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Your boss is a dictator over your life, personal capitalism

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Awesomelyglorious
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26 Jul 2009, 1:09 pm

TitusLucretiusCarus wrote:
this is only half of what I was saying, the other half being my asking in what way is the capitalist economy capable of developing this technology when even the long term profitability of such an endeavour is eclipsed by the short term profitability of oil alone. And why would any oil investors put their money in a technology which would render their oil investment near worthless? When the price of oil reaches the levels you describe when alternatives will be developed who is going to put there money into such a project as a profit making venture if they are better prospects elsewhere?

Because, they'll make more money with an emerging product, and if they sell their stocks in oil before everyone knows it is bad, then they'll make more money off of that. In addition, not all people will have oil investments either. Finally, an individual investor does not control the group of investors, so if they think that the new product will make their own product not work, then they basically have to invest based upon that knowledge, otherwise they'll still lose by other people investing into this product.

Alternatives are already known of, some places have put efforts into investing already. This is seen with auto-manufacturers experimenting with hydrogen cars, so to say "levels I speak of" is a rather absurd statement if this already happens to some extent.

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In short oil will have to be replaced as an energy source, the market cannot develop this kind of technology. The ITER project itself is a state funded project - not a market enterprise.

Whether or not the market cannot develop that kind of technology is not proved by your reasoning as you are not arguing from individual action but rather assume a class mindset, and also I've already put forward the market efficiency hypothesis, if these investors want above market gains, then they cannot just invest in oil if the gains from oil are only expected. As frankly, the short-run profitability will also make the stock price higher to the point where the gains from oil profits will equal the gains from profits in other industries as there is only a limited amount of oil capital and thus only a limited amount of oil stock in existence.

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The fighting over oil resources has already been going on for some time, the bill for which is met by the taxpayer (without even bringing up the question of deaths and casualties), increase the profitability of arms makers and defence contractors for obvious reasons and those of oil companies when, as in Iraq, contracts for drilling and refining are simply handed out to a select handful of companies with enough influence (large enough bribes I suspect) to get there names on the guest list (such wars are also why I refer to the Congolese civil war).

Ah, that fighting, I thought you had meant a market competition.
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Furthermore, why invest in a long term low (even zero) return project when you can simply watch while the oil you sell is used to create the conditions which push the ice caps into retreat, in the expectation that it exposes further oil deposits under the arctic/antarctic (hence the odd flag planting etc.)?

Because you might think that there will be a positive return on the project, and because if you know more about the project, then you might estimate the project as doing extremely well and getting the massive profits you desire. After all, there is not much profit people will make from oil if everyone knows the profits to be made from oil. As profit to an investor is above-market returns, and in order to get that, you have to be lucky, or know something that other people don't know as the stock market naturally bids itself up to the point where each investment basically looks the same. This is called the market efficiency hypothesis I mentioned it in another response to you, it is a theory with empirical foundations along with logical foundations, and it rebuts your point about oil profits and investing.



TitusLucretiusCarus
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26 Jul 2009, 1:43 pm

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Umm.... the point I was getting at is that in order to blame someone for something, usually the criterion is the rational ability to do otherwise. If the NAIRU is actually valid, then the government does not have a rational ability other than to allow for 3%-5% unemployment, as the only way to do this is to destroy the economy in the long-run through hyper-inflation, which is something that most people would include in their set of acceptable things to be chosen.

So, no, no tautology at all, just a bit of reasoning applied to Xenon's statement as unless he wants hyper-inflation recognized as a possible governmental policy, he has to accept the NAIRU unemployment rate as a given so long as he recognizes it as a statement of positive economics.


fair enough. It simply seemed to me at the time to be saying the same thing put two different ways, but I do see your point on it not being a logical policy choice.

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Oil isn't the only energy that factories use, you know that there is solar, hydroelectric, thermal, wind, and nuclear power plants, so to claim that factories would then have no source of energy is just wrong by what we already know to exist.

The point about political systems is really because you seemed to indicate that you believe a solution to the energy crisis may exist, so I was putting that forward to rebut the idea that there is another system that would be able to support this, while the current framework would not, by claiming that there is little reason why other political systems would work better. Perhaps I basically sort of mumbled that through rather than stating it clearly.


ok, we have collided over this one before, shall we leave the question of political systems aside as much as possible for now? I'm trying mainly to critique the idea that the market alone will offer a solution to the question of energy sources.

