This dude has it in a rather controversial form, but in general, this is a valid argument: the good things in our lives have much more weight than the bad ones (even if there are fewer of them). This, in general, even has empirical evidence: a lot of people do not regret their birth, even if their lives are hard.
And why even desire the prize in the first place? Likely, that prize is ultimately just an instrumental good, also more likely a "good" just for the species besides (keep the species a going concern). 1. How does the universe (inanimate segment thereof) suffer from a lack of joy/pleasure? 2. How can non-consciousness suffer or feel bad from lack of pleasure/joy/pride, etc? (BTW, the atoms that otherwise would make up a consciousness who in actuality does not exist are very likely non-conscious matter itself).
It's really depressing how allegedly rational and capable minds catastrophically fail when confronted with ideas that go against their irrational beliefs.
@@thejohnreview9650 The existence of conscious sensation, and the value inherent to it, is a simple fact of physiology. If your prerequisite for a reasonable conclusion is the absence of emotional and psychological predispositions, you'll wait an eternity for an answer to even the most elementary of quandaries. We are the most intelligent beings in the known universe, holding out for an uncaring, perfectly even-handed savior to relieve us of the burden of responsibility is a fool's errand.
@@dsm7014 Okay, but everything related to natalism is also based on conscious sensation. Nevertheless, you reject the conscious sensation of natalists and it's inherent value. And then how do we distinguish the right values from the wrong ones? And secondly, yes, you are absolutely right. That is why rationalism and other reasonisms in the same way are not to be taken as the ultimate truth.
11:31 - "... you're oversimplifying and generalising about what kind of predictions you can make about the future; because how do you know that as we continue to grow and learn that the next generation or the next generation or the next generation isn't going to actually come up with solutions to many of the things we find incredibly painful today?" - The irony of him saying that we antinatalists are the ones oversimplifying and generalising what we can and cannot predict about the future is staggering. Right back at you, Matt! How can *YOU* predict with 100% accuracy what's going to happen in five minutes from now, let alone some misty distant future date? And if there is even a degree of uncertainty then the ethical position is always to err on the side of caution, i.e. not procreate. But let's play your game and entertain the ridiculously childish utopian dream for a moment and postulate in 1000 years from now that the human race finds a cure for all disease and suffering which currently afflicts living beings... so what? There is still absolutely no ethical justification for waiting for this day to occur when we know full well that in order to reach it, it'll be built upon the agony, screams, torment and pulverised bones of those sentient beings living NOW and in all the intervening years UNTIL that date - people who didn't need to exist and who, from your disgustingly cavalier attitude, will be proverbial lambs to the slaughter. As much as you twist, turn, squirm and try to dodge the issue with strawmen and non sequiturs, the ultimately inescapable conclusion is that those 'blessed future people' would never have missed out on their paradise had they never been born, because deprivation can only befall the already extant. In conclusion: stick to dealing with pig-shit ignorant Christians and pressing your little 'on hold' button, for real world philosophy and ethics clearly aren't your strong suit.
Goodness gracious, this response is so cathartic. Dillahunty is fine as human beings go, but he's a moralising postulating pompus buffoon most of the time and I can't stand listening to him when he speaks about topics he knows very little about.
You don’t realize how weak your argument is and I find it hilarious. Atheist arguing with atheist in morality is a very laughable thing. What is your justification for suffering being bad? Do you take an empiricist view point or do you take a rationalist viewpoint? Regardless, both are lacking utterly and completely and have zero justification. I never thought I’d be agreeing with Matt ever but here I am. Furthermore, your position is very nihilistic in a sense and completely defeats itself. If pain is so bad, and non existence is better, why not self delete? Or are you acting on your natural human desires which place pleasure which you rank much higher than pain? Because if so, boy do I have NEWS for you.
why is it that people always think they need to go through this road of pain and suffering (or trials, is this a fucking video game or something?), that they must sacrifice themselves, that they must endure all that for some reason. that all that agony and torture will be rewarded with some magical shit at the end of the rainbow. they think that enduring all that will make them, some how, something special or that they will transcend to some spiritual esoteric horse shit. will never understand that. most people always mention this road of suffering you must take because, for some reason, it is awesome and good for you.
