@Radu No how long time have you got to listen to me whining.

@Radu Depends on the day.

@Radu after a few years, they aren't babies and its a whole new wonderful experience maybe you don't understand that, being a man.. No judgment

@Radu they? Who are they? And how am I being "got?"

@Radu I can't nurture myself, how could I nurture a child?

@Radu I didn't receive much parenting, as determined through therapy, and had to essentially raise myself in the absence of nurturing. I wouldn't want to inflict that on some innocent child.

@Radu oh, my parents were both present! It was the parenting that was absent.

@Radu I helped to raise kids from 8-20. It was a good experience. I have always had a difficult time relating to young children and infants. My early experience was with screamers and whiners. And the thought of putting them through college, etc.?!
Now, I am alone and facing the possibility of old age alone. Friends are dispersed. Family would have been nice. I also relate well with my sisters grandkids. It is different if you grow with them and know them from infants.

@Radu At the time I moved in, yes.

@Radu kind of a funny story. My brother and his wife had just had a baby, we were visiting them while she was still in the hospital. My brother offers to let me hold the baby. I said "no thanks." He says "if it was a cat you would!" I said "I know how to hold a cat."

Thank you, another wise person. My former partner was alcoholic and it was in her family. She loved kids and wanted to have one but the idea of possibly making another human deal with what she had to deal with was anathema to her so she took family planning very seriously and would have had an abortion had she become pregnant. I knew the former but did not realize a connection until we also split. I also had a vasectomy. Had I had been more astute I would have had it much sooner. I am really amazed at the number of people who have series genetic issue still having kids. This is pure selfishness.
We really need to push the overpopulation issue as most people are clueless. Most importantly, in this country, it has to also include big changes in our immigration policy.
BTW, I have one daughter who was an oops baby but is still loved.

@JackPedigo I married a family with two children. I'm the only father they've ever known, and they now have children.

To naive ,prioritys all wrong ,too immature ,possibility did not want the responsibility ,was a work aholic ,so time Now i have realized all i have missed out on,The step kids brought me lots of Joy,,when i married my ex wife had aher tubes tied and tried to get it reversed but medical was not possible or might have had one as she wanted to have a child with me,wish it owuld have happenned but you deal with what life brings

It definitly was not a rational decsion and yes nature took it,s course

There is no guarantee of that. The kids could grow up resentful and go no contact or they can just want to have nothing to do with the parent and stick em in a senior care home. Ask senior home staff how many lack adult kids visiting them. It may shock you. Plus, that is a VERY selfish reason to have kids. For someone to care about me as a senior? Anyone having kids for that reason should not be having kids and deserve to ve cut off by their adult kids later in life.

@Radu That's exactly the problem: you could never know who would lead a life of utter misery. The happy ones would suffer no harm from never having existed. The fact that anyone is brought into the world with the chance of unbearable pain is enough for me to swear off procreation. Think of it this way: if you took 100 people who had enough resources to live comfortably and then at random gave 99 of them a life of lavish luxury but impoverished the last one, that would be unconscionable; it would be better to leave things as they are with no detriment to anyone than to expose anyone to the risk of poverty even if most people would be better off. In the case of procreation, one who never existed cannot experience anything, and so cannot be helped or harmed. But as soon as I procreate, I expose my offspring to the risk of harm — an existence to which they cannot consent. It doesn't matter that there might be a better-than-even chance for a happy life, because no harm comes to the would-be happy if they never exist in the first place. The greatest good to me here is measured in terms of the least harm, and the least harm is achieved via abstaining from procreation.

Your sentiments are great. It is one argument I use against anti choicers, that women in abusive households or who are abusive themselves are commiting mercy "killings" by aborting any fetuses. Because that lifetime of mistreatment and abuse is NOT worth it. They follow up with, would I have wanted to be aborted. To which I reply yes definitely I would because it would have been a mercy killing in my case. And the non existence would be incredible compared to the shitty existence my breeders provided me with. To which some reply, in their "loving christian/religious" ways, if I am so unhappy just go commit suicide already. SUCH Loving "pro=lifers" they are indeed, encouraging suicide, without a hint of irony or remorse.

@demifeministgal It astounds me how the "pro-life" crowd will literally fight for the lives of the unborn who lack the traits of personhood (e.g., consciousness, self-awareness), yet don't care nearly so much for the lives of those who do exhibit personhood. They are often keen to murder people who work at Planned Parenthood (or cheer on those who commit such atrocity), don't object to war, have no compassion for the poor who can't feed their children, wish life-threatening ills upon those who disagree with them, etc.

