What would it take? Answer these questions.
Posted on: February 14, 2011 - 1:02am
Offline
What would it take? Answer these questions.
I'd like to know people's response to the follow questions. What would it take to eliminate the following scourges from the world? What changes in cultural attitudes, new technologies, education, laws and government policies would be necessary to end these?
To end crime?
To end poverty?
To end environmental damage?
To end religion?
To end all suffering, human and animal?
Is the cure for these things worse than the disease?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
- Login to post comments
hmmm,
End crime? I'm not sure what you mean, if I lived in Texas I'd probably break the law 4 times before I got to work, and only twice in the bedroom.
End poverty? I think poverty is relative, the poorest people in north america have more then the middle class people in an eastern block country, or most of the war ridden middle east.
End environmental damage? assuming it's not already too late, our best bet would be cold fusion, or some other magical form of energy with close to zero emission.
End religion? probably education, though I believe something will take it's place.
End suffering? not gonna happen, sorry dude, some people just get off on other people's suffering.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Signature ? How ?
The answer is god. And that god would have to decide he wanted none of those things.
But seriously, t is just not possible to stop all crime short of removing all laws. Ending poverty would require unlimited resources, maybe if one day we have space travel and a not to bloated population count it might be possible, would probably require robot workers to do all the work though. To end environmetal damage, get rid of all humans, humans manipulate there environments, this will always lead to environmental damage, even the most green person on earth still contrabutes. To end religion, make it taboo, everyone who believes in it is stupid and retarded even then some will still believe, people come up with strange ideas, no amount of education is going to get rid of religion entirely, it can just cause sensible people see the light. End all suffering? That is just asking the impossible, I suffer when I stub my toe, people suffer for all sorts of reasons that just cannot be helped.
I supose another way to to achieve all these goals is just to kill everyone and everything. Just leave the plants.
You cannot commit crimes if you are dead.
There is no poverty if everyone is dead.
You cannot damage the environment if you are dead.
You cannot believe in religion if you are dead.
Both humans and animal cannot suffer if they are dead.
This leaves us with 2 options if you want to go this route.
First kill all humans and animals.
or (the better option)
Stop all human breeding and anuimal breeding. so there can be no offspring. (I know neither of these is possible either). This way we die off with out off the unnessicary violence.
In short my conclusion is If you want to live there is no way to accomlpish all of your goals
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Crime, poverty, environmental damage, religion, and suffering are as old as the human race. It seems they are inherent to the human problem. Insofar as I can tell, there there isn't a sure proof way to end these "scourges". The old adage goes something like this: The best way to solve the world hunger problem is to kill all the starving people. While I don't share the sentiment and would hope the world would become a better place, something about the sentiment resonates with all problems. If humanity is the problem, then the best way may be to eliminate humanity, but I don't advocate that. So I suppose I will hope and work to come up with a better way to at least grapple with the issues....
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Umm... the first solution that crossed my mind was ... "1984"
Also, adding strong sedative drugs to water would solve crime (or slow it down considerably), socialism would solve poverty and partly suffering, religion (the organized part of it) can be ended by criminalizing children's involvement in religious activities and then criminalizing practicing religion (I am all for this), the environmental damage (and animal suffering) cannot be stopped completely just because we humans are an active part of an ever evolving eco-system so the damage (or evolution to better phrase it) is inevitable.
Well...you could sterilize the planet?
Outside of that, I guess it would depend on how you define each of those. Using my own definitions, I think you could potentially eliminate poverty, but none of the others is even a technical possibility, at least not without magical techno-wizardry.
Well...I guess you might get the others if you knew enough about biological manipulation. But we're talking about radically modifying every species that has the capacity to suffer.
So, are you interested in the sci-fi answer to this, or are you interested in what I think would be an actual, realistic plan to get those things reduced to the lowest feasible levels?
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I doubt eliminating all crime is doable but with video cameras and microphones everywhere you could ensure people get caught 99% of the time, which is going to stop almost all crime as long as the punishment is harsh enough.
Depends on definition but my answer would propably be "no idea" regardless of the specifics.
Nuke the planet.
Nuke the planet.
Nuke the planet.
I really might just nuke the planet if I could, I have a hard time justifying the ridicilous amount of suffering in the world all for the sake of the pleasure that is only necessitated by the same existence that causes the suffering. IOW killing everything eliminates both suffering and the need for pleasure, happiness, etc. so it seems like a win-win to me.