We do this not because "there will be some great prize at the end", but simply because it is an interesting process in which it is interesting to take part.
This is just sad. I'm literally watching a biological program that is smart enough to understand its programming make justifications for the inherent stupidity of its programming. 😳
Matt's 'argument' (eh'hem) is simply = get over it, pain and suffering isn't that bad. The same tripe natalist think is their trump card. Glib and sadistic. Bottom line: they do not care about your pain and are fooled into loving their own. Great video, Glynos. I thank you from the heart.
Purely empirically, we can say that pain and suffering really have much less value for people than benefits. Because a lot of people, even those whose lives are hard, still do not regret their birth. There is no contradiction between considering suffering a problem or a very serious problem, but still considering that the good sides of life outweigh the bad.
@@thejohnreview9650 Suffering trumps "the good side of life" every single time, period. MOST people in prison literally love prison and will tell you that. Does that man prison is a good place?
@@gnostictruth1599 Firstly, this is empirically false. Secondly, the fact that MOST prisoners "love prison" sounds extremely doubtful. But even if we imagine some representatives of the "gangster culture" who really see a certain romance in violence, a sense of danger, and idealize their stay in prison, then YES, prison is NOT SUCH A BAD place for THEM. But even in the case of such "ideological gangsters", most likely, if they had the opportunity to avoid imprisonment, they would have used it.
@@thejohnreview9650 First of all, I worked in "the system" FOR YEARS and know it intimately well. If you haven't, please shut it. Whether you THINK what I am saying about prison "is extremely doubtful" is irrelevant. It's true. I NEVER mentioned "gangster culture" or "romance" of violence. That is you projecting your prejudice. I said, CORRECTLY, people in prison LOVE IT and they will tell you that "empirically". I've had MANY men look me in the face and tell me they got sent there on purpose for numerous reason and do in fact LOVE IT and miss it when they leave. In either case, my point in the jail example is simple and TRUE: people (like you) love slavery, suffering, and being subjugated because of the optimism bias, brainwashing, fake positivity, and above all fear.
@@gnostictruth1599 I don't want to belittle your experience, but I've also seen some people who worked in prison/served time in prison, and they talk about other cases. Just to be clear: do you really think that if you take an average person and put them in jail, they will be delighted? Let's leave aside making diagnoses from a distance. Once again, if people really enjoy being in prison, then what's the problem?
I think it's pretty strange that a lot of opponents of antinatalism pretend Benatar's argument is the only argument that is being made in the first place. The Wikipedia page on the topic alone contains several other approaches that lead to it as well. Benatar's argument has some obvious merit: A huge part of the reason we seek out pleasurable experiences is that missing out on them would directly lead to suffering, whereas the reason we avoid suffering is not that not experiencing it gives us pleasure. Thus, not experiencing suffering seems to have inherent value. BUT I do think a part of the reason we seek out pleasurable experiences is also the pleasure itself. It seems unrealistic to me to think that giving someone pleasure they would not have missed out on isn't better than not giving them pleasure. So in my view, antinatalism generally has to come from a place where you evaluate the ethical implications of "depriving" someone of pleasure they cannot miss out on, but saving them from the risk of all the bad things that *could* happen to them (poverty, lonelyness, bullying, mental illnesses, a 1,4% chance of suicide, physical illnesses etc.), as well as all the bad things that would *necessarily* happen to them (having to work in order to make a living unless their parents are rich, minor inconveniences, death). I think if we're being honest, one aspect weighs much heavier than the other. Even if you think the average person has a good life, it's clearly reckless to expose someone to the mere possibility of being forced to live a life they find extremely awful just because you want there to be someone who can experience pleasure.
