Existence is pain, and since you cannot take anybody's consent before giving them birth -- humans should not reproduce.

I have thought this over, would love to see if anyone can find holes in the premise or the conclusion.

Existence is not pain.

Since it's between passing down genes and not causing any suffering for another person most pick the former.
If you ask, most people don't regret being born, and would gladly go for another round.

Consent? You kidding? At the point of conception, where the person-to-be is still split in two parts, you have one part - the egg - actively attracting the other, while the other part competes with millions upon millions of others for that place in the egg.

No matter how much the later person will regret being born, at this point coming into existence was its only longing.

Same goes for fetus, baby, kid, etc. All want to live and usually enjoy living and would choose so if they could.

One big hole in your premise is that "the person" is a monolithic and unchanging entity.

Are you trolling? Just about every part of that argument is nonsense.

Existence is clearly not pain. Existence can sometimes be painful, it doesn't mean it's equivalent to pain. Existence can sometimes mean eating a potato. Doesn't mean that existence is therefore equivalent to the act of eating a potato.

And obviously something can't consent before coming into being, that doesn't mean it can't happen. Heck, babies can't consent to retrieve medical treatment, does that mean all sick babies just have to lump it, and if they die or have life changing ailments because of it then "oh well"?!

Dah. I have a pet peeve against these statements deliberately crafted to sound philosophically deep, but are clearly just complete BS.

@DirtEffect But why neglect the odds of being born with an impairment? If a baby is born blind or deaf and now has to adjust in this society, who is to be blamed?

About taking consent, I don't think the notion of consent makes sense until someone has matured to the point that they can think of their well-being. This also addresses the point of two cells longing to be born, if somehow those two cells could grow an adult brain they might want to re-think?

@AlmondSauce

It is not a hot take, and I would only be replying to the points that I think require clarifications.

You mentioned babies don't consent to receiving medical treatments that save their lives, fair enough, but they also don't consent to be born with such illnesses in the first place and suffer through them?

Also, existence is a personal experience, eating potatoes is not painful in anyway. But what about someone who has to live with a pain (mental or physical) of a disease or an impairment beyond their control? There are people in Syria who are bombed day and night, and people who have to see their bodies decay with malnutrition in SA.

Why do we so conveniently neglect them out of the discussion everytime?

Well, you argument falls in a logic fallacy: Over Simplification, therefore is not valid for any discussion.

Here, have a read
https://betterlesson.com/lesson/...

Here is a better read if you have the time
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/...

@yashdevrant Oh come on, you're limiting your examples to a deliberately small subset. Your argument is broad and general, applying to the whole human race, so you have to justify it in a general case (which you can't, because it's nonsense.)

You can't state that no humans should reproduce because existence is pain, then only give examples of people in worn torn or famine inflicted countries.

@yashdevrant well you either learn to live with it or commit suicide.

Your argument actually just means ur leaving the responsibility to make the choice to someone else.

@yashdevrant as long as the parents have not done anything harmful during pregnancy, why should *anyone* be to blame?

Any action may turn out unexpected or unwanted results. If you conclude that therefore you don't take any action at all, joke's on you: Inaction is also a kind of action that leads to certain downfall.

On the consent: yes, I totally agree! Consent at the point of conception is hardly possible. But then, nothing in the universe has been asked for consent before bringing it into existence. This is the game we all have to play, whether we like it or not.

Taking a quote of the great Karl Valentin: "I am always happy when it rains, because if I am unhappy it rains anyway".

:-)

@AlmondSauce

I agree those are exaggerated examples I made to convey the point and that do not represent every single human living on this planet.

But, we are being biased towards the well-off elite classes, and not considering the actual poverty-stricken population. If you want this to be broadly applicable look at the living standards of the median classes.

You will find that majority of the human population does not have as good living standards as you and me. I am talking about average families in China, India, Africa, and even the USA.

I think having children for them is more of a selfish decision than anything else, a retirement plan if you will.

@UnicornPoo

This is going to be another unpopular opinion of mine, but I do not think there's anything particularly important/special about the existence of humans.

We are self-aware and much intelligent than other species, but I do not think there is any grand goal/purpose that humanity serves.

@donuts

You are right, suicide is always an option and many different branches of philosophy (one for instance Stoicism) have held grounds that it should be permissible given that somebody has a very poor quality of life. --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Said that, I think not having a children is a more easier choice to make than ending your life, no?

@DirtEffect

I agree that not reproducing is a choice (of inaction), but I do not see any downfall to it, do you believe that humanity here exists for any particular purpose?

I agree with the last point you make.

@yashdevrant "I agree those are exaggerated examples I made to convey the point and that do not represent every single human living on this planet."

Brilliant, so you agree your original argument is flawed & incorrect?

@AlmondSauce

Nope, I still stand with original argument, please read the next bits.

@yashdevrant This is getting painful. Once again, your original argument relates to all humans, humans in general, not just "poverty stricken humans", "poor humans", "humans who find existence painful", etc. You can't just wave away humans that find live happy because "more humans than you think find life painful" or whatever..

@yashdevrant The downfall of our species, of course. And, as we are the only hope for life as we know it to get off this planet and spread through the universe, ultimately the downfall of life as we know it.

The question of purpose is a completely separate topic. Why would you bring that up in this context?

@AlmondSauce

> You can't just wave away humans that find live happy because "more humans than you think find life painful"

IIRC, you had an issue w/ my examples of Syria and SA being the minority. So I quoted an example of how the majority of humans live, which seems quite painful to me.

Now you are essentially arguing for the minority/elite classes saying they find existence happy and would like to/should pro-create.

Alright, in a hypothetical scenario, where the rich keep pro-creating and the poor do not, you will still find the same pattern emerge, some of them will get poor and others rich. And you will just end up w/ majority of humans finding their lives difficult.

The catch is as long as humanity exists there will the rich (minority) and the not-so-rich (majority). And I am arguing for the latter.

> This is getting painful.
Almost ironic, that I am fighting for folks who find life painful and you against them. And there's no reason to get all worked up. :)

@DirtEffect

> downfall of life as we know it

Agreed, life will cease to exists. But my point is we did not create life, and we shouldn't burden ourselves w/ spreading it?

> The question of purpose is a completely separate topic. Why would you bring that up in this context?

Oh, I thought it was straightforward. Since I am suggesting humans should not procreate, humanity will cease to exist. If it does, then as you said above "there will be the downfall of life as we know it" and it won't be able to serve any particular purpose which, I think is fine.

IMO, we are here rather by accident and not for serving any exact purpose.

@DirtEffect and @AlmondSauce,

Not to break the flow here, but I really appreciate you guys trying to help me see things differently.

I hope I am clarifying myself well while defending my unpopular opinion, and certainly do not wish to frustrate/be painful to either of you. :)

@yashdevrant Well, you don't have to burden yourself with spreading it. Life is a present, albeit one you didn't ask for. You may enjoy reading a good introduction to stoicism.

The question of purpose is certainly a hard one, but you can come to grips with it. In short: no, there is no ultimate purpose, but that is not a bad thing. That means YOU can create your own purpose.

@yashdevrant I do not find talking to you frustrating in any way. You are asking precisely the same questions that I have asked years ago. Facing these questions and making peace with the fact that there are no ultimate answers is the challenge of growing up in the age of enlightenment. You are an intelligent person, you can take this challenge and find your own answers and your own purpose.