And yes I know there are other possibilities, however development and production of some of these has been effectively shelved with the recession (see the Vesta facility Newport, Isle of Wight). Also I would offer similar criticism of the sources you name on the grounds of cost and how effective they are at providing energy - current nuclear energy is hugely expensive and produces incredibly dangerous waste, while hydroelectric can have a massive impact ecologically depending on the project. That said though I would gladly place development of some of these technologies alongside something like ITER; however, I would seriously question their ability to meet current needs, sustain growth in the west and/or allow china and the rest of the world reach the level of development we have without something akin to ITER.

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Because you wont' make more faster by putting it into oil. If profitability increases in the long-run, then the stock price will increase dramatically as well to make the cost of investing in oil equal to the benefits gotten by doing so, and in addition if oil is scarce, you are unlikely to be able to found your own company. You'll make more faster if you can find a way to undercut oil's high prices and get in on the ground floor of a new energy source as the only way to make money is to know something that nobody else knows, because if they knew it, they would be doing it. That statement is a statement of the market efficiency hypothesis, which is an idea that is supported by a significant amount of data.


Oil prices are being undercut by seizing oil in the middle east or maintaining governments which aid in pushing costs down (which is a gentle way of describing Saudi Arabia amongst others), you can make a lot of money by getting hold of something and not allowing anyone else a look in. (edit: going on your earlier post you don't exactly seem over enthusiastic on this kind of thing, hard to believe but I think we may actually have some kind of common ground *expression of stunned disbelief* 8O )

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Umm.... no. If you literally just stumbled upon something with enormous value, then that would have money, but that would not necessarily involve much labor. Based upon that alone, the pure philosophical point fails. As a practical point though, such a relationship only makes sense in the long-run, and only if we define labor in such a manner where we account for variations in skill/ability, and odiousness of labor, both of which cause variations in the exchange of money for a particular amount of labor. Then again, you also then have to ignore variations in prices that are related to something being a collectible or some such, as some paintings are immensely valued, but the actual painter may not have worked much harder than a painter who did significantly less, and the difference between the values of the paintings cannot be reasonably denied. So yeah.... nobody would even hold to your position unless they were already committed to the labor theory of value, as the subjective theory of value really makes more sense, and resources can be seen through a subjective lens, as coal isn't a resource until society starts using coal, regardless of the amount of labor a random person may involve themselves in to find coal.


Come on, the first two sentences are just weak and (edit) I seriously doubt why someone would hold to your position unless they were already comitted to it either. We're not going to make progress on this line of argument, so let's leave it.

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Ok.

There are different forms of entertainment, and some don't intrinsically involve much energy. As well, some are more energy efficient than others. Frankly, my statement was not in regards to oil, but more in regards to holding an amount of energy constant, which is an assumption I defend on the basis of a lack of energy completely undercutting all possible forms of modern-type societies.


yes well even I'm not sure how referring to the Congo helped my argument, so never mind.

And hydrogen vehicles aren't viable as a) it takes more energy to extract the hydrogen than can be provided by the hydrogen in the vehicle and b) the materials and processes used in making these vehicles is more harmful for the environment than those based on petroleum etc.

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This is called the market efficiency hypothesis I mentioned it in another response to you, it is a theory with empirical foundations along with logical foundations, and it rebuts your point about oil profits and investing.


yes i did take note of it, and it is a theory which has come under not inconsiderable attack recently (a critique with empirical foundations as well as logical ones), and has been identified by some as a major contributing factor to the current financial crisis ( New York Times June 5, 2009 ). I would seriously question the strength of such a rebuttal.



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26 Jul 2009, 2:49 pm

TitusLucretiusCarus wrote:
And yes I know there are other possibilities, however development and production of some of these has been effectively shelved with the recession (see the Vesta facility Newport, Isle of Wight). Also I would offer similar criticism of the sources you name on the grounds of cost and how effective they are at providing energy - current nuclear energy is hugely expensive and produces incredibly dangerous waste, while hydroelectric can have a massive impact ecologically depending on the project. That said though I would gladly place development of some of these technologies alongside something like ITER; however, I would seriously question their ability to meet current needs, sustain growth in the west and/or allow china and the rest of the world reach the level of development we have without something akin to ITER.