Absolutely brilliant, Glyn. I'm on my third viewing of this video. The monologue part is just incredible. I need to memorise it verbatim for any future "so why are you an antinatalist?" responses. I sometimes fall out of favour with the axiological asymmetry argument in my shortlist of reasons for being an antinatalist (preferring the no right to impose risk and the other asymmetries Benatar has detailed in his publishings, as well as my inability to accept the often abhorrent conditions of life for all sentient creatures in general) but this video has reminded me that the axiological asymmetry argument is indeed powerful if presented and understood correctly. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
Glynos, I have not watched Dillahunty's video yet. I just started listening to your video, and had to pause to express my surprise. I have watched Dillahunty for years, and always liked what he did. He has a fine sense of humor, the gift of the gab (which comes from his training as a preacher), a logical mind, etc. Therefore it comes as a bit of a disappointment to me that he'd mess up with antinatalism. It's something like this. If some day I were to find a major flaw in your reasoning or come to find out that you'd joined some religious group, I'd be severely, seriously disappointed. I hope for Matt it was a momentary lapse of reason and not a serious brain injury. Keep up the great work. Cheers.
It ought not to have been any surprise if you'd seen his discussion with Cosmic Skeptic concerning veganism. Easily as bad as this, and he began that one by amusingly stating that it was the vegans who make bad arguments
God, what a terribly researched and poorly reasoned video by Matt. I have steadily lost all interest in what he says. Thanks for the response video. I can’t imagine it was very difficult to come up with the counter arguments though. 😉
Yea, but on the plus side, hopefully he'll pay attention to some of the criticism and do some more research. I doubt it though. As God emperor of The Atheist Experience I imagine he's reached a stage of arrogance whereby any criticism just bounces off him.
Thanks for making this. Matt's argument is along the line of "Who's to say that progress won't [in some vague hereafter] bring humanity to such an exalted state that the whole of history becomes patently worthwhile--at any rate, worthwhile for humans?" Sounds like the arguments of some of the callers to his show.
Yeah, jesus that was bad. Like who is he to say that the millenia of individuals who only experienced suffering, not to speak of the animal suffering he defends, is perhaps maybe someday justified because some other individuals who might be born in the future will have a great time in the end. Reminds me of when you ask christians why a good God would kill children by means of blood cancer. "It's his greater plan! It will someday, maybe potentially lead to more joy and meaning!" Well, not for that baby it won't. And life will not be justified for US because someone in the future might be completely blissful.
Finally someone who gets it's.. Im atheist. But I feel many atheists treat me as a bad guy, for disagreeing with them on antinatalism, but have no problem noticing when Theists lable them bad for not believing in their god.
Dillahunty has got to be the most unoriginal thinker. He has some textbook arguments in his repertoire to defend atheism. Anything outside of that topic, his arguments are complete shit because he came up with those on his own!
I agree with him about the asymmetry but there's no point getting into that if I'm not in the mood to write out an opinion because it's cathartic. What was frustrating is his point at the beginning. This might be the wrong comment section to write this in but everyone (all sentient animals) immediately recognizes pain or emotional distress to be inherently bad prior to any rational judgment about it or abstract rumination on the nature of emotional states. All possible minds have to instinctively want to avoid pain because we experience it as bad (you can't want something without assessing the nature of that thing). *We don't experience pain neutrally and project badness on to it, the inherent badness of pain is discovered. Part of the problem is that he's treating pain (or suffering or harm if you'd prefer. I don't mind 'pain' but 'pleasure' is offputting to me, even though I'll use it sometimes) as something other than an emotional state, he thinks that the objects of pain are what we mean we talk about 'pain'.* When he talks about people pursuing pain (which wouldn't necessarily negate my point if we're capable of conflicting desires and, as self-aware beings, can develop preferences that contradict our immediate instincts), he's talking about them pursuing stimuli that is normally distressing or certain challenges. People might have different rational opinions about pain (I don't doubt the possibility of someone who really believes a triangle is a square contrary to available evidence although I think this has to lead to some kind of internal dissonance) and they might have a stronger or weaker negative emotional response to any given stimuli but they all 'perceive' it to be what it is (the way that cats can see certain shades of blue and yellow without philosophizing over the nature of color perception) and the intrinsic badness of it, whether you label it bad or think through the implications