Stopping reproducing is the better option, it takes away all the suffering associated with genocide.
A philosophy lecturer at the university of Cape Town named David Benatar actually has some good arguements as to why we should not reproduce, quiet similar to what you are saying.
I don't know if he explains well in this video as I havent watched it all. he starts talking at 2:24
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Yes.
I wonder if the problem could be tackled the other way. Perhaps the end of crimes comes not from a police state, but from a utopia where no one desires to violate another. Obviously that would require what mellestad aptly called "magical techo-wizardry".
I would say technology is answer. It seems to me we are evolved to produce the condition that produce suffering. Then humanity turns to religion and government for the solution. Pretty irrational when the problem is genetics producing strong desires for things that often cause a lot of harm.
It would probably take a re-engineering of our genetics to reduce things like the desires for procreation and violence. Also technology such as computer controlled brain stimulation to produce and remove desires by controlling what produces pleasure and pain.
Sure there will be a lot of resistance to the technology/change at first. But when people see benefits they would accept it. They would have no choice.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Please stay far, far away from me, lol.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Or you could just kill yourself and the suffering wouldn't bother you anymore. No reason to kill the rest of us who enjoy existence because of your issues.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
But he'd miss out on all the pleasure of seeing the planet nuked. One group must suffer for the pleasure of others. Nothing ever changes.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
So if you have a problem with people commiting rape the answer is to kill yourself so it stops bothering you instead of stopping rapists? Clearly there's no reason to stop others from raping because of your issues?
I'm against making new life because at best it's a pleasant experience that the person didn't need (because, you know, they didn't exist) and at worst it can be horrendous (think being locked in Josef Fritzl's basement). You're taking a needless gamble with other people's lives. You might say "well they can just kill themselves if their life sucks" but the damage has already been done and there was no reason to start that life in the first place other than the parents' selfish desires, it's not like the unborn person is hurt by not being made. There's no reason to assume life is necessarily good for us, it's just another random aspect of a universe that doesn't care.
But would people ever consent to have something done to their genetics ? Is there any true guarantee that would create a "better" world ?
I don't know if I like the sound of that.
I could be interpreting it wrong, but it reminds me of Huxley's Brave New World and Zamyatin's We.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
No, just reacting to your view that the whole world is so terrible that you want to destroy everything. Essentially you are saying that if people are committing rape we should kill the rapist and the victim. I'll stick with just removing the rapist and allow the victim to decide their own fate.
I don't think the world is that terrible. Just requesting that if you think things are so terrible the world ought to be destroyed that you leave the rest of us alone and just take care of yourself. Some of us are enjoying life and don't particularly care to have our experience interrupted because of your issues. You apparently have some severe psychological issues and should probably have those dealt with by a competent professional. In the meantime, please stay away from Nuclear weapons, bombs, missiles, rockets, firearms or other weapons. You are never helping someone by killing them. The universe doesn't care but I do, and life is good for me.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
If they believed there would be more pleasure/less suffering yes.
The same question could be asked of any technology. People were resistant to use the telephone after it was invented because it gave them the willies. Then they found it useful. Whether a technology gets developed only depends on if anyone would find it useful and if anyone could make a profit from it.
In the world of all these types of books(Orwell, Ayn Rand as well), you have an authoritarian government that tells people what is good for them, what will eliminate suffering and bring only pleasure. Just like religion and politics, the great unwashed masses buy into these Utopian promises without any evidence.
If people could be educated to only believe things with evidence and understand scientific proof and rules for evidence, a Utopian future could be possible. But this would take a miracle. We should all pray for one.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Well then, mister Buzzkill, I don't think there's an ultimate purpose but if I had had a choice, I would have chosen to to have existed. You obviously disagree, that's what makes life wonderful, it's all subjective. I don't understand how is life good or bad for us, those are all subjective concepts. I only 'operate' within my moral frame of reference because it is the only way I can understand anything. You seem to appeal to a transcendent frame of moral reference which can be only theorized about, and then make assumptions from that ( we're all evil ). I wonder where I've seen that sort of reasoning before? Oh ya, every theist in this forum.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
1. Ministry of Love
2. Ministry of Plenty
4. Apathy/indifference; watch as the selective technophobia of a number religions (esp. the Amish) leaves such a wide gap in the quality of life, that anyone who wants to live longer, more comfortable lives joins the ranks of secular humanism.