Well, the major problem with nuclear energy that I see is that people want fierce regulations for it, and I think that is mostly a trust issue as I think that for the most part, we have mastered using the technology to a much greater extent than with past problems. As for the waste, it is an issue, but it still isn't as bad as not having energy and the major problem is just finding an area of land that will not leak and do too much damage to human interests.

Hydroelectric energy can have significant ecological damage, however, I doubt that this is the worst thing that one can have, as it is still mostly sustainable, and probably will be less damage than some of mankind's earlier excesses.

Right, well, a big problem on the political end of cooperation is what to cooperate on, and who all to do it. After all, political agents often times are relatively stupid, and in a situation like this, there is disagreement on the proper means. ITER promotes nuclear power, however, as I may have said earlier, I've met a professor who basically admitted that he thought only microwave power transfer from satellites would be an effective solution to the energy issue, so getting people to pick a solution that they think will work and stick to it seems like a rather difficult proposition for perhaps any society. It will be interesting to see how this works out, or if it doesn't it will be a good thing that perhaps we can have a reasonable lifespan before it gets too bad.

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Oil prices are being undercut by seizing oil in the middle east or maintaining governments which aid in pushing costs down (which is a gentle way of describing Saudi Arabia amongst others), you can make a lot of money by getting hold of something and not allowing anyone else a look in. (edit: going on your earlier post you don't exactly seem over enthusiastic on this kind of thing, hard to believe but I think we may actually have some kind of common ground *expression of stunned disbelief* 8O )

Well, I am not a big fan of militaristic government foreign policies.

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Come on, the first two sentences are just weak and (edit) I seriously doubt why someone would hold to your position unless they were already comitted to it either. We're not going to make progress on this line of argument, so let's leave it.

The phrasing was off, but the point was sound, as the idea was to show that there is a distinction between the nature of value and labor, and that value was ultimately tied to resources. I do doubt that we will make progress here though.

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And hydrogen vehicles aren't viable as a) it takes more energy to extract the hydrogen than can be provided by the hydrogen in the vehicle and b) the materials and processes used in making these vehicles is more harmful for the environment than those based on petroleum etc.

Well, the issue is that efforts are being made, as frankly I do imagine that hydrogen will never succeed due to pragmatic issues of storage and shipment. It also is not as if government subsidies for corn ethanol are a great idea either. However, the existence of effort is not a bad sign in the long run, particularly given that if we end up having energy shift to a matter of central generation then transforming it to a portable form, then a) is not so much of the problem as b) would be.

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yes i did take note of it, and it is a theory which has come under not inconsiderable attack recently (a critique with empirical foundations as well as logical ones), and has been identified by some as a major contributing factor to the current financial crisis ( New York Times June 5, 2009 ). I would seriously question the strength of such a rebuttal.

Well, I know about the criticism, however, that criticism does not disrupt the thrust of my point, as basically the criticism provides a psychological modification to these matters, with the major point that the critics use are periods of herd behavior. However, this does not mean that market efficiency doesn't generally hold, and I never had claimed to uphold a very strong version of the market efficiency hypothesis, the amount that has been proven so far is much more than sufficient for my case, as I am only using it to show that financial markets broadly work as I suggest, an idea that modern criticism doesn't seem to be contesting.



TitusLucretiusCarus
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26 Jul 2009, 3:39 pm

On the efficient market hypothesis this article is ok as well The Economist July 16th, 2009

but other than that we've probably run into a blind alley here, perhaps we should leave it at that for now?



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29 Jul 2009, 1:18 pm

So if most people must work in our society to get money for consumption and to survive, and most people do not find their jobs in anyway satisfying... and a huge chunk of our lives are filled with this drudgery, why do we consent to live this way?

A follow up question,

If we are condemned to a course where nothing fulfills us in a work life, and we are forced into this unfulfilling unsatisfying position for much of our life by being born (which we didn't choose), was this a good decision by parents who knew this was going to be the lot of their child's life (which they can fathorm because they see that most people must do this)? In other words, does the fore-knowledge of condemning their child to an almost inevitable wage/salary unsatisfying life, make it wrong for them to put their child in this position? (I realzie that some people like their jobs, but a majority do not, so in a consequentialist approach I am taking the fact that the greater amount of people are not benefited by having to work).