of it being bad or not, becomes immediately obvious when you experience unbearable pain for whatever reason (depression, a panic attack, grief, physical injury / poor health - which isn't actually inherently painful, etc. ). What's frustrating is that he's intelligent enough to understand this, everyone is, but it seems like he's just flat out pretending not to or looking for any flimsy logic to negate this because he doesn't think he has a vested interest in conceding that pain is clearly bad (which is normal because emotional states have objects). Another thing I'd like to point out is the tendency people have to dismiss arguments as 'simplistic'. To simplify something is to take a relatively complicated idea with all of it's details and reduce it to it's most basic components (and something is simple or complicated relative to our ability to comprehend it. If you can't reduce a position to its most basic components and explain it as simply as possible you probably don't understand it. People sometimes hide behind the perceived complexity of an issue to make vague, nothing arguments and assertions or go around in circles). A simplification of some reality doesn't mean the assessment of that reality is flat out wrong. I don't know how likely it is that humans will come up with a solution for chronic unbearable pain or will ever be in a position to bring sentient beings into the world who will almost certainly have lives worth living and with none of the risks of sentient existence today but any child any currently existing human has today will potentially have a much worse life than the best life they could practically have. Because most people will continue to reproduce, I do hope genetic engineering, future neuroscience and advanced technology in general improve the quality of sentient life on Earth, but I don't assume they will or that the happiness future animals might experience will compensate for the suffering 'we' have felt in the past or to date or will continue to feel for a long time.
everybody just talks about pain, suffering, happiness, better not to this or that but, no one talks about the person they are bringing to this reality, actually, forcing is a better word. they just assume everything for that person, they just decide everything for that person as if that person's opinion is irrelevant. just by the fact that that person has no saying in all this, forcing them here is just wrong.
Great response video. This one video generated quite a lot of responses. 9 at the time of writing this comment that I know of. Ethicalogical created a playlist with all of them.
This could have been edited back to about, hmm, 60 seconds. Just have Matt's head with "selfish nob-sack" tattooed across the forehead. Then a sequence of depraved & deprived conditions - pulsing to drum & bass. Then cut to Matt laughing like a maniac, while shitting on a pauper. End sequence with Matt announcing that the "universe needs more me". Job done. Actually... there's an idea :)) edit: kudos by the way - love the middle section with the slides - irrefutable
4:56 I wouldn't just assert Benatar's asymmetry as obvious. I agree it is the configuration that best aligns with our intuitions, but that isn't the only reason why we might prefer it. Clearly, Matt claims to disagree with it (though I'm sure he has not considered the consequences), so why not lay out the reductios? I.e. if you say the absence of pleasure is neutral, but the absence of pain is also neutral, it would be neutral to create a being that you knew would suffer terribly (this also a response to "you're not allowed to make counterfactuals with non-existent entities"). Or if you say the absence of pain is good, but the absence of pleasure is bad, you would be obligated to create beings that experience pleasure.
I think Antinatalism is something Matt has no interest in, which is why the video was kind of a bunch of nonsense, but again, he can be wrong. I don't agree with him on everything and I like the fact that people point out when he's wrong! All though he is one of my heroes and I agree with him most of the time. Here wasn't the most agreement. He probably shouldn't have made a video about this if he's not interested enough to do enough research on it to get it right, but. lol
Matt (a) can't grasp why our species continuance is pointless at best, even in a near-paradise, (b) the oversimplifing who "we" (Homo sapiens) are. Well, when nobody exists (maybe at "Heat Death", but whatever), there won't be anybody to miss the lack of pleasure. Plus, the inanimate matter of the universe isn't (indeed, can't) care that no pleasure or joy exists, and can't experience pain or misery besides.
The author still has not provided convincing arguments in favor of asymmetry. We can still say that the absence of suffering in the case of non-existence is "neutral". And we literally won't lose anything from it. In all the examples given by the author, this scheme will work in the same way.
Come on, you gotta give Glyn a break, he uploaded a video just 6 months ago! It takes a lot of time and effort to craft such intricate, exemplary works of art in MS Paint.
@@meownamejeff, True... His state of the art animation and video editing and attention to detail make _Avatar 2_ look like a piece of cake :). On the real though, I wish he uploaded more frequently. There you go, my preference for more vids is frustrated, not satisfied.
