8 ms·

Having children is not life-affirming: it’s immoral (2017)

26 points by elorant 6y ago

vimy 6y ago
This must be this year’s April Fools article.
- shishy 6y ago
  It's from 2017.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > 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.
mjfl 6y ago
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 6y ago
By this same logic, myself drinking a glass of water is immoral. My entire existence is immoral. Absurd philosophy, absurd reasoning, absurd conclusion.
- anm89 6y ago
  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.
pmastela 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
  There is a huge difference between destruction and failing to create.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    Everyone will die someday, a large percentage will die in a very painful manner.. If you had a way to make sure everyone dies at the same time but in the most peacefully painless way, wouldn't you be saving billions from future pain? Also dying at the same time, they'd never have to witness their loved ones die which brings emotional pain. Now, hopefully most would see this as idiocy and immoral, but there's someone out there who's a closet Thanos, thinking this is a brilliant idea.
inpdx 6y ago
"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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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/ https://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/
  - sneak 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
rayiner 6y ago
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 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 6y ago
  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.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > Does that mean sleep is a bad thing, because it cuts off so much more happiness and joy than suffering? If you cut down on your sleeping too much, it'll make the rest of your life less joy-filled and more full of suffering.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      Well, it does turn out that (maybe ~half of) depressed people tend to feel better when sleep-deprived!
      - Noumenon72 6y ago
        I've read that the longer someone with depression stays awake, the less depressed they are. If you can keep them awake for 48-72 hours, their depression will disappear, only to re-emerge after they sleep. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-death https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-d...
gregjor 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    Can't tell if you're disagreeing with OP but they weren't arguing that procreation had any inherent good, just that it "is". Under most circumstances you can bet that any given person would choose life, even in the face of extreme pain. If that person were to change their mind however, euthanasia should be an option, and that I could see an argument being made for it. Now, to go back to nature just being what it is without morality, the argument that we're destroying the environment doesn't hold up when you remove people from the equation. I mean, sure you might actually fix a bunch of ecological problems from our current point of view but once we're gone, that value system ceases to exist. Earth doesn't care if there's blooming biodiversity living on its back or that the entire atmosphere might be filled with toxic smog. Those are only problems because we say they are problems. To go and end the entire human race for that is probably the least likely sequence of events we can fathom. We're hardwired to survive, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
  - nobodyandproud 6y ago
    But what defines goodness?
postalrat 6y ago
http://www.philosophy.uct.ac.za/philosophy/staff/benatar 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 6y ago
Is there a browser extension for filtering out HN submissions from nonsense domains like aeon.co?
- anm89 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjgreen 6y ago
    As Mickey Flanagan would say: "Calm down Gordon, it's just a bit of dinner".
- yakubin 6y ago
  The following uBlock Origin cosmetic filters seem to do the job: news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr + tr
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dqpb 6y ago
Moral philosophy is immoral.
honkycat 6y ago
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 https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
zaknil 6y ago
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.
virgulino 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism
GhostVII 6y ago
If life is so terrible, why don't the vast majority of people kill themselves? Of course there are sucidal people, but given that being suicidal is relatively rare, and is often the result of issue like depression rather than rationally thinking it would be better to be dead, it seems like most people are happy to have been born. And if it is immortal to have children, doesn't than mean it is completely moral to kill children painlessly, since it would be better for them if they had not been born? Maybe I don't understand the position fully though.
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > If life is so terrible, why don't the vast majority of people kill themselves? I believe the standard answer to a question like that is they're deceiving themselves and not seeing things clearly.
ac42 6y ago
And should that noble standard apply to humans specifically, or to life in general? First world problems, my guess.
proc0 6y ago
Immoral is a stretch lol, however I would say it isn't heroic or brave, as many paint it out to be, and in fact you are just making a copy of you and your partner's genes and that is why you invest in them. When done "properly" (i.e. marriage, extended family helps etc), it's a huge privilege.
- heyoni 6y ago