A follow up question to this, and a deeper one is: If a person didn't want to be born, and that person is forced to do himself harm in order to get out of life, was it moral for parents to put a being in that situation, if they know that that is a possibility? The only option for the child is to accept life or do itself the ultimate harm...would you call that moral to put that undo decision on the offspring?

To work harder and study harder, does not take away from the fact that work can be stressful, menial, tedious, unsatisfying, etc.. But almost all of us take up 40 hours of our week with it. Sure, its the other side of leisure time, its the necessary evil, why is it acceptable that this is how it should be? And if your automatic response is "because there's no better way", then, why put more people into the world to experience this tedium/unsatisfying/stressfulness? If you're automatic response to this question is "working builds character or virtue (or some other nonsense)", my response is: "go join the sado-masichist club in your town, because in my opinion, you are imposing pain on a new being for the enjoyment of watching some supposed good consequence happen down the line (the child builds character or virtue)."

In other words, its NOT ok to have children knowing they will suffer merely for the possible outcome of the child building more character. And that's assuming that work even does build character. That can be another argument.

By work I'm defining what we do to stay alive. As far as leisure-work, that is a value statement to say that people should be working towards creativity. I mean it sounds like a good thing to do, but what makes that the goal, just because it might sound like a noble pursuit to some individuals? And what is defined as "self improvement"? Is this just something everyone should know? Is this something that society should know? Can society ever know that? Also, if the goal of leisure time is to work on creativity, personal growth and self-improvement and an individual who is born does not want to pursue this purpose of life, its a bad choice for that individual. Either the individual must live a life of trying to pursue "self-improvement" (which is not something the individual would like to do) or commit suicide (which is another thing the individual does not want to do). So the parent again, has put the child in a situation where it must accept the terms of life or commit suicide. The crux of the matter is, parents should be able to project upon the child's future life in a realistic fashion. I observe that parents DON'T project how their child's whole life will probably be in any realistic manner. The responsibility is on the parents to project a realistic view of their child's life rather than the idealistic pollyanaizing that occurs. By pollyanaizing i mean that they only imagine their child living the best of situations which is unrealistic and detrimental to the child who will in turn be born and obviously not live the charmed life the parents had imagined.



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29 Jul 2009, 1:46 pm

Enamdar, are you honestly saying that you think work is so horrible that never being born is the preferable alternative???? Cripes! How bad is your job? Even when I worked in fast food I didn't think never having been born would have been better. Neither do parents, when they have kids. Your entire argument rests on the premise that most people think that work is worse than being alive, which is a VERY flawed premise.



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29 Jul 2009, 2:09 pm

If your boss starts to dominate your private life/privacy that sure as hell isn't capitalism. Authoritarianism perhaps.



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29 Jul 2009, 2:25 pm

Janissy wrote:
Enamdar, are you honestly saying that you think work is so horrible that never being born is the preferable alternative???? Cripes! How bad is your job? Even when I worked in fast food I didn't think never having been born would have been better. Neither do parents, when they have kids. Your entire argument rests on the premise that most people think that work is worse than being alive, which is a VERY flawed premise.

If one is of the mindset that non-existance is better than the demands of life, there is a very simple way of improving one's situation...


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29 Jul 2009, 3:20 pm

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By work I'm defining what we do to stay alive.


unless you want to get someone to do your work for you (slavery or serfdom) then there is no choice but to work in some form. That said one of the driving forces of human development is our dislike of work, if we wanted to do everything the hard way humans would never have started down the road of extensivley using tools etc.

I think many people feel work is tedious or dull, but not so much that they would consider suicide/non-existence an option.

Is it really something specific to work to self-maintain you find unbearable? if so then I don't think i've any real sympathy for you tbh, no-one gets a free ride (well, in principle, there are more than a few who do but that is a slightly different matter), even if you walked out of society you'd still have to do the whole hunter gatherer thing.

or is it more to do with having to work for someone like you describe in your opening post?



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29 Jul 2009, 3:37 pm

TitusLucretiusCarus wrote:
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I think many people feel work is tedious or dull, but not so much that they would consider suicide/non-existence an option.

