So political leaders get a pass to break all the rules? I don’t understand your reasoning. The rules should be applied only to people without power? Facebook should just always take the “easiest” path for moderation?
What about leaders elsewhere that explicitly call for violence or perpetrate it? Is there a line somewhere?
no, just cuz he broke their rules… repeatedly… and says violent hateful shit… and spreads misinformation. Trump supporters whine about their bans or posts being removed when they post the vile shit they like to spew. Why does Trump get a pass?
Now that we have an emperor I think the sky’s the limit lol
It is proliferation because they currently have none and would now have more. Even if not, which nuclear bombs are we “using” right now?
I’m sure sending nukes to a war-torn country will do nothing to resolve the conflict or stabilize the region. Israel is constantly in conflict despite having nukes and other WMD goodies. How could this possibly help? Do you imagine they’d use them? MAD only ensures that nukes don’t get launched. Putins “operation” in Ukraine could continue completely unimpeded
Nuclear proliferation is certainly not the answer
If you look at D policy positions, they are overwhelmingly popular (when detached from a certain sleepy lil guy).
I think the majority of people searching are bound to find plenty they don’t like
Trump has me terrified of Trump, not the DNC.
Lesser evil is a myth liberals tell themselves to justify doing what they know is harm.
I think it’s far more varied than that. There are some “true” leftists in the Democratic party. I would much prefer ranked choice voting, proportional representation, etc. to represent all views. Moreover, the “lesser evil” is not merely an invention of the DNC – it’s what I view as objective reality. One side really does happen to be worse than the other. Either way we eat a shit sandwich, but one is gourmet shit and comes with the faint hope that one day I will be eating more palatable shit on perhaps higher quality bread.
Thanks for the tidbit on Perkins. Do you have more information on how dems are fighting against socialism actively? From what I can tell, they are frequently trying to package “socialist” policies in way the average red-scare American can swallow (re:obamacare, market controls, regulation, etc.).
At the end of the day, the choice is truly between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. There is zero (0.00%) room for anything else in the year of 2024. Short of a revolution, incremental change is what we are working with, and I will go to the polls to vote blue whether I have a grin or grimace on my face.
I think that you have a well-reasoned and valid view. It’s not that I regret my birth, but that I didn’t consent to being a living, conscious thing – the consent portion of which you can reasonably view as an impossibility.
Suffering is a necessity of living, and therefore bringing a person into the world means they will suffer. You’re right that I generally take a utilitarian view of things, upon reflection. Though, taking it to its most extreme conclusion, I could never be asked to choose between saving 5 million people if it meant killing 4,999,999. Such thought experiments leave me confounded.
Maybe it’s the case we’re faced with infinite impossible choices because the universe doesn’t care and tends towards entropy. There is likely no perfect answer. All I can do as a person is try to beget as little pain into world as possible, but I recognize that my view isn’t without flaw or applicable to everyone everywhere all the time.
This is also why I don’t simply despise people who have children, like my own parents.
I appreciate you taking the time to explore this with me! Genuinely much food for thought.
And you would settle for Trump? How is that better? Our system has changed incrementally since its inception. I would vote for a socialist if they existed. The only party which remotely aligns with my ethics is the Democrats. What solution do you offer? Vote third party? Be a passive participant in project 2025 rather than an active voter for the significantly lesser of two evils?
You can take a respectable philosophical stance in a vacuum, but you’re not helping anyone in the real world. You’re a participant in creating harm, imo.
Edit: The dems have created real policies which help real people. Look as far back as FDR. Look at Obamacare, insulin caps, gay marriage rulings. Then look at bathroom bills, or like, anything R’s are pushing lol
I say that it’s actually impossible to answer, except in the most extreme cases.
It’s certainly impossible to answer in a single broad stroke for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful or relevant to think about.
That is because the question was about rights, not consent.
If that’s so, then we’re talking past one another. My point is that in my ethical framework, having a child is wrong. They are incapable of consenting as you point out, which is part of why I view it as wrong.
Existence is a presupposition to consent.
Why? The child surely exists before, during, and after its birth. Can’t it be that the unborn human is incapable of consent rather than creating a paradox? I understand the chicken-and-egg problem you are describing, but I think it’s incomplete. As a fully functioning human being now, if I look back at my birth, did I consent? Did I exist yet? I think I can say simply, “No, I did not consent to being born.” Whether you ascribe a negative, positive, or neutral value to this is up to you. In my opinion, it’s immoral.
In what way is that different to negotiation?
It isn’t. I don’t think we disagree on this
But birth is a natural result of conception.
