Doug Stanhope on Anti-Natalism

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Bible-thump Christfags with their own holy book on anti-natalism:

• Job 3:3 “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.”

• Ecclesiastes 4:2-3 “I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.”

• Jeremiah 20:14-18 “Cursed be the day on which I was born: let not the day on which my mother bore me be blessed. Cursed be the man…because he slew me not from the womb; so that my mother might have been my grave and her womb always great. Why did I come out of the womb to see labour and sorrow?”

• Matthew 24:19 “Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

• Mark 13:17 “Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

• Luke 21:23 “Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

• Luke 23:29 “Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!”

• Matthew 26.24 “It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
• Mark 14:21 “It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

1. “Doesn’t the happiness out way the suffering in life. I have had dreams crushed but i still love life and am thankful that i am here.”

Some will be happy with the gamble that was taken with their life; but there is no fair or equitable way of distributing the suffering and risk. Which basically means that the people who lost the lottery of birth are paying the price of your pleasure and gladness to be alive. It is not your place to determine whether or not someone else’s suffering is a price worth paying for the pleasure that you experience. 

2. “Does the position not lead to suicide. A bullet to the head is painless and even if it was would reduce net suffering”.

Not necessarily, because a life worth starting and a life worth continuing are different concepts. Nevertheless, our natalist society makes sure that trying to escape the burden that was thrust upon one is as difficult and risky as practically possible. Consequently, natalists get to cause harm and then shift responsibility for solving the problem of the harm upon their victims.

It does not matter if happiness outweighs suffering. The fact that there’s any level of suffering at all negates any value of existence.

The Benatarian Asymmetry demonstrates this: whereas pleasure is good and pain is bad, the absence of pain is good even if there is nobody to directly benefit from that good but the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there exists an individual for which this absence would be a deprivation. As such, forgone pleasure in a non-existent state doesn’t matter. What matters is that any and all pain is avoided.

Antinatalism does not necessarily imply promortalism. Beings already in existence might or might not have an interest in continuing to exist once here (no thanks to that irrational Pollyanna optimism bias). Remember the whole absence of pleasure argument above?

Once someone already exists, then the missing pleasure could be construed as a deprivation. All that said, we all have the indisputable right to end our lives if we see fit and neither the medical establishment nor the state have any right to try to stop someone from carrying that action out.

That can only be assessed on a case by case basis, surely. Some people are certainly endowed with a happy go lucky attitude and a non-enquiring mind that together enable them to be happy with their lot.

Suicide would probably reduce suffering for the subject, but of course it may have effects on others around them, whether their family, friends, or even the people who have to clean up the mess. So it’s hard to say if it would reduce net suffering overall.

Not sure if i sill get a response but i’m interested.

1. Doesn’t the happiness out way the suffering in life. I have had dreams crushed but i still love life and am thankful that i am here.

2. Does the position not lead to suicide. A bullet to the head is painless and even if it was would reduce net suffering.

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