Even by itself, the first statement might not be the case. I don’t remember the book that well, but I remember thinking it was a good introduction to this topic. Philosophy of Science: A Very Brief Introduction by Samir Okasha.

Yet, it’s not as simple as “scientists are under capitalists’ interests”, but “the ideologies within capitalism permeate the way we do science”. A common example is how we measure functionality (and therefore pathology itself) in medicine.

So… This is stalkerish, but I was curious about your dark/gothic interests and I read some of your comments and you seem like an interesting person. I’d be grateful if you could share your poetry (a link to your accounts or whatever medium). 😳 Sorry; thank you.

I consider this violent, especially for the crickets who are being used as objects and exposed to danger (as the article confirms with the guy shouting to ‘squash’ them).

I honestly haven’t used it enough to know how well it works, but their advertisement has the cooldown thing mentioned. I hope it works for you.

It seems they are sacks of fear, which leads them to be defensive and hateful and “hard” just so that everything’s in order and safe because they fear everything and everyone. I wish their amygdala wasn’t overactive…

Buzzkill Notification Manager can do that.

I disagree. Violence is not the answer, and especially not against people that are living in a way that doesn’t hurt others. If a couple (or polycule) wants to be sexually exclusive, they have the right to do so, and they do not hurt others because it’s not a social imposition for everyone.

Edit: I mean, I understand questioning why we choose it, “deconstructing”, as we now call it, but after that, I think it’s an intimate matter.

It depends. Some relationships are open to pornography, others aren’t. Some are open to sexual intercourse outside their people, but others aren’t. It’s about consent and agreeing to live in a way that all needs are met.

That’s why I said it’s hard to know who is betraying their partner and who isn’t, because maybe a man or woman or whoever following an erotic/pornographic content creator is not outside what their partner(s) expect, or maybe they are.

Anyway, I do not like people breaking their “contracts” instead of talking them out.

If I were to do that, I’d probably do it for the money. I would get unfaithful followers (hard to pinpoint who because open relationships and other types of relationships exist, but statistically, there would be), and that wouldn’t make it any less uncomfortable. I personally hate unfaithful/dishonest partners.

I can think of two scenarios. The first one is you do that and everyone, including you, feels it and perceives it in a good way. Which I guess could end up in weird situations. Geeky example, but do you know Magic the Gathering? There’s a faction there called “The Rakdos Cult” with a demon and a lot of deranged characters that simply enjoy the bad things. The Rakdos cards often portray a little gorey scenes with people enjoying it, so I guess we could become kind of that but without victims, only enjoyers.

But the other scenario is that we wouldn’t have a need to prove or try such things because we often do it out of negative feelings such as emptiness, pride, competitiveness, etc. We wouldn’t feel those things so we wouldn’t behave as erratically as we do now.

That if we exist at all, though… Maybe existence as we know it is incompatible with my first comment.

No suffering, no dis-pleasurable state, no undesirable reality exists. Everything that is, is deemed good by all beings that can judge it (if any). This has, as a consequence, no moral dilemmas, no conflict of wills and interests, no tragedies, etc.

I think that’s the ambiguity. An AFAB only space is different to a women’ (and maybe other feminine identities I’m not aware of) space. The first, AFAB, is about the sex you were born into. The second is about your gender (and here we can even create different groups, but that’s beyond the point). The ambiguity comes because each of us uses “female” differently, sometimes to mean this or that. That’s the importance of specifying what we mean, especially when creating a club or something similar.

I personally do not care that much about the survival of entire species (including ours); I care more about the lives of the individuals. To illustrate this, it saddens me when we cause extinctions, but a little more because of the animals that suffered in the process and a little less about the whole “loss” of a form of life. Yet, it all is sad.

How do I deal with this climate change sadness? I guess I don’t see it separately from other sad things from humanity (and existence, but let’s focus on humanity). I have accepted the fact that most human beings are morally questionable in my book, this causes the world to be worse for everyone in it, and no amount of reasoning with most of them (about the benefit for them and others of being more conscious about their lives) will change it for now.

At some point, some have felt that a better society is just a step ahead of us because it’s relatively easy in material terms, but now I feel it much farther as the social factors are not as easy. I guess I have surrendered to a certain idea of psychological determinism. If we imagine a person has an object we want at their reach, while it’s out of our reach, and we could get it if they only cooperate, we can feel frustrated when they don’t. “Why do they make it so difficult? It’s as simple as reaching for the object and grabbing it for us. Just do it! Why are they waiting for? Ugh!”. But if we start from the idea that there’s a chance they won’t help us because they simply can’t be bothered (different reasons as to why), and that’s probably not fixable, we won’t feel that level of frustration for their inaction and we will strategize differently how to get that object.

