Discussion Existential Antinatalism/Promortalism

[It's_all_so_tedious]

Hello everyone. I recently stumbled upon this particular video of a narrated audiobook titled, "Promortalism". It promotes 2 interesting philosophies namely, existential antinatalism (the idea that it is illogical to procreate) & existential promortalism (the idea that it is logical for any mortal living being to die as soon as possible). It argues in favor of both, with 2 arguments.

The first is called the argument from unnecessary complexity. It states that in the world, there exist living things and non living things & both serve the same purpose, which is obedience of the laws of physics. However, the non living things can do this job by themselves, meaning that the existence of living things adds unnecessary complexity to the world. Thus, it is more logical to make the world simpler by removing the already existing living things & not bringing more new ones.

The second is called the argument from a universal solution. It states that every living thing has to solve problems. The word, "problems" here is used in a general sense to refer to having desires. To have a desire simply means to want something. The nature of the desire, doesn't matter. It could be anything, no matter how big (wanting to run for president) or small (wanting to go to the toilet). This argument states that it is illogical to create offspring who will have desires, since they did not need or want anything before they were born. It goes on to state that dying is the most logical reaction to having any desires, because death gets rid of desires themselves. Consider for example, the fact that humans need to eat food to stay alive. Instead of dealing with your hunger by eating food, if you instead died, you would permanently, no longer even need to eat. On a larger scale, rather than governments spending huge amounts of money & effort on agriculture, it would instead be a more sensible action to organize a total genocide, to avoid the need for food production.

I think these ideas are flawless as I found it quite difficult to think of any refutation. What do you guys think?

Video

 

[3x+1]

I tried thinking about a refutation or something to contradict any of those two statements and I couldn't find anything ! As direct and cold the second argument is, its right.

All I could find that was near a contradiction is about the first argument, that "living things and non living things & both serve the same purpose, which is the obedience of the laws of physics". But what if the we didn't discover all of the laws of physics?

Of course, it's not because we didn't discover something that it didn't exist, but if the living things found a law of physic that only the living things could do, therefore it would obey to the laws of physics without adding complexity. Thus, we need the living things to live to maybe discover a purpose for living!

Of course there is a lot of holes in this argument as I mostly agree more with the ideas than this refutations but I still find this opinion intersting...

 

[FuneralCry]

I very much support those views as I don't see any value in having the ability to suffer so senselessly in this existence.

If one doesn't exist then they are incapable of suffering and that is ideal to me, I see existence as nothing more than an unnecessary harm that just creates problems that there were never a need for. Wishing for death to be permanently relieved from all suffering is all that feels rational to me, I do believe that if all humans were capable of rational thought this species would had went extinct a long time ago.

 

[SpiritualDeath]

I've read this book and what I find very interesting is its complete rejection of the concept of morality, and that the logic of antinatalism and promortalism still holds true even out of the context of how suffering shouldn't be imposed.

Problems are only problems because we perceive them to be problems. Needs create problems and it's unreasonable to produce needs for no needs, and it's unreasonable to perpetuate needs for no reason besides needs itself.

I have no counter argument. The only thing I have in mind that may serve as a counter argument is agnosticism: As humans we have limited ability to know things (we can't predict the future for example) and since we haven't experience death firsthand we can never be 100% sure of what's after death, if it's non-existence or bigger problems. But that's a very weak argument, and even when it's taken into consideration it doesn't defeat the argument of antinatalism and promortalism: We may never know for sure what's on the other side but we have more than enough knowledge of what is here. If we make judgement using our best knowledge with sound evidence, instead of being supersticious and holding onto stories that have zero proof so far, it's still antinatalism and promortalism that hold true.

 

[Daxter_87]

I fully support the anti-natalism movement for many reasons, two of which are the ones you mentioned.

Firstly, there is no single valid reason why we need to exist; at least I haven't heard a good one yet. Pro-lifers will come up with explanations and justifications for why we are necessary - that life is "precious", a "gift", that the good outweighs the bad, that not everyone is unhappy, and so on. However, these objections are easily refuted and have been refuted, but I won't go into detail and deconstruct them one by one because I don't have the energy and I'm lackadaisical.