?


I agree. I certainly don't think not being alive is preferable to sometimes being bored, irritated, unsatisfied, aggravated or even exhausted. And it's not like I have a dream job either. Even people with arguably horrific jobs (prostiute with an abusive pimp?) commit suicide infrequently enough that being alive must be the better option.



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29 Jul 2009, 4:09 pm

AH! my friend you've realized that we live in a gilded cage. :wink:

We have the idea of freedom but aren't actually free.
I too have noticed how people are literally slaves to the jobs they have. When you work for someone you have no rights. They can treat you bad because there paying you. They can tell you how long to work and fire you if you don't.

The system is flawed at its very base. But perhaps this is the very reason it is all unraveling .... That's my take on it.



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29 Jul 2009, 8:50 pm

Enamdar, I think that the problem of suicide isn't a matter of just capitalism, but rather of biology and perhaps an additional uncertainty.

The reason why I think that is that I would imagine that the problems that would drive a person to be more susceptible to suicidal impulses would be approximately 50% determined by genetic factors as that is the general level of determination that most studies find, and it is the level of genetic determinism that exists for neuroticism, which I would imagine would exacerbate the pains of variation. Also creatures usually do not like uncertainty, and that is a natural result of a relatively flexible system with some ability for individuals to overhaul their lives to some extent.

I also find it hard to believe that people were incredibly fulfilled in their work lives historically, if only because I always think of farming as a dull practice, and could not imagine being incredibly fulfilled as a farmer, especially an illiterate and generally uneducated farmer. So, I don't see how this world is worse, unless you just have a job that is like telemarketing or something like that, where the line of work can be literally depressing.

In addition, problems of bringing a child into the world are big philosophical problems. For one, there is uncertainty about what fate the child will face when entering the world, however, I imagine that most parents think that their children will have good lives, and I would think that parents who consciously choose to have children would generally have lives they would consider acceptable. (unless those parents had some idea that only a child would be capable of loving them or some nonsense) However, even excluding capitalism, there is a 100% probability that any child born will suffer, but not a 100% probability that the child will have a fulfilling life, as can be noted with certain genetic disorders, and children who DO end up committing suicide. If one can give birth in the face of that, I don't see why capitalism poses an additional problem as most people see living as good enough to justify having more people live. Now, I do recognize that you consider the original problem to be a problem, and I will frankly admit that I have no solution to the matter, honestly I have found your reasoning persuasive in the past.

It is acceptable that this is how it should be because the leisure today is better than it ever was, and because the work week is smaller than it used to be from certain perspectives, and also because people do want a significant amount of money by which to live their lives. In any case, 40 hours of labor a week means about 72 hours not at work and not spent sleeping(assuming 8 hours of sleep a night and some people use less than that, while most don't go far above 8 hours) So, we spend almost twice the time not working given such an assumption.

Leisure has no purpose. It is only a means to a personal end, not a universal end. So, if watching cheap soap operas in your free time is your greatest desire, then go for it.

In any case, I think that the deepest question in your post, Enamdar is this one: "If a person didn't want to be born, and that person is forced to do himself harm in order to get out of life, was it moral for parents to put a being in that situation, if they know that that is a possibility?" And it was the only one that had nothing to do with the nature of the world, but rather had to do with the ethics of creating a sentient being.



enamdar
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29 Jul 2009, 9:23 pm

I've read David Benator's book and I simply can't see how anyone can disagree with his conclusions if they follow his main argument with a clarity of thinking philosophers should be prepared to cultivate. I am going to explain his theory in more detail than previous posters on this forum because an overview of his book warrants and requires careful wording in order to facilitate full comprehension in the reader.

His argument is simple but devastatingly persuasive. He states that if you are born you experience both good (positive mental states) and bad (negative mental states) during the course of your life. If, however, one is never born then one won't experience bad (pain, anxiety, discomfort etc). This is a good thing obviously. Of course, if one is never born one never experiences any positive mental states (joy, love, sexual satisfaction etc) either. However, if there is nobody to experience these positive mental states I challenge any poster here to suggest how this can be a negative thing FOR THE PERSON who never came into existence.