  I think the heroic or brave stuff comes from the fact that childbirth can be a near-death experience for the woman, not from the difficulty in getting the ball rolling.
  - proc0 6y ago
    Most people don't go through that for the sake of society and the survival of humanity. It's just a desire to see a small version of yourself. Just saying, not that it never fulfills anything great, but in perspective this "miracle" happens billions of times over the years. *Also, you can raise a good person or easily fail to do so and risk what amounts to all the anti-social behavior in society. So in a way, yes it's all about the rearing and not the birthing.
    - heyoni 6y ago
      > Most people don't go through that for the sake of society and the survival of humanity... Where are you reading that, because I never implied any of it... The birthing process is intensely traumatic and it sounds like you're taking offense that people hail mothers as "heroic" for going through that. What's there to argue? They inject numbing agents directly outside the spinal cord and it's still not enough. It's absolutely metal.
      - proc0 6y ago
        Sure, we might be arguing semantics of heroism. I don't disagree, and yeah it's a difficult task, but I think there's a huge factor missing here, kids make the lives of their parents better by contributing resources as adults and taking care once parents age, etc. Saying (hypothetical you) having kids is purely selfless act that everyone is sacrificing themselves for, is a stretch, IMHO. It's just a tradeoff like many other things, it's tough but people do it because payoff is high as well. I hear a lot of times from people, as if there is no payoff and everyone should just be grateful of their kids, which sometimes comes off as trying to be heroic about it. That said, not all parents should be regarded in the same way, and GOOD parents should be celebrated.
cmsj 6y ago
This feels like it's really a branch of Utilitarianism, perhaps it should be called Oblivionistic Utilitarianism? Speaking only for myself, I am tremendously grateful that I exist, however fleeting that existence may turn out to be, and I currently have no desire to wish that I had never existed.
gremlinsinc 6y ago
This is bullshit. (I might've agreed before I had kids). My kids are the only joy I've ever known, I mean I love my wife lol, but not as much as my boys. Nothing makes life worth living as much as my kids, I wouldn't trade that for anything and I don't think one can truly know what it means to be alive until you feel the pride of a mom/dad when your kid learns to read or do something amazing for the first time. I say this as an agnostic (ex-mormon), anarcho-socialist(i.e. left-libertarian NOT libertarian party - more aligned with DSA than lib party), global warming believer who believes thorougly in masking-up and calling out any business who refuses to enforce it. In other words, I'm as left and anti-authoritarian as you get on the political compass... This only matters, because you just assume the people "for families" is your evangelist types and right-wingers, not true. We almost didn't have kids (took 14 years at age 38 we finally had our first) thanks to infertility. I was ready to say oh well, you win some/lose some. My wife who is still mormon but not very active felt that - her whole purpose was motherhood, so we kept trying. I'm so glad I didn't give up on that... I've had anxiety/depression/etc the past few years. My boys are what keeps me from going over the deep-end, and made me get therapy and lose weight. Gay, Trans, Childless, Polygamy, Monogamy, Polyamory, whatever your lifestyle I say do your thing, and always have. I've told church leaders to go to hell for bashing people that didn't fit their idea of "family values" (i.e. lgbtq), don't bash those of us who family life is part of our identity. Edit: That said, I once wanted like 8 kids (cause that's what mormons do?), now I'm happy with 2, though I wish we could've had a girl, but that ship's passed (health reasons), so I'll be happy w/ my boys or maybe we'll adopt.... but as I've gotten older, I think maybe some people are a bit too...ambitious on child-rearing. Like the Duggars... 2-4 should be plenty and economical, I think moderation is a virtual and a moral tenet.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  Biologically programmed joy. Good or bad? You decide.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    Well, you ever eat anything but soylent or slim fast or dog food? I mean, why would you? That would maybe increase your endorphines or joy-centers and be less robotic. I guess that is bad? Getting any sort of joy at all? When a child gives you a hug, even if it's not yours (we fostered a decade ago), it does something to your over-all well-being, does it matter if it's "real" or just "pre-programming" isn't everything we do some sort of pre-programming? I mean there's very high odds we're living in a simulation if you ask some people... I mean the odds are very high we run our own super simulation someday, and if we do we end up creating a sentient civ like us inside it, which would mean -- what are the chances someone else did and that's why we exist?
Borrible 6y ago
This is pure and simple aeon old Manichaeism. Body and physical existence as such are evil. Spirit, morals and logos are good. The problem is, even if we are spirits in a material world, as THE POLICE once sung, the only way out is non-existence, To stay in the game one has to accept the rules. And these rules are not moral. We are the descendants of survivors. And what they did to survive was what brought us here. So even if one accepts the arguments of Antinatalists and their like, and I do, most people won't. Simply because they are descendants of organisms, that did all to survive. It's simple, almost bordering to a tautology. That line of thought won't survive.