To make matters worse, procreation means creating a biological machine that will have endless, and in many cases unsolvable, desires that will cause them a great deal of suffering and are in fact the root of all suffering. As you said, we didn't need anything before we were born and we won't need anything when we die. Non-existence is the only true, permanent solution to the predicament we're in, because it rips out the roots - it solves the problem by not creating it in the first place.

As for pro-mortalism, I agree too, but more in a collective sense, and I would call it omnicide rather than genocide. This brings us to the concept and philosophy of efilism, coined and created by youtuber and philosopher Inmendham. An extended and sentiocentric version of anti-natalism, the ultimate conclusion of efilism is that all life should become extinct, ideally by peaceful means, to spare it the horrors it has endured for some four billion years. Ever since living organisms developed sentience, the ability to feel pain and pleasure, they have been the victims of extreme torture, both in nature and later in society. Needless to say, there's no sign of this cycle changing anytime soon, as evidenced by the fact that history keeps repeating itself with more of the same problems - wars, epidemics, etc. The game is simply broken beyond repair, and so the only way to fix it is to end it.

 

[odradek]

If I were to try to refute these points, I would just say I'm agnostic on antinatalism and promortalism, although in truth I don't think either concept is entirely pragmatic. That is just my opinion though, I know I don't know shit. I think I'm being balanced, but I know I obviously have my own biases. I'm just trying to engage with the ideas here, not put anyone down for disagreeing with me. I say this because I'm self conscious responding to this, sorry. Also I see the merit in saying agnosticism is a cop out, I just disagree I guess. Another thing, I didn't not listen to this audio book so please don't get mad at me if I misunderstood some point. I'm going off of OP's examples.

unnecessary complexity. It states that in the world, there exist living things and non living things & both serve the same purpose, which is obedience of the laws of physics.

I don't think we can objectively make the assessment of what complexity is necessary or not. I think the assertion that living and nonliving things serve the purpose of obeying the laws of physics is a pretty hubristic take. Any knowledge of the "purpose" of living and non living things is strictly subjective and cannot be proven or disproven in many cases (imo). Further, we don't even fully understand the laws of physics, not even close. How do we know we're obeying laws that we can't fully comprehend? 95% of the mass of the universe is invisible, we don't know what dark energy or dark matter is. There is no unified theory between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. We don't fully understand the relationship between really big things and really small things, that's a huge gap. There are countless astronomical anomalies that don't fit out theories. My point in all this is simply that we do not know enough to make universal claims on anything (purpose, life, procreation, complexity), despite the fancy dystopia we've created for ourselves. We are just animals on some rock, orbiting an average star, with no clue what is actually going on so we make each other miserable in our fear and existential dread while trying to ignore our complete and collective (and maybe permanent) lack of understanding. Again, just my opinion.

This argument states that it is illogical to create offspring who will have desires, since they did not need or want anything before they were born.

In my view, it is illogical to apply logic to any desire. (*Edit: I would walk this one back a bit I should have said the desire to procreate) We humans arrived at this point in history via sheer force of nature, survival of the fittest, systems upon systems compounding and evolving over billions of years in ways we will never understand to create the modern world we inhabit. We don't understand life, we only have our theories, which again, cannot be proven or disproven in most cases. We don't understand or even know all the forces at work here. Sure we have gained a lot of agency in our ability to control our reproduction. However, I don't believe this can be put down to simply "choosing" to not to procreate, I think is where I always get caught up with antinatalism. I feel it's too narrow a view. I don't think it's simply a choice, nor can you apply a simple good/bad moral binary to this process. I think procreating is value neutral since it's been happening since before humans were a twinkle in the eye of some ancestor species and therefore the concept of morality didn't even exist. I mean this on a macro scale. I recognize there are of course many instances where individuals obviously should not have children because the outcome will be undoubtedly bad. But that is not always a choice for people in this horrible world. Again just my opinion on the ideas. I don't believe in universal morality but I do think we should be good to each other, but this could be a major digression, so I'll just leave it there. Procreation just is, it can be good or bad to our perception, but over all, it just is.

