Antinatalism Debate - MadeByJimbob VS Lawrence Anton 

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Lawrence, you have far more patience than me. If someone repeatedly interrupts me, I'm ending the conversation. It's so rude and speaks volumes about him. He wasn't listening to understand and was constantly jumping in before you could finish your thought in an attempt to disprove what he assumed you were going to say. I typically don't comment before watching something in its entirety but I'm just 40 minutes in and he's honestly making it difficult to want to continue.

just chiming in to say that i, too, think this was a colossal waste of time. Jimbob seemed like he was actively trying to misunderstand and misconstrue your points. i also agree with others that he didn't come into this debate in good faith. his goal of the conversation was not to challenge his own stance but rather "destroy" yours. this debate makes the Elias debate infinitely more palatable by comparison.

Lawrence you have so much patience. I think Jimbob was interrupting you and way too aggressive. He was rude from the start when he messed up your age and instead of just letting it go, he insulted you. It was disrespectful. Great job on this one! I don’t just learn about anti-natalism from you but I reflect on your composure and empathy.

When he said “I have 3 kids” I felt for them kids….

He is applying logical fallacies, easily rebuttable sophistry, baseless analogies and misportrayals for some "gotcha" moments; not to forget this manchild talking over his guest way too often; all the while making himself look like a buffoon who is not only not coming from a place of good faith and an earnest want to honestly understand the ideas of his interlocutor but also giving his video uploads titles such as "Antinatalism Cringe". I only can find only one thing that is "cringe" about all of this and it surely isn't the philosphy he is failing at comprehending and "debunking". I sincerely applaud your composure and seriousness, Lawrence, with engaging in a time waste like this.

Damn this was frustrating. Any time Anton was explaining something that Bob wasn't understanding, Bob would interrupt. It's clear Bob didn't understand and didn't even want to understand, he just wanted to try to poke holes in Anton's arguments. An effort which was a complete failure lol.

Lawrence you are too kind in these kinds of debate. You definitely have to set boundaries and choose for good faith interlocutors. If they are unwilling to do so, it means they are closed-minded and just want to mock you or your position without reconsidering their current world view. Sad to say, but we cannot expect any different from a religious person with dogmatic beliefs.

Jimbob is a great argument for non-procreation

We're really struggling to get through this... only 30 mins into the video and our patience tank is already empty thanks to this gentleman who seems more interested in listening to his own voice than engaging in a respectful discussion with Lawrence. 😵😵

It is evil for anyone to force someone else into the type of existence that they might hate to exist in.

I want Lawrence's level of patience. It was hard to get through but you did really well Lawrence!

So JimBabble likes the debate format, he has all the keywords and catchphrases ready for use, but he's a surface-level thinker which blows the whole thing. So many are, it just adds to the weight of banality in this world.

Just watched the whole thing, I could make an entire comment about each part of Bob's arguments But nah I agree with @gpliskin, this debate was a complete waste of time I also feel like there are many better arguments Lawrence could have used, but didn't, not that it would make any difference tho, since Bob already misunderstands your arguments in this video, it seems like his primary goal is just to make antinatalism look ridiculous

jimbob is a christian just bring up hell and the argument is more or less over

Jimbob dude, I am going to finally end watching at 1:26:15, because I really cannot stand you. You keep interrupting, and u won't let Lawrence make any point despite you asking him thousands of questions. Debates is not about gotchas. If you have finally come to senses to admit forcing your own kids into non perfect situations is bad, then I salute you. There are parents out there that do become antinatalists. Having kids is not about your happiness, but your kids'. I have yet to, after all this time to hear you say even just ONE thing regarding their happiness coming here into the world as oppose to your own. Please learn some basic manners before debating anyone from now on.

Sorry, Lawrence, but this debate was a complete waste of time. Jimbom is obviously a bad faith actor and wasn’t interested in having an actual conversation.

21:05 claiming you can't say non-existence is better is admitting that no matter how bad life is, natalists will assert living is always better.