Yes I agree. I have also told them they better be against the death penalty if they are so pro life. Most of them love the death penalty. Taken to the next extreme, some vegans tell them they better be vegan and never eat meat themselves because they are not pro life at all them. I like the term pro fetus or forced birthers to describe them myself.

@Radu I don't necessarily value lack of pain above enjoyment for myself, but I don't feel justified in making that decision for anyone else. This for me is about what anyone can consent to, and the non-existent cannot consent to anything, including the risks of life. I cannot justify imposing such chance on anyone. As for the option of suicide, that's available to most of us now but it's insufficient. First, the harm will already have been done to those to choose suicide. Second, we have a survival instinct that makes us take measures to avoid death, and that can make returning to non-existence problematic even when life is unbearable torment. Third, it's not perfectly clear to me that no harm is done in every instance of suicide; at that point there is a person, a consciousness, grappling with whether life is worth living, struggling with the trade-off. While I support a person's right to choose death, it's not the equivalent of never having existed. Before someone exists, there's nothing to experience harm; after someone exists, having developed personality and consciousness and self-awareness, there's something to experience the anticipation of loss of a life cut short — and there's a potential harm to others who care about and rely upon the person contemplating suicide. Suicide is fraught with its own set of potential harms that cannot offset the utter lack of harm that comes from never existing.

@Radu Even if the risk were that one person in all of human history would experience agony while everyone else had a happy life, I still wouldn't feel justified in procreating. It's not my right to assign risk, no matter how slight, to someone else.

@Radu Thanks for the kind words and your fandom.

As for fear of death, I have a whole other take on that — and maybe that perspective will help you, or maybe it will make you feel worse. It could go either way, I suppose. Basically, it boils down to not believing in persistent identity. In other words, from moment to moment, I don't think I'm truly the same person. Everything is in constant flux, so I'm not the same person I was when I was a baby, when I was a teenager, when I was 30, or when I started writing this paragraph. I have memories of the past and I have an anticipation of the future, but I'm like a slice of a progression of very similar person states. Each moment is all we actually have — a single state of being. Our memories can be corrupted, our personality changes over time, we aren't affected today by the changes of tomorrow (though we can be affected by the anticipation, but not by the reality which might differ significantly from our expectations). It's this last part that makes me not fear death. If I chop off my foot tomorrow in a woodcutting accident, today I'm unaffected. If I were to die tomorrow in a car accident, today I'm fine. I'm an independent slice right now. To be very effective in any moment we need our memories and our anticipation, but memories and anticipation are mental states and not necessarily a reflection of reality. My memories might be fabricated, I might have forgotten something important, I might misremember some details about an event — but my memories are a part of who I am right now. It's distinct from who I was in the past. And it's distinct from who I will be in the future. The person bearing my name and Social Security number who dies sometime in the future isn't me right now. Because I form memories and know that that person will likely remember me as I am now (though probably vaguely, at best), I tend to think of that person as myself in a sense — but that future death doesn't affect me in reality at this moment. I am distinct in each moment, even if I feel very similar to the person who came before me and the person who is to follow. But we can see how the minuscule changes from moment to moment add up to huge changes over a period of years. How different I am from the person I was when I was 17, for instance. I'm unrecognizable in pretty much every way, from many physical characteristics to my personality and outlook on life. So I don't worry about death, because the me in this moment, right now, is alive, but in a sense dies as the next me in the subsequent moment takes my place. I know that's confusing, but to put it simply: all I ever truly have is the present moment.

@Radu I meant to use my personal metamorphosis as an example, less the rule. I don't think most people change to the extent I have. And there are still some traits I have in common with 17-year-old me, e.g., introverted, quiet, cerebral, reserved, mathematically inclined, good with words (far better now, in fact). But I'm also more accepting of others and their differences, I'm less judgemental, I'm no longer conservative (now a left-leaning moderate), I've shucked off religion, I don't accept appeals to authority (though I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat — I do listen to experts and critically weigh their positions), I care less what others think, and I'm more introspective. Lest it sound like I've only improved, I'd say I'm also far less driven than I was when I was 17; I have little of that youthful energy. Regardless, the point I was making is that everyone and everything changes over time, sometimes subtly and other times drastically, and we can see how we aren't identical in the long run even as we feel identical from one moment to the next. We're in constant flux, despite our inability in the moment to recognize it.