5. Technology. Pure science can explain lots of interesting things, but unless it serves as a supporting branch of practical science (new tools and methods) it's general utility to the human race runs into a sharp drop off (a drop off that certain eggheads may be slow to acknowledge.)
(6) Better/worse is subjective, so the answer will largely depend on who you are asking. My best answer is that the final outcome may be worse than the disease itself, if we continue to reproduce at the rate we currently are, there are some nasty famines followed by catastrophic diseases the likes of which we have not foreseen or dealt with before. My guess is that it'll likely be airborne (spread between breathing pathways) to enhance communicability, and fatal in a manner that is difficult or impossible counteract (no cytokine storms or carcinogenics.) Again, my guess is a much more deadly variant of smallpox - there's little in the way of medicine to repair damaged internal organs, which is how smallpox would kill in the past.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I don't want to destroy everything (my preferred option would really be sterilization), I wish everything had never begun to exist, and yes there's a huge difference. The destroying everything thing was in response to a specific scenario. I think that if I had to make the choise to end all current life it would be the lesser evil, both for the sake of all the current suffering and more importantly to prevent more sentient beings from entering the world. Also keep in mind it's not just humans we're talking about here, I doubt you'd disagree that animals have pretty crappy lives (and certainly gruesome deaths) most of the time that they are completely powerless to do anything about.
I'm sure it's just fine and dandy for you too.
Me killing myself does not stop the suffering of others any more than you killing yourself stops the rapist. Your witnessing of the rape != the rape itself. My witnessing of suffering != the suffering.
I'd rather not interupt your experience either. I would prefer it if people didn't make new lives purely for their own selfish reasons though, new lives that may or may not be enjoying themselves.
That doesn't mean you'd be worse off if you hadn't been created though. The lack of your creation would not be harming you, nothing can do that before you start existing.
Why do I "obviously" disagree? My life is by no means among the shittier ones on the planet (at least so far). Whether I'd choose to exist depends on how the rest of my life turns out. Without that knowledge though, I think it's more rational to choose not to exist (if by some impossibility you could make that choise before you exist) because it guarantees you avoid suffering without robbing you of anything. You need to already have life to want/need all the good things it can offer. It's not so much that there are these "good things" out there that you can go grab if you have life, they only become good things because life makes them good for you.
Yeah, different people obviously judge their lives differently. I don't see how this has much to do with my argument though.
You seem to have gotten this assumption right out of your ass, especially the part about everyone being evil. What "transcendent frame of moral reference" am I referring to?
I always thought that taking care of our emotions (and parts of the brain that act similarly) should be removed/replaced by proper working brains. In this day and age, emotions are only in our way: we don't need to respond quickly to danger, we need to think properly. Changing the way we are/think with genetics is a good thing if you ask me. But everybody whom I have told this looked at me pretty much freaked out, so I don't preach this belief
I also think that it will happen eventually, since some shadowy organisation will eventually see how powerful such a thing would make them, and they will eventually become powerful due to it and therefore do a better job than the rest of us (and evolution tells me that they will replace us).
Who disagrees?
Actually I would disagree. Most animals spend the majority of their time seemingly perfectly content with being animals. Of course, that they tend to not have the intelligence to know about all the horrible suffering out there, or in the case of farm animals to know that they are destined for slaughter helps. The majority of animals I have encountered don't seem to particularly care one way or the other about others suffering but they certainly have a very strong instinct to survive. I suspect that such thoughts are mostly a human condition.
It is, most of the time.
True, there is no guarantee that a new life will enjoy themselves. But there is an absolute guarantee that if they are never born they will never enjoy themselves. Some risks are worth taking.
You seem to think that the majority of the world's population is miserable to the point that they would be better off if they never existed. I have been to some pretty impoverished and miserable places and most of the people I have met find joy in life even when suffering. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Are there billions of people out there who would rather not exist at all? Who consistently wish they were never born? If there are, I haven't seen the evidence of it and it doesn't fit in with my personal experiences.
I believe that the majority of people I have met want to continue living and are more or less happy about existing. Many, especially in the US, fail to fully appreciate their existence even with all of our luxury; while those in violent and impoverished areas are often very appreciative at the simple act of surviving.
It seems to me that if so many people would prefer to not exist that the suicide rate would be much higher and people around the world who struggle to survive would be more likely to simply give up. And as far as animals goes, I imagine it would be much easier to hunt if they didn't want to exist.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
I like my emotions, stay away from my brain. Without emotions life simply wouldn't be fun and if life was never fun what would be the point?
