The making of an antinatalist

What creates an antinatalist? What would turn otherwise ordinary folk going about their day into evil pessimistic cretins, knitting the fabric of reality into ugly curtains and such? The answer in my case has simply been a hatred of what goes on in the world combined with a hatred with what goes on in my life which led me to be susceptible to such claims. But what actually pushed me from "Ha well it would be nice if the human race died out but I don't think there's a moral reason for it" to all high-and-mighty, antinatalism spouting arrogance-master estnihil was just time. I just had to be exposed to the ideas time after time, and given time for the ideas to sink in, and after giving myself time to try to refute such arguments to no success, I eventually arrived at antinatalism.

And I expect the same is true of most antinatalists. I don't expect that every antinatalist hated the world and looked for reasons to justify their hatred - though a good amount certainly walked my path I'd guess. But what I do expect is that, for some reason or other, pre-antinatalists became antinatalists simply through repeated exposure, and possibly through innate susceptibility (caused by knowledge of world already). Now being exposed repeatedly doesn't have to happen through world-hatred per se. It could easily develop merely by hearing about antinatalism and viewing it as an interesting subject, even if untrue.  If you go through the arguments enough, find yourself constantly unable to pick out any flaws, then you will eventually find yourself becoming an antinatalist, as a rule, unless you are in some way biased in favour of natalism.

So no, we aren't all depressed freaks waiting for the bus, trying to pass some time by writing a blog (I am, though). Antinatalism does not require depression. It doesn't even require Weltschmerz. You don't have to hate the world to be an antinatalist - though it CAN help you get to that point. DON'T MISQUOTE ME, you really, really don't have to be in a comatose, destroy-the-world, I-wish-I-was-never-born kind of mood to favour antinatalism. I have met several such people who are not of that opinion (though they have no blogs). This post is for you, critics. Antinatalism is not a mental illness, nor is it revenge against the world. It is a philosophical position justified by a heck of a lot of logic. If you can argue with it, then fine. You're justified in saying it is wrong, and if I see your arguments I will change my position. But if you can only say "you guys are whiny/emo/depressed" or "antinatalism is absurd/unsound/based on faulty logic" and expect me to change my position, then you will sadly be mistaken.

The Pesssimist Gap

What I have entitled the Pessimist Gap is the gap in reality-experiencing an 'unenlightened' person, let's say, and a Pessimist's experience. The Pessimist sees no reason to live such pointless lives where so little happiness is guaranteed, and where no one comes out alive, hence why there is no reason to breed. Hence when this very same Pessimist looks upon one who is not quite so pessimistic, they cannot see why exactly it is that the non-pessimist appears as if the horrible, desperate situation of life and the universe does not vex them in the slightest. It is the same for most non-pessimists out there, as far as appearances go. The simple solution is that things are not as they appear, and there is actually a gap between the realities that each player is perceiving.

This strangeness is explained by the fact that it appears perfectly obvious in the non-pessimist world that obviously we will be happier in the future, because we'll get that new bathroom suite we've always dreamed of! There is obviously a point to life, but we'll leave that for philosophers to figure out - common folk needn't worry themselves with such things. Death isn't final, or if it is, all the more reason to enjoy one's life and pass on the gift to others! The horrible situation we pessimists talk about is not at all horrible to anyone that is in 'Realist'-mode. Not even the absence of free will, which destines us to a multitude of suffering we neither wished for nor did our parents wish for, manages to knock people out of their trance. Don't think. Feel. That is the message of the Realists. As long as you feel happy, it's okay to have children. Don't question anything, so don't question the most basic premises of life to check if they are built on steady ground or not. Don't check whether the biggest decision of your life is the right one or not. Don't think - feel.

So are they brainwashed then? Does that not imply that the natural state of human beings is one of questioning reality? Well, that could be true, but we'd need a study done on existential thoughts in people first. I don't think genes would really allow that, but then, they don't control absolutely everything. It could be a universal fault impossible to get rid of that just comes with the territory of an advanced brain.
But if it is brainwashing, then in a lot of cases it is voluntary brainwashing, as a lot, A LOT of depressed people have these thoughts, and those who become cured basically still go on to have children, or to believe in (a) god(s), or to write happy self-help books about how life is great. 

What do you do when someone is suicidal?

