LogFAQs > #956378558

kind9 posted...

"Moreover, when asking what would be best for their future children, prospective parents are not asking about the comparative value of two possible worlds."

It's difficult to tackle the points in these snippets since I'm lacking full context but I would argue here that it is something parents should be asking themselves. Every time we deliberate about a choice we are basically trying to "see" parallel realities by imagining what outcomes each of our decisions will have. Nobody thinks about it like that since it's such a common everyday thing but still. I can sit here to myself and think "hmm, if I have a child I'll be forcing someone else to live a life they might find disagreeable or suffer in excessively for my own selfish reasons, but if I don't have a child then my hands will be free of those sins." I'm imagining two different worlds, and the lack of harm to my hypothetical child in World 2 is a definite bonus the way I see it.

kind9 posted...

Why have antinatalists given up on striving to eliminate as much suffering as possible by making life better for everyone? That is a noble cause. Antinatalism is more like a lazy escape route for edgelords.

There is a big difference in wanting to simply reduce the amount of human suffering in the world and wanting to eliminate it entirely. If suffering were a hydra it would be the difference between sacrificing countless soldiers to try to cut off it's heads and keep them more or less in check or sending a relatively small number to attack the body and kill it directly and for all time. I find the first approach wasteful and pointless, when one head is cut off (problem plaguing humanity solved), more will grow to replace it. Consider the literal meaning of the word Utopia, it means a place that exists nowhere.

I really don't get how you can call the reduction of human suffering noble but condemn the eradication of it.