The Ethics of Birth and Death | existentialgoof

[@LawrenceAnton]

What are your views on the right to die? 😳

[@TheFettuck]

All antinatalists should use this right!

[@asb4428]

I think it's incredibly immoral to deny people in severe prolongued pain a way out of their suffering. Those who can't by any means end their own life are essentially being held hostage. We don't own each other.

[@Exstistential__A__Hole]

Obligatory to have

[@nowherenothere]

It somewhat offsets the fact that we didn’t consent to be born.

[@BristleHiffyn]

Well even if there depressed I don't encourage mercy murdering . Deuteronomy 19 New International Version Cities of Refuge 19 When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses, 2

[@darkchaozbringer785]

If the people that deny peaceful exits had to be responsible the living expenses for the individuals they're forcing to stay here, all that talk about being "worried" would go out the window real fast. At that point, they'd be willing to help you leave personally.

[@micgooflander95]

The conservative religious people who clutch pearls about disabled people feeling coerced into choosing this way out because they don't have generous enough benefits would also bitterly resist any proposed increase in taxation in order to lift those disabled people out of that scenario. So they wouldn't even be prepared to accept a fairly minor sacrifice; let alone actually having to pay for the existence of the person that they want to force to remain alive.

[@micgooflander95]

I'm existentialgoof, and this is my KZbin account. I'm also happy to answer any queries here in the comments, if anyone has any. Or debate any points that anyone disagrees with.

[@FactsCountdown]

What should I do if my parents force me to marry and have kids

[@distantuncertain630]

It's very disappointing that you're not vegan 🥺

[@micgooflander95]

@@distantuncertain630 I was expecting to get some criticism for that, and it is fair criticism. Whilst I would support any efforts to phase out the use of animal products, or even eliminate them abruptly; at the moment, the preponderance of what is easily accessible does contain animal products. Life is already grim enough for me to go out of my way to strictly limit my diet and thereby deprive myself of one of my few sources of pleasure. Not an excuse, but an explanation.

[@micgooflander95]

@@FactsCountdown You should resist that with all your might. Especially the procreation part. Are you fully financially dependant on your parents; or do you have a way of loosening their grip over you?

[@gokulv8870]

I'm familiar with you on Reddit. You would post in pcm and antinatalism spaces. Unfortunately my Reddit account is disabled. Do you have an ig account by any chance?

[@halnkasebrot3755]

I am already member of an organization helping to find / provide assistance at the end of / to end life conform with the law (in Germany). So absolutely pro „right to die“. Interestingly my mother also brought up this topic when Russia started the war. We agreed somehow that we would prefer to have „the pill“ when Russia also comes over to Germany. Unfortunately currently there is no pill like this available for the medicine cabinet to have in case. To take my own life is a topic since my youth but not because of being depressive but as a practical solution to end the burden of life, the way out.

[@1GTX1]

As a kid i remember the air raid sirens from the air war in Serbia (Yugoslavia at the time), went on for months, it was terrifying, at the same time so many people didn't care about it, or were making jokes. In this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/gp6zn6SfnZ52a7eVt at minute 11:40 the guy is making jokes about how bombing will help people with instant death. I also see from videos in the war in Ukraine, some people acting as if they are in a movie and bullets can't hurt them. It's some form of coping mechanism, or even a bit of narcissism in humans.

[@antinatalope]

Being an antinatalist before you hear about the actual term and philosophy, feels like understanding something is wrong with, for example, capitalism, without having heard of any other system, such as socialism. Once you do, it all falls into place, and you get the light bulb moment. Anyway, this fellow sounds like his life paralleled mine in timing and thought. Thanks for the video, Lawrence.

[@TheFettuck]

The light bulb unfortunately doesn't burn for most antinatalists. Antinatalists know that procreation is wrong, but most of them don't want to live in a world without procreation.

[@FactsCountdown]

Every type of system is going to fail in large population only communism is successful in small community.

[@fleshedexperience]

I'm Canadian (and disabled) and I'm frustrated with all the opposition to our assisted suicide laws (as I like to call them). I think self-defence against life itself is crucial; it's hard to convince me that something else should take priority, since life is the root of all evil. I think the left would be plenty opposed to assisted suicide on their own without the influence of religious activists encouraging their identity politics. They already do that themselves well enough. I worry about what extent they might be right about the adverse consequences of the right to die. The steelmaned argument is that assisted suicide creates perverse incentives that could create more of the very suffering it seeks to eliminate. I have had some traumatic experiences with the medical system myself, so it’s easy for me to be worried. There are some cases of neglect, abuse, and coercion that will occur with assisted suicide that wouldn’t occur without it. I don’t think we can deny that, so in a sense it’s hard for me to confidentially agree that taking away the option won’t help anyone. But neglect, abuse, coercion, wait lists, human fallibility, and limitations on resources will exist either way, and without assisted suicide, everyone will be forced to face the full consequences (unless they can manage to pull off a DIY suicide, which is easier said than done, and very risky to attempt). How much additional suffering and needless death will there be with assisted suicide in place, and will it be more than compensated for with all the suffering it eliminates and needed death it facilitates? The existence of medicine as a whole helps some at the expense of others. It's true that life as a whole is exploitative. Overall I think people are very status-quo-biased on this issue because they are so concerned with the coercion to die, while the coercion to live is ubiquitous. (Of course this is largely because people generally think that life is good and death is bad, which needs challenging.) Any risk-benefit calculation needs to take into account that without the right to die, we’re at risk of all abuses and torments possible. Any one of us could develop a severe case of locked-in syndrome tomorrow, even if we’d rather die than be at that risk. No thanks! We need any way out we can get, whether it’s through the medical system or not.