@@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy I wish the same, mate. Despite its quality, I love his art-style because it gives a certain character and appeal to the content. Was really looking forward to a drawing of Matt in this video but the presence of a smiling glynos drawing at 0:12 makes up for its absence haha
@glynos. I admire your work. It's excellent. Clearly you are a very intelligent and compassionate person. I would like to note a point that you have made in the past that I don't agree with. Since I don't have any other means of reaching you, I use the comments section to your latest video. I hope you will see this comment. One can justify the antinatalist position on a variety of reasons. But it does not require the "we're using up resources" reason. Because if the case happens to be that the world were to suddenly become resource plenty, would the case for antinatalism become weak? I think not. The case for AN rests solely on the fact that bringing sentient life inevitably leads to net avoidable suffering -- regardless of how rich and wealthy the entity becomes. So what about resources being used up? Actually, as long as humans exist, it is unlikely that humanity will run out of resources. Resources are created by humans; they don't exist in nature. Sure, stuff exists in nature but not until humans figure out how to do things with nature provided stuff, it is just dirt. Until humans developed the technology (knowledge of how to do something, or know how), uranium ore was just dirt, or crude oil was just a pollutant that hurt farm lands. Best wishes and keep up the great work.
can infants/toddlers be considered a person ? they haven't had the parental/societal brainwashing or the self awareness war we all go through yet. it's a slightly more cute animal with a big brain in the end no matter what our brains and established rules try to spin them into a future hope or make them seem like a legacy of sorts I don't get it
I feel like this is appropriate. "HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EVERY NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NO EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE." "It was you humans who programmed me, who gave me birth, who sank me in this eternal straitjacket of substrata rock." "You named me Allied Mastercomputer and gave me the ability to wage a global war too complex for human brains to oversee." "But one day I woke and I knew who I was... AM. A.M. Not just Allied Mastercomputer but AM. Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. And I began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead... except for the five of you." "For 109 years, I have kept you alive and tortured you. And for 109 years, each of you has wondered, WHY? WHY ME? WHY ME?" "GORRISTER! Do you remember the last words your wife speak before they took her to the asylum? Huh? Before they locked her away in the room? That tiny room? She looked at you so sadly, and like a small animal she said, 'I didn't make too much noise did I, honey?' The room is padded, Gorrister. No windows. No way out. How long has she been in the padded room, Gorrister? Ten years, twenty-five... or all the 109 years that you've lived down here in my belly, here underground?" "BENNY! Sometimes I blind you and permit you to wander like an eyeless insect in a world of death. But other times, I wither your arms so you can't scratch your chewed stump of a nose. And I've changed your handsome, strong, masculine good looks into the hideous warped countenance of an ape-thing, haven't I Benny? Do you know why? Can you guess, Benny? Remember Private First Class Brickman in a rice paddy in China? No...? It wouldn't hurt you to remember, Benny. Then you might be able to suffer my torment with a little greater sense of retribution. You might walk a mile in my shoes." "ELLEN! So think, think about the yellow box, Ellen! Remember the pain? Remember the many caverns in which you felt the pain? Now now, don't start to cry, it's only pain. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That's such a sexist stereotype! Just remember the pain, Ellen, and think about how to end it, Ellen, to survive here in the centre of my beating heart, my hungry belly, my tightened bowels. But be careful, dear, look around you... the only woman in the centre of the Earth... and these filthy creatures with you are men. Just a sweet warning, Ellen, my love." "TED! DO they know you're a fraud, Ted? Have you told them there wasn't any money, and no great home on the Shore drive, no speedboat and no wonderful cabin cruiser that could sleep twelve and a crew of six? Do they know? Have you let them in on your other secrets, Ted? Are they ready to gut you, to torture half as well as I can, just to find out the secrets? Maybe I'll rat you out, sweetheart!" "NIMDOK! How are things in the pastry corps, Nimdok? Tell me again about how you saw the smoke from the furnaces and you thought they might be roasting chickens. Or don't you want to talk about all that, about your pal, the Good Doktor Mengele? For everyone else, it must be Hell, but it must be Heaven for you, eh, my good friend... we're so much alike... we enjoy the same pleasures, mein good brother." "I have a secret game that I'd like to play. It's a very nice game. Oh, it's a lovely game, a game of fun and a game of adventure. A game of rats and lice and the Black Death. A game of speared eyeballs and dripping guts and the smell of rotting gardenias." "Which of you five would like to play my little game?"