Your patience and clarity of mind within this storm of crap was impressive. You have a real talent for debate Lawrence. Good job. That been said it was very frustrating to watch, Jimbob doesn't allow you to fully express pretty much any of your points, constantly interrupts you to flood you with more things to answer to while he didn't let you gave a full perspective against the previous elements of the discussion. I don't know of its English equivalent but in french we call it the "mille-feuille argumentatif", meaning that someone does exactly what I described above. JimBob obviously doesn't have the maturity to be involved in a real debate and just ruins it. Keep it up.

Great discussion Lawrence and piers morgan.. i mean jimbob 🤭

When Jimbob says there's some state between conception and the Zygote becoming sentient, therefore he hasn't harmed anyone. I Feel it's Bad faith because 1. He is a christian who believes Personhood is at conception, so via his own worldview he has caused the harm to them. There is "someone" there for him. 2. Even in Sentience focused worldview He is Morally Responsible. I loved Lawrence's Nuke analogy although i don't think it was presented as Strong as it could've been in the debate due to all the interrupting so i'll Steel man it here: Imagine You can press a button to Send a nuke to an empty island, but after you press the button, While the Missile is traveling to the island, you Know that A city full of people will come into existence at that location. However, You can Avoid pressing the button and The City full of people will never come into existence. The Humans Existence is Specifically Determined by if you do or don't press the button If you press the button are you morally Responsible? If you are responsible: Pressing the button is no different from making the Zygote If you aren't Responsible: That would imply a dangerous precedent where individuals could absolve themselves of nearly any moral responsibility. I could just Shoot someone and claim all i did was pull a trigger, i didn't kill anyone, the Bullet did. Jimbob might say "But you're shooting at an already existing person". But what does that mean? I didn't shoot anyone? I pulled a trigger. Jimbob committed this Double standard in the debate: He Implies Pressing the button is wrong if people are already existing, but that presupposes We're responsible for the Harm of the nuke in the first place even though we "only pressed a button". He undermines his own argument. In reality Pressing the button is wrong because we KNOW that will harm a sentient being regardless of whether it's instantly or not, and likewise Creating the Zygote is Wrong because we know that will harm a Sentient being. We don't personally know "Who" is being harmed when the Zygote is created, but we also don't know "Who" The city full of people are When we press the button. We don't need to know "Who" is being harmed, Knowing that "Someone" is gonna be harmed is sufficient enough.

Jimbob is missing every point 🙄

Its weird that same debate is uploaded on both of their channels and both comment sections have different view on who got destroyed!

‘Rutroh’ is where I almost had to turn it off. Your patience is incredible, this guy is so rude and condescending. ‘And I’ll tell you why’ ‘I’ll tell you why it’s not’ etc. 🤢

Here is my review of the "debate". Major flow of the "debate": At the start, we didn't even hear any arguments in favor of antinatalism or natalism. We've only heard a definition. Jimbo asks for the argument only at around one hour mark. Sheeesh! Interesting points in the "debate": - Jimbo made a good point: if everyone has this interest in continuing to live, has a will to life, values existence, then this seems to counter the antinatalist claim that coming into existence is a harm. We didn't get a proper answer from Lawrence, because Jimbo constantly interjected. - Lawrence's response to the question, "why continue to live?" was "because evolution", and indeed, it looks like the same can be said on reproduction. It was in the context of protecting (or, not killing) an existing life. Lawrence used it as a justification on why we should not kill others. So, this was a bad response. - Jimbo raises an interesting issue, when he says that we can't even say that not existing is "better" than existing, because the only thing we know is existence. The audience couldn't hear a response from Lawrence. - Jimbo brought up an interesting claim that consent (and morality) requires free will. Of course, he provided absolutely no argument for that claim. Still, there could be something there. - A good question was, how does an antinatalist determine what is in the best interest of someone who's being brought into existence. - The relation between "bodily autonomy" and "immorality of procreation" sounds interesting. Why does one trump the other? We didn't hear an answer to that. On Jimbo's behavior: - In many cases, Jimbo strawmanned Lawrence, by imputing some beliefs onto him (e.g. that antinatalism is about reducing suffering or that the highest moral good is reduction of suffering). - Jimbo constantly brings some points or arguments that some other antinatalists made, even though Lawrence does not make them. Who's he trying to debate, people who are somewhere else? - Jimbo often finds some controversial/edgy position and says "it wouldn't be inconsistent with antinatalism", positing it as a gotcha. And I'm sure a lot of his audience will fall for it, because it's easy to miss the fact that antinatalism is just one very specific moral position, and not an overarching moral framework. He could just as well say that stealing is not inconsistent with antinatalism or that volunteering at an animal shelter is not inconsistent with antinatalism. But, the question is, of course, so what? Well, nothing. But presenting such controversial takes as "not being inconsistent with antinatalism" is rhetorically effective on the audience. - Jimbo often accuses Lawrence of him being a consequentialist. But it's not clear at all whether he is a consequentialist or not. - Jimbo constantly changes the topic to something else, thus not allowing the audience to hear a proper response to points raised before. We constantly asks a new question while Lawrence is trying to answer the previous one. This is not a debate but a poor attempt at an interrogation, or rather - making a lousy spectacle for his audience. - Jimbo strawmans Lawrence's position regarding the interest of the future child. Lawrence never said that the non-existing child has a preference for non-existence. On Jimbo's position: - Jimbo made absolutely no case for natalism (the permissibly of procreation). No wonder, making a case for one's beliefs is hard. Merely attacking another's beliefs is easy. On the consent argument: - In general, I see the argument as nonsensical. But it would take too long to elaborate here. In general on the debate: It should be clear to anyone that Jimbo is using dirty debate-bro tactics to make a show for his audience. He is ostensibly a bad-faith interlocutor. Constant strawmans, interjections, not allowing the interlocutor to fully answer, flooding with questions, imputing beliefs onto Lawrence, and more. That's what we witnessed.

