Discussion My argument for antinatalism

[AbusedInnocent]

I've thought about antinatalism for a long time now and I think I have a fairly simple yet powerful argument for it inspired by David Benatar's asymmetry argument and the desire-fulfillment method for quantifying quality of life.

Firstly though I want to make it clear that believing that you're better off having been born or being generally happy doesn't mean life is actually something positive, none of us see the world how it really is, our view is shaped by cognitive biases and prior beliefs that were mostly determined by how and where we were raised.

Pollyanna principle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Negativity bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Whether or not most people are too optimistic or pessimistic is entirely subjective though, and there's really no way to conclude whether or not one should rationally be satisfied with a certain life or not, we all have different needs, desires and standards for what life should offer.

All I'm saying is subjective personal assessments of quality of life can in no way prove or disprove antinatalism.

In this argument I'm going to compare the states of existence and nonexistence based on desires as their presence or absence is common to both states, few would argue that the nonexistent have desires or that this comparison is flawed so I don't see how the non-identity problem applies here.

There are 3 types of desires:

1-Nonexistent desires

2-Fulfilled desires

3-Unfulfilled desires

Knowing that the nonexistent only have nonexistent desires while the existent can have all three we just need to assign these desires values to compare quality of life (QoL) between the two states.

Specifically a nonexistent desire is something that one could potentially desire but doesn't, logically there is an infinite number of these in both states as there is an infinite number of things or feelings to desire even if they're unattainable in the real world.

Since there is an infinite number of nonexistent desires assigning them a non-zero value would entail everyone having a QoL of infinity or negative infinity, so logically nonexistent desires should have a value of zero and therefore the nonexistent have a QoL of zero.

As for fulfilled desires I would argue that they must have the same value as nonexistent desires, you're not better or worse off having a desire then fulfilling it than not having that desire at all, you don't do anyone a favor by creating a problem then solving it, saying fulfilled desires are positive is like saying you're better off getting your leg cut off and replaced with a prosthetic, sure getting a prosthetic is better than not having a leg but it's not better than not losing your leg in the first place, losing a leg creates a desire and the prosthetic fulfills it, assuming the prosthetic is almost as good as a real leg you are neither better nor worse off so fulfilled desires have the same value as nonexistent desires.

Lastly unfulfilled desires must have a negative value because they cause suffering, it's part of human nature to strive to fulfill our needs and desires and we evolved to suffer when they are unfulfilled, also giving them a value of zero would give everyone an equal QoL and giving them a positive value would mean all the existent should be happy.

Final score:

Nonexistent QoL: zero

Existent QoL: zero + zero + negative

It really irritates me when parents say they're doing their children a favor by feeding them or something, that only applies if they were adopted, the nonexistent don't need food nor experience hunger, creating a desire for food by bringing them into existence and then fulfilling it is not by any means doing them a favor.

Even if I'm wrong though and the existent can have a positive QoL procreation is still questionable as it's gambling with another person's life, the nonexistent can't consent and therefore we should make decisions on their behalf that are in their best interests, now can you objectively prove that for most people the good outweighs the bad?

I know not everyone here is antinatalist and I challenge you to disprove my argument.

 

[derpyderpins]

I assume this is what you were referring to here in that other thread:

Your best measurable metric is subjective personal assessment which is prone to cognitive biases and is shaped by one's prior beliefs?

I think a have a stronger argument, I'll be making a post going into detail about why I think antinatalism is logical, would like to hear your thoughts so maybe check the politics&philosophy section for my post in 2 days or so.

I read you post. It's interesting. It's not convincing to me at all, but I enjoyed the perspective.

Your theory is that that there is no such thing as good, only bad. I disagree.

The hand waiving of a person's self-evaluation of their life is simply not an assumption I can agree with, and it is the foundation for your entire view.

You are actually saying, "It doesn't matter if someone enjoys their life and is fulfilled and loves people and for them life is a great thing. They're wrong." You are actually telling someone who is pleased with existence that they are wrong to be pleased and shouldn't be.

none of us see the world how it really is, our view is shaped by cognitive biases and prior beliefs that were mostly determined by how and where we were raised.

