I would consider parenthood to be tantamount to rape, and to hell with flimsy logic about how you can't rape him who doesn't yet exist. We are "raped" into existence, my own metaphor (and it has nothing to do with women, it's just being born without consent).
I hate when people try to argue like that. "You can't wrong someone who doesn't exist!"---except you literally can because the wrong you're committing against them causes them to exist. They exist now and your decision to make them exist wronged them.
Except it does, because I'm not talking about what the child is feeling. I'm talking about what the parent is feeling. If you don't have a child, then it absolutely makes sense from the perspective of anything alive that you would feel pretty negative about that. It's kind of the whole reason of life and all that, and not having a child kind of means you invalidated it. I suppose that the graph could be amended to say "no or negative feelings" but the point I'm trying to represent with that graph is that having a child increases the positive feelings you have, and not doing that doesn't. It's clear to see why a future parent would be, well, a parent, if you look at it that way.
Again, this is only in your opinion. I have no desire to have kids. I think having kids would be a definite negative in my case.
Just because you'd be happy to have a child or even most people would be happy doesn't mean you'd a) be happy enough to cancel out the child's suffering or b) stay happy once you realize your child is suffering immensely or decides to CTB.
And
again, birth is not the only way to have a child. Adopting brings joy to both parties (if done by a loving parent).
Century Dictionary definition of "selfishness": The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.
Parents aren't being selfish if they have a child, because they aren't taking an exclusive interest in themselves. The feelings of the child are still taken into consideration, they're just lesser in value than those of the parents in that scenario.
Merriam Webster disagrees.
Selfish - concerned
excessively or exclusively with oneself: arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others
And also, trying to argue that purposefully causing harm to someone else because you value yourself and your own feelings more isn't a selfish act is crazy.
Amazing strawman with the second line, I'm almost proud.
Not a straw man because it happens. This is literally what we're arguing. You risk that extreme scenario when you have kids because it's possible.
Just because it's extreme doesn't mean it doesn't happen or that it isn't a risk you voluntarily impose upon that child when you choose to have biological children.
Every 13 year old who has ever committed suicide had parents who decided to have them and didn't consider that result because "it's such a low risk!"
It should be clear that that wasn't what I was saying to basically anyone reading my comment. If you had actually read my comment, you would've clocked that I said that, as I said in the response to your previous quote, the child's feelings (or rather, potential feelings) are taken second.I never said they weren't taken into consideration, did I? I thought I actually made sure to really make that point, but whatever.
And that means literally nothing.
"I take their feelings second, but because of that, my feelings always win" literally translates to "my feelings are more important so if ours disagree, theirs no longer matter."
As for the slapping analogy, it's kind of poor since, as I've mentioned before, the feelings formed by an action change in value for every time the action is committed, so those slaps would grow less and less satisfying, and probably less miserable for the slapped.
It's not a poor analogy (at least not for that reason).
I'm talking about slapping once, just like you can only bring someone into existence once, because they're already here. It doesn't matter if it would get less satisfying if you did it again because the point of the analogy is that it's a one-and-done decision.
You, can, however, slap another person and get the same enjoyment out of it, just like you can have another child.
There's nothing about the point you just made that proves my analogy to be in any way faulty (although it may be, but not for that reason).
Another issue is that you're doing exactly what I mentioned you can't do in these scenarios, which would render that analogy completely inaccurate, and that is to measure the worth of feelings against someone else. It's not possible. There's no way to form a frame of reference for that. No comparison can be made.
Exactly. And your whole argument runs on the assumption that every person will feel the same "+1 Positivity" going down the pedigree chart and that a "net good" can be found when choosing to hurt someone else for your own gain.
I didn't compare an individual's feelings against another's; I pointed out the idiocracy of you doing exactly that.
Another another issue with what you're saying is that you're intentionally twisting the numbers so it looks more ridiculous than it is. How much pleasure do you actually think someone derives from slapping, and how much pleasure do you think someone derives from being slapped? I would argue that being slapped evokes much more emotion than slapping in the first place. Same goes for having a child. If you experience giving birth to a child, that's a good feeling. Very very good, but not sky-high. Now let's look at the CTB of your child. That would be unimaginably horrific for the parents, and even just friends. Many never recover from the state of mind that lingers afterwards. They're almost incomparable events. It seems to me as if you're simplifying it just so the argument looks more absurd than it actually is, by equating events that wouldn't evoke as much emotion as another would.
Exactly. You're starting to get it.
You claimed that the parents' oxytocin boost from having a child outweighs the child's risk of extreme suffering. I'm saying that that's ridiculous.