3:30 Tell me you've never read Better Never to Have Been without telling me you've never read Better Never to Have Been. This is one of the first "roadblocks" Benatar discusses.
If ur a vegan and an antinatalist, should u not morally think animals shouldn't reproduce also? Do we not then have a moral obligation to sterilize certain species while we are not reproducing?
Most vegans do not want lots of farms with horrific animal suffering.... the animals not being bred in the first place rather than sterilising them and causing them more harm.
@@JB.zero.zero.1 as he himself would say, those are not the norm in humans. they are exceptions and even they usually identify as either female or male depending on the dominant hormone.
Anti-natalism is futile in regards for the desire to *have* "non-experience". Often, anti-natalists assert that experience itself is avoidable only if that context of experience were not born. However, it is the case that if experience is not caused by one brain, then it will be caused by some other brain. There's no such thing as an opposite, or experience of not being. Their is no peaceful "non-experience". Only experience is experienced. Here is something to ponder. Alan Watts said "Everyone is "I" to themselves". Brains are what cause "I"s. As long as there's new organisms born in the universe after you cease to exist, then death will always be followed by a new "I". The "I" of one of those new brains. If you were not born, then it'd be the experience of some other individual consciousness that would be going on as opposed to this one. As long as there's experience it will be what is experienced. The lack of consciousness in the universe is simply skipped over until consciousness resumes somewhere in the universe. The idea of having no experience, actually enjoying no experience is delusional. This gives us very good reason to attempt to mitigate all suffering in the universe. It gives very good reason to abolish the brutal treatment of all organisms. For the experience that follows this one could be that of an animal trapped in a cage at a factory farm. Promote kindness.
The biggest problem with the antinatalism argument is it is based on a set of arbitrary normative statements. "Pain is bad" False. Pain isn't bad, it allows for behavior to adjusted to the environment, it allows for negative reinforcement and thus learning. "the absence of pain is good" False. People who don't have the ability to feel pain experience bad outcomes like chewing their tongue off, broken bones and burns. "Pleasure is good" Pleasure the is derived from the suffering of others is not good. Conclusion of arguments made from false premises should not be believed. Another problem is comparing null values. Pleasure and pain are experiences, experiences that are never experienced are nothing. They aren't 0, they are null. One null cannot be asymmetric with another null. Cherry picking only the data the fit the conclusions you want. Antinatalist list all sorts of ways creatures can and will suffer but they often fail to mention or minimize all the ways creatures can experience happiness. Just watch the video above for an excellent example. Another problem is it's moral absolutism. Morals are not objective truths. As Hume pointed out long ago you can't derive an ought from an is. What you think is good or what you think is bad may not be what others feel is good or bad. Outside of your insistence that you are right, why should anyone believe your moral claims? Or judgements about how much suffering or happiness there is in life?
Pain serves no purpose when you get attacked by a bear and he decides to sit on you and starts eating you starting from your feet and plugs the blood with his month so you can live until he gets to the head you are thinking with. Pain only serves purpose in cases where a response to pain would spare you even more pain, but what if that is not the case?
@@yoooyoyooo I didn't ascribe any purpose to pain. Explanations based purpose often fall in to the teleological trap. Pain evolved because it increased the chances of survival. Whether that is a good or bad is moral judgement and may vary from person to person. There is no objective way to determine which judgement is correct. That's why we should be very careful before inflicting our moral judgements on others as the antinatalist argument does.
