In defence of "dangerous" ideas

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I posted a thread expressing (in a logical way) my views on why I am anti natalist only to have the thread be "shut down" in case it offends people. I felt disappointed by this censoring of uncomfortable ideas. Particularly when expressed through a philosophical / ethical angle rather than personal attacks or attacks on a minority (which is where I personally draw a line between "challenging ideas" and "fascist ideologies"). I was not imposing my world view but the pro natalist world view was imposed on me by having debate be shut off. In my opinion, society should be open to normalise discussions on natalism in the same way as discussions on abortion and eugenics have been normalised (well, the latter is still considered more problematic).
After all, we are entering an age in which giving birth will become increasingly redundant to the survival of the human specie (in my opinion) and as natalism is removed from the existential threat equation - mark my word - people will discuss it through ethical/ philosophical lenses more.

Moreover, I feel that people who shut down debate are afraid of challenging their world views and have a closed mind - that is the essence of extremism (yes, i think pro natalists can be extremist too! not just people with 'unpopular' ideas)

debate with me.

i wanted to keep that thread open. i didn't see anything overtly wrong with what you said specifically - often the problem is with how others take it.

I think the problem is that I did not stress in the title that it was a philosophical rant and came off as having a personal issue with people which is not the case! I mainly spoke about my views.
That's why I am making another - more obviously philosophically angled - thread for anyone who's interested in debating this in a formal/ less personal way ^^

Human logic can be funny in the sense that you could raise the proposition 'people instinctively evade drastic solutions to poorly understood problems' - ie. that sort of reflex seems to hold with questions like natalism and then less so when to comes to ideas like utopian political schemes. Then again I think it could be this - superficially beautiful ideas with terrible outcomes are things people can project their hopes and dreams on whereas something like contemplating a voluntary end of the human race doesn't give people all that much room for similar projections.

I think maybe the most persuasive argument I've heard in favor of pro-natalism was in Sam Harris's discussion with David Benatar when Sam brought up the idea that we simply don't know how good things could become. I think his analogy was if we could be made into these absolutely peaceful, lovely, logical creatures enraptured by awe at the beauty of the universe (whether through genetic engineering or whatever else) - the pain/pleasure analysis wouldn't net negative. I actually do think to some extent I'd have to agree with him, having taken things like ecstacy in my early 20's, I get that you can be in mind states that are superior to our own and where things like existential angst would be completely absent.

By and large much of the pain is some combination of what we inflict on one another with really poor understandings of the universe and the other are certain urges within us which can't always be gratified - and I mean that in the sense like not every girl can be the cheerleading queen and not every guy can be the star athlete (or if I wanted to use my own high water mark - not every guy or girl gets to be a world-class dj or producer playing at Ibiza or London on the weekends). Inequality is likely a permanent state of affairs. Technically it has to be for us to make progress in much of anything whether scientifically, artistically, athletically, or anything else like that. The pain there i think really then comes down to how well we manage that inherent inequality in how we treat each other. We'd be making huge leaps and bounds of progress if we finally agreed that our best traits are really grab bags of random change, ie. that we got lucky, and from there we should focus back in on everyone else and rather than deem them inferior try to figure out what we have to give back to the sum total of humanity. That's a lot easier said than done, it's probably one of it not *the* defining issue of our times.

I don't think it's a problem at all for people to propose anti-natalism, but like internal pressure to suicide I think for most people if they feel it deeply resonate with them they'll have equally loud alarm bells in their minds warning them that something's deeply wrong with the way their doing the math (human beings instinctively want to stay alive) and that if the current trajectory was pushing in that direction that the current trajectory needed to be amended.

mh i get where you're coming from. dystopian writers went down the road of engineering a perfectly 'happy' society through chemical alterations but that, to me, doesnt take away the problem of ageing and death. It is said that if one is seeking an existence where one is completely free of suffering then pleasure/ happiness would also disappear.... or will they? and if they do, would we be able to tell the difference? or perhaps, if we change our way of experiencing life (through engineering or whatever process available to us) in such a radical level we cannot apply our current labels of experience as indicators that it will be 'good' or 'bad'. Its standard of measure will be completely different and perhaps enjoyment/ happiness/ suffering will persist but mean different things...



mh, yes, i think anti natalism and suicidal ideation are connected in the sense that the "carrier" of these thoughts realises he is stuck in a system of life (not social, biological etc) in which his existence is determined in a way that goes against the values it developed as a result of 'evolution'. In a way, animals are perfectly adapted to their biology. Many humans are not, our critical abilities and insights cause us to hope and wish for progress and our developed sense of compassion for suffering to end for everyone. It's very extremist in a way - but it's a fascinating twist in nature.

I think this is just it though. Every waking moment of our days we're spending time trying to see to our own well-being and we consider actions against our own well-being deeply irresponsible. The pervasive consequences of having our central priority as our well being, and then our biological imperatives somewhere in that scope, entail at least in part that when society needs another generation either as workers, as a tax base, or as care takers, or anything else like that it's more cause for the push for more children, not less, to be out there. Paradoxically I do also find it fascinating just how many people are willing to have their tubes tied or take long-term forms of birth control considering these issues but at the same time it's tough to say whether that speaks to a sense of surplus population, economic well-being, personal concern over their own genes, I'm sure it's probably a wide range of issues and being that such options are relatively new its tough to map them to historical trends.

It's thought-provoking, but more in terms of our taking conscious inventory of all of the reasons why it would never be a popular sentiment or idea. I'd say similar things for certain gnostic sects who believed it was best to be celibate rather than birth more souls into Yaldabaoth's prison.

I would add / twist this logic a bit adding that most people have children measuring the benefit they will bring to their lives and, therefore, that is intrinsically a selfish reason which can be solved through extending human lives and merging into digital/ mechanical life forms. we cannot give new life the choice whether they want to be born or not. their existence is... necessary to some previous existence , in our case for our specie to live on and if we understand the world as one cohesive being. is this, ethical? I can say, from my perspective it is like forcing someone into suffering so no. But if life was devoid of suffering then there would be no problem - in theory.

We still don't know what the universe is doing, whether it's consciously meaning to do something with respect to this, and in a way it will be difficult to say what makes absolute sense when we have a firmer accounting of things like whether or not we're immortal already, whether we're stuck reincarnating in some form or another, whether ending one race doesn't just mean we have to start from scratch, etc.. It makes its sense if we're in a properly naive physicalist's universe. If we're more in a panpsychists's universe or one of some other model where mind kind of gets recycled and has a knack for constantly reestablishing itself then we're likely in a much more challenging place because there really would be no solution at that point - the blazing star of the central logos would continue to speak it into being.

Sorry, I misread the original post. At any rate, I think that all views can be assessed if done sensitively. When discussing extreme perspectives, it can be tricky to know when somebody is sincere and when they're simply being malicious.