I hate people who, in a debate setting, keeps interrupting. No one will be able to follow you dude

This guy Jimbob should have gotten a different debater from the antinatalist part, Lawrence is an intellectual, not a debater for this type of individuals

I don't know why people (some of the commenters) are referring to this as a waste of time - I think these are valuable. Like, there can be biases too in people who are antinatalist, and no, it isn't simple as "everyone just not breed." There are animal lives that we may have an interest in "freeing" from suffering too, for example, that we might consider it a "dereliction of duty" to just abandon by the immediate cessation of all human breeding. People who are too fanatic will have trouble appreciating some of the nuances of the disagreements being proposed - these discussions generate the disagreements/arguments that we need to address "more fully." Some of the commenters are being too unnecessarily hostile, like they themselves needed the "gotcha" to make their beliefs cognizant to themselves and needed this person to "admit defeat" or something to see this as a useful endeavor. Anyone who actually thinks these are "bad arguments" (those by Jimbob) should really "do some philosophy" and not just say that in the comments - try to come up with some written arguments against what he says. We can better get at the "more exact" way where this person is making bad arguments if we don't just say "oh what a clown," that isn't respectful to the nature of the content. We can see Jimbob getting a little excited sometimes, and just as a "personality analysis," his mannerisms are sort of off-putting/unpleasant to good conversation, but I feel he actually is making points that could be better tracked/defended/argued against, and will NEED to be argued against, and that not having this tribalistic (referring to some of the commenters, not Anton) sense of "just don't breed." If anyone has their own arguments against Jimbob "revolving in their head" or whatever, then they should write them down and present them. These debates are a very nice service for our benefit to learn to argue better, not for us to sit there and choose a winner as if the debate itself doesn't have valuable elements to study.

Wow. Just Wow.

the motivation to have a child is not always wholesome someone can want a child for selfish reasons so nuturing a life is not always good if that child ends up suffering

"The final solution if you will"😃rly tho, what is this guy talking about existence is better than non existence we're alrdy non existent we're temporary

C'mon Bob you are just putting up with your optimism bias. Antinatalism is not so complicated as you are making it, deliberately. You pretty well know the harms of coming into existence, everybody knows. Just stop procreating, that's it, then Do whatever the hell you want to while you are alive.

That guy made a fool of himself

It doesnt matter if what the animals doing is moral or not what can be moral about eating someone alive the result is the same

Bob is such a clown lol

Question for everyone: Why do natalists always look like they "don't get it"?