And everyone wonders why I am so anti-government. This thread is putting Glenn Becks most hysterical conspiracy theories to shame. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up on his show tomorrow "ATHEISTS WANT TO STERILIZE YOU!" "ATHEISTS WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR EMOTIONS!" Seriously, that kind of stuff scares me because I can foresee some kind of government attempt to implement it at some point in the (hopefully distant) future. And if they do it in my lifetime I will have to buy a lot more ammo.
How would you all react if theists wanted to try to genetically engineer you to believe in god so you are "saved"?
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, that was unwarranted I think I misread this:
It seemed to me like you were judging the whole planet based on some transcendent knowledge of others perspective that I saw as unfounded. After rereading it, it seems like you're offering some sort of plausible solution that's logically consistent... though screwed up. I'll man up and say I jumped the gun in my assuming you thought everyone was evil. That came out of my ass.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Lol. No-one has advocated for any of this, have they? We're just answering the OP's question.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
More importantly, there's an absolute guarantee there's no one there to be hurt by that lack of enjoyment. We're talking about people that don't exist, it is incoherent to talk about something that doesn't exist missing out on something. This is a somewhat shitty analogy because it's comparing two things that do exist but it's kinda like saying that by being a human you're missing out on all the hot steamy frog sex that you only have an interest in if you're a frog. Do you really feel like you're being hurt as a human because you're missing out on the pleasures of frog sex? If the lack of frog sex doesn't hurt a human then why would the lack of the pleasures of life hurt something that is not alive? Again, life is what makes the good things in life good (what is the value of food to something that does not hunger?). Your position implies that the nonexistent person is missing out on things only an existing person finds enjoyable.
Furthermore, if you believe uncreated people are missing out, you should be advocating that everyone has as many babies as they possibly can, at least up to a point where that doesn't cause everyone's quality of life to drop too low (a bar that you seem to think is very low indeed based on your later comments).
This is all irrelevant, these people would not have been hurt by not having been created. Whether they would like to have been created now that they have already been created doesn't matter.
You keep conflating not continuing to exist with not being created. Not creating new people is entirely different from killing existing people.
I find the desire to continue to exist to be a little beside the point anyway when discussing suffering. It's not like evolution can't program us to both suffer and to want to keep existing, especially animals that don't even have a concept of suicide. Can it not be more merficul to end the life of a tortured animal that's going to die shortly anyway no matter how hard it tries to escape?
None of this will happen because reality IS NOT a utopia. The reality is when you survey waste vs productivity, in nature, MOST of it is waste.
NOW, that is not to say we as a species cant do better. But by leaving our childhood utopias behind an recognizing our finite existence, we CAN do better. Does that mean we will do better? No, just that we can as a species, if we want to.
I myself am optimistic that we can do better. But I am realistic, that in our current state, that we'd rather beat the shit out of each other trying to climb to the top of the heap, than realize the more important long term survival of our species.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I have killed many animals in my life but I have never deluded myself into thinking I was doing the animal a favor.
My main disagreement with you is your position that suffering should be prevented by preventing existence. I believe that on the whole, existing, even with suffering, is worthwhile. True they wouldn't have been "hurt" by not being created but I don't really see that as relevant. I'm glad my parents brought me into existence so I don't see a reason why anyone who wants to have kids shouldn't if they are capable of providing for the child. Just because that child might have a shitty life isn't enough of a reason to me. They might have a shitty life or they might have a great one. So what? Life has enough redeeming qualities to make it worth living.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Our society is currently based on quite insane priorities that harm most of us. It might have worked when there was a place to expand, but the same behavior on Earth all charted, divided and claimed will result in disaster.
It is relatively easy to design a new, working society, people design new, working systems every day. Just get familiar with Jacques Fresco for the technical basics like resource-based economy, futurologist Benjamin Creme for the cultural basis, and Declaration of basic human rights for the new constitution. Just stick to these basics closely enough and all will be fine.
These systems are good enough examples to solve all the global problems. We just need to force the politicians to make the sacrifices, overcome the hesitation and take a step into the unknown. They always want to keep their chairs and salaries one more year. I think that only million of people camping around every government center in the world can give them idea what people need.