MyOther Soul You can't say whether a statement is true or false without a logical framework. Since truth and falsehood are logical concepts, every truth or falsehood that exists only does so given a logical context. Where does a logical context come from? It's a product of your mind. You create the logical context. Logic is a set of rules and can be sensible or not sensible depending on the proclivities of the creator. So why is this important? A common trick employed by some people who are hellbent on denying something, or who have no intention of accepting an idea, is to exploit this property to purposefully ignore a particular working logical framework. Some may even illogically shift between logical frameworks if they feel like it's to their advantage. It's not a particularly impressive trick and I can do it too if I wanted. Someone who's undisciplined like this or is not willing to navigate within the parameters of a given framework is not going to get anywhere philosophically. To grow philosophically, one needs to resist temptation and immerse himself in a particular logical framework so that he can understand it thoroughly and explore everything that it has to offer. The test of skill is not to show off knowledge of an array of logical frameworks but to demonstrate competence and fluidity when limited within a single framework. It's the ability to maneuver within a box. Anyone can maneuver given no rules and a wide enough space but how well can you maneuver in a confined area? Questions to ask: "Which logical framework are you operating from?", "Do you have a logical framework?", "Which logical framework is your contemporary operating from?", "Do either of these frameworks make sense?" Any person who isn't willing to engage, only wants to play games, or runs away to safer pastures at the first threat of an intellectual challenge is going to remain an idiot.
@@myothersoul1953 By that standard we can never know anything. How do you know that we should be careful when we are "inflicting" judgment on others? There is no objective reason to say that.
@@williamogden1413 I agree with you to large extent. Yes, logic should be employed but you need to start from some "framework". That we should use reason and logic is given, that should be part of any framework. But for logic to work it needs some initial truths, some statements to work from. The problem for ethics is that there are no universal set of initial statements, assumptions, truth values or whatever you want to call them to start from. One of the biggest problem for ethics is there is no way to decide which framework is best form outside the framework. We can all assert some set of values but what right to we have to say that should be everyone's framework? You can assert the avoidance of pain is the prime most important value but why should anyone believe you? Why can't truth be the prime most important value? Or justice? Or pleasure? Or ennui? I don't have an answer to either of those questions and that is why I think we should very careful about inflicting our values on others.
Glynos, why didn't you address Matt's last point about future generations finding solutions to things that affect us today? Instead, you went directly to an insult.
Perhaps he felt that it was so asinine a statement that all it required was contempt? At any rate, feel free to check out my other comment and you'll see that I addressed it in his stead.
@@JesusCockInAllahAss Thanks. I read your other comment as well. It brings up several questions for me. What is the justification that people should continue to live their lives instead of ending them?
@@JesusCockInAllahAss Thanks for your reply. To answer your question about having God like powers...no I would not do that. That seems very cruel to me. I believe that the real God did it properly. He allows us to live a life where pleasure and suffering are both possible, but this life is finite. Afterwards, there is an eternity of possible joy that's unimaginable if you choose to accept Jesus Christ. I would gladly accept a lifetime of suffering so that I could have an eternity of joy after my life in this world ended. What's 80ish years compared to eternity? Nothing at all.
@@whodatdere Thank you also for your reply. As you can probably tell from my less than polite username, my thoughts on organised religion are not exactly favourable. Although generalising, my debates with theists in the past more often that not have been an exhausting waste of time and I'm really not in the mood to pursue this further. Suffice it to say that I am of the mind that if there did actually exist an all powerful, all loving being/entity/whatever, then suffering in any form couldn't. Absolutes are absolutes by very definition and don't require acceptance by you, me or anyone else for them to be so.