@Radu,

I look at it like this: I have a deep empathy for the person who replaces me in the next moment, and the next day, next week, next month, next year, etc. I feel the greatest kinship for that series of individuals. If I delay gratification, it's because I care about the future person who takes my place. Even if I opt for immediate gratification, it's still a future version of me who enjoys it. The feeling that it's still me who exists in the future is what allows me at any moment to exist and to have agency, to be effective in any way.

In one sense, it could be argued that because a future version of me isn't truly me in a meaningful way, aside from memories and anticipation, I have no reason to value the life and well-being of that person over the welfare of anyone else. On the other hand, if I subscribe to the notion that I have an obligation to do good works for others, I can do the most good for the person I will become because I have the greatest influence on that future me's life. So, in that vein, delayed gratification magnifies the amount of good I can do for others.

If I were to die right now, without pain or prior knowledge of my demise, I'd suffer no ill consequences. If, as I consider it, I die in every moment only to be replaced by a near-identical copy, I've died regardless. The difference is only that I have no replacement coming. There are other cons, though, if I'm aware of my death — the pain I might endure and the panic triggered by my self-preservation instinct. I don't want to be in pain (now or for a future version of myself), but when I understand that it's the pain of someone else then I feel I have a better understanding of what it means to be empathetic. If I don't want a future me to suffer, I can extrapolate that same sentiment for other people as well. If anything, the acknowledgement that I want the best for a future version of myself who is not truly me gives me insights I wouldn't otherwise have about the human condition and a sort of oneness of all. I think I'm more empathetic as a result.

I can't help you be fearless about death, other than to reiterate that I slip into death every moment. It's someone new who takes my place. It might help to think of death as sleep, though: In a sense, there are moments during the night when all thought has ceased — no consciousness, no subconsciousness, no dreams. I don't fear those periods. And if I were to die during one of those periods, I would be unaware of it. I'd essentially be moving from a state similar to death (in terms of consciousness) into another that's more permanent. But I wouldn't know about it, and I wouldn't exist to experience any harm from it. And the me right now remains unharmed as well. I doubt that helps assuage your feelings, but maybe it will help a little.

@Radu True, new ideas can work their magic over time and help us internalize what might seem abstract at first.

I said it could be argued that I have no reason to value the life and well-being of a future version of myself over the welfare of others, but I didn't say that's how I actually feel. I do think that it hints at a oneness of sorts, but I still do feel that connection more closely with incarnations of myself throughout time in a way that I don't feel with others, in much the same way that I feel closeness to my friends and family in a way that I don't feel with strangers halfway across the globe. I don't actually feel such strong empathy, even though I think I'm more empathetic than I used to be, partly because I understand that we're not really separate in the way it might seem on the surface.

As for leaving the world a better place, I still think people's wellbeing is important. I don't want anyone to suffer, and if I can improve others' wellbeing in the future then that's great. My personal ethics are pretty simple, at their core: do as little harm as possible, help where I reasonably can, live and let live. I feel like the intrinsic value in living that way is so self-evident that I don't really need a complicated moral web to explain it; it benefits me and those whom I'm fortunate enough to be able to impact in positive ways.

@Radu There's the old phrase, "But for the grace of God, there go I." I'm not religious and don't believe in God literally here, but I think the connection I see is one of circumstance. None of us truly chooses our life, our circumstances. I was born into a particular family, with particular DNA, in a particular socio-economic situation, etc. I didn't choose what would be important to me, what values I hold. And at every moment I'm the product of a regressive series of past "me" states, none of which I in this moment am able to choose (because they've already happened, for good or bad). Everyone is in that situation. Everyone is currently playing the hand they were dealt. That binds us in the human condition and, in a broader sense, an existential condition. All things, all beings, all consciousness is connected through this. If I were born to your parents, I'd have your DNA, your environment, your upbringing, and so in a very real sense I would be you. When I was a kid, I often thought about what it would be like to have been born elsewhere in the world, and I questioned why I had been born to my parents instead of to parents in China or anywhere else. It's kind of a pointless question, the sort that kids are prone to ask but is ultimately without meaning — because I couldn't have been born to other parents without it not being me — but when I scratch a little below the surface it becomes apparent that we're all in that situation, thrust into life feeling free but not realizing that most (if not all) choice has been set outside of our control. I can't take credit for being smart or creative or athletic, and neither can I take blame for being dumb or boring or lazy, but those traits were set in motion long before I could grasp their concept. (In case you're wondering, I'm a determinist. Even if there's not a 100% deterministic path, with quantum probability or stochastic processes producing some unpredictable outcome, it's still not freedom in a self-determined sense; randomness isn't freewill.) Anyway, I'm sliding down a rabbit hole here — apologies. The long and short of it is that I think we are all in the same boat in terms of lacking control over the big influences over who we are and how we develop, and I think that connects us in a conceptual way.