By the way, I don’t think selfishness or self-centeredness or whatever is individualism, nor that altruism is communitarianism. I’m inclined to individualism, but that’s what makes me think that just as my life and freedom are valuable, so are others’. I do not like societies that are communitarian because they drown the individual (in false responsibilities, in fear of ostracism, etc.), and I hate that. We have one life and only one and we should be as free as possible, even if that means being unattached, different, whatever. The only rule for that freedom and for everything is ethics. And that’s the difference for me, that’s how I see it. Not individualistic people versus communitarian people, but people that live without an interest in being ethical (whatever that ends up meaning) and people who do.

So… I think I see a lot of these people and I don’t get as frustrated as before. I sigh and continue my day. Reading this last part, it reads a little stoic (learning that I cannot change these parts of society and focusing on the ones we can change). Stoicism is like the ibuprofen of life; paracetamol is pyrrhic skepticism. I’m bad at analogies, lol, but you get the point (I hope).

Prioritizing my health (including my mental health) has helped a lot. Good levels of everything in my body do wonders for my energy, but also my resilience, my mood, etc. Emotional regulation skills, combating stress… I know these are just common recommendations, but I don’t have more.

I’m sorry that you’re feeling down. It’s been a hard time…

Isn’t FlyingSquid a she?

It is discussed with those words because it has been transformed into an ethical question. It is a personal freedom, but it can be asked how ethically correct or incorrect that action is aside from our current laws or [cultural/social] morality.

It’s about wonder, ponder. I think that’s always important, even for things that seem taboo at first.

antinatalism is depression turned into a moral philosophy

Not necessarily. Antinatalism and other pessimistic points of view can be held by non-depressed people. On the internet, it seems like psychological pessimism is the same as philosophical pessimism as many depressed people do adopt these points of view and flood the forums. Adding to that, they often abandon their philosophical pessimism when their depression lifts, leaving a testimony that it is true: only depressed people defend these ideas. But we need only an example of a person that is not depressed and still values antinatalism on its own to demonstrate that your statement is not the case, and I think I might be that example. Many other examples might be found in universities. I hope one day we get a formal social study so that I do not have to give anecdotal “evidence” and personal information.

Now, I’d add to defend those I know that are indeed depressed, we should be debating and trying to refute the philosophy itself. Even if depression is leading them into these kinds of thoughts, we cannot say that this disproves their ideas. Many brilliant discoveries and inventions were reached in what we classify as pathological states. The manic researcher and crafter is an archetype for a reason (e.g., mad scientist, mad artist), and we have not fewer examples of depressed people that made valuable work, such as author F. Dostoevsky. There are two books that are coming to my mind that explain why (specifically) mood disorders are pathological but still let people do great things: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illnesses and Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. So, as I was saying, the fact that someone is clinically depressed does not inform us about how true or how solid their ideas might be. Discrediting them just because they suffer from depression would be an ad hominem, and, in the moral part, ableism. We need to listen to/read their ideas and discuss the ideas instead.

it posits itself as a solution to suffering by offering an unrealizable future

This is a very misunderstood part of antinatalism. Almost no antinatalist is utopic in their views, that is, few antinatalists think that the point must be to cease all reproduction and that antinatalism fails if they don’t. That would be an ideal scenario; there’s no suffering without existence, but that is a dream. There are no goals for many antinatalists, just the idea that bringing children into this world is not ethically correct. They might follow antinatalism and not have children or adopt, but not preach much about it because they know practically no one will listen. I, for instance, bring this problem to people that might have not thought about it before. If they go ahead and have children, I’d still think that was not correct, but well, nothing to do but to help take care of this new life. It can be as pragmatic as that.

but really it’s an excuse to not even attempt to make the world better.

No. In my case, I try to help in other ways. This right here is an example as I’m trying to broaden the discussion around these topics in a healthy way because I know Reddit has sadly damaged these debates with a lot of insults and bad attitudes from many sides. They insult people, so these people go to their subreddit and insult them back… It is not a good way to first learn about these topics, and many are learning what antinatalism is first on Reddit. I hope Lemmy will be slightly better.

Anyway, I also try to better the world in the ways I can. Still, as a person that values philosophical pessimism, I think we are only saving lives from a neverending fire, or giving palliatives for an incurable disease. I enjoy my life and I try to help others enjoy theirs as much as this existence lets us.

If anything, philosophies around negative utilitarianism, preference utilitarianism, overall pessimism, etc. tend to respect others a lot and value their suffering negatively. That’s usually their point. Suffering is not a “necessary side for pleasure” or “a trial from which we gain something” or “something not that bad” or any explanation different cultures have given. Suffering is bad; in a better world, it wouldn’t exist like this. It is tragic, but it is reality, so we must face it and combat suffering as best as we can. I’d say these ethical paths inspire protection of others more than others less centered on sentience.