P1: If it's not a consent-violation to bring a currently non-existing being into existence without its permission and there are probably some negative experiences that said beings existence would include for said being, then it's not a consent-violation to sign a currently non-existing being to pay for your debts without its permission. P2: It is a consent-violation to sign a currently non-existing being to pay for your debts without its permission. C1: Therefore, either it's a consent-violation to bring a currently non-existing being into existence without its permission or there aren't probably some negative experiences that said beings existence would include for said being. P3: There are probably some negative experiences that said beings existence would include for said being. C2: Therefore, it's a consent-violation to bring a currently non-existing being into existence without its permission I'm a natalist by the way, but an honest natalist is just gonna have to bite the bullet that they are sometimes in favor of consent-violations. I don't think it's a huge bullet to bite or anything, but I do think it should be bitten nevertheless.

This guy is so obnoxious, he made me hating existence even more. 🤪

You did a great job, Lawrence! 💥 Despite your opponent Bob's unsuccessful attempts to put moral pressure on you, you managed to stay calm and defend your position with dignity. It is clear that Bob lacks depth of thought and his arguments are not of much value. 😏 It is important that you did not succumb to provocation and were able to have a constructive dialogue. A debate with Gary Inmendham would undoubtedly turn into a crushing defeat for him. 🤭☺

👋

I think it's a great video. The fact it was challenging is a good thing. Edit: at 52:00 I have to stop watching. This guy is a clown!! He really will not let Lawrence speak.

I'd say to just not bother with the "consent argument", and focus on justifying "the imposition" as a term. I say "The imposition" makes sense, since the egg and sperm that resulted in you was not yet a conscious life. Here's a thought experiment that will convey what I want to say: imagine there's a man and women, and they have the power to make a rock conscious by copulating. They do so and the rock becomes conscious. The rock asks them why they did it to him. "Why did you make me conscious??!"... This thought experiment shows perfectly how two people transform non-sentient matter into sentient matter. Once upon a time, the matter that came to compose you composed something that was not sentient. Eventually that matter/those atoms made their way into your parents composition, and some of it came to compose sperm and an egg. And eventually your parents decided to impose consciousness onto unconscious matter. That's all you are, according to naturalism; you're matter. So there is indeed an imposition of consciousness onto what would have otherwise remained unconscious.

Why did you let Jim constantly interrogate you? as if jimbob doesnt have any 'burden of proof' even though hes the one supporting the act of aggression. he gave 0 arguments FOR natalism except "Its natural" entire vid is talks of talk about pain and pleasure. but havnt considered that it could be irrelevant. like i dont could care if you enslave a bunch of people and in 5 years they tell you they're happy slaves, its still wrong to do that .I feel you should of touched on that point more. you just let JB drag you into stupid Utilitarian hedonic rabbitholes as if its necessarily has anything to do with antinatalism. its still wrong to own happy slaves. in other context they understand that usually. the "how do you get consent" stuff from JB once again ,cringe. in other contexts no one talks like this. We dont talk about "you cant get consent from future people,so how could it be wrong to totally pollute and screw up the planet?! they dont exist yet!" . the consent stuff is more like: consent is required when it is an action that would otherwise violate rights. (for example the passed out woman on the sofa having forceful sexed with her requires consent because it would vioate her rights otherwise, BUT other things like opening a door for someone or saving their life doesnt require consent because it wouldnt violate their rights! He then asks you to try to "justify" that moral principle. Which is just incoherent nonsense to anyone thats read anything about actual meta-ethical literature. he can either adopt or refuse that moral principle, but then explore the entailments of doing so. Such as; you almost exposed an absurd entailment with the Passed out woman on the couch how apparently Jimbob is unable to figure out whats in her best interests not to be forcefully sexed🤣 but then again you let him constantly interrogate you and throw you around in the wind like a paper bag. Just why let him do this to you? he tries to drag you into his dopey christian Apolgetics psuedo meta-ethics by talk of typical "grounding" . and to "justify why to have such and such moral principle" is just a complete and total confusion on the entirety of meta-ethics in general and is a bit embarrassing to listen to. you can just share moral principles and see what entailments they have and if it maps to your general intuitions or not. towards the end JB also does this cheap rhetorical game where he does this thing where he says "Well since houses are made of material imagine a sentient house, isnt that absurd!? isnt that crazy! " its pure sophistry and cheap rhetorics. Its just equivocation on the word "house". And he thinks its absurd because hes not a materialist. Well guess what you can produce the same "absurdity" under any metaphysic. Like. "Imagine if Houses were made Divine and houses had Souls , imagnie if God gave houses Souls, and you have a Living house with a soul! Isnt that wacky! Souls deboonked!" its really just cheap sophistry. the entire free will stuff was absolute dogwater. just assumptions and begging the question that morality or even consent requires free will? what if Im not even convinced "free will" is a coherent, intelligible concept? its like saying "Morality and consent requires Goobalegabblegooble" Jimbob is pure cancer but tbh i think you were a bit too docile and let him walk all over you and dominate the converastion so overall the whole debate was quite disappointing!