Sure, we have biases. First, I'd question why that matters. Your philosophy is built around ignoring the human element of life and focusing purely on what you consider to be calculable results. Applying that same logic, it shouldn't matter what biases or delusions someone is under so long as the result is positive. Second, my view is that we can look through those biases to try and get a more accurate picture.

Whether or not most people are too optimistic or pessimistic is entirely subjective though, and there's really no way to conclude whether or not one should rationally be satisfied with a certain life or not, we all have different needs, desires and standards for what life should offer.

Uh, I have a crazy way. Ask that person. The only person who fully understands their own needs, desires, and standards is the ultimate arbiter of whether those needs, desires, and standards are met. Seems reasonable to me.

What does it mean to be "rationally satisfied" with life? I'll use your words and base it around needs, desires, and standards. I have a pretty simple equation:

Do you believe your needs, desires, and standards are met to a degree which you consider satisfactory?

If yes => it is rational for you to be satisfied with your life.

If no => It would be irrational to be satisfied with this life.
​

As for fulfilled desires I would argue that they must have the same value as nonexistent desires, you're not better or worse off having a desire then fulfilling it than not having that desire at all, you don't do anyone a favor by creating a problem then solving it, saying fulfilled desires are positive is like saying you're better off getting your leg cut off and replaced with a prosthetic, sure getting a prosthetic is better than not having a leg but it's not better than not losing your leg in the first place, losing a leg creates a desire and the prosthetic fulfills it, assuming the prosthetic is almost as good as a real leg you are neither better nor worse off so fulfilled desires have the same value as nonexistent desires.

This is another really really huge conclusion that is a foundation for your theory that I just can't agree with. Desires don't have to be specific in nature. They aren't binary. It's not "fulfilled" or "unfulfilled." It's a progression.

Example. Desire: "I want more money." I can work for a salary. This is working towards fulfilling that desire. If I get a promotion and start making more money, I'm continually fulfilling that desire to an even further degree. The excess is pleasure. If I'm walking down the street and a hundred dollar bill flows in the breeze and smacks my face, that's something I couldn't have even expected fulfilling an element of the desire I wasn't considering. Bonus! Non-zero positive.

In your way of thinking, this is one desire that I can fulfill many many times. I only have a one in the denominator but I can keep getting that sweet fulfillment. Welp, now you have a potentially positive effect.

Your statement is essentially that there is nothing good. There is no such thing as something positive. What about a desire to have fun? To love? I am better off for having love in my life than if I never had the desire in the first place. If you can't realize that then I'm sorry you haven't had such an experience, but this is why the subjective matters. You can have a desire with certain expectations but then that expectation is blown away.

If my desire is for 10 "Love points", for instance, and my relationship produces 1000, We're now talking about something far and beyond the desire, an unaccounted for bonus. It's not in any way the same as cutting your leg off and replacing it with a prosthetic. It's getting a small cut in your leg and implanting a neuro chip that gives you super strength.

So, again, I think your line of thought is interesting, and I get it, but not really convinced. My value of personal autonomy is too opposed for this idea that some words on a screen are the arbiter of whether someone's joy is sufficient. Thanks for sharing, though!

 

[AbusedInnocent]

Hmm, don't think we'll be able to reach a conclusion on this, we seem to have completely different points of view and that's fine.

You are actually saying, "It doesn't matter if someone enjoys their life and is fulfilled and loves people and for them life is a great thing. They're wrong." You are actually telling someone who is pleased with existence that they are wrong to be pleased and shouldn't be.

It is not irrational to be pleased with existence, only irrational to believe it's better than nonexistence, if your standards are low enough you can find basically any life satisfactory, you could become a monk and let go of your desires to be satisfied with literally anything, can't have unfulfilled desires if you have no desires.

Applying that same logic, it shouldn't matter what biases or delusions someone is under so long as the result is positive.

I'm saying it can logically never be positive and if you feel that way that's simply your brain tricking you into thinking it is.