[@cynthiataormino5987]

"self defence agst life" is a great way to say that, and yes, you're right thanks for your perspective

[@micgooflander95]

I think that in Canada, although there is a lot of media opposition to the right to die; what I have noticed from posting on the Canadian subreddit, is that attitudes on that sub seem to have significantly shifted towards acceptance and embrace of MAiD. I noticed that just a couple of years ago, there were regular posts on the subject of MAiD (usually a National Post article focusing on an individual case that was cherry picked to yield maximum outrage); and seemingly almost every commenter would be against it. But then in the last several months, it seems that things have completely flipped, and it is those who try to fearmonger around the subject of MAiD who come in for the most criticism and are perceived as effectively virtue signalling. It's a bit as if Canada occupies an entirely different moral universe than the UK at the moment. Having MAiD available benefits absolutely everyone in theory; whereas even without MAiD, it is possible that the disabled will be subject to coercion in some form. Of course, many believe that they would never choose to exercise MAiD no matter what adversity that they faced; but some of these people would change their mind when actually faced with severe illness.

[@cynthiataormino5987]

@micgooflander95 Thanks for your insights, glad to see Canada has moved in the right direction. Refreshing. Here in Oregon we have a law allowing that, although the patient has to have a terminal illness. Swiss, Dutch, and Canadian policies are thankfully much more enlightened .

[@catherineobrien8696]

What an absolutely excellent video! Your guest is outstandingly intelligent and exceptionally articulate.

[@voidoccupant]

Congrats on hitting 5k subs, Lawrence:)

[@LawrenceAnton]

Cheers!

[@rosyvision]

Very good interview. He made some really great points I never even thought of before as an anti-natalist/right to die advocate that I can now use in an argument.

[@mariaradulovic3203]

EG is my favorite on Twitter.

[@lpodverde]

I wish i knew any antinatalists irl. They are the only people who seem to understand and relate to.

[@ibrahimdogar9110]

We try to tell blind people the sun. Having a child is a most evil thing what you can do.

[@Florida_man.2]

I'm so glad there are another turkish people who knows having kids is wrong like me .

[@TheFettuck]

Why are you still relying on the existence of procreated humans when you don't want procreated humans to exist?

[@TheRedPandaTales]

Yes exactly, the perfect word is indeed evil!

[@Nobleeding]

Why?the only reason overpopulation is a problem is because we aren’t all vegan.And giving birth to a child would give both the child and parents happiness

[@krunkle5136]

Life asserts itself.

[@Rich-xq8df]

Awesome

[@dmtdreamz7706]

Death is not just extreme pleasure. Death is the realization of immortality and the realization that everything is heaven. When you realize that, it's so good, it's infinitely good. It's not just good. It's good to the infinite degree. It's so much goodness that you can't contain it. your body can't hold it. Your entire body shakes and shudders in a cosmic orgasm of bliss. It's perfection. It's total peace. It's absolute love, that's truly death.

[@jeffreyscott4997]

Death is not extreme pleasure. Death is not extreme pain. Death is not balance. Death is not. Nothing is dead, for dying is passing into nonexistence. The value, the pleasures, the pains, the bliss, the suffering, the anything, of the dead, are "NullReferenceException".

[@michaelshannon9169]

The left wing always make this issue about capitalism and how it's the cause of most suffering, the right wing always make it about religion, attitudes and mentality, basically the idea that we have control over all issues through these 3 aspects (just pull up your bootstraps type of thing)

[@micgooflander95]

existentialgoof here. This is true. No matter what economic system we operate under, it will be exploitative. It is LIFE that is fundamentally exploitative; not any one particular economic system. There may be more and less exploitative ways of organising our society; but life will always be a zero sum game, wherein one person's (or organism's) gain is another's loss.