Finally, it is good advice to seek professional help, but not on the sole basis of someone being an antinatalist. If our OP here is depressed, I do recommend visiting a professional.

A recent comment of mine:

In an old interview, Mr. Narcissus [Elon Musk] said he may have bipolar disorder; he said he experiences “great highs, terrible lows, and unrelenting stress”.

He has doubts because his highs and lows follow events in his life, whereas episodes from bipolar disorder often appear without triggers. […]

We’d know if he went for an evaluation/possible diagnosis, but I cannot even imagine him doing it.

Kanye West is usually manic when he acts this way. I guess this supports Musk’s suspicion.

I partially agree with you, but also with the rest here. Yes, as people, we should be united fighting against the elites which don’t let us live the life we deserve (because we are receiving less than we should considering our productivity, and because many problems can be solved already). We are all on a planet that we need to save, even if only for selfish reasons. We should be together. But the elites have seized the opportunity to divide us with ideologies such as economics, identity politics, etc. If they need an unfair war against a country to exploit it and extract its resources, they’ll say it’s about patriotism or security or something like that, and many people will believe it and support it. Just look how divided we are about current affairs.

The left usually goes against these interests. Thus the red scare, the fake leftists that only makes us look bad, etc. They need to disband the left, and they have an army willing to do so for free. Here’s where these opinions enter. As long as an elite, yes, but also all their supporters go against us and against basic ethical principles, we cannot sit and say: “people, do not trivialize wars on social media, it is not nice”, “oil is cool, but saving the planet is cooler”, etc.

I believe in stronger actions, for example, the sabotage people are doing against the shipping of weapons that are meant to kill civilians in Palestine or the blockages against deep sea mining. These are actions that can save lives without actually hurting others as the economical damages are not going against individuals but big institutions that can manage the losses.

I also believe in dialogue. I actually dislike how we stop listening to each other as leftists: how moderate, often liberal-leaning leftists censor radical leftists such as marxist-leninists (“tankies”) or gender critical feminists (“TERFs”), without listening to them. No, they do not necessarily promote hate and they have valid points that may need further exploration. That said, I believe in the censorship of hate speech, explicit hate speech like the videos circulating about how others deserve to die or deserve to suffer. That’s unacceptable, no matter the group of people you are talking about. Indeed! If we say that we need to kill white supremacists, it is no better than them saying they need to cleanse the population. Still, we need to keep their hate and all hate out of the normal discourse and we need to defend ourselves in case others turn to violence.

In a nutshell, it’s about defending the wellbeing of beings in the most peaceful and civil way possible. It is about defending ourselves while doing that, because the people in power and their supporters won’t often like it.

Do you want a crude example? Read about the people defending the wild life in Mexico. Politicians and organized crime want to profit off those lands. They rob lands from people, often indigenous people; they get into illegal or non-sustainable logging; they enlarge the black markets, hurting and endangering populations; they transform regions, affecting the whole ecosystem. There are people, usually biologists, who warn against this and dedicate their lives to the protection of the forests, rain forests, etc. They end up dead. It is very dangerous to protect the monarch butterflies, the wolves, the big cats… Isn’t that ridiculous and terribly sad?

This is how it has been for a long time. Speak words of freedom in the kingdom and you might lose your head. Stop the machines and they’ll justify killing you. I mean, read Lord Byron’s defense of the luddites and then think about how they dismissed it…

Personally, I do not see rightists as my enemies, I see them as people tragically going against others’ and their own interests. The ones that are in power are blinded by it, and the ones that only follow are blinded by hope: “Someday I’ll be rich, if only I defend the status quo a little longer”.

My personal enemies are the horrid ideas, feelings, and values that accompany most of these acts I disapprove of. Selfishness, vanity, etc. Some people, many people (I am no exception), naturally tend to them in varying degrees, and I can only feel disappointment for the number of people that embrace them. That leads me to my secondary enemies, the things that make people do not defy them. Cowardice, apathy, dogmatism, etc.

Edit: And I do not have final answers. I do not know if we are in need of a revolution, a reform, an extinction, time… I know very little.

I am very sorry you got caught in one of my rambling, ranting comments. My point is that it is not a situation in which two sides are equally wrong, but a bunch of the population that sides with the tyrants you yourself allude to in your comment. People who still deserve our respect; that respect doesn’t mean passivity when they actively affect others.

You are absolutely right and we need to fight against corruption and many other things, and that’s why I consider myself a leftist: you name it whatever you like. These are my attempts at rationality and correctness, and, while I might be a minority in the details, I know I am in good company in the broader ideals. Many of us disagree in a very trivial way… Sorry, and thank you for reading this far.

Have you heard the “I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it” quote? They meant it, huh?