Do you believe your needs, desires, and standards are met to a degree which you consider satisfactory?If yes => it is rational for you to be satisfied with your life.If no => It would be irrational to be satisfied with this life.

Completely agree, being satisfied doesn't mean there can't be something better though, like nonexistence.

Satisfaction is a threshold and does not imply an ideal state.

Being satisfied doesn't mean it's positive, only that it's not bad enough to actively try to escape or change.

I am better off for having love in my life than if I never had the desire in the first place. If you can't realize that then I'm sorry you haven't had such an experience

There are still a few things in life that I perceive as being positive, though I'm fully convinced that I only feel that way because their absence was negative.

If my desire is for 10 "Love points", for instance, and my relationship produces 1000, We're now talking about something far and beyond the desire

If your desire is only for 10 then the 990 are simply wasted, having something that you don't desire is definitely not positive.

I think if you still see benefit going from 10 to 1000 then 10 wasn't completely fulfilling your desire.

The excess is pleasure

an unaccounted for bonus

A pleasure/bonus can only exist if there is a prior desire for it.

My desire is to eat a kilogram of bananas but I got a ton of bananas, how does the 999Kg of bananas bring me pleasure? surely I can't eat all of them.

Assuming I don't desire to do anything else with the bananas their presence brings me no benefit.

True that desires can be fulfilled to varying degrees, so they remain negative to varying degrees until completely fulfilled.

 

[derpyderpins]

Hmm, don't think we'll be able to reach a conclusion on this, we seem to have completely different points of view and that's fine.

Agreed! Thanks for having a good attitude.

is not irrational to be pleased with existence, only irrational to believe it's better than nonexistence, if your standards are low enough you can find basically any life satisfactory, you could become a monk and let go of your desires to be satisfied with literally anything, can't have unfulfilled desires if you have no desires.

But ctb is an option. In your view nonexistence= 0 and life = 0 minus the sum of negatives. So if you will get a paper cut at some point in life, your life is worse than nonexistence and remaining alive rather than ctb would be irrational.

I'm saying it can logically never be positive and if you feel that way that's simply your brain tricking you into thinking it is.

Somehow even more condescending than my phrasing haha. You're not just wrong to be happy you're stupid and having the whool pulled over your eyes.

There are still a few things in life that I perceive as being positive, though I'm fully convinced that I only feel that way because their absence was negative.

By your own logic, you must be wrong. The existence of a positive invites the possibility of life being more than 0, even in a limited circumstance, which is internally inconsistent with your theory.

If your desire is only for 10 then the 990 are simply wasted, having something that you don't desire is definitely not positive.

I think if you still see benefit going from 10 to 1000 then 10 wasn't completely fulfilling your desire.

I'm sorry you haven't felt joy beyond what you believed to be possible.

A pleasure/bonus can only exist if there is a prior desire for it.

Disagree. I know it's necessary for your theory but I believe you can have a pleasant surprise not accounted for by any desire you have, conscious or subconscious.

My desire is to eat a kilogram of bananas but I got a ton of bananas, how does the 999Kg of bananas bring me pleasure? surely I can't eat all of them.

Assuming I don't desire to do anything else with the bananas their presence brings me no benefit.

That's a silly example lol and yes there can be excess beyond what is helpful I grant you that.

True that desires can be fulfilled to varying degrees, so they remain negative to varying degrees until completely fulfilled.

Under your theory, life could be a utopia: all the pleasure and fulfillment you can imagine, all suffering and sadness removed. BUT, at one random point in time you'll get a papercut. To be consistent with your theory, the only rational choice would be death to avoid the papercut.

Sometimes we get too close to an issue to see the big picture.

 

[AbusedInnocent]

By your own logic, you must be wrong. The existence of a positive invites the possibility of life being more than 0, even in a limited circumstance, which is internally inconsistent with your theory.

Yes I'm saying my perception is flawed here.

I'm sorry you haven't felt joy beyond what you believed to be possible.

I wish I could see the world the way you do.