So let's look at the following analysis of the RELATIVE merits of being born as opposed to not being born:

Scenario A: You are born. You experience both pleasure and pain throughout your life. You die. Pleasure experienced? Yes. Pain experienced? Yes.

What can we say about this? We can say that being born was partly a good thing for the individual due to the pleasure experienced in his/her life (+1) and we can say that being born was also partly negative for that person because of the pain they experienced (-1) during the course of their life. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born.

Now let's look at scenario B: You are not born. You never come into existence. End of story. Pleasure experienced! No. Pain experienced? No.

What can we possibly say about this non-existent person? Well, we can say that he never experienced (or will experience) any positive mental states. That's surely a bad thing, right? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Existence precedes essence. If there is no person to experience any deprivation of positive mental states how can we possibly say that that 'non-person' has been deprived or robbed in any way, shape or form? WE CAN'T!

As a result of this fact it would be wholly inaccurate to describe the non-existence of a person as a negative thing for the non-existent person in any way (pleasure OR pain considerations). Sure we can most assuredly state that being a non-existent person is not a positive thing either IN TERMS OF not being able to experience positive mental states - the obvious outcome of their not being born. But this does not give us licence to claim the opposite either - that somehow not being born causes a harm to the person who was not born as they would miss out on the positive things that life can offer. Clearly then not being born is neither positive or negative in terms of the inability to experience pleasure. It is clearly neutral.

Now let's look at the pain that a non-existent person avoids by not being born. He never comes into existence so he never experiences any pain. That is a good thing!(+1) But wait, I can hear you forming objections to this even as I type. Surely, you may object, if nobody is born how can the lack of experienced pain be a good thing as there would be nobody to experience the total lack of pain. Well...simply because of the fact that we can legitimately compare the suffering a person experiences in his life with the lack of pain he would have experienced if he had never been born in the first place to experience that pain. We can make that comparison I assure you. We can always say to somebody who was born: "I'm going to make you rue the day that your father ever laid eyes on your mother" shortly before torturing them to death. But we cannot say to a non-existent person (or anything else for that matter): "Suffer, non-existent person, suffer! Experience the deprivation of pleasure and weep for the lost opportunity you had to experience the wonder that life would have had in store for you if you had been born."

So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math(s) whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

It is more important to protect a non-existent person from pain than it is to provide a non-existent person with joy because if a potential person is denied existence they are not deprived of anything because THEY DON"T EXIST. How then can there be a moral imperative to bring children into the world to experience joy when abstaining from creating new life does not cause any deprivation to the being who would otherwise have been born?! You only have a interest in experiencing joy if you have already come into existence.
How can there possibly be a moral imperative to bring a non-existent person into existence?! Who actually suffers if an individual does not come into being? Quite possibly the couple who would dearly love to have a child but we are not discussing the interests of the would-be parents here. We are discussing the interests of the individual who may or may not come into this world.

On the other hand, we are fully encumbered to prevent pain and suffering wherever and whenever we can through both action and inaction. We would vehemently dissaprove of a couple who brought another life into this world with the full knowledge that their child would live a short, wretched and painful life. That would be evil. Bringing excessively suffering people into the world without the knowledge that the individual brought into existence would suffer excessively is not necassarily an evil act on the part of the procreaters because their intentions as regards the future life of their unborn child might be be good. But is is clearly misguided because if they had not taken the risk of bringing children into this world no new sentient lifeforms would have sufered. The most effective and simplest way to avoid the risk of more suffering in the world is by not creating new life. If the human race became extinct tomorrow the world would be a better place. There would be nobody around to celebrate this fact. 'tis true, but there would be zero suffering and there would be zero deprivation of the joys of life. Compare that to how things stand now. True there are people out there who are, on the whole, glad to have been born and love their lives with a passion and a grateful awareness of the fact that they could so quite easily have been denied coming into existence. But the fact remains that they would NOT have been deprived of anything if they had never been born because there would not have been anybody to experience this deprivation. And all the present suffering in the world would terminate for good overnight with no prospect of emerging ever again - at least in relation to the human species.