I don't know what else to tell you other than that 49% of children don't CTB. If you think this, then you need to go outside a bit more. There's no other way of putting that. There is an obvious twisting of words at this point to make the argument seem stupid. "Torturing" a child? We can look at it like a normal distribution if you want; most children aren't going to be experiencing that immense an amount of suffering. Like, to the point that when they die, they're probably not aware of it levels of suffering. If you're going to go and tell me that 49% of births are torture for a child, then I don't think I want to bother arguing the point anymore, because it's evident that the only solution to this argument is to go out and actually experience life. You're not going to understand it with theory, especially if you're misrepresenting it like this.
Your own claim was that if the chance of net positivity was greater than 50% ("
p>=50") than it would be morally good to have a child.
That clearly suggests that a net positive of 51%, which is greater than 50%, is a good chance and a 49% risk of net negativity would be a reasonable number where having a child regardless of outcome would still be morally good.
We're not talking about the actual percent of people who experience net negativity. We're talking about the numbers you made up, which was that p>=50% would make having a child "logically correct" and the child, regardless of outcome, would "appreciate ... you gambling on it."
If you're going to intentionally try and alter the points I'm making, what's even the point anymore?
Where did I say it was your fault you were suicidal? Go on. Quote me. Tell me where it says it in "I'm not sure what disability you have, but I assume there's someone else out there, or other people rather, that have it too. Are they all suicidal? Not necessarily. They don't feel wronged by their own limitations. You do." Hint: It doesn't say that. You're just assuming things I'm saying at this point. Applying a fault to something implies that you caused it. I would sincerely hope that you can tell that you didn't. The point I was making was that disabilities in a vacuum aren't going to cause someone to become suicidal, nor is a predisposition to it. Sure, you're more likely to, but they're not going to do it on their own. The suicidal tendencies are a result of the experience you have as well as your own feelings towards yourself, but they're not your own fault.
Not arguing this point anymore because it makes me feel disgusting. Refer to my previous statements.
Here's a good source to indicate that p>=50%; most people seem to be happy, according to, well, themselves. That's about as accurate as you can get, no? Although it's worth mentioning that that doesn't take into account lesser developed countries, and it's quite subjective/dependent on what a person's idea of happy is. A quick glance at
this article states it might be lower than what we see on sources like the first one, but I doubt it's lowering enough to bring it to below 50%; that would be quite extreme.
This one is actually a lot better at showing this. There's a tendency towards being higher than 5 here, which means that it's more probable than not that life is positive for people.
Thank you for that first source. I had no idea the rate of happiness was that low.
That supports my points even further because my "extremely exaggerated scenario" is only 13% below the actual data.
Why is it about empathy now?
Empathy goes in conjuction with morality. And this was not an argument; just a personal opinion.
...except I didn't, since I provided a counterexample of a 100% chance of suffering. Same for 100% chance of prosperity...
A child born into
sex slavery who never escapes can very easily live a life without joy.
Rich people do not have the possibility of life without suffering just because they are born into rich families. The earth is not a vacuum of sunshine and rainbows, even when you're born rich. Maybe 99% "perfect", but not 100%.
At this point, I can basically see this as only working if we agree to disagree. We clearly have different beliefs. Not a bad thing, to be fair.
I agree. I still believe you are incorrect, and you can say the same for me.
The proof I used was that killing a child the very instant it can begin to feel means that it will have been able to feel but won't have experienced suffering or anti-suffering, depending on how quickly you do it. I'm not exactly sure when a body can begin to feel or differentiate between bad vs. good feelings and react in a way that we would consider to be representative of emotion, but I guess that's a whole other debate. Point is, if you kill it before it has felt, then it hasn't necessarily suffered. Also, what if it actually hasn't suffered yet? What if it's had all the nutrients it needs and so when it's born, it cries or whatever, but so far, no negative feelings have been experienced? That could have been a life of 100% happiness. It's improbable, but that state could continue, couldn't it? The exact same can be said for a life of 100% suffering.
Do you know what the term "natal" means? It means at the time of birth and post-birth. So antinatalism is that a child should not be born, lest it suffer.
Babies can feel pain and warmth in the womb in the later weeks of development.
A baby who has been born has already experienced pain and joy and will continue to experience it.
Therefore, a baby cannot be killed before it experiences joy or suffering without also following the principles of antinatalism. So this is not proof that antinatalists are wrong.
If your proof is "but we can just kill the baby in utero before it's born!!", yes. That's what antinatalists believe also.
It's not an exaggeration to call out the points you made
in the context you made them. Just because my wording makes it "sound worse than it is" doesn't mean it's not still exactly what you said.
No one's giving children sex-change hormones?? If you think they just get given them instantly, then you need to educate yourself. It takes years for people to be able to get HRT. They have to get written approval from doctors and often have to be checked to see if they're in the right mental state for it. No one's handing them out like it's candy.
Agreed.