Disagree. I know it's necessary for your theory but I believe you can have a pleasant surprise not accounted for by any desire you have, conscious or subconscious.

In that case you have a problem with the desire-fulfillment view as a whole, what is your preferred way to define quality of life and pleasure and pain?

Under your theory, life could be a utopia: all the pleasure and fulfillment you can imagine, all suffering and sadness removed. BUT, at one random point in time you'll get a papercut. To be consistent with your theory, the only rational choice would be death to avoid the papercut.

Yes, that is consistent with my view and I know it sounds absurd, but I can't really see how it's wrong.

Going to be calling this the papercut counterargument lol, I guess this is revenge for the banana example?

Maybe my suicide note should just be "I got a papercut at one point"

 

[derpyderpins]

In that case you have a problem with the desire-fulfillment view as a whole, what is your preferred way to define quality of life and pleasure and pain?

Yes, that's right. That's why I still favor the individual's self-evaluation. As I said above, the delusions and biases shouldn't really matter, if the person feels more joy/utility/etc. than some individual personal threshold, I think a life experience can be greater than 0, which is where I diverge from your theory.

Yes, that is consistent with my view and I know it sounds absurd, but I can't really see how it's wrong.

Going to be calling this the papercut counterargument lol, I guess this is revenge for the banana example?

Maybe my suicide note should just be "I got a papercut at one point"

Haha, yes you could think of it as my revenge. But, this is how we test a theorem: place it against extremes to see how it holds up. If it were a mathematical theorem that produced a result which struck you as being outlandish, it would be time to question the assumptions that form the theorem's foundations.

 

[Deleted member 8119]

There is joy without desire, and there are desires that cause more joy than their suffering. It says nothing if maybe they were rarer but stronger. But all utilitarianism has proven to be a failure.

That's why I still favor the individual's self-evaluation. As I said above, the delusions and biases shouldn't really matter, if the person feels more joy/utility/etc. than some individual personal threshold, I think a life experience can be greater than 0

Not supporting OP, but people can and have been wrong on their experience many times. There are studies about that, tons of factors can change it, or give contradictory experiences depending the time.

 

[derpyderpins]

There is joy without desire, and there are desires that cause more joy than their suffering. It says nothing if you don't balance them. But all utilitarianism have proven to be a failure, anyway.


Not supporting OP, but people can and have been wrong on their experience many times. There are studies about that, tons of factors can change it, or give contradictory experiences depending the time.

With you on both of these statements. And I'm happy to dig into data showing that someone's self-evaluation is wrong, and then we can have a talk about life being good more often than not.

I would say the timing in the equation matters. When does the bias mess things up? I see two stages for bias:

1.) Event Occurs​

​

2.) Bias A is applied​

​

3.) Person's evaluation results from the Event * Bias A​

​

4.) Person has Feeling based on evaluation in step 3.​

​

5.) We ask person to define Feeling (to stay consistent with OP, let's say a scale of -1 to +1, with 0 being neutral).​

​

6.) Bias B is applied​

​

7.) Reported Result is determined by Feeling * Bias B.​

​

I hope that makes sense. What I'm saying is that I don't care about Bias A. If someone gets a genuinely positive result based on something like an overly-positive attitude, I'm happy with that.

But, to your point, I do think scrutiny should be placed on Bias B. The person could have a Feeling of -0.1 but a Reported Result of +0.1, which would be a bad outcome reported as good.

 

[pyx]

agree. i think treating only desire in this context is reductive, though. but the underlying premise of asymmetry is one i agree with.

Yes, that's right. That's why I still favor the individual's self-evaluation. As I said above, the delusions and biases shouldn't really matter, if the person feels more joy/utility/etc. than some individual personal threshold, I think a life experience can be greater than 0, which is where I diverge from your theory.

a delusion can only draw profit in a setting where the delusion is shared. happiness is a gambit, in a way.

With you on both of these statements. And I'm happy to dig into data showing that someone's self-evaluation is wrong, and then we can have a talk about life being good more often than not.

