Reddit convo
Original post: (Image of a stop sign. Someone painted "having kids" under the word "Stop.")
burningonyx: Bringing kids into this world in the state it's in is like bringing firewood into a burning building.
HortenseAndI: Why do so many redditors have this whole anti-kid schtick going on? All this sanctimonious posturing about how having children is the worst, most selfish thing you can do. You'd think we were living in a post-apocalyptic future or something... I full on don't get all this willingness to see the human species die out.
burningonyx: I have nothing against children. In fact it's for their sake I would never have any. We are in the middle of a mass extinction that we are causing by our own activity and our unwillingness to try to fix the situation. It's not a post apocalypse, because the apocalypse hasn't ended yet. We are mid-apocalypse. The world is burning down around our ears and people think bringing more kids into this world is a good idea. Imagine if the people in the twin towers during 9/11 had decided the have sex and make babies while the building was on fire and collapsing around them. That's us, now, in the current situation. Not quite as bad, since the whole planet won't die, it'll just become inhospitable to us. Life has survived mass extinctions before. But we probably won't if we don't pull our collective heads out of our collective asses and do something to try to minimize the damage, maybe even reverse some of it.
So yeah, why bring kids into this present-apocalyptic world only for them to suffer and die from the results of our hubris?
HortenseAndI: This is a weird and interesting argument - don't have children to save the children. Doesn't this argument work better to justify having only 1 or 2 children and no more? Or none for you, I guess, if you personally don't want 'em - but I don't think it gives anyone the right to say that having children is ethically wrong. Population decrease and population collapse are quite different.
burningonyx: You somehow managed to miss an easy point entirely. You can't suffer if you were never born to begin with. Why would causing fewer new people to suffer be any better than causing a lot more new people to suffer, when you can choose that no more new people will suffer? Any and all children you bring into this apocalypse world will suffer greatly, why do that to even a single one of them?
I'll use a metaphor to further explain. If my argument was "let's stop torturing people at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere," your counter-argument would be "How about we simply torture fewer people?" Like no, the point of what I said is that NOBODY SHOULD BE TORTURED. NOT A SINGLE BLOODY ONE! That is how thoroughly you missed the point of my argument.
EDITED TO ADD:
HortenseAndI: Well I fundamentally disagree with your starting position, which puts negative value on human lives - perhaps that's why I missed your point. If you think that all life is is pain, there's no intrinsic value in sentient experience, only negative experience should be counted in our calculus etc etc I guess your argument holds water, but I absolutely reject that premise!
burningonyx: "Well I fundamentally disagree with your starting position, which puts negative value on human lives - perhaps that's why I missed your point."
Wow, I didn't know you were mentally retarded. My apologies.
I mean, I can't think of how else you could have read everything I said and concluded that I put a negative value on human lives.
"If you think that all life is is pain, there's no intrinsic value in sentient experience, only negative experience should be counted in our calculus etc etc I guess your argument holds water, but I absolutely reject that premise!"
That is not my premise at all. Humans in North and South Americas were excellent stewards of the land until the Europeans came and killed everyone and fucked everything up. If we could reset back to the era before Columbus and then wipe out all of Europe, and keep the Old World and New World separate, or teach the Old World people the ways of the New World inhabitants, that would be great. I would do that. But we can't. Shit is fucked, humans suck now, so let's as a species try to reverse the damage we caused and go extinct so we can't fuck up again.
Not holding my breath that your tiny brain will be able to process that. Seriously, "all life is pain"? Where in the goddamned fuck did I say that? NOWHERE. I fucking hate it when brain-dead retards like you put words in my mouth. I said we're in a situation now where bringing kids into the world AS IT IS NOW is only bringing them in to suffer and/or die meaning, that shit is SITUATION SPECIFIC, as in SPECIFIC TO THE CURRENT CLIMATE APOCALYPSE, you fucking mentally deficient neanderthal. I did NOT say, in ANY fashion, that life was inherently suffering. I'm not a fucking Buddhist. And if you EVER put words in my mouth again, by gods I will fucking find somebody to help me doxx you so I can donkey kick you in the teeth.