Mankind's blindspot for this simple logical argument has led, and will lead, to unimaginable suffering for heaven knows how many more people in the future. It's as if the majority of people on this planet are all sharing in the mass delusion that it is justifiable, and indeed sometimes even a moral duty, to create little minature versions of themselves. And like the delusions of religeons, it leads all to often to needless and pointless suffering for countless millions. This is something that needs to be lamented. When people suffer due to the good intentions of others the word tragedy is often apt. When people suffer in this world as a result of being born, despite the best intentions of the parents, a new word in the English language needs to be invented to raise people's awareness of the risk of creating new life.



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29 Jul 2009, 9:58 pm

enamdar wrote:
I've read David Benator's book and I simply can't see how anyone can disagree with his conclusions if they follow his main argument with a clarity of thinking philosophers should be prepared to cultivate. I am going to explain his theory in more detail than previous posters on this forum because an overview of his book warrants and requires careful wording in order to facilitate full comprehension in the reader.

I've heard of Benatar, and I think I've heard of the argument, but I can't say I've read his book. I should read it some time though.



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29 Jul 2009, 11:01 pm

enamdar wrote:
I've read David Benator's book and I simply can't see how anyone can disagree with his conclusions if they follow his main argument with a clarity of thinking philosophers should be prepared to cultivate. I am going to explain his theory in more detail than previous posters on this forum because an overview of his book warrants and requires careful wording in order to facilitate full comprehension in the reader.

His argument is simple but devastatingly persuasive. He states that if you are born you experience both good (positive mental states) and bad (negative mental states) during the course of your life. If, however, one is never born then one won't experience bad (pain, anxiety, discomfort etc). This is a good thing obviously. Of course, if one is never born one never experiences any positive mental states (joy, love, sexual satisfaction etc) either. However, if there is nobody to experience these positive mental states I challenge any poster here to suggest how this can be a negative thing FOR THE PERSON who never came into existence.

So let's look at the following analysis of the RELATIVE merits of being born as opposed to not being born:

Scenario A: You are born. You experience both pleasure and pain throughout your life. You die. Pleasure experienced? Yes. Pain experienced? Yes.

What can we say about this? We can say that being born was partly a good thing for the individual due to the pleasure experienced in his/her life (+1) and we can say that being born was also partly negative for that person because of the pain they experienced (-1) during the course of their life. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born.

Now let's look at scenario B: You are not born. You never come into existence. End of story. Pleasure experienced! No. Pain experienced? No.

What can we possibly say about this non-existent person? Well, we can say that he never experienced (or will experience) any positive mental states. That's surely a bad thing, right? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Existence precedes essence. If there is no person to experience any deprivation of positive mental states how can we possibly say that that 'non-person' has been deprived or robbed in any way, shape or form? WE CAN'T!

As a result of this fact it would be wholly inaccurate to describe the non-existence of a person as a negative thing for the non-existent person in any way (pleasure OR pain considerations). Sure we can most assuredly state that being a non-existent person is not a positive thing either IN TERMS OF not being able to experience positive mental states - the obvious outcome of their not being born. But this does not give us licence to claim the opposite either - that somehow not being born causes a harm to the person who was not born as they would miss out on the positive things that life can offer. Clearly then not being born is neither positive or negative in terms of the inability to experience pleasure. It is clearly neutral.

Now let's look at the pain that a non-existent person avoids by not being born. He never comes into existence so he never experiences any pain. That is a good thing!(+1) But wait, I can hear you forming objections to this even as I type. Surely, you may object, if nobody is born how can the lack of experienced pain be a good thing as there would be nobody to experience the total lack of pain. Well...simply because of the fact that we can legitimately compare the suffering a person experiences in his life with the lack of pain he would have experienced if he had never been born in the first place to experience that pain. We can make that comparison I assure you. We can always say to somebody who was born: "I'm going to make you rue the day that your father ever laid eyes on your mother" shortly before torturing them to death. But we cannot say to a non-existent person (or anything else for that matter): "Suffer, non-existent person, suffer! Experience the deprivation of pleasure and weep for the lost opportunity you had to experience the wonder that life would have had in store for you if you had been born."

So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math(s) whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

It is more important to protect a non-existent person from pain than it is to provide a non-existent person with joy because if a potential person is denied existence they are not deprived of anything because THEY DON"T EXIST. How then can there be a moral imperative to bring children into the world to experience joy when abstaining from creating new life does not cause any deprivation to the being who would otherwise have been born?! You only have a interest in experiencing joy if you have already come into existence.
How can there possibly be a moral imperative to bring a non-existent person into existence?! Who actually suffers if an individual does not come into being? Quite possibly the couple who would dearly love to have a child but we are not discussing the interests of the would-be parents here. We are discussing the interests of the individual who may or may not come into this world.