I would say the timing in the equation matters. When does the bias mess things up? I see two stages for bias:

1.) Event Occurs

2.) Bias A is applied

3.) Person's evaluation results from the Event * Bias A

4.) Person has Feeling based on evaluation in step 3.

5.) We ask person to define Feeling (to stay consistent with OP, let's say a scale of -1 to +1, with 0 being neutral).

6.) Bias B is applied

7.) Reported Result is determined by Feeling * Bias B.
​

I hope that makes sense. What I'm saying is that I don't care about Bias A. If someone gets a genuinely positive result based on something like an overly-positive attitude, I'm happy with that.

But, to your point, I do think scrutiny should be placed on Bias B. The person could have a Feeling of -0.1 but a Reported Result of +0.1, which would be a bad outcome reported as good.

even if we try to typify self-report in this way, i don't think it contributes to any net satisfaction. bias a is as limited as bias b, in that (if we treated the self-report step as an event), we could create a change of these events such that, if we continually applied changing biases, the predecessor biases would be functionally useless.

i think what tends to happen with self-report is that it is often conflated with biases that remain constant. biases may be inconsistent with a general state of affairs. that is, of course, a moral distinction. if a plantation owner rewards a slave for his labor, and consequently that slave feels that comparatively he is better off, he will derive some satisfaction from this new prestige. we will suppose that he's a timid slave, and as such disinterested with questions relating to his own rights, instead believing that the best way he can achieve comfort is by serving his master obediently. an outside observer might consider this to be an injustice. but say he is offered freedom. would he take it? a poorer slave might, but of course he is comparatively not as poor. so why should he? that's just drapetomania.
of course, a slave who wants to liberate himself would obviously choose freedom. but if you wanted to be quite loathsome, you could argue that many of their needs, which aren't met in a liberated life, are accounted for under slavery. you could even say that liberation is a bias of sorts.
one side of the coin is moral, the other utilitarian. but to be put in a position in which we are to choose between the two is precisely the issue. hence, non-existence truly does seem preferable.

 

[derpyderpins]

even if we try to typify self-report in this way, i don't think it contributes to any net satisfaction. bias a is as limited as bias b, in that (if we treated the self-report step as an event), we could create a change of these events such that, if we continually applied changing biases, the predecessor biases would be functionally useless.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. I may not have explained what I was saying very well. I don't view self-report as a separate event. The first bias affects the person's actual experience of an event, and the second affects how they express that experience to us.

So, let's say someone eats a banana. From a physical, genetic, real world standpoint, that person is inclined to slightly dislike bananas, a -0.1 on our -1 to +1 scale.

But let's say they're naturally an optimist. This mental bias (Bias A) could increase the actual experience for them. Let's say it makes it a flat 0. It should be a slightly negative event: a person with no bias would perceive it as such. But, this person - thanks to Bias A - finds it as a neutral event. I'm saying we should honor that evaluation and not worry about Bias A in our discussion.

Then, a bunch of people on a suicide forum are debating if life is worth it, so as part of a study they quiz this person about his experience eating the banana. His actual experience was neutral, but his optimism (Bias B) leads him to tell us it was a 0.1 positive event. This would be a bias that throws off our numbers, and I think it's fair when discussing whether life is good on average or not to try and account for this reporting bias.

i think what tends to happen with self-report is that it is often conflated with biases that remain constant. biases may be inconsistent with a general state of affairs. that is, of course, a moral distinction. if a plantation owner rewards a slave for his labor, and consequently that slave feels that comparatively he is better off, he will derive some satisfaction from this new prestige. we will suppose that he's a timid slave, and as such disinterested with questions relating to his own rights, instead believing that the best way he can achieve comfort is by serving his master obediently. an outside observer might consider this to be an injustice. but say he is offered freedom. would he take it? a poorer slave might, but of course he is comparatively not as poor. so why should he? that's just drapetomania.
of course, a slave who wants to liberate himself would obviously choose freedom. but if you wanted to be quite loathsome, you could argue that many of their needs, which aren't met in a liberated life, are accounted for under slavery. you could even say that liberation is a bias of sorts.
one side of the coin is moral, the other utilitarian. but to be put in a position in which we are to choose between the two is precisely the issue. hence, non-existence truly does seem preferable.

