7 October, One Year Later with Philosopher David Benatar

[@funckmasta]

David Benatar is surely one of the smartest people alive. He should get much wider recognition.

[@Darniros]

David Benatar, one of my favorites! Love his work on Anti-Natalism

[@Useryr-m8q]

In a video from 8 years ago, titled "How do you celebrate the end of the year in a kindergarten in Gaza," the Palestinian children who grew up to be adults by 2023 appear. Why does the world ignore this, why does the UN ignore it? These are the real Palestinians, so it's really worth facing reality.

[@Appleblade]

Brief, sensible assessment like this is awfully rare. Thanks!

[@kartik9892]

The one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of children is not to bring them into this world of diseases, crimes, wars, accidents, natural disasters, old age, death, and all the unknown evils the future holds. ☮ At the same time, it's not a bad for them to not come into existence as those who don't exist can't suffer their own non-existence. Any of the "goods" this world has to offer, the non-existent don't need them to begin with. ✨

[@joelvonthrum8658]

Is that a quote from Prof Benatar?

[@GreenCanvasInteriorscape]

Pontificating blatherings from someone who is not going to have children because their TV or professor told them to

[@ayoubzahiri1918]

only a spiritually UNAWAKENED person would say such thing, because god chose that we exist, if non-existence was a better option, we wouldn't be here in the first place? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? you are GOD in the flesh, an existence out of nothing comes with a PRICE, the price is the duality of all things

[@banistersmind]

Great conversation Zoe. I have to admit I was never much of a fan of David - mainly because of his arguments around anti natalism - but I found his perspectives here really worthwhile and (shock horror) I am going to look up his new book.

[@krigerl77]

Good talk, thank you

[@glaubs65]

It's not that complicated. It's pure envy. Jews do well. Jews have a higher intelligence bell curve than any other group, something that this oke is not prepared to say and Jews rise to the top and people get jealous and they hate Jews. Add Jewish cohesion and often slightly distanced from the society they are living in I mean they participate in the society but also do these rituals in a strange language which scares the non-Jews, and Jews until recently have stuck with other Jews socially. So do other groups but other groups are not that powerful in society. Why are Jews so powerful in society if they are allowed to be? Because of their high intelligence and strong family values emphasising reading books.

[@masonhancock5350]

I’ve been told that everyone is equally intelligent, and all groups and cultures are equally good and interchangeable. In fact, it is illegal to say otherwise in many places.

[@glaubs65]

@masonhancock5350 yeah right ;)

[@victormeidan1062]

@@glaubs65 There are also cases where Jews were poor. For example in the Russian Pale if Settlement in the 19th century yet they still faced antisemitism.

[@glaubs65]

@victormeidan1062 Yes there's also the Jews killed Jesus and do weird magic in basements in a strange language and eat funny food prejudice

[@bodhisattva4eva]

@@glaubs65 haha you believe in the possibility of the inherrent intellectual and cultural superiority of certian races and culture? Curious, please be forthcoming.

[@idomaniacs]

Thank you

[@Genarii]

His answer about Islam/religion was very much one of a man trying to sell a book. But that's easily forgivable given the rest of the interview.

[@OrmondOtvos]

David shows me nothing in terms of understanding liberal democracy.

[@UtarEmpire]

Sounds way more chipper now that he's not at University of Cape Town anymore!

[@kenchaddock]

Good talk, I tend to agree with most of what he said, even though I almost completely disagree with his anti-natalist ideology, mostly because he's just completely wrong I his stance tgat our current human.population is over taxing the planetary ecosystem. I would be very interested on his views on the (relatively) new economic theory of Super Abundance which theorizes that the huge rise in the abundance of virtually everything is a casual consequence of the RISE in human population rather than the reverse that he argues.

[@gigiduru125]

How can he be wrong that humans are overtaxing the environment? What metrics are you using? Ofc the current abundance is cause by population increase, more slaves to work for people who have money, which is also another reason why it is immoral to procreate.

[@OrmondOtvos]

Superabundance theory depends on human social intelligence, which doesn't scale.

[@kenchaddock]

​@@OrmondOtvos Not sure I agree that social intellegence dosen't scale. If social intellegence is developed mostly through interactions with other people then it's a logical step to think that the greater the number and variety of people one interacts with, the more developed one's social intellegence will become. Also, invention, the first step in innovation, is mostly driven by individuals or small groups of individuals who are noted for generally low social intellegence many even be neurodivergent and tends to happen in isolation. Innovation begins to draw in more people, entrepreneurs in particular who are often so driven that they are also low in social intellegence and high in disagreeableness. Super Abundance depends primarily upon innovation to bring new products and methods into being and depends upon there being those inventors and innovators. Since inventors and innovators occur in low proportions in the population, it's logical that more people, the more inventors and innovators, the greater the likehood that the abundance of goods and services will continue to grow at a rate faster than the population.