@Radu Yeah, an argument can be made that we're all more separated, even person states, but I just meant in terms of a shared condition of determinism and the "locked in" nature. We aren't very dissimilar in some of the most fundamental ways is what I was getting at, and if we can feel a kinship with our other person states then we should be able to feel a sort of connection with other people as well. But your point is valid; everything is distinct in a more literal sense.

@Radu In terms of personal ethics, maybe it just makes me feel good. I tend to think that there's no such thing as a truly altruistic act. At the very least, we tend to feel good when we help someone else. You asked why I wouldn't justify acting selfishly if we're all separate, but if I'm also separate from my other "me states" then I have no reason to do anything nice for my future self either. It might feel selfish because of that illusion of persistent identity, but it's still that other person who just happens to remember me, whom I imagine as an extension of my current self. If I can acknowledge that I'm not the same person at various points in my timeline, and nothing I do can benefit the current me — it's always my future doppelgänger who reaps the rewards — then I have no reason to help myself any more than anyone else. I can't ever truly act selfishly because I don't persist from moment to moment. But I'm a biological beast, a member of a social species, so there's a hardwired aspect to who I am that feel compelled to foster the wellbeing of my social circles (family, friends, local community, etc.). That's how our species developed. We can see similar patterns of behavior in some other primates, but we see a significantly different morality in animals that are less social (e.g., wolves and zebras). So, in addition to just making me feel warm and fuzzy to help someone else, maybe I'm also just giving in to a biological imperative to improve the wellbeing of my social structures. But maybe there's more to it, because we (as a species) also have an in-group instinct that compels us to treat people from our immediate social circles kindly while treating those outside our social circles with suspicion and/or hostility. I don't feel better if I hate on someone who isn't like me or isn't from my proverbial tribe, but the impulse might still be there. It was moral to protect the tribe once upon a time, because survival depended upon it, so in-group/out-group dynamics were different. But today I can fight against that, knowing that it doesn't actually make society or my social circles stronger. And, yes, I volunteer. I help where it's reasonable for me, but a) it's my own ethical code to help others, and nobody else is obligated to do so, and b) if I didn't have time or the resources or the mental strength to continue volunteering, it wouldn't be reasonable for me and I'd scale back or help people in other ways.

As for the video, I haven't watched it — and it appears to be pretty lengthy, so I don't know when I'll have an opportunity to take a look. Based on the quote you posted, though, I'd say that this is the argument I've been making for anti-natalism: No harm is done to anything that never existed by not existing, by not experiencing pleasure, because there's nothing to experience anything. By contrast, some harm does come from existing (really to everyone in some form, but to some percentage in a severe form). On its face I don't have a problem with the argument being set forth as you've quoted it, even if I think it needs to be fleshed out (which I assume he did, because I can't imagine what he did with the entire hour otherwise).

@Radu Ah, I see. I read the argument wrong, I think, and I was focused on the validity of the premises rather than on the specific wording of the conclusion. I was still thinking in terms of hypotheticals and statistical potential, i.e., more along the lines of the position I take, as opposed to weighing the good and bad in any particular person's life. I was looking at "advantage" in a more abstract way, I guess, but a literal reading wouldn't necessarily be accurate for everyone, because the balance of good and bad in any particular person's life would factor in. But I'd need a more thorough understanding of the argument, I think. The only thing I can glean from the argument as it's laid out is that they might be giving equal weight to pleasure and pain, in any measure, and are saying that experiencing pleasure is good and experiencing pain is bad, so that's a tick in each column (for and against procreating); and not experiencing pain is good (a tick in the column against procreating) but not experiencing pleasure isn't bad because nothing exists to experience it (so no equivalent tick can be put in the pro-procreation column) — so, on that balance, weighing pros and cons, there are more cons. I'm not sure I agree with their rationale, however, unless in the context of risk. Certainly we can all point to people who have had very little pain and who have loved their amazing lives, so in practice some people seem to have an overwhelming happiness advantage.

@Radu no I don't want or need to validate myself by making a reproduction of myself. The planet has too many humans as it is. Im not special.