Life Sucks
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 5:19 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdONBhx78mk
Video Summary
Life costs an enormously high price. It's very own design (of using pain to direct concern and attention, as well as life eating life) necessitates much suffering. The magnitude of suffering and horrors that have taken place on this planet over the billions of years, by nature and humans (animals), is of a grotesque size.
We (all life) are simply the product of a crude, deterministic universe. Life exists for no other purpose than to consume (/ satisfy desire) and reproduce - a useless (in and of itself) purpose. Just because this is the way nature is, doesn't make it acceptable or good. If life were to become extinct (like it was before the Earth / universe existed), there wouldn't be anything which is missing out. You can't deprive the non-existent of existence. Since they don't even exist, they can't miss out on existing.
Life is extremely costly and unnecessary. It's something we don't need to (and shouldn't) perpetuate.
Update: Added the following two arguments, 24 Oct 2011
The benatarian argument
1. Those who have never existed cannot be deprived.
2. The argument applies not only to humans but also to all other sentient beings.
3. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is to harm that
person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to
benefit him or her.
4. Hence existence always constitutes a net harm.
5. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely.
6. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none. Sentient existence comes at a significant cost.
7. Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.
The imposition argument
1. A child is a separate entity to you, with its own rights.
2. You have the choice whether or not to have children.
3. Before you have the child, there is no way to ask it if it wants to live. It cannot weigh the options, understanding the costs and benefits.
4. Therefore, having a child means that you have voluntarily forced life onto a new, separate entity, without its consent.
5. There is a small but statistically significant risk that the child's life will not be worth living, and the child will wish it had never been born.
6. There is no way in this instance for the child to get a refund and reverse the suffering it has been through. The damage cannot be undone.
7. Therefore, it is irresponsible to have a child, because it is an unnecessary gamble with another person's welfare, forced onto them without consent and without a way to be compensated in the event that it goes horribly wrong.
My transcript of the video
The end game is to get people to get a little rational and realise this whole evolution thing is just consumption and reproduction for no good reason, merely because we are addicted to playing this jackass game. The real point is the only thing that makes it possible to have any capacity at all to see the point of it is the fact that we drop dead, so we can impose all this BS on a new sucker. Start from scratch again, so we have to live through all the BS and all the addictions, all the nonsense and realise it’s all for absolutely nothing. I can watch my kids die, I can watch my siblings die, just sucks. These people keep playing, rolling these dice, keep loading up the roller coaster to hell, full of new victims. They won’t even concede that, but they’ll talk about the horror of somebody imposing circumcision on somebody. They won’t talk about the horror of imposing a futile and stupid life on people, no that’s ok, no problem there, damn hypocrites. Yammering about families... is a big giant tax credit, family this family that. Guess what, it isn’t my obligation to give a damn about this family concept so you’re not talking to me. It really is stupid to build a society on this moronic premise, these people can’t find any purpose in their lives. They’ve got to pretend, maybe I can live a good life through my kids or something, because I’ve obviously failed because I’m having them. You’ve already kind of conceding failure, when you have to resort to committing yourself to an eighteen year commitment to be responsible for the creation of another human being and to do it based on a bunch of fables and lies, just to keep them off base; keep them from actually putting their eye on the ball and seeing the BS for what it is. Your selfish need to contrive a purpose for your life by imposing life which in all practical reality is no better than imposing death, it’s an incredibly arrogant act to say you’re capable of knowing that it’s worthwhile, and that person you’re imposing life on won’t ever figure out that it’s a futile game that they’re not going to win, you’ll get your jollies but in the end you’ll die like a bug like everybody else. They’ll come up with this phantasmagorical crap-olla, for this graceful exit that only exists in one percent of deaths, the rest of them are either ???? in pain or out of your mind delirious. Human beings really don’t give a damn about the truth, the real context of our existence. It’s just a big giant pile of maggots, ok some of the maggots have arms and legs, some of write Shakespeare, but it’s all just maggots. And this pretence that you’re doing something else is just BS. But again it’s this context thing, it’s not just the god delusion, it’s the nature delusion, it’s the where here let’s make the best of it BS. Obviously we should make the best of it, but it should always be with the understanding that we have a responsibility of what we allow to take place is essentially our responsibility, we can end it all tomorrow in a humane relativity expedient manner and we are choosing to perpetuate it and we’re subsidising the perpetuation of it, that’s the real ugly part, that we pay people to have more kids, just stupid. Let’s just create some more addicts, more people so distracted by their needs and wants, so plagued by it that they have to take drugs to even manage to get through it, a big percentage of them. Or else they have to take the drug of a mind warping simplistic bullshit happy face crap-olla philosophy. No one is discounting the existence of intense and powerful pleasures, but they really don’t justify the really high price you pay for that and it’s just not rational to ignore it.
This whole game is just brain BS, stupid silly people, you got a notion in your brain that what you’re doing makes sense, but that’s just a notion in your little brain. My big brain has a different notion, a different perception of the reality. Because there’s only one reality, we’re both walking through it, both living it, how do we have such completely different perceptions of it. That’s how we get into this whole context thing, what we overlay our lives with. If I was a human ten thousand years ago, my concerns would be so immediate, I’d just be preoccupied with getting enough food to eat, a roof over my head, just those basic things. You wouldn’t have time to worry about what life means BS. The point is that you’re full of BS and I’m not. You got it all wrong, you’ve been deceived, you’ve been fooled, you’ve been snookered by life, it has got you caught up in something. The little wheels are turning and you’re ploughing through it and you have this illusion of accomplishment but it’s just an illusion, no accomplishment to be had.