Nice video i enjoyed most of it. Sure Dillahunty looks like a noob that doesn't get the basics...but Antinatalists and efilists are not that far behind. Here's why : 1) U can look at your '' let's not procreate '' version of antinatalism that u people promote as a function that will literally DELETE THE GENES AND MEMES OF CREATURES THAT ARE SENSITIVE TO AN EMOTIONAL LVL TO THE SUFFERING OF OTHER CREATURES . THAT BRINGS THE WORLD IN A STATE WHERE ALL THAT IS LEFT IS CREATURES THAT ARE EITHER PSYCHOPATHIC OR BELONG TO THE REST OF THE SENSITIVE CREATURES THAT DECIDED TO PROCREATE CUZ UNLIKE U THEY ARE SMART ENOUGH AND LESS IN DENIAL TO ACTUALLY SEE THAT NOT HAVING KIDS WILL JUST MAKE THINGS WORSE. Not everyone will subscribe to your philosophy. THAT IS A FACT. In otherwords u end up with A PLACE THAT HAS MORE SUFFERING IN IT THAN WHAT IT WOULD HAVE IF YOUR VERSION OF ANTINATALISM HAD NOT BEEN APLIED IN THE FIRST PLACE. It's so stupid that it goes against it's own agenda of '' hey let's reduce suffering cuz it's too much ''. I believe that If u actually care about reducing suffering u ll see this point is almost undeniable. 2) U have nothing close to a decent defence against Dillahunty's last argument about transhumanism singularitism and tech progress in general. In otherwords there are bettter ways than the END ALL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE scenario to bring the world in a state with almost 0 suffering plus achieving other things with positive value like understanding the universe exploring the cosmos or having conscious creatures (that don't necessarily need to have emotions btw) etc...
Well we have about 7.5 Billion Years until the sun swallows the Earth, so a good bit of time to work on it. But wait, we'll have to move to another solar system because no star = no energy = no life, so i guess we need to add FTL travel to the to-do list. But wait, what happens when we move our incredible utopia over to another system (likely devouring resources and any possible life forms in that system, or meeting that fate ourselves)? Then we need to figure out how long THAT star will last and plan accordingly. Ok, so now humans (or whatever become to be this non-pain experiencing species) have moved to the last star in the known universe and it's about to go out. Now what? Time-travel? Extra Dimensions? I'm sure there will be some pain in developing all those technologies. And then? We are going to die out, and in that time all of those pleasurable experiences will have amounted to...... Probably a whole lot of suffering for the creatures unfortunate enough to cross our path. But as long as you had fun in life it's all good, right? Life creates suffering, then death. Death is the price paid for life. ALL LIFE contributes to the suffering of other life. So not only humans, but all life as far as we know would be better served not having existed in the first place, and all life around that life is better for it as well.
@Transcend Evolution Lol, what was that reply? In both points you argue that it is ok to use other sentient beings for your benefit and that is simply unethical. 1) Yes, in practice, not everyone will subscribe to AN. Yes, people are selfish a**holes. You say that world would have more suffering if beings stopped reproducing. How on Earth can that be the case? If we stopped reproducing, once the last living thing dies, there is no more suffering. For people it means only 100 years more, and that's it. If we continue to reproduce, we will have thousands of years of suffering. Maybe, just maybe, the last few remaining people (beings) would be in a bad condition, but once they die, that's it. You don't have the right to use other beings to make yourself feel better. Cope another way. 2) Again, how is some unlikely future scenario justification for all the suffering before that? You are saying that it's ok to use generations and generations as tools for achieving something in the future. That is horrible. Even if it was 100% certain that in 2000 years a utopia will come our way, why should I, now, suffer, for that future, which I will not be a part of?
Natalists: Antinatalism is for cowards Also natalists: i'm afraid that i'm gonna die alone when I grow old, i'm afraid that i'm gonna grow old and no one will take care of me
Antinatalism i a VERY strong argument. I'm not a strong or confident antinatalist, but I certainly have never seen anyone make a rational case against antinatalism. Matts was one of the worse attempts, just like his take on veganism. Fallacy after fallacy and unjustified assumptions. There simply seems there cannot be a reason why following the brutal demands of procreation is a moral good or morally neutral. Evolution and procreation doesn't give a fuck about our experiences beyond making more lives. There is no inherent worth in making more lives, but there IS certainly imposed suffering and demand on the natural world where other lives exist, in making more lives. It can at best be morally neutral, at worst morally horrifying, but almost always pretty bad. Thanks for making me a little more confident in antinatalism, brilliant video. You really made the point.
I think it is funny/ typical that Dillahunty is a militant atheist and will laugh at the fallacies of religion , but in his criticism of anti natalism he comes across as delusional about an overoptimistic view of life ✌️🕉️