The answer should always be, whether you're pro-choice suicide or not, is to talk that person out of it. This is not out of disrespect for the possibility that they are fully aware of what they are doing, but rather cautious covering-all-the-bases in case they are not. You can't take the risk that by agreeing with them on the sorry and disgusting state of the world you are enticing them to commit an act that they would otherwise regret. You have to take things cautiously, ask them why they do not want to exist, ask them how long they've been steady in this desire, and moreover, if there is anything that would change their desire. There, are probably hundreds more questions you could ask to ascertain whether a person is suicidal because life is currently hard and it looks like a good way to escape, or suicidal because life has always been hard and it seems the best choice in this circumstance.

There's a reason you can't just walk into a Euthanasia clinic and not come out the next day, or rather come out in a body bag the next day. If you really want to commit suicide, not out of acute pain, but chronic pain, or a hatred of life, then you should be prepared to wait at least a little longer. If you cannot do that, then it may be possible you are correct in your wish to die, but it's actually more likely that you would choose not to had you been in a better state of mind. These are the suicide-attempters that can truly be saved. You cannot save someone who TRULY wants to die, unless you save them from life in assisting their suicide, which is illegal in a lot of places.

So is it right to force more suffering onto people to make sure other people who are not in the right state of mind come to the right state of mind? It's a simple trade-off. How many lives wasted are you prepared to see for wishes fulfilled? I think most people would come to the conclusion that making the suicidal wait to commit suicide is a valid alternative to having people who would otherwise not be suicidal if they were thinking straight dying unnecessarily. Therefore, you should talk people out of suicide or at least ask them to wait for a while before supporting them in their wish to die.

Why is life's preciousness an assumption?

Why is it taken for granted that life is always precious, as a whole, no matter what circumstances a person is in? Because it is finite, and unlikely to happen? Cancer often lasts for a finite duration, and is unlikely to happen. Why is it not precious, then, by the same reasoning?

I hypothesise the life is precious only if it feels to an individual person that it is precious. Never as a whole, because there is most likely no objective meaning or God to tell us what is worthwhile and what is not. What I mean by feel, is whether they think that their own life is precious or it matches up with their values to declare that life is precious.

Of course, there's probably no real definitive answer, because, as I've said before, you can't talk about subjective values on a universal scale, only on the scale of humans - and humans vary so intensely that it's hard to make sweeping generalisations. Life being precious for everyone sounds quite probabilistically untrue, as there are an extremely large quantity of ways you can arrange people so this life is precious, this life isn't etc. but only one way of all lives being precious. That's my simple analysis anyway. It could still be true, but is just quite unlikely. Life's inherent preciousness has no evidence for it as far as I can see, while life being given preciousness by subjective values has more evidence in that a lot of people DON'T treat their lives as precious (taking unnecessary risks - effective suicidality), which is odd due to the widespread meme of life's preciousness being ingrained into most people. What causes them to suddenly reject that? It's subjective evidence, but it's more than life's inherent preciousness has.

I've probably tied myself in knots doing this, and no objective values etc. makes things a lot harder and probably a lot more futile. Still, I don't like believing that my life is precious when it is quite clearly something that does not feel that way, which is hence why I personally reject any such claim. But that's based on absolutely nothing, so I'm still racking my brains trying to come up with something to refute something that sounds so baseless and intuitively wrong to me.

Being 'Pessimistic' is being Realistic

What do we want? Are we getting it? If not, pretend that you'll get it in the future. You are being a Realist.
What do we wish for? Will we ever achieve it? If not, pretend we don't wish for it at all. You are being a typical person.
What is there in life? Is there anything beyond the meaninglessness and the distractions? If not, pretend there is. You are being religious.

Anything else and you are probably being pessimistic, if I haven't neglected some other choice (which I probably have, given how many ways of pretending things in front of us are in fact daisies and sunshine). What's so good about this? Nothing at all, except that it helps us make the right decisions, for us anyway, though maybe not for emotionless cold robots. Such as antinatalism, for one. Which is not really for robots at all, since it does carry the little assumption "Ye must not like suffering". Which is a simple assumption for most of humanity, in fact, so that's fine as far as we're concerned. But not if you're a Boltzmann brain. But as for Pessimism, is it really worth following?

Well, it depends on whether you are a sociopath or not. I've already said that most of humanity cares about suffering. Sociopaths only really care about their own suffering, so as a result, can't truly be benefitted by following antinatalism, and will probably actually suffer more, since it's easier to just believe that everything is awesome and the world is a haven. Ordinary people however, have their moral values furthered exponentially, as they do not have children, and their children do not have children and so on.

So you can expect a very large return out of following antinatalism and not having kids, if you aren't a sociopath. But, well, the rest of Pessimism isn't the best really. It's only for people, I'd say, who tend towards preferring the truth over lies, as I do. And there is a lot about our worldly situation that is not rainbows and cookies.