Video Summary
Life costs an enormously high price. It's very own design (of using pain to direct concern and attention, as well as life eating life) necessitates much suffering. The magnitude of suffering and horrors that have taken place on this planet over the billions of years, by nature and humans (animals), is of a grotesque size.
We (all life) are simply the product of a crude, deterministic universe. Life exists for no other purpose than to consume (/ satisfy desire) and reproduce - a useless (in and of itself) purpose. Just because this is the way nature is, doesn't make it acceptable or good. If life were to become extinct (like it was before the Earth / universe existed), there wouldn't be anything which is missing out. You can't deprive the non-existent of existence. Since they don't even exist, they can't miss out on existing.
Life is extremely costly and unnecessary. It's something we don't need to (and shouldn't) perpetuate.
Update: Added the following two arguments, 24 Oct 2011
The benatarian argument
1. Those who have never existed cannot be deprived.
2. The argument applies not only to humans but also to all other sentient beings.
3. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is to harm that
person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to
benefit him or her.
4. Hence existence always constitutes a net harm.
5. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely.
6. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none. Sentient existence comes at a significant cost.
7. Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.
The imposition argument
1. A child is a separate entity to you, with its own rights.
2. You have the choice whether or not to have children.
3. Before you have the child, there is no way to ask it if it wants to live. It cannot weigh the options, understanding the costs and benefits.
4. Therefore, having a child means that you have voluntarily forced life onto a new, separate entity, without its consent.
5. There is a small but statistically significant risk that the child's life will not be worth living, and the child will wish it had never been born.
6. There is no way in this instance for the child to get a refund and reverse the suffering it has been through. The damage cannot be undone.
7. Therefore, it is irresponsible to have a child, because it is an unnecessary gamble with another person's welfare, forced onto them without consent and without a way to be compensated in the event that it goes horribly wrong.
My transcript of the video
The end game is to get people to get a little rational and realise this whole evolution thing is just consumption and reproduction for no good reason, merely because we are addicted to playing this jackass game. The real point is the only thing that makes it possible to have any capacity at all to see the point of it is the fact that we drop dead, so we can impose all this BS on a new sucker. Start from scratch again, so we have to live through all the BS and all the addictions, all the nonsense and realise it’s all for absolutely nothing. I can watch my kids die, I can watch my siblings die, just sucks. These people keep playing, rolling these dice, keep loading up the roller coaster to hell, full of new victims. They won’t even concede that, but they’ll talk about the horror of somebody imposing circumcision on somebody. They won’t talk about the horror of imposing a futile and stupid life on people, no that’s ok, no problem there, damn hypocrites. Yammering about families... is a big giant tax credit, family this family that. Guess what, it isn’t my obligation to give a damn about this family concept so you’re not talking to me. It really is stupid to build a society on this moronic premise, these people can’t find any purpose in their lives. They’ve got to pretend, maybe I can live a good life through my kids or something, because I’ve obviously failed because I’m having them. You’ve already kind of conceding failure, when you have to resort to committing yourself to an eighteen year commitment to be responsible for the creation of another human being and to do it based on a bunch of fables and lies, just to keep them off base; keep them from actually putting their eye on the ball and seeing the BS for what it is. Your selfish need to contrive a purpose for your life by imposing life which in all practical reality is no better than imposing death, it’s an incredibly arrogant act to say you’re capable of knowing that it’s worthwhile, and that person you’re imposing life on won’t ever figure out that it’s a futile game that they’re not going to win, you’ll get your jollies but in the end you’ll die like a bug like everybody else. They’ll come up with this phantasmagorical crap-olla, for this graceful exit that only exists in one percent of deaths, the rest of them are either ???? in pain or out of your mind delirious. Human beings really don’t give a damn about the truth, the real context of our existence. It’s just a big giant pile of maggots, ok some of the maggots have arms and legs, some of write Shakespeare, but it’s all just maggots. And this pretence that you’re doing something else is just BS. But again it’s this context thing, it’s not just the god delusion, it’s the nature delusion, it’s the where here let’s make the best of it BS. Obviously we should make the best of it, but it should always be with the understanding that we have a responsibility of what we allow to take place is essentially our responsibility, we can end it all tomorrow in a humane relativity expedient manner and we are choosing to perpetuate it and we’re subsidising the perpetuation of it, that’s the real ugly part, that we pay people to have more kids, just stupid. Let’s just create some more addicts, more people so distracted by their needs and wants, so plagued by it that they have to take drugs to even manage to get through it, a big percentage of them. Or else they have to take the drug of a mind warping simplistic bullshit happy face crap-olla philosophy. No one is discounting the existence of intense and powerful pleasures, but they really don’t justify the really high price you pay for that and it’s just not rational to ignore it.
This whole game is just brain BS, stupid silly people, you got a notion in your brain that what you’re doing makes sense, but that’s just a notion in your little brain. My big brain has a different notion, a different perception of the reality. Because there’s only one reality, we’re both walking through it, both living it, how do we have such completely different perceptions of it. That’s how we get into this whole context thing, what we overlay our lives with. If I was a human ten thousand years ago, my concerns would be so immediate, I’d just be preoccupied with getting enough food to eat, a roof over my head, just those basic things. You wouldn’t have time to worry about what life means BS. The point is that you’re full of BS and I’m not. You got it all wrong, you’ve been deceived, you’ve been fooled, you’ve been snookered by life, it has got you caught up in something. The little wheels are turning and you’re ploughing through it and you have this illusion of accomplishment but it’s just an illusion, no accomplishment to be had.