My objection to these two concepts is generally, we don't know enough. I do recognize that the world is horrifying and miserable and a lot of people needlessly suffer. I guess I just reject that it can only be this way. This could lead me into a major digression on capitalism (and a lot more) that I don't really have the mental energy to engage with, but that's where I'd start anyway. I am a mess of a human so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

But I don't know, I like many here, am not optimistic at all for the future of our species, I just don't find promortalism or antinatalism particularly compelling. I think the world could be different but we collectively, on some subconscious level, choose not to change. Maybe we can't and I don't think we will, so there's that. This is the conclusion I've come to based on my own anecdotal life experience. I don't disagree with these ideas to put anyone down and definitely not to evoke any hope, I'm pretty pessimistic. This is just how I express my raging existential dread I guess. I am a tangle of contradictions. Wow this ended up being way longer than intended, sorry for the wall of text.

*Edit: Just softened my stance a bit

 

[ArmorFati]

I get antinatalism, but I feel like I support it more out of resentment.

I think it's also problematic because the way society works is that the young take care of the old. Who wants to be the last generation left?

I think corporations are already destroying the family, so a strong case for it, antinatalism which I'm only guessing means the idea that humans shouldn't have children like what VHEM holds to and I used to be a member of a Facebook group for them, is sort of moot.

 

[Abandoned Character]

I agree with what foxdie said. I am more likely to agree with an antinatalist than a promortalist, but both philosophies are not as ironclad as you say. Given what you said at face value, there are massive holes in your reasoning. You use many assumptions that have no purpose other than to get you where you wanted to be in the first place.

Personally, I find antinatalism far more intriguing than promortalism. I have yet to see a promortalist argument that isn't clouded in hatred and anger.

 

[sserafim]

Hello everyone. I recently stumbled upon this particular video of a narrated audiobook titled, "Promortalism". It promotes 2 interesting philosophies namely, existential antinatalism (the idea that it is illogical to procreate) & existential promortalism (the idea that it is logical for any mortal living being to die as soon as possible). It argues in favor of both, with 2 arguments.

The first is called the argument from unnecessary complexity. It states that in the world, there exist living things and non living things & both serve the same purpose, which is obedience of the laws of physics. However, the non living things can do this job by themselves, meaning that the existence of living things adds unnecessary complexity to the world. Thus, it is more logical to make the world simpler by removing the already existing living things & not bringing more new ones.

The second is called the argument from a universal solution. It states that every living thing has to solve problems. The word, "problems" here is used in a general sense to refer to having desires. To have a desire simply means to want something. The nature of the desire, doesn't matter. It could be anything, no matter how big (wanting to run for president) or small (wanting to go to the toilet). This argument states that it is illogical to create offspring who will have desires, since they did not need or want anything before they were born. It goes on to state that dying is the most logical reaction to having any desires, because death gets rid of desires themselves. Consider for example, the fact that humans need to eat food to stay alive. Instead of dealing with your hunger by eating food, if you instead died, you would permanently, no longer even need to eat. On a larger scale, rather than governments spending huge amounts of money & effort on agriculture, it would instead be a more sensible action to organize a total genocide, to avoid the need for food production.

I think these ideas are flawless as I found it quite difficult to think of any refutation. What do you guys think?

VideoView attachment 122749

Isn't there entropy though which means that everything tends towards disorder? I think the living things would have more disorder and randomness than the non-living things.

 

[Abandoned Character]

Isn't there entropy though which means that everything tends towards disorder? I think the living things would have more disorder than the non-living things.

I agree with that, but antinatalism nor promortalism necessarily follow from that principle alone. I'm not sure how the increased complexity/entropy of living things is even relevant to the two philosophies. Suffering is a natural consequence of sufficient complexity, sure, but that doesn't mean that complexity is the issue.