Yes, however isn’t this logic used to argue against abortion? I’d argue that a person becomes a full “person” at birth, which is perhaps arbitrary, but we have to define that point somewhere. Regardless of when we say a person “exists”, they still cannot consent regardless.
That all said, is anti-natalism completely correct for everyone? I don’t know. I’m sure our species going extinct would create lots of suffering for the dwindling population. Maybe on average, humans do not regret their existence. Does that mean it’s moral to make more conscious beings who are capable of feeling that regret?
How is there a ranking of “goodness” at all, be it “bad, because suffering”, or “good, because joy”? That’s like demanding a serious answer for: “how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle?”
The question was “is the joy worth the pain?” That’s a fairly simple question – not nonsense. Is there a point at which suffering outweighs joy? Are you to make that determination for a “hypothetical” person? The question is perhaps abstract and difficult to answer, but it’s perfectly valid.
Rights aren’t given. They’re negotiated. I negotiate the right with the person that conceives the child with me.
This is the transactional portion. I meant no ad hominem, it just sounds funny to me to put it this way. My point is that the child at no point enters into the question of consent. You’re saying there is no violation of consent because the person doesn’t exist yet, but what about when they do? I.e. when they are born? Did they consent to that? Does it matter to you?
Who “gives” any rights from your point of view? God?
Other humans. The only way to have a “right” is for the people around you to agree that you have them. Perhaps it’s more complicated than that if you want to get extra philosophical, because I do believe that all conscious beings deserve the least amount of suffering possible purely by virtue of them being aware – be they birds, pigs, cows, whatever. I think maybe that’s more morality than “rights,” but I’m not sure how clear the distinction is between them.
You’re claiming by conceiving a child, you’re violating its’ consent. At that point, nothing exists, yet. It’s only a being whose consent can be violated in the hypothetical future.
This isn’t what I am claiming. I am claiming that birth is a violation of consent. Conception is meaningless to me unless it comes to fruition and bears a conscious being.
That only happens, because the whole anti-natalist reasons are paradoxical from the start.
Can you describe the paradox? I found a paradox using your own words. If they were in jest or you were “meeting [my] non-sensical argument where it’s at” then please help me understand better.
I think I have a fairly cynical view that reproduction is primarily a selfish act based solely on our biological drive to continue our species. I’ve pondered for a long time, and I fail to see a more logical conclusion than that.
Life is tough and there are no guarantees. Rolling the dice by having a kid seems like a messed up thing to do imo.
That said, I would adopt a child or children. That’s a better way to ensure you are putting kindness and hope into the world where it’s needed, rather than creating another vessel for pain from whole cloth.
You yourself said they are not yet existent, so really is joy being “withheld”? That doesn’t work in your framework, I think.
Just because a human exists does not mean they fall neatly into a category where they innately love “contributing to a community”. We’re not apes, well most of us :p
rights are negotiated
You only mentioned the rights of the parents (in a strangely cold and transactional way btw lol). What of the child’s rights? They must negotiate with you for them after their nonconsensual birth?
Consent doesn’t matter for hypothetical futures
It’s not hypothetical–a child is born. They live and experience. You’re in a paradoxical state where consent doesn’t matter because the kid doesn’t exist, yet they necessarily must exist to experience the joy you mention
Is the joy worth the pain? What if they don’t want to contribute to a community? Can you guarantee the joy will outweigh the pain? What gives you the right to will another being into existence?
If the being will become conscious and self aware, why doesn’t their consent matter?
This is just reductive. Look at any of the policies from the D’s that benefit all of us, women, the poor. Waste your vote and enable fascism. Feel free.
edit: and the gays… and education… and taxes… and infrastructure… and climate… and migration…
The only way to experience suffering is to be alive. The only way to be born is without consent
So dishonest lmao. Nobody thinks he’s a fucking banger of a candidate. Nobody is leaping for joy to vote for fucking Joe Biden. His faults are myriad and obvious. There is no worship. You have the choice between an actual despot and grampa Joe. That’s it.
They could Weekend at Bernie’s Biden and I’d still vote for him over trump. He could be a fucking desiccated corpse, and as long as someone is there to move his stiff wrist across bills on his desk, he’s still a magnitude better.
Dems and leftists can rightfully bemoan this old fuck leading us again, but holy shit we are dealing with either an embarrassing but mostly effective fogey or a guy who wants to be the fucking emperor and is gleefully planning the literal destruction of our democracy as we know it.
The choice is so easy.
Modern OSes handle memory management and background tasks. Unless you have something truly malicious running, you’re just getting in your own way by force quitting apps.
https://qz.com/stop-closing-your-iphone-s-background-apps-1851269132
Why can’t we have anything nice:(