On the other hand, we are fully encumbered to prevent pain and suffering wherever and whenever we can through both action and inaction. We would vehemently dissaprove of a couple who brought another life into this world with the full knowledge that their child would live a short, wretched and painful life. That would be evil. Bringing excessively suffering people into the world without the knowledge that the individual brought into existence would suffer excessively is not necassarily an evil act on the part of the procreaters because their intentions as regards the future life of their unborn child might be be good. But is is clearly misguided because if they had not taken the risk of bringing children into this world no new sentient lifeforms would have sufered. The most effective and simplest way to avoid the risk of more suffering in the world is by not creating new life. If the human race became extinct tomorrow the world would be a better place. There would be nobody around to celebrate this fact. 'tis true, but there would be zero suffering and there would be zero deprivation of the joys of life. Compare that to how things stand now. True there are people out there who are, on the whole, glad to have been born and love their lives with a passion and a grateful awareness of the fact that they could so quite easily have been denied coming into existence. But the fact remains that they would NOT have been deprived of anything if they had never been born because there would not have been anybody to experience this deprivation. And all the present suffering in the world would terminate for good overnight with no prospect of emerging ever again - at least in relation to the human species.

Mankind's blindspot for this simple logical argument has led, and will lead, to unimaginable suffering for heaven knows how many more people in the future. It's as if the majority of people on this planet are all sharing in the mass delusion that it is justifiable, and indeed sometimes even a moral duty, to create little minature versions of themselves. And like the delusions of religeons, it leads all to often to needless and pointless suffering for countless millions. This is something that needs to be lamented. When people suffer due to the good intentions of others the word tragedy is often apt. When people suffer in this world as a result of being born, despite the best intentions of the parents, a new word in the English language needs to be invented to raise people's awareness of the risk of creating new life.


The experiences of being alive are not simply classifiable as good or bad. The obvious conclusion of this piece of pure bullsh it is that it is better for life to never have existed and who is to judge that life in toto is better to not have existed? I have had both good and very bad experiences in my life and am not sorry to have gone through them. I find whatever life I have had has been a tremendous privilege not open to non-conscious matter. There is enough emptiness and non-consciousness in the huge universe to satisfy any a ss hole. Let him be happy and enjoy that. What life we know exists, so far as we know, in a very tiny portion of even our solar system which is an insignificant part of the universe.



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29 Jul 2009, 11:23 pm

Sand wrote:
The experiences of being alive are not simply classifiable as good or bad. The obvious conclusion of this piece of pure bullsh it is that it is better for life to never have existed and who is to judge that life in toto is better to not have existed? I have had both good and very bad experiences in my life and am not sorry to have gone through them. I find whatever life I have had has been a tremendous privilege not open to non-conscious matter. There is enough emptiness and non-consciousness in the huge universe to satisfy any a ss hole. Let him be happy and enjoy that. What life we know exists, so far as we know, in a very tiny portion of even our solar system which is an insignificant part of the universe.

Well, the experiences are classifiable as good or bad, but not simply, however, I don't think that Enamdar has argued this. Secondly, the conclusion is that it is better for life to never be made, not for any individual life not to exist, as the idea is that avoiding putting a life in pain is more moral than creating life, the latter being amoral. As such, it really isn't a terrible argument.

Well, Sand, arguing from personal experience is not enough to rebut or refute the argument, as it is pretty simple, if I understand it correctly:
1) Life necessitates pain
2) The good of life isn't necessarily enough to compensate for the pain
3) Creating something that may suffer net pain is an evil act
4) There is no moral obligation to create life, even happy life
5) Therefore creating life is evil

Now, your personal experiences say nothing about the validity of the argument. Even your attempt to brush off the criticism by saying "there is enough happiness for [anyone]" as you know that there are issues beyond human choice involved with happiness, such as strong propensities towards depression, painful fatal illnesses, monstrous circumstances, etc, and that nobody can necessarily say that none of these problems will dominate a given life.