I think our current notion of government and economy is as fatalistic and superstitious as was once divine right of kings and pope's infallibility. Politicians are given power, but not clear guidelines what to do with it and what not. In this way, politicians are allowed to go to work without addressing the world's problems and obvious solutions to them.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
That's great, can you answer the question now? Is it better to end the life of a suffering, dying animal than it is to let it suffer?
It's the most relevant thing of all. If preventing life does not hurt anyone, then all suffering is needless. I'm sorry you don't like this but it follows from what you just admitted.
If a person who would have a great life isn't created, no harm done. If he is created, no harm done.
If a person who'd have a truly horrible life isn't created, no harm done. If he is created, there's some serious fucking harm done.
Which is the better strategy overall?
Because you're making a gamble that does not need to be made. The kid with the good life never needed his good life, and the kid with the shitty life would have been better off not being made.
My subjective morals says your subjective morals are scaring the hell out of me. Lol.
Btw, I think you are being inconsistent. If creating a bad life = doing harm, then creating a good life should = doing good, not neutral. That would mean the two choices are equal.
I also feel that life is generally exponentially better than no life, independent of the quality of the specific lives. So, that would tip the scales in favor of life as we know it.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
This is accurate, at many angle. The funny thing is (that I must emphasize again,) the same ignorance and lack of foresight is also a potential cure within itself, albeit a vicious one. At some point, it will become time to "thin the herd".
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Manageri Is basically using David Benatar's arguement. You have to admit. It is stronger than one would expect and there is no hard out of it as I shall attempt to show. Btw I haven't read his arguement in over 3 years now so I might miss a few of the finer points.
Existance
Pleasure - good
pain (suffering) - bad
Non existance
The absence of pleasure - not bad
The absence pain - good
You are saying there is an asymmetry here?
While existing it is straight forward. The reason it is not bad for there to be an absence of pleasure is because no one has been deprived of it. As Manageri said you are not harmed by not being able to have steemy frog sex. If I took pleasure away from you then it would be bad but by never existing no one is being deprived of the pleasure. The reason the absence of pain is stil good is because no one can feel that pain, no one is suffering, that is good. It is important to throw away foolish ideas like pleasure and pain are just different points on a single line, they are totally separate things.
However If you create a life that is more good then bad sure you will have done a good thing but you have no garentee of this and why would you risk causeing serious harm to someone when there is an alternative that harms no one and deprives no one of anything? However even if the person does have a good life he is still harmed by being born regardless of having more pleasure than pain. Remember pleasure and pain (suffering) are separate things. Non existance removes all the pain (suffering) and the loss of pleasure is not a bad thing for reasons explained above. For these reasons it is better to not have kids.
The question is why is life better than no life. This was my first though when I first heard this argument as well. I think it would be better if you swap life for consciousness though. Is a brain dead person since birth inherently valuable? Not a single thought ever, nothing more than a sack of meat really with blood flowing through it. Is that life inherently valuable I feel saying consciousness is inherently valuable is probably a better choice. Though I really don't see any obvious way to show this, the easiest way would be to look at the contents of what that life/consciousness experiances but that just doesn't work vs this arguement.
So why is life better than no life?
Oh and just for the sake of it.
I really must reccomend david Benatars book, While I don't agree with the position he takes (better to have never beeen born) I have to say it is a really interesting read. If you don't want get a book but stil want to read about it. it can be found in
American philosophical Quarterly 34, no. 3 (July 1997): 345-355
Here is the JSTOR link but you will need access to read the entire thing
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009904
Im sure you will find it on proQuest or other such sites, just search for "david benatar" or "why it is better to never have come into existance"
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
You can't require a good life before you have a life. To say creating that life is good is to say you did something good for something that didn't exist. Once you have a life you can try to make that life good, but this happens after it has come into existence. It would be incoherent to say this person is negatively affected by the lack of his creation, because he doesn't exist yet before that.
This does not apply when talking about the bad life because we are talking about sparing an existing life from suffering, instead of depriving a nonexisting life of something like in the case of the good life.
If you create a life you will either end up with a good life that would not have been worse off by not being created, or you end up with a bad life that would have been better off by not being created. I don't see how the correct strategy can be anything but abstaining from creating new life.
Unless that exponential value is infinite I don't think it changes anything in the context of my argument. I assume that for example if Yahweh turned out to be real and he had a really shitty monday and decided to send everyone to hell for eternity, you would not be in favor of that life, much less creating new life just so they can join the others in hell?
my face is covered up, what the fuck.