26 points by elorant 6y ago

vimy 6y ago

This must be this year’s April Fools article.

shishy 6y ago
It's from 2017.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> 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.

mjfl 6y ago

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 6y ago

By this same logic, myself drinking a glass of water is immoral. My entire existence is immoral. Absurd philosophy, absurd reasoning, absurd conclusion.

anm89 6y ago
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.

pmastela 6y ago

> 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 6y ago
There is a huge difference between destruction and failing to create.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  Everyone will die someday, a large percentage will die in a very painful manner.. If you had a way to make sure everyone dies at the same time but in the most peacefully painless way, wouldn't you be saving billions from future pain? Also dying at the same time, they'd never have to witness their loved ones die which brings emotional pain. Now, hopefully most would see this as idiocy and immoral, but there's someone out there who's a closet Thanos, thinking this is a brilliant idea.

inpdx 6y ago

"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 6y ago
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 6y ago

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 6y ago
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/ https://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/
- sneak 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.

rayiner 6y ago

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 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 6y ago
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.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > Does that mean sleep is a bad thing, because it cuts off so much more happiness and joy than suffering? If you cut down on your sleeping too much, it'll make the rest of your life less joy-filled and more full of suffering.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    Well, it does turn out that (maybe ~half of) depressed people tend to feel better when sleep-deprived!
    - Noumenon72 6y ago
      I've read that the longer someone with depression stays awake, the less depressed they are. If you can keep them awake for 48-72 hours, their depression will disappear, only to re-emerge after they sleep. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-death https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/sleep-is-the-mate-of-d...

gregjor 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.
- heyoni 6y ago
  Can't tell if you're disagreeing with OP but they weren't arguing that procreation had any inherent good, just that it "is". Under most circumstances you can bet that any given person would choose life, even in the face of extreme pain. If that person were to change their mind however, euthanasia should be an option, and that I could see an argument being made for it. Now, to go back to nature just being what it is without morality, the argument that we're destroying the environment doesn't hold up when you remove people from the equation. I mean, sure you might actually fix a bunch of ecological problems from our current point of view but once we're gone, that value system ceases to exist. Earth doesn't care if there's blooming biodiversity living on its back or that the entire atmosphere might be filled with toxic smog. Those are only problems because we say they are problems. To go and end the entire human race for that is probably the least likely sequence of events we can fathom. We're hardwired to survive, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  But what defines goodness?

postalrat 6y ago

http://www.philosophy.uct.ac.za/philosophy/staff/benatar 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 6y ago

Is there a browser extension for filtering out HN submissions from nonsense domains like aeon.co?

anm89 6y ago
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 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jjgreen 6y ago
  As Mickey Flanagan would say: "Calm down Gordon, it's just a bit of dinner".
yakubin 6y ago
The following uBlock Origin cosmetic filters seem to do the job: news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr news.ycombinator.com##.athing:has([href="from?site=aeon.co"]) + tr + tr

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dqpb 6y ago

Moral philosophy is immoral.

honkycat 6y ago

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 https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

zaknil 6y ago

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.

virgulino 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

GhostVII 6y ago

If life is so terrible, why don't the vast majority of people kill themselves? Of course there are sucidal people, but given that being suicidal is relatively rare, and is often the result of issue like depression rather than rationally thinking it would be better to be dead, it seems like most people are happy to have been born. And if it is immortal to have children, doesn't than mean it is completely moral to kill children painlessly, since it would be better for them if they had not been born? Maybe I don't understand the position fully though.

tablespoon 6y ago
> If life is so terrible, why don't the vast majority of people kill themselves? I believe the standard answer to a question like that is they're deceiving themselves and not seeing things clearly.

ac42 6y ago

And should that noble standard apply to humans specifically, or to life in general? First world problems, my guess.

proc0 6y ago

Immoral is a stretch lol, however I would say it isn't heroic or brave, as many paint it out to be, and in fact you are just making a copy of you and your partner's genes and that is why you invest in them. When done "properly" (i.e. marriage, extended family helps etc), it's a huge privilege.

