Daxter_87
If my name is crossed out, hopefully I'm dead.
- May 28, 2023
- 400
A problem can only be solved by identifying and addressing its root cause. If you only deal with the effects, the fix will be temporary, and it will not be long before the issue returns, either in the same or a different form. While this may sound like common sense, not many people seem to apply such obvious logic to the problem of suffering and its solution - anti-natalism. Not having children is the only answer to pain because it recognises and tackles its source, which is existence itself, whereas all other approaches are mere Band-Aids.
Let us begin by showing that life is the fundamental origin from which all torment arises and without which it would simply not be possible. This is a truism, for only after birth can you experience negative sensations, and once you are dead you are immune to them in every way. All those unsatisfied needs, all those troublesome headaches that plague you, are ultimately a result of you being alive. As other authors have commented:
This extract argues that, from the cradle to the grave, you have to do many things, ranging from eating to hygiene to work, lest your body punish you if you do not meet its exigent demands. When it comes down to it, our very existence is responsible for all the hardships we go through, because if we did not exist, we would not need anything. So what is the way out of this mess? The way out is simply to refuse to procreate, which brings us to the next point.
Faced with such a dilemma, the dilemma of being, the good news is that we have the power to escape it... by choosing not to reproduce. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the key has been within our grasp all along, for sparing our offspring from coming into the world is a tried-and-tested guarantee that they will not shed the slightest tear. As commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin (n.d.), "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". The wisest and most effective strategy is not to solve a problem after it has occurred, but to prevent it from occurring in the first place. In the context of suffering, it is best to avoid creating life altogether, for we could easily end all agony if we did not open the door to it to begin with. Opening the door, of course, means giving birth to a child, causing all their otherwise avoidable tribulations, and then blaming scapegoats like the government and demanding a new one in the hope that it will repair our broken system.
On that note, it is remarkable how we tend to focus on issues and solutions that at best do little more than patch up a sinking boat. We mistake a dysfunctional society, wars, crime, corruption, climate change, etc. as the essential reason of the dismal state of affairs, when they are all symptoms of a much deeper illness, previously diagnosed as existence itself. Others have defined this phenomenon as parochialism:
The key point is that such topics can often, though not necessarily always, turn into misleading information that distracts us from the actual origination of all adversity in our reality, which is this very reality. If your favorite political party wins the election in your country, it will not protect you from every conceivable harm; but if your parents had not created you, you would now be resting safely in non-existence. Therefore, only when we stop producing new generations will the misery end.
On the whole, anguish and distress have existed for as long as we have existed, but so has the panacea - the renunciation of reproduction. Discomfort and torture come from being embodied in a biological body, from inhabiting this world, otherwise there would be no such thing. This insight leads, on the one hand, to the conclusion that anti-natalism both fully grasps the predicament and can bring it to an end. Other proposals, on the other hand, neither get to the heart of the matter nor offer a real, lasting solution. After all, when we are in persistent trouble, we must first analyse what the underlying pattern is, and the underlying pattern in this case is crystal clear - we are born, then we suffer until we die.
Ever Deeper Honesty. (n.d.). Website: https://www.everdeeperhonesty.com/?m=1
Let us begin by showing that life is the fundamental origin from which all torment arises and without which it would simply not be possible. This is a truism, for only after birth can you experience negative sensations, and once you are dead you are immune to them in every way. All those unsatisfied needs, all those troublesome headaches that plague you, are ultimately a result of you being alive. As other authors have commented:
This extract argues that, from the cradle to the grave, you have to do many things, ranging from eating to hygiene to work, lest your body punish you if you do not meet its exigent demands. When it comes down to it, our very existence is responsible for all the hardships we go through, because if we did not exist, we would not need anything. So what is the way out of this mess? The way out is simply to refuse to procreate, which brings us to the next point.
Faced with such a dilemma, the dilemma of being, the good news is that we have the power to escape it... by choosing not to reproduce. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the key has been within our grasp all along, for sparing our offspring from coming into the world is a tried-and-tested guarantee that they will not shed the slightest tear. As commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin (n.d.), "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". The wisest and most effective strategy is not to solve a problem after it has occurred, but to prevent it from occurring in the first place. In the context of suffering, it is best to avoid creating life altogether, for we could easily end all agony if we did not open the door to it to begin with. Opening the door, of course, means giving birth to a child, causing all their otherwise avoidable tribulations, and then blaming scapegoats like the government and demanding a new one in the hope that it will repair our broken system.
On that note, it is remarkable how we tend to focus on issues and solutions that at best do little more than patch up a sinking boat. We mistake a dysfunctional society, wars, crime, corruption, climate change, etc. as the essential reason of the dismal state of affairs, when they are all symptoms of a much deeper illness, previously diagnosed as existence itself. Others have defined this phenomenon as parochialism:
The key point is that such topics can often, though not necessarily always, turn into misleading information that distracts us from the actual origination of all adversity in our reality, which is this very reality. If your favorite political party wins the election in your country, it will not protect you from every conceivable harm; but if your parents had not created you, you would now be resting safely in non-existence. Therefore, only when we stop producing new generations will the misery end.
On the whole, anguish and distress have existed for as long as we have existed, but so has the panacea - the renunciation of reproduction. Discomfort and torture come from being embodied in a biological body, from inhabiting this world, otherwise there would be no such thing. This insight leads, on the one hand, to the conclusion that anti-natalism both fully grasps the predicament and can bring it to an end. Other proposals, on the other hand, neither get to the heart of the matter nor offer a real, lasting solution. After all, when we are in persistent trouble, we must first analyse what the underlying pattern is, and the underlying pattern in this case is crystal clear - we are born, then we suffer until we die.
References
Efilism Wiki. (n.d.). Fandom.com. Retrieved November 17, 2023, from Fandom.com. Website: https://efilism.fandom.com/wiki/Philosophy_Arena
Ever Deeper Honesty. (n.d.). Website: https://www.everdeeperhonesty.com/?m=1