As a young man I often had a corrosive desire to screw up god's bizarre plans for population incineration and the best way to fuck him over, it seemed to me, was to bring human existence to an end without god's consent.
Of course murder was out from my point of view so I developed a concept that involved the detonation of a sterility bomb in the atmosphere in order to save countless billions from eternal agony. The bomb would render all humans impotent including those in utero - no one would die but by natural causes and after a hundred years or so, all the world's problems would be solved. Pollution, torture, war, religion, hellfire, multitudinous sin, all these painful things would come to an end and Earth could go about cleansing itself.
Sadly, this still seems a pretty good option to me. As I think Thomas Hobbes wrote at some point in cranky older age: "Humans are no more than mischievous baboons".
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
You think that is fucked up? Did you read the posts I made about the perpetual baby/fetus murdering factories (of ever more novel design, I might add) I dreamed up to send an endless series of souls to heaven? That's fucked up.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
spermicide=genocide
Why bother with the fetus, since we can't agree when life begins I guess you kill millions of potential god fearing catholics with every masturbation session.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Well, technically God's angelic stork puts the soul in after the sperm meets the egg, so you'd at least have to get a viable zygote.
Catholics believe the sperm thing is bad because it is an insult to God, because any time you have sex it should be done in a way God approves of, because he's a perv like that. Sort of deistic fetishism. They know this is true because the church tells them it is true, and they know the church knows what God wants because the church says the Bible says that's what God says.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I know I was just trying a one-up-man-ship. I guess all the 'cream pie' websites are catholic in origin, or at the very least the Christian 'kosher' equivalent.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Well here is my true story, about what humanity needed
As a young, indoctrinated, repressed theist that was on the verge of puberty, filled with all sorts of horrid tales about loose morals, I remember feeling guilty for watching a documentary about the 1960's with love-ins and Woodstock.
Because it was inherently sinful for me to wish for those things, I tried to forget about them but could not help it. Free love ? Man I loved the sound of that concept.
Images of people waving peace signs, screwing out in the open under the sky, taking acid , smoking pot, and jamming on guitars was burned into my head and all the prayers in the world would not make the longing to experience that go away.
In my childish brain of the time, I remember wondering, why can't we just do stuff like that all of the time ?
The same sort of feeling I got at my first heavy metal concert (thought my soul got a little bit tainted for that one as well).
I was even dumb enough to voice that aloud around the wrong people. "OOH NO, GOD HAAAAAATTTTTEEEESSSSS BEHAVIOR LIKE THAT !" I was told. It sure was a let down at the time to find out that god had so much distaste for fun.
Now of course, there are no utopias and there are no ultimate solutions that I can see (even the hippies were not perfect, I mean, they wanted to be ALL NATURAL and um, no, I'll pass on that. I am a bit too materialistic for the hippy ideal).
But for some really strange reason, whenever I hear someone mention the word Utopia or Heaven on Earth, I start thinking about images of sex, drugs and rock n'roll.
Not a realistic or very intelligent vision by any means, but the one that pops into my head everytime.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
It is not a strong argument at all. For one thing, it seems to assume moral objectivism or at least is completely at odds with my values. That automatically makes the argument worthless.
Yes. If the absence of pain is good, then the absence of pleasure is bad.
Then, the absence of pain must not be good for the same reason. No one has been saved from that pain because they don't exist.
By the same logic, you are not saved by not being able to be tortured. If I took pain away from you it would be good, but by never existing, no one is saved from the pain.
By the same logic, the reason the absence of pleasure is still bad is because no one can feel that pleasure. That is bad.
By the same logic, if you create a life that is more bad than good, then you will have done a bad thing, but you have no guarantee of this, so why would you risk depriving someone of a lot of pleasure when their is an alternative that gives them pleasure? Simply put, just replace good with bad and bad with good throughout your entire post, and you'll have the exact argument, except the argument will be for life instead of not life.
This argument makes unjustified subjective claims about pain and the pleasure while ignoring the fact that all of the same claims can be made in reverse.
Why is pleasure better than pain? Because that is our preference.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
You're just arbitrarily throwing out different terms to make the two situations appear different. It's nothing but rhetoric. The exact same reasoning can be used in reverse. You are being inconsistent. According to your reasoning, someone who was going to have a bad life exists in some woo-woo sense, but the person who was going to have a good life does not.
Watch this:
"You can't avoid a bad life before you have a life. To say creating that life is bad is to say you did something bad for something that didn't exist. Once you have a life, that life might be bad, but this happens after it has come into existence. It would be incoherent to say that this person is positively affected by the lack of his creation, because he doesn't exist yet before that."