[@glaubs65]

To summarise this ante or is it anti natalism nonsense. Life is suffering - Buddha. Therefore to avoid suffering is to avoid life.

[@glaubs65]

"The Complexity of Anti-Semitism" is answered by Harari and Maher in the first 1and a half minutes of this. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXXVc2Rnp9aWjMU

[@routinelyrandom9409]

"when we say Israel, we mean a group of race-loyal people calling themselves "God's chosen people", who created an ethno-state where the constitutional identity is based on racial grounds, to serve one ethnic group. And who created a law that assures that the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to only them." That was a clear

[@robws007]

In 2024, how can you trust someone who doesn't show their face?

[@brianonuanain7535]

Just curious, but how would seeing his face alter the quality of his reasoning?

[@robws007]

@@brianonuanain7535 you're being disingenuous. Listening to a discombobulated voice, on KZbin, in 2024, is off-putting and, yes, it does undermine this person's credibility. You can play your little "whataboutism" game but you're not acknowledging that social media is a forum that replaces actual human contact, nonetheless there is an expectation of transparency. Is this an actual person, with the credentials that they (and Quillette) claim they have? Or, are they simply a mouthpiece for some committee or organization? How do we know they are not just a bot? I teach online, the school where I teach has a strict "camera on" policy to ensure that the students are actually accountable not only during tests but also whenever a student-teacher interaction is occurring.

[@Judas.G0J]

That’s your problem and Not necessarily anyone else’s

[@AndyColglazier]

What difference does it make? Listen to what he says.

[@Sen9393]

If his reasoning is solid, Why not?

[@jhonklan3794]

So you have a whole conversation 40 minute conversation about Israel and Palestine and you dont mention the settlements in the westbank once?

[@victormeidan1062]

There were no settlements in the West Bank before the war of June 1967. There was terrorism back then too ! Whoops.

[@JasonWolfeYT]

The only Jews in Gaza are hostages and soldiers there to rescue them. Gazans enjoyed a Jew-free existence for 17+ years. Why did the Gazans still insist on terror even though they achieved a Jew-free existence?

[@joelvonthrum8658]

@@victormeidan1062 exactly - the settlements argument is a red herring.

[@oremfrien]

Benatar did mention the vision of Israel’s Jewish right wing having a vision of the Holy Land that would make Palestine impossible. That would appear to be a meaningful reference to the settlements if not by name.

[@satiricgames2129]

😂😂😂 jewish land cry about it terrorist

[@TheBuggeroff]

comparing hamas and the gazans to the NSDAP and the 3. Reich is completelly absurd though....🤷‍♀

[@צחייעקובוביץ]

Did you read the Hamas manifest document?

[@jakobkeienburg2395]

The Third Reich has been for long time their model. Ask Gazans, they will tell you.

[@jakobkeienburg2395]

In some kind it works in the other direction as well. Hitler said that “with Islam, the Germanic face would already have conquered the world”.

[@TheBuggeroff]

this document is competely irrelevant to what i have said. comparing hamas with the NSDAP and the gazans to the population of the third reich is like comparing strawberries with pineples. the nazis waged war against multiple countries and murdered millions within a few years and used state of the art technology, which is why we use phrases such as industrialized mass murder when we speak about the holocoust which lasted for years. how is any of that comparable to the hammases actions on 10/07 or their military capabilities? the only thing comparable to a nazi concentration camp today in the region israel/palestine/lebanon are the military prisons the IDF uses to lock away and torture palestinians who organise against the illegal occupation, indiscriminately wether they do so peacefully or violently btw.

[@AndyColglazier]

If you think of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and the Iranian theocrats as the worst distillation of Muslim bigotry, they are also the most militant proponents of a radical Islamic Caliphate. A Muslim Reich, if you will. Just as the Nazis had a malignant dream of a greater political and ideological realm where they would rule and subjugate others, so do the Jihadists desire their malignant Caliphate. And just as the majority of Germans were not Nazis, the majority of Muslims are not Jihadists. And yet, as the Nazis rose to power on the backs of Germans, so do Jihadists enjoy the "support" of the greater Muslim world. Neither the Nazis, nor radical Islamists, can take power without some support from the greater populations from which they come.