[@radscorpion8]

@@micgooflander95 hey there...this is an extremely long frankly somewhat tiresome video, and I'm listening to it, but is there a cliff notes version for why you are an antinatalist? Like some key, philosophical arguments? I have tried debating on the antinatalist reddit forums but I was resoundingly given like -100 thumbs down whenever I tried to offer a counterview and as you know on reddit that rating system is kind of stupidly designed because anyone can ruin it for any reason and there is no oversight so anyway I'm not posting there again. But in terms of specific arguments, do you have any favorite ones? Or would you rather DM them over reddit? I don't mind hearing it here either. From my perspective the argument against antinatalism is rather straightforward - life is broadly good for the majority of people - even if that's only 70-80%, as can be measured on world happiness reports and other statistical metrics. So logically most people would prefer to live and enjoy more happiness than to never be given the option for life at all, making it statistically preferential. There might be specific contexts in which antinatalism is valid, but since the antinatalist position is universally against childbirth in all cases I don't see a need to defend that position. Also I would argue the arc of human moral progress is to the good, as we have seen humanity improve considerably over the past few centuries in its development of human rights, labor unions, democratic rights and so on. So most likely this will continue until humanity is living in more or less a perpetual golden age, making this period of relative unease extraordinarily short on the scale of centuries of millennia. That argument is a little more presumptive but I think also, more likely than the imagined dystopian futures.

[@micgooflander95]

@@radscorpion8 Thank you for your comment. And I am happy to use the KZbin comments on this video as a platform to answer any more questions or engage in further discussion about any of the themes raised in the discussion. The reason that I am an antinatalist can be boiled down to something very simple. In non-existence, there can be no harm and no deprivation of good. For existing beings, there is always at least the potential of harm; and although there are also experiences that are intrinsically good; all those experiences are doing is satisfying needs and desires that are being created by life. So there is no profit in existence; all you have is creating problems for the sake of partially solving them. Even the best life is merely one where you have been mostly successful in mitigating against the harms and risks that life imposes on you. I don't see the happiness reports as being a good argument against antinatalism; because the absence of that happiness wouldn't be a bad thing for those people if they never came into existence. But in order to create those people, and their apparent happiness, comes at the cost of creating great suffering for those who are no more or less deserving, but just happened to be the ones who drew the short straws. And that, of course, is only focusing on humans. We also have to consider every other sentient creature in the biosphere and how they are feeling. The idea of someone preferring existence to non-existence is really rather non-sensical, unless they would be capable of forming that same preference whilst they didn't exist. For them to say that they "prefer" existence; they have to be imputing some kind of negative value to non-existence. But to do so would be to commit a category error, because non-existence isn't on the value spectrum at all. People mistakenly place non-existence as a neutral on the value spectrum. In reality, it isn't on the spectrum at all, so therefore cannot be compared to different points on the spectrum. I don't know if I agree that the arc of human moral progress always tends towards goodness. It seems that we solve one problem, and then another one takes its place. Like how we mostly got rid of racism, but then ended up with the neo-puritanism of wokeness as a radical overcorrection. But in any case, we don't appear to be getting anywhere near to permanently expunging suffering from the universe.

[@michaelshannon9169]

@micgooflander95 even where the most successful forms of socialism are practiced i.e Nordic countries, they don't seem like the most happiest bunch of ppl to be honest. If good transport, health care and education is what really gives you a boner then I think you need your head assessed.

[@krunkle5136]

​@@micgooflander95is everything exploitative? That's a very reductive worldview. Then love or dedication are forms of self exploitation, and not at all an expression of will to help people you value.

[@michaelshannon9169]

The key in the prison is an interesting notion too as it relies on the idea that death is the end. A frightening rabbit hole.

[@ZakLylak]

Absolutely. It's a terrifying rabbit hole!

[@jackkrell4238]

How exactly is it frightening? Most antinatalists/pessimists hold on to that view.

[@jackkrell4238]

@@ZakLylak How?

[@ZakLylak]

@@jackkrell4238 It relies on death being the end. That might be a mistake. You might just be thrown into an even worse reality. Death, as we imagine it, might never happen. If we bring children into this world, they might be souls rescued from being reborn into an even worse place. It sounds as crazy as 'stop having children' does to natalists. But if this is a simuation of some kind, anything's possible. There's the rabbit hole. It's deep, and very dark.

[@michaelshannon9169]

@@jackkrell4238 no one has the monopoly on death and what happens after

[@margaretfahey8090]

We now have technology in our bloodstreams and others can hurt us by remote control.

[@francisdec1615]

No, but it's bad enough what these bastards *can* do.

[@LouisGedo]

👋 hi

[@radscorpion8]

I'm sorry but his voice is unbelievably monotone and nasal and its extraordinarily difficult to listen to this. I feel like I unironically want to pass away myself listening to this

[@Melnokina.-.]

That was me on the last video with the Argentinian or Brazilian dude 😅 dude gave me anxiety

[@micgooflander95]

This is why I tend to stick to text based means of communication. I got a deviated septum as a child, and this causes my voice to sound like I have a perpetually stuffy nose. But if you have any further issues with the actual content of my points, I'm happy to address those in text, and save you the aural discomfort of having to listen to my voice again.