"This does not apply when talking about the good life because we are talking about stealing an existing life from pleasure, instead of saving a nonexisting life of something like in the case of the bad life."
Again:
"If you create a life you will either end up with a bad life that would not have been better off by not being created, or you end up with a good life that would have been better off by being created. I don't see how the correct strategy can be anything but creating new life."
Infinite good is nonsense. Requiring infinite good in order to affect your argument is even more nonsense.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Perhaps It is my fault that I didn't explain properly.
The presence of pain is bad
The presence of pleasure is good
The Absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone
The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.
If it helps think of it like this, after all good and bad are far from idea words to use, after all it is concieveable to think that lacking the best is a bad thing when you have the second best, that is the wrong way to view the words,it is still good that you have te second best, it would just be better to have to best. Think of it like You start at a netraul state and move towards each side depending on the presence or absence of pleasure/pain.
Negative state Neutral state Positive state
Bad not bad/not good Good
Let me try again to use examples to show why the absence of pleasure is not bad and way you cannot just say it the other way around. Please keep the above in mind
Right now I am not feeling any pleasure.. is that a bad thing? No it is my netraul default state, no one is depriving me of pleasure. I am in no pain and feel no discomfort. How can that be a bad thing (don't judge it as if you have pleasure)? It would be better if I was feeling pleasure sure, feeling pleasure would be a good thing but the fact that I am not in pleasure is not bad, there are 3 options, not being good does not make something bad. The lack of something good does not harm you. I really don't think you can disagree with this. You can say it the other way but that doesn't mean it makes sense.
Remember Lacking pleasure will not take us down in the 'bad end". You poor thing you didn't get a ferrari, it just doesn't quite work, not having a ferrari isn't a bad thing, you are not any worse off for not having one because you have never had one so how can you be worse off than your netraul state for not having it? If someone had taken it away them yes, you would be worse of.
Right now I am not in pain, (say nothing about what pleasure I may or not be feeling) that is good. Any way you look at it, the fact that I am not screaming in agony is a good thing. It should be uncontraversial to say that no one is in pain? That is a good thing. Now you will want to say No one is in pleasure? That is a bad thing, but read above it really isn't. Remember judge everything from the neutral point on the line. Do not judge it from the point of having pleasure or having pain because then the english I have been using doesn't really make sense and it makes no sense to do so anyway.The luck of something bad does not make it neutral it is just a good thing.
So in summary
The absence of pleasure does not harm you (unless it is a deprivation) so is neutral. Only Something which harms can be bad, lacking pleasure is not a harm (read the ferrari example).
The Absence of pain means you are not being harmed which is good. Pain can harm so it can be bad, the lack of this harm can only be discribed as a good thing.
If you think of it in this way it should clear up the asymmetry.
Either you accept this or you don't, but this is how most people view the world. If you truely disagree with this write down how you see it and take it to it's logical conclusions.
Yes there is an asymmetry, but it is between pleasure and pain. They just don't work the same way. We understand them differantly.
I think this covers most of your post.
Look it appears your only disagreement is with the intial four steps, where you believe there is an asymitery. If you agree there this falls into place. So I'm not going to argue here excpt to say. Because you are not depriving anyone of pleasure, they don't exist. That is not bad. You cannot deprive something that doesn't exist. You cannot risk depriving, either they exist or they don't. Once existing they can be deprived but before that they cannot be deprived.
So because it goes against your values it is a bad arguement. Atheism is against many peoples values.
You have no preferances when you don't exist.
btw I will agree with you, this arguement is absurd. But I don't think it is for any of the reasons you have said. I don't think I have heard a completely satisfactory explaination as to why it is wrong. But what I know is that following it leads to an unacceptable conclusion. A world with no humans is an unacceptable outcome to me (I'm not saying anything objectively, I could just be selfish), it goes against what I believe that does not mean I think it is a bad arguement. I think it is very a clear arguement and a strong arguement but doesn't mean I agree with it. It illustrates to me why we should never rely on pure reason alone. We can make mistakes with reason (my not seeing a flaw in the arguement is probably proof of that), this is a mistake that can never be corrected. We can always do it later if it becomes a certainity but we cannot undo it.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Eliminate money = all of the above probelms solved.