So should the standard human being pick and choose which parts of Pessimism to follow? Or should they swallow the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Probably the former in my opinion, if they want to die of natural causes. Pessimism is the act of throwing Hope into the shredder and laughing at its screams. You don't get much further from the pursuit of Happiness than that. On one hand while this may be a good thing, as maybe you spend more time distracting yourself (more pleasure) than seeking things that you know won't come to any great reward in the end. Though to be honest, I'm not altogether sure whether seeking is for most people a state of pleasure, or a state of painful desire. If it's mainly pleasurable, then again it may be potentially less depressing to just be Pessimistic enough to maximise your morality, but not enough to send yourself into a coma.

So should we be spreading the Pessimistic word? Yes, if we want friends who are closely related to us in opinion. But I don't know for sure if Pessimism, over a long period of time, makes people happier or not. Zapffe sure didn't seem too depressed, but that's anecdotal, so I can't give an overall yes or an overall no. Yikes, an undecided post.

Stopping those meandering pity posts at the root

I'm not writing about my life here anymore. I've decided that if I'm going to do something, I might as well not do it half-assed. So if you somehow managed to salvage something out of my pity-party posts, you can email me and I'll tell you the address of the new blog I made for such things. The reason it's semi-private is because I don't want others associating my whiny rants with antinatalism, I've done that enough already. The aforementioned posts will still stay up on this blog, but I am currently going to try my hardest not to let any others slip by. Yeah it's my blog, I have the right to do whatever I want with it yadda yadda, but essentially what I want is to have an audience, write thoughtful things, and to somehow see if I can spread a little bit of that antinatalist joy we all talk about.

If I can't do that, I'll review various things. As long as I'm not writing posts like I did. I don't mean that I am completely ashamed of them, it's rather, they don't belong here on one hand, and on the other, I never really divulged anything particularly personal - as I said, I was doing things half-assed. I'm doing things full-assed instead, you might say, if you were drunk, on that other blog, and being as whiny as possible, in hopefully what is my true voice, or at least, a persona closer to my actual 'self'.

Also, one thing I've realised recently is that you can't argue with people on antinatalism (I should have learnt this a long time ago, I swear). Well, you can. But they're not going to listen. It's like saying the sky is green and it's immoral to think that the sky is blue. That's what antinatalism sounds like, I think, to people not especially prepared for it. But how does one become prepared for a theory like antinatalism? I've mentioned before, but it's possible that a little anti-bias training should help. It sounds that way, anyway. But in practice, I don't think a lot of Less Wrong or Overcoming Bias would be inclined to do anything else than pull down their lower clothing, prepare their anuses and launch a steamy turd over the things we say. It could be mortality salience, as Sister Y suggests applies to why this doesn't exactly work (see my comment there), and if it is, also suggested by Sister Y (ingeniously), then this can be worked around potentially by tricking any potential believers into thinking we are talking about something entirely different, but eerily similar to someone used to seeing these situations - such as virtual reality. I might try her questionnaire at some stage on some unknowing 'victims', to see if I can't break a few eggs. By which I mean egg cells, hoho.

Why Killing is Wrong and the Doomsday Button too

Killing is wrong, I decided a while back, not just because of the negative utility experienced by humans prior to their death because of the killing ritual, but because any human killed is effectively robbed of the positive utility they would have had after death, along with their consent being violated. In this case by the way it IS meaningful consent, as suffering, or at least loss of positive utility, will occur. Therefore, the Doomsday Button is probably immoral to push, as it essentially kills everyone on Earth.

You must before doing something like this consider that the vast majority of humans on this world want to be alive, and have a right to choose whether to live or die as they see fit (see this, especially the end). Therefore the Doomsday button is wrong because you a breaking a fundamental moral right, so says moral intuition. But is being robbed of positive utility really such a crime?

Moral intuition, again, says yes. If you slander someone and stop them from getting a highly-paid job that would have raised their positive utility compared to their state otherwise, you have quite obviously done a bad thing. So the Doomsday button is doubly wrong, sadly.

But can you just say, for the greater good, since more lives of suffering will not have been made? No, because morality does not take into account the greater good, it takes into account a harm, and a harm is something you cannot do if you do not wish to violate your morality, which people generally do not seek to do for feelings of guilt. For the purposes of this discussion, breaking of consent, violation of rights and loss of positive utility most likely constitute harms.

I'm a little rusty in my morality arguments, but reading over things I might get a bit better. If I can be bothered. In any case, until next time.