So, I don't see how you reach that conclusion. Who are we to say that either the timid slave who refuses freedom and the liberated slave who takes it have lives worth living? Non-existence may seem preferable to you (and if that is all you were saying I withdraw this comment, but the thread is about non-existence being better for everyone always), but there's nothing in your hypo that mandates the slave in question have the same evaluation.

 

[AbusedInnocent]

There is joy without desire, and there are desires that cause more joy than their suffering. It says nothing if maybe they were rarer but stronger. But all utilitarianism has proven to be a failure.

Why has utilitarianism proven to be a failure? Utilitarianism and consequentialist ethics in general seems to be the basis of modern morality, I don't know much about deontological ethics but it seems quite unreasonable to decide whether a certain action is moral or not based on a set of hard rules, every situation is different and no matter how many rules you have there will always be exceptions.

With you on both of these statements. And I'm happy to dig into data showing that someone's self-evaluation is wrong, and then we can have a talk about life being good more often than not.

I would say the timing in the equation matters. When does the bias mess things up? I see two stages for bias:

1.) Event Occurs

2.) Bias A is applied

3.) Person's evaluation results from the Event * Bias A

4.) Person has Feeling based on evaluation in step 3.

5.) We ask person to define Feeling (to stay consistent with OP, let's say a scale of -1 to +1, with 0 being neutral).

6.) Bias B is applied

7.) Reported Result is determined by Feeling * Bias B.
​

I hope that makes sense. What I'm saying is that I don't care about Bias A. If someone gets a genuinely positive result based on something like an overly-positive attitude, I'm happy with that.

But, to your point, I do think scrutiny should be placed on Bias B. The person could have a Feeling of -0.1 but a Reported Result of +0.1, which would be a bad outcome reported as good.

Interesting view, I don't really believe bias A exists, people experience different degrees of pleasure/pain in certain events based on the strength of their desires and the rate to which they are fulfilled, people who are more likely to enjoy the little things just have weaker desires and therefore their lives are less bad but under my view can still only be negative.

There's plenty of evidence for bias B though, makes sense as there's no evolutionary advantage in being depressed and suicidal, remembering the quality of the past accurately generally causes more harm than good, it might help you predict the future more accurately but it can also make you depressed if your past wasn't satisfactory.

 

[Deleted member 8119]

Why has utilitarianism proven to be a failure?

It has been argued against many times, many thought experiments and conclusions that abuse it. It's one of the easiest systems to exploit, and often contradict itself. If you search them online, many should pop out.

Apart of that, it consistently failed. Needing to agree with a hard set of rules (which utilitarianism is, reduce x and/or increase y) tends to create groupthink. You're less likely to question things you fear, like suffering. Negative utilitarianist, for example, had veganism, I talked against it many times in the past for not really reducing anything, knowing how large scale farming is done, and no one warns enough the possibly permanent health risks, reducing no suffering yet people feel a hard need to follow in case, maybe, they could cause some suffering.

On classical utilitarianism, you often see people saying straight up savagery, blatant ableism, and hate-speech, just to min-max some extra utility, again, often with nefarious results. This is even more documented and extensely argued against by many different people. They are incompatible with human psychology, so even if they were true, you still shouldn't follow them, as they often bring too much suffering to do what they intend.

Finally, the core is deeply flawed. How do you measure pleasure and pain in first place? How do you compare them? A million "units" of suffering, assuming you somehow measure neural activity and manage to quantify it (good luck), are not the same in 1.000.000 small doses (idk, stubbing your toe that many times) vs watching your son die. Or a billion, or a trillion. The effects way more permanent on the second case. It's like a rope holding a piano ten times, and holding too much weight and irreversibly breaking. The human mind is not an equation, you can't "substract suffering later" or compensate a trauma with however many units of ice cream it'd take.