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
Exactly none would get solved by removing money.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Okay. Here goes
Ending crime needs the ending of the human race. Or simply redefining everything as not crime. As long as something can be done to the advantage of any other human then some human will do it, criminal or not. Usually crime is against some ral or imagined hurt, as long as there are humans there will always be real or imagined hurts, and thus crime.
Poverty is easier. One a system where the basic necessities are taken care of by default. A way humans can access energy to meet any imaginable needs and a good resource distribution system. Though I fear we will then simply redefine poverty.
There is no such a thing as environmental damage. What there is, is change. Over the ages the environment has moved from one state to another. Earth still exists, albeit supporting different lifeforms, or no lifeforms. What you are really asking to do here is maintain the environment in a manner beneficial to humanity. The environment is neutral as to life and/or humanity. I'm not sure we can keep the environment static at all, and keeping it beneficial to humanity might entail keeping it static, or nearly so.
Cannot be done. Some people, however much knowledge is available to them will still choose what to believe, rational or otherwise. Some others will prey on this gullibility.
Again an impossible goal. Humans and animals all require nourishment and all require a way to propagate their genes. This will result in suffering. A lion needs to kill in order to feed, it needs to mate with a lioness to the detriment of some other lion that would want to mate with the same lioness. In order to remove all suffering for humans and animals we would have to remove all humans and animals. Methinks that cure is worse than the disease.
In many instances, yes.
Cogito, ergo sum: I perceive, thus I do sums.
To end crime? Why do people steal things? To get money to buy the things they want.
To end poverty? Why are people poor? Because they don't have the money to buy the things they want or need.
To end environmental damage? Why is there environmental damage? Because there is less profit (money) for companies who use environmentally safe methods of production.
To end religion? Why is there organized religion? Because there is huge profit (money) raked in by the leaders
To end all suffering, human and animal? Why do people suffer? Because they don't have enough money for necessities and proper health maintenance and because they are oppressed by government leaders who control all of the money. Animal suffering? Eliminate the demand (profit) for animal-based products and the only suffering animals will experience is what Nature dishes out on a random basis - humans included.
PS...if it were illegal for ministers and popes to collect money from the congregation, and churches had to pay taxes just like the poor slobs they steal from, I'd bet a dollar bill, they would all hang up their collars and open up whorehouses.
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
Unless you propose how the world would work without money It is impossible to properly answer. Some it could help some it would harm. I see no reason to work if I can get what I need without working.
Crime is not always about money, besides they want money for something.murder is not always about money neither is speeding nor drunk driving
Poverty, imposible to say unless an alternative system is explained, but I will say some people will always have more than others. Example of something that could cause poverty without money. Natural disasters.
Environmetal damage, also impossibl to say unles an alternative system is explained. But I will say people will always exploit the environment to there own ends.
Religion, people believe not because of money, maybe a world wid system would coplase, I have no clue. But it won't make people believe any less.
Suffering, depends entirely on the system to replace money. But people will always suffer to assume otherwise is just way to optimistic. We like to eat meat,l we will keep animals and they will suffer. We like to get our way, someone will always lose and they will suffer.
I suspect removing money would just cause the collapse of civilisation, unless someone has some very smart idea to control the chaos that would begin.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
I don't think they make sense when you flip it and I think the best way to demonstrate that is to apply them.
For example with your version it becomes totally acceptable to create lives with the sole purpose of those lives immediately going to hell forever because there's no harm being prevented by not making those lives. Does that really sound right to you? If you want a realistic example, imagine a baby that's gonna be born with a condition that causes severe pain and will kill the baby shortly after birth. It would be totally fine to mass produce such babies for the lulz if we accept your version of the argument.
Now would preventing a life that's going to heaven be as bad as preventing the hellbound life is good? I'd say it's not, because the life doesn't need pleasure before it exists. You'd be preventing it from gaining pleasure but you also prevent it from ever needing it. You'll run into some hurdles if you reject this because if you think creating life is good overall and the unborn lives are somehow being deprived, then you must advocate that everyone has as many babies as they possibly can to "save" them, at least up to whatever point you think creating more lives is not lowering everyone's quality of life too much.
You can again argue that one can't suffer before they exist either but the point is not to make things better for the uncreated life that would suffer, it's to prevent that life from coming into existence and THEN suffering. You can flip this and say the point of creating the good life is to allow it to to exist and then gain pleasure, but it doesn't need that before it exists. The bad life on the other hand does need to be prevented or it will suffer when it exists.