Fucking hell. Moronic assholes like you are proof we need to work on teaching reading comprehension to kids. Because the system clearly failed you miserably. This was cross-posted from https://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/330219.html
You can comment either here or there.
burningonyx: Bringing kids into this world in the state it's in is like bringing firewood into a burning building.
HortenseAndI: Why do so many redditors have this whole anti-kid schtick going on? All this sanctimonious posturing about how having children is the worst, most selfish thing you can do. You'd think we were living in a post-apocalyptic future or something... I full on don't get all this willingness to see the human species die out.
burningonyx: I have nothing against children. In fact it's for their sake I would never have any. We are in the middle of a mass extinction that we are causing by our own activity and our unwillingness to try to fix the situation. It's not a post apocalypse, because the apocalypse hasn't ended yet. We are mid-apocalypse. The world is burning down around our ears and people think bringing more kids into this world is a good idea. Imagine if the people in the twin towers during 9/11 had decided the have sex and make babies while the building was on fire and collapsing around them. That's us, now, in the current situation. Not quite as bad, since the whole planet won't die, it'll just become inhospitable to us. Life has survived mass extinctions before. But we probably won't if we don't pull our collective heads out of our collective asses and do something to try to minimize the damage, maybe even reverse some of it.
So yeah, why bring kids into this present-apocalyptic world only for them to suffer and die from the results of our hubris?
HortenseAndI: This is a weird and interesting argument - don't have children to save the children. Doesn't this argument work better to justify having only 1 or 2 children and no more? Or none for you, I guess, if you personally don't want 'em - but I don't think it gives anyone the right to say that having children is ethically wrong. Population decrease and population collapse are quite different.
burningonyx: You somehow managed to miss an easy point entirely. You can't suffer if you were never born to begin with. Why would causing fewer new people to suffer be any better than causing a lot more new people to suffer, when you can choose that no more new people will suffer? Any and all children you bring into this apocalypse world will suffer greatly, why do that to even a single one of them?
I'll use a metaphor to further explain. If my argument was "let's stop torturing people at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere," your counter-argument would be "How about we simply torture fewer people?" Like no, the point of what I said is that NOBODY SHOULD BE TORTURED. NOT A SINGLE BLOODY ONE! That is how thoroughly you missed the point of my argument.
EDITED TO ADD:
HortenseAndI: Well I fundamentally disagree with your starting position, which puts negative value on human lives - perhaps that's why I missed your point. If you think that all life is is pain, there's no intrinsic value in sentient experience, only negative experience should be counted in our calculus etc etc I guess your argument holds water, but I absolutely reject that premise!
burningonyx: "Well I fundamentally disagree with your starting position, which puts negative value on human lives - perhaps that's why I missed your point."
Wow, I didn't know you were mentally retarded. My apologies.
I mean, I can't think of how else you could have read everything I said and concluded that I put a negative value on human lives.
"If you think that all life is is pain, there's no intrinsic value in sentient experience, only negative experience should be counted in our calculus etc etc I guess your argument holds water, but I absolutely reject that premise!"
That is not my premise at all. Humans in North and South Americas were excellent stewards of the land until the Europeans came and killed everyone and fucked everything up. If we could reset back to the era before Columbus and then wipe out all of Europe, and keep the Old World and New World separate, or teach the Old World people the ways of the New World inhabitants, that would be great. I would do that. But we can't. Shit is fucked, humans suck now, so let's as a species try to reverse the damage we caused and go extinct so we can't fuck up again.
Not holding my breath that your tiny brain will be able to process that. Seriously, "all life is pain"? Where in the goddamned fuck did I say that? NOWHERE. I fucking hate it when brain-dead retards like you put words in my mouth. I said we're in a situation now where bringing kids into the world AS IT IS NOW is only bringing them in to suffer and/or die meaning, that shit is SITUATION SPECIFIC, as in SPECIFIC TO THE CURRENT CLIMATE APOCALYPSE, you fucking mentally deficient neanderthal. I did NOT say, in ANY fashion, that life was inherently suffering. I'm not a fucking Buddhist. And if you EVER put words in my mouth again, by gods I will fucking find somebody to help me doxx you so I can donkey kick you in the teeth.
Fucking hell. Moronic assholes like you are proof we need to work on teaching reading comprehension to kids. Because the system clearly failed you miserably. This was cross-posted from https://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/330219.html
You can comment either here or there.