Universe" wouldn't care. No human suffering, perhaps. More drastic measures would be needed to end all suffering altogether, at which point it might need more evidence to prove the claim that the Earth would still be “healthier”, or that the healthiness of a rocky planet really matters (you can't really leave it to the hands of evolution not the create more suffering by leaving “it” an easy way, can you?)
toasterlovin 9y ago
The reasoning is terrible. The obvious solution to life being terrible is to take your own life. The reason given for not doing so is that death is somehow worse than remaining alive. How is death worse? The pain that usually accompanies death can be eliminated, so that’s not it. There only reason remaining for how death could be worse than remaining alive is that death keeps you from being alive. This fact directly speaks to the worth of being alive. So you can’t draw the conclusion that being alive is bad, since the vast majority of us choose to remain alive. The real question is: how great is it to be alive? Here I think the philosopher engages in vast underestimation. To him, life is all misery and therefore not very worthwhile. But this is a ridiculous conclusion. On average, human misery and suffering is at its lowest point now than at any point in our history. Our history is filled with war, disease, starvation, slavery, etc. The fact that we are here, that our ancestors did not choose to give up in the face of all this suffering, is not evidence that life is terrible. No, it is the opposite: it is evidence that being alive is such an amazing gift that they were willing to endure anything to remain so. If you consider American slaves and Jewish holocaust victims, who suffered some of the worst atrocities in human history, as examples of people for whom the trade off between staying alive and ending their suffering with death may have been a fairly close call, then that means that, for anybody not facing those circumstances, the scales are tipped pretty heavily toward being alive being way better than not being alive.

by croon 9y ago

orblivion 9y ago

One answer would be to call it a day, no?

croon 9y ago
That's an easy answer on paper, not so in practice.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Keep pulling at the thread. Why is it not so in practice?

pqh 9y ago

If life isn't worth creating, why is it worth preserving? Why not take this to the logical conclusion of voluntary total extinction? Furthermore, how could one even discuss good or bad without a frame of reference?

perfmode 9y ago
Benetar argues death is often worse than life. It is non-existence that is better than both.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Non existence comes after death. Death can be painless. How, then, is death worse than non-existence?
  - scbrg 9y ago
    Death is not just a simple transition from life to non existence. Death has a whole bag of unpleasantness associated with it. Fear, angst, pain (in theory it can be painless, in practice it's not that easy) and perhaps most importantly sadness and a feeling of loss among the people you leave behind.
  - perfmode 9y ago
    These are terms used in a philosophical argument, so you have to be precise about definitions. In this case, non-existence is not possible once life begins. Non-existence is the alternative to creating new life. So , as far as we are concerned, in this context, non-existence is not considered to be what occurs after death.

jerf 9y ago

Following his logic, "life is a net negative" has no reason to be limited to humans. Under this level of nihilistic anti-life sentiment, "Children damage the environment" is thus an argument in favor of having children, and damaging the environment as much as possible in general (in ways other than having children). Humans may suffer but at least we are pre-empting as many other life forms as possible, so by damaging the environment we are altruistically taking the suffering on to ourselves. Under this logic, extinction of all life on Earth would be an ideal, one that he probably doesn't consider only because it's relatively infeasible at this time. This is some seriously toxic shit. This is not a call for environmentalism, this is its exact opposite, driving all known life to extinction, watered down only slightly by claiming to not want to actually kill anyone or anything currently alive. However, I find the philosophical bulwark protecting that slight watering down to be very weak, very contingent on a particular assignment of utility that will not be shared by everybody else, and if this philosophy were to spread widely, likely to fail to hold that line utterly.

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago

>The Earth would be much healthier, there would be no suffering, the "Universe" wouldn't care. No human suffering, perhaps. More drastic measures would be needed to end all suffering altogether, at which point it might need more evidence to prove the claim that the Earth would still be “healthier”, or that the healthiness of a rocky planet really matters (you can't really leave it to the hands of evolution not the create more suffering by leaving “it” an easy way, can you?)

toasterlovin 9y ago

The reasoning is terrible. The obvious solution to life being terrible is to take your own life. The reason given for not doing so is that death is somehow worse than remaining alive. How is death worse? The pain that usually accompanies death can be eliminated, so that’s not it. There only reason remaining for how death could be worse than remaining alive is that death keeps you from being alive. This fact directly speaks to the worth of being alive. So you can’t draw the conclusion that being alive is bad, since the vast majority of us choose to remain alive. The real question is: how great is it to be alive? Here I think the philosopher engages in vast underestimation. To him, life is all misery and therefore not very worthwhile. But this is a ridiculous conclusion. On average, human misery and suffering is at its lowest point now than at any point in our history. Our history is filled with war, disease, starvation, slavery, etc. The fact that we are here, that our ancestors did not choose to give up in the face of all this suffering, is not evidence that life is terrible. No, it is the opposite: it is evidence that being alive is such an amazing gift that they were willing to endure anything to remain so. If you consider American slaves and Jewish holocaust victims, who suffered some of the worst atrocities in human history, as examples of people for whom the trade off between staying alive and ending their suffering with death may have been a fairly close call, then that means that, for anybody not facing those circumstances, the scales are tipped pretty heavily toward being alive being way better than not being alive.