If a child is likely to have a life full of pain and suffering is that a reason against bringing the child into existence? - yes. If a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life, is that a reason for bringing the child into existence? - yes. Can we produce only happy people? - no.
So, is the continuance of our species , justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings? How can we say "Yes" without accepting unlimited utilitarism?
>So, is the continuance of our species , justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings? How can we say "Yes" without accepting unlimited utilitarism?
By simply saying that you do not know whether or not a child will suffer.
To say that you know for sure that even the most impoverished child living in a favela in Brazil or a slum in India will not live a life full of little joys is to say that you yourself are omniscient, or that you have a lacking capacity for joy yourself and are projecting this onto others. Human beings find joy in the smallest of things, and every one of us is capable of living a worthy life.
In addition to this, if you are to have a child, it is your duty as a parent to ensure that they live equipped to build a worthy life. You have the power, no matter your station in life, to ensure that your children can do this. To abrogate this responsibility, or to assume that you are not up to the task, is a weakness of the first degree, that will end your lineage. If you succumb to this weakness you are not worthy of life. As if you would call your life worth living (and it must be, for you not having killed yourself yet), and you accept that it is the primary instinct and duty of the parent to give their children better lives than they themselves had, then for you to say that your children will have nought but suffering, you must yourself be living a life so absolutely contemptible that you ought to have killed yourself already.
If, however, you acknowledge that you are incapable of fulfilling the duties of a parent, and you are not capable of giving your children better lives than you had, then by all means, voluntarily castrate yourself and continue life confident in the knowledge that you are unworthy of nurturing children and have failed the only true task given to all human kind.
Julian Roberts
>Can we produce only happy people? - no. hmmm...Your answer "Yes"? But I am know. There is no chanse that among 8billions of people no one got a life full of pain and suffering.
Nolan Brown
zygotes are a renewable resource
Jeremiah Campbell
You can however say that 99.9% of babies born in favelas or indian slums will live lives full of hardship and sadness.
Let's be serious here, outliers are outliers for a reason - it's irrelevant to discuss babies who are born in those dispicable circumstances and who somehow manage to make it.
Jack Anderson
If you don't have children, what exactly are you going to do for 70+ years?
Sit around jerking off?
Jonathan Davis
>You can however say that 99.9% of babies born in favelas or indian slums will live lives full of hardship and sadness.
No. You can't.
You have not lived such a life, so you cannot make such a claim.
I am not saying that their lives are wonderful, merely not more full of suffering than of happiness.
Many people underestimate the human capacity for finding joy in the smallest, most mundane things around them, in human relationships and accomplishments of the most minor degree. It's pleasures such as these that give most of our lives meaning, not simply access to material wealth or convenience.
Liam Young
So you're going to vomit a new being into existance just because you want some meaning for your boring life?
Joseph Brooks
Don't answer my question with a question fagtron.
Life literally consists of working 5 days a week, taking showers and a shit, and then leisure time.
Explain how your life would be so much more meaningful *without* having children.
Nathaniel Jenkins
When are you going to stop talking about yourself? Don't you have the self-reflection to know that it's selfish to spawn a new being for your own person gain?
Charles Turner
Why did you make this thread if you're going to refuse to answer people's questions?
William Martin
Why do you think I started the thread?
Josiah Collins
I think you started the thread to spew /r9k/-tier anti-natalism because you're a pathetic loser who can't find a woman.
the argument boils down to what OP's moral standards are, which seem to be "the only thing that matters is the prevention suffering", but whatever it is OP will not discuss it so the discussion never goes anywhere
Christopher Phillips
>You have not lived such a life, so you cannot make such a claim.
Are you saying anecdotal evidence is a valid form of argumentation?
Cooper Martin
What if a child is destined to live a sad miserable life but could make advancements in fields that would greatly increase quality of life for the entire world? What if he could've cured cancer and by choosing not to birth him you sentenced thousands of people to early deaths? Is that not immoral?
Joseph Hall
maybe but it incidentally may also be correct
Julian Flores
if you cant find a woman, then what exactly are you going to do for 70+ years? Sit around jerking off? Explain how your life would be so much more meaningful with finding a woman then without?
Benjamin Thompson
There isn't much more of a fundamental premise as suffering sucks. How could the amelioration of suffering not matter in some ultimate sense?
Luke Johnson
You cannot guarantee a new life will be happy or sad as they are things measured differently by everyone.
On a completely logical standpoint we as a species must continue via reproduction so bringing bee life into existence is a must.
The best way I think we should all look at life is like this. We should all do or best to find a balance between finding happiness while advancing our species.
If you don't want to have a kid then do something that brings as much good as a whole new person would bring
Cooper Sanchez
>muh meaning
Sorry chief
Jayden Ross
>Are you saying anecdotal evidence is a valid form of argumentation?
No, but saying that something is so or is not so without any experience of that thing, when it comes to human existence, is not a valid basis for a claim of such magnitude.
I'm not offering a counter-claim, as I have no experience of such life either, I'm stating that his claim is baseless.
Blake Morales
>as much good as a whole new person would bring
Okay you've sold me. I'm going to be the best damn arsonist this country's ever seen.