You have many kinds of pain, emotions, nerves, and huge variety overall. You have completely opposites of all that in joy. You have individual resilience to the same perceived pain, and different pain umbrals. You have the subjective value one applies to it's own experience, and that of others. No matter what, suffering can only be generalized, but never precisely, so always following the same rules on an unmeasurable thing, and somehow expecting results, will never work.

 

[pyx]

Maybe I'm stupid, but I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. I may not have explained what I was saying very well. I don't view self-report as a separate event. The first bias affects the person's actual experience of an event, and the second affects how they express that experience to us.

So, let's say someone eats a banana. From a physical, genetic, real world standpoint, that person is inclined to slightly dislike bananas, a -0.1 on our -1 to +1 scale.

But let's say they're naturally an optimist. This mental bias (Bias A) could increase the actual experience for them. Let's say it makes it a flat 0. It should be a slightly negative event: a person with no bias would perceive it as such. But, this person - thanks to Bias A - finds it as a neutral event. I'm saying we should honor that evaluation and not worry about Bias A in our discussion.

Then, a bunch of people on a suicide forum are debating if life is worth it, so as part of a study they quiz this person about his experience eating the banana. His actual experience was neutral, but his optimism (Bias B) leads him to tell us it was a 0.1 positive event. This would be a bias that throws off our numbers, and I think it's fair when discussing whether life is good on average or not to try and account for this reporting bias.

oh yea i misunderstood you. i considered self-report an event because i thought what you were describing occurred in a linear order. when we are speaking of desire its hard to divorce it from the idea of assigning any particular desire a weight dependent on time. so, if i understand, bias a is the bias which they hold during the event, and bias b is that which comes after self-report? then maybe i worded it incorrectly. i think of desire as existing in a kind of chain of reference. i can eat a banana, or stub my toe. either produce minimal, if not fleeting sensations which correlate with pleasure or pain. if we are to be consistent with self-report, these events are taken somehow as markers for bias b. bias b will take on whatever value is accorded to either the optimist or pessimist, or to someone neutral.
oh ok i think i understand you more now. an individual generally will not accrue these sensations over time, as they are more often than not lost (if trivial) due to the limitations of memory. so the experience of eating a banana or stubbing your toe is quickly forgotten until repeated. and the same is true of most trivial desires. one only has reference to their strongest desires that they felt in their lifetime, whether it be something fulfilled or unfulfilled. on your deathbed you might think over your life and try to frame it in a positive light. you only have access to the most salient pieces of information. so it would be absurd to treat desires as if they could accrue numerically. a person could generally suffer in life yet have positive experiences near the end, for which he might say to himself that he lived a meaningful life in the end. the same applies to an individual who lives a good life in the beginning and faces something tragic in the end.

So, I don't see how you reach that conclusion. Who are we to say that either the timid slave who refuses freedom and the liberated slave who takes it have lives worth living? Non-existence may seem preferable to you (and if that is all you were saying I withdraw this comment, but the thread is about non-existence being better for everyone always), but there's nothing in your hypo that mandates the slave in question have the same evaluation.

i don't think it is controversial to say that we are naturally inclined to view the timid slave's situation unfavorably, as someone whose preferences perhaps we feel should not be satisfied with the life of a good slave. i understand the natural analogue to 'modern wagecuckery' that presents itself. this is really quite an exceptional case, though. it isn't about whether or not we think their lives are truly purposeful -- since that requires some explication of value -- but rather that their preferences, the way in which they tend to think of value may be unfair.

the argument of forcing people to choose non-existence is, i think, conflated with the act of snuffing out their own desires. if you were to ask both the timid slave and liberated slave whether or not his life was meaningful -- or whether or not he would like to continue to live as he is now -- they would both likely say yes. but that's not the argument. we are arguing whether or not non-existence is logically preferable. we can't force either to accept non-existence as a rational alternative. this would amount to efilism, which is not anti-natalism. anti-natalism simply states that it would be cruel to bring a person into a situation where they had to choose between the two.