Are socialism and antinatalism ideologically connected?

[Gray House]

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Well, when I look at the world or science, it does not tell me what to value. An antinatalist assigns a negative value to birth, but birth is neither negative nor positive in reality. It just is.

The world as a whole is not intelligent. Something that is intelligent can acknowledge and act according to reasons, based on what it knows about reality, including what it knows about qualitatively bad or good conscious states, and the intentions and other causes that affect such states.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

I agree with you that "morality has a basis in human nature and is shaped by culture", but this does not necessarily provide an "ought".

Human nature and cultures are good or bad in relation to the extent that they function in accordance with oughts that are based on good reasons.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

An antinatalist says one ought not to have kids for various reasons. These reasons typically include David Benatar's asymmetry views of life, lack of consent, and/or the vicissitudes of history being predominantly filled with suffering. However, none of these reasons provide an ought because reality is valueless, at least from the scientific/materialist viewpoint.

Conscious states are a part of reality, and conscious beings have qualitatively bad or good conscious states - in reality. Without such states, there could be no value concepts. Value concepts would not be understandable to a hypothetical intelligence that had no knowledge of the existence of such states.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Regardless, I have my own personal values due to conditioning. I value consent, for example, and I like to make my own system of values internally consistent. Therefore, I'm childfree but not antinatalist. An antinatalist is making a normative statement whereas childfree is simply up to one's own personal values or preferences.

Do you apply the same to other value judgements? Do you respond to all human practices with, "If others want to engage in the practice, it's up to their personal preferences"?

Value judgements that are worth respecting are not just personal desires. If there were two people that were identical - and this includes mentally identical - and all relevant external factors were also equal, it would not be justifiable to say that the well-being of one would be more significant than the well-being of the other. If you were one of the two people, your well-being would be experienced in first person, but you would have knowledge that the well-being of the other person would also be experienced in first person. The only difference would be location.

[wingsofwax]

This is one of the most awe-inspiring TED talks I have ever listened to. I've been thinking about it several times during this discussion, and as luck would have it, I finally remembered how to find it.

The question here is what is the relationship between your brain and your conscious experience? Do we see reality as it is or do we see it through the interface of the brain? Essential viewing.

Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? - YouTube

[paeng]

One more point I'd like to add is that given limits to growth, not only will socialism and antinatalism be more relevant, but so too will be philosophy and religion in light of compassion.

[qcrisp]

I think this is relevant in some way. This is a fairly popular recent comedy sketch from Stewart Lee, with an obvious political bent:

Stewart Lee on Paul Nuttall from ukip - YouTube

It's couched in the form of a reply to Paul Nuttal of UKIP, who suggested that talented Bulgarians should stay in Bulgaria to enrich their own country, a possibly disingenuous suggestion. Lee applies the principle of staying where you belong to an increasingly absurd chain of situations. (Or rather, complaining about people - and later, things - "coming over here".) He also goes back in time, complaining about the first fish crawling up onto the land, etc.

E.G:

Quote

"My name's Paul Nuttal of UKIP and I say we need to ensure the brightest and best fish stay in the sea and concentrate on making it aquatically prosperous instead of coming up here, onto the land, and beginning the process of evolution that will eventually lead to all life on Earth as we know it."

This segues into:

Quote

It's too full, isn't it? Not Britain. Reality is too full. ... I liked it when there was nothing.

Of course, Lee means this ironically. Evolution is good (the irony implies), and 'nothing' is bad. But the first thing I thought when I saw this sketch was, "I wonder whether he's read Ligotti." (I assumed he hadn't, as he might then have been less likely to unquestioningly support a reality full of living, intelligent beings.)

Much of the humour of this sketch seems to depend on the idea that we share the view it's a good thing that intelligent life evolved and that things exist.

[Robin Davies]

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp

But the first thing I thought when I saw this sketch was, "I wonder whether he's read Ligotti." (I assumed he hadn't, as he might then have been less likely to unquestioningly support a reality full of living, intelligent beings.)

He's read Blackwood, Machen and Robert E. Howard so it's a fair possibility that he's also read Ligotti. Of course, it's possible that (like me) he could enjoy Ligotti without necessarily agreeing with his philosophy.

He's a fan of Machen's The Green Round, which I'd imagine only a legit weird fiction connoisseur would even be aware of. His knowledge of Robert E. Howard is informed by the hearsay that he was a lunatic who thought his characters were real, but it's nice to see an intellectual (of sorts) hold up Howard as a good writer. There are many daggers out for him, generally.

Stewart Lee's views on political correctness are refreshingly intelligent.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp But the first thing I thought when I saw this sketch was, "I wonder whether he's read Ligotti." (I assumed he hadn't, as he might then have been less likely to unquestioningly support a reality full of living, intelligent beings.) He's read Blackwood, Machen and Robert E. Howard so it's a fair possibility that he's also read Ligotti. Of course, it's possible that (like me) he could enjoy Ligotti without necessarily agreeing with his philosophy.

Yes, he could/can. I did honestly have that reaction when watching the routine for the first time, though. It was, "Wait a minute, are you naively assuming we're all on the same page regarding how absurd and risible it would be to prefer there never to have been evolution, or never to have been some sort of identifiable matter - psychic or physical - emerging from the void?"

And the other things I've written above.

I did think, considering what I knew of his reading habits, it was possible he'd read Ligotti, which was perhaps one reason I wondered about his unfazed preferment of something to nothing.

I also thought this thread might be the right place to point out the 'false consciousness' involved in this stance, from a particular kind of antinatalist viewpoint.

[teguififthzeal]

Bernie Sanders isn't an antinatalist, or he never would have endured what he's endured.