1st 🥗 🥗 🥗

Pure sophistry from this jimbob guy

COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME, THIS SO CALLED DEBATE WAS POINTLESS, witnessing someone like jimbob literally makes me more antinatalist lmao

MadeByJimbob 🙄😒😔😞

So ignorant to ask the WHY DONT YOU END YOURSELF 🤣 I LOVE EXISTING & am GRATEFUL FOR MY LIFE EVERY SINGLE HOUR I’m AWAKE. But I WOULD NOT GAMBLE WITH A BRAND NEW SENTIENT BEING’s ENTIRE EXISTENCE. ITS UNETHICAL

Why is consent an end all be all which is sacrosanct across the board? 'A petty consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.' I would call what I & my consenting partner do with our genetic material needing to be consistent with the post hoc consequence (ie producing offspring who would have in turn needed to consent) a pretty consistency. The idea of consent trumping the continuation of a species is nonsense; it's metaphysical nonsense; a bridge across the Is/Ought Gap it is not. Consent is normative, prescriptive, & metaphysical. Suffering is descriptive, empirical, & physical. One does not logically or rationally connect to the other; you are snuggling in a wealth of normative baggage. When we make laws against violating consent in legal Positivist nations, we do so without tethering it to morality. We humans are the underwriters, the guarantor of such laws. They do not correspond to a secret essence of reality or a form of proper moral life, it is simply our will, desire, & belief. Let society en masse be antenatal & it shall be so! To make a rationally & logically fallacious argument as done here is simply nonsense (literally speaking) & must be remitted to silence or poetry but not passed off as logical/ rational philosophy.

The real problem for Benatar is the fact that not existing didn't stop a life (the life that's reading this) from being imposed. This is true for all of us, and all sentient beings. Therefore it's completely scientifically proven that not existing does nothing to stop a life (one or another) from being imposed. If there were only one Consciousness in the entire universe, your lack of existing wouldn't be able to block/stop/impede _that_ consciousness from being imposed, just as your lack of existing wasn't able to stop consciousness (via a brain) from being imposed. So, if it were not the life that's reading this that did the imposition, then it would have been some other life that did it. If you don't exist you cannot stop it. This fact ruins Benatar's subscription of "Non-existence", in order to protect "the unborn". I am _not_ advocating for procreation. I'm just pointing out that not existing does absolutely nothing to stop one life or another from being imposed. The only way not existing could stop the imposition of one life or another from being imposed, is if "the unborn" are currently in some sort of protective metaphysical safetybubble... So they'd have to exist in said bubble...

But the guys right,antinatalisms here to reduce suffering

The entire antinatalism position is just a severely tortured way of people saying "I give up."

Non-existence sucks.

Ending once existence is terrifying but innate desire to procreate is a desire to sex which we can satisfy without pro creating. As animals for example a bull feel relaxed even he ejaculate in an artificially made reproductive organ of a cow. Similarly we can get desire satisfied by consensus sex but ending the whole existence for already existing person is very different from sexual gratification without procreation

Antinatalism is NOT for the majority of people.… It is NOT something consistent for the social constructed values such as those held by religion, multiculturalism and other socio-political? Nor is it for any system of government or self-government…that exists in society today. I repeat-it is not meant to be for the majority of the population. Living life means different things to different people. Morally and/or Ethics is always based on an intersubjective experience and socially held values.