heyoni 6y ago
I think the heroic or brave stuff comes from the fact that childbirth can be a near-death experience for the woman, not from the difficulty in getting the ball rolling.
- proc0 6y ago
  Most people don't go through that for the sake of society and the survival of humanity. It's just a desire to see a small version of yourself. Just saying, not that it never fulfills anything great, but in perspective this "miracle" happens billions of times over the years. *Also, you can raise a good person or easily fail to do so and risk what amounts to all the anti-social behavior in society. So in a way, yes it's all about the rearing and not the birthing.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    > Most people don't go through that for the sake of society and the survival of humanity... Where are you reading that, because I never implied any of it... The birthing process is intensely traumatic and it sounds like you're taking offense that people hail mothers as "heroic" for going through that. What's there to argue? They inject numbing agents directly outside the spinal cord and it's still not enough. It's absolutely metal.
    - proc0 6y ago
      Sure, we might be arguing semantics of heroism. I don't disagree, and yeah it's a difficult task, but I think there's a huge factor missing here, kids make the lives of their parents better by contributing resources as adults and taking care once parents age, etc. Saying (hypothetical you) having kids is purely selfless act that everyone is sacrificing themselves for, is a stretch, IMHO. It's just a tradeoff like many other things, it's tough but people do it because payoff is high as well. I hear a lot of times from people, as if there is no payoff and everyone should just be grateful of their kids, which sometimes comes off as trying to be heroic about it. That said, not all parents should be regarded in the same way, and GOOD parents should be celebrated.

cmsj 6y ago

This feels like it's really a branch of Utilitarianism, perhaps it should be called Oblivionistic Utilitarianism? Speaking only for myself, I am tremendously grateful that I exist, however fleeting that existence may turn out to be, and I currently have no desire to wish that I had never existed.

gremlinsinc 6y ago

This is bullshit. (I might've agreed before I had kids). My kids are the only joy I've ever known, I mean I love my wife lol, but not as much as my boys. Nothing makes life worth living as much as my kids, I wouldn't trade that for anything and I don't think one can truly know what it means to be alive until you feel the pride of a mom/dad when your kid learns to read or do something amazing for the first time. I say this as an agnostic (ex-mormon), anarcho-socialist(i.e. left-libertarian NOT libertarian party - more aligned with DSA than lib party), global warming believer who believes thorougly in masking-up and calling out any business who refuses to enforce it. In other words, I'm as left and anti-authoritarian as you get on the political compass... This only matters, because you just assume the people "for families" is your evangelist types and right-wingers, not true. We almost didn't have kids (took 14 years at age 38 we finally had our first) thanks to infertility. I was ready to say oh well, you win some/lose some. My wife who is still mormon but not very active felt that - her whole purpose was motherhood, so we kept trying. I'm so glad I didn't give up on that... I've had anxiety/depression/etc the past few years. My boys are what keeps me from going over the deep-end, and made me get therapy and lose weight. Gay, Trans, Childless, Polygamy, Monogamy, Polyamory, whatever your lifestyle I say do your thing, and always have. I've told church leaders to go to hell for bashing people that didn't fit their idea of "family values" (i.e. lgbtq), don't bash those of us who family life is part of our identity. Edit: That said, I once wanted like 8 kids (cause that's what mormons do?), now I'm happy with 2, though I wish we could've had a girl, but that ship's passed (health reasons), so I'll be happy w/ my boys or maybe we'll adopt.... but as I've gotten older, I think maybe some people are a bit too...ambitious on child-rearing. Like the Duggars... 2-4 should be plenty and economical, I think moderation is a virtual and a moral tenet.

Daho0n 6y ago
Biologically programmed joy. Good or bad? You decide.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  Well, you ever eat anything but soylent or slim fast or dog food? I mean, why would you? That would maybe increase your endorphines or joy-centers and be less robotic. I guess that is bad? Getting any sort of joy at all? When a child gives you a hug, even if it's not yours (we fostered a decade ago), it does something to your over-all well-being, does it matter if it's "real" or just "pre-programming" isn't everything we do some sort of pre-programming? I mean there's very high odds we're living in a simulation if you ask some people... I mean the odds are very high we run our own super simulation someday, and if we do we end up creating a sentient civ like us inside it, which would mean -- what are the chances someone else did and that's why we exist?

Borrible 6y ago

This is pure and simple aeon old Manichaeism. Body and physical existence as such are evil. Spirit, morals and logos are good. The problem is, even if we are spirits in a material world, as THE POLICE once sung, the only way out is non-existence, To stay in the game one has to accept the rules. And these rules are not moral. We are the descendants of survivors. And what they did to survive was what brought us here. So even if one accepts the arguments of Antinatalists and their like, and I do, most people won't. Simply because they are descendants of organisms, that did all to survive. It's simple, almost bordering to a tautology. That line of thought won't survive.