Since this is only 3 Rounds (Rs) and I expect quite a fight to occur in R2, I'll go full-force R1 contrary to my usual setup.
What is Anti-Natalism (AN) and why has Pro hidden the horrific idea?
Wouldn't someone who is pro AN, try and introduce you to the idea, passionately explaining it to you? Isn't defining the core philosophy in this debate important? Let me let you in on why he avoided telling you about it.
Anti-natalism is literally the idea that nobody should be born because in their outlook the suffering isn't worth the pleasure in life.
To be fair to my opponent, I'll paste an official definition:
They believe humans shouldn't have children. Who are the anti-natalists - and how far are they willing to push their ideas?
Wouldn't it just be better to blow a hole in the side of the earth and just have done with everything?
Thomas, 29, lives in the east of England, and although his idea of blowing up the world is something of a thought experiment, he is certain about one thing - humans should not have babies, and our species should gradually go extinct.
It's a philosophy called anti-natalism. While the idea dates back to
ancient Greece, it has recently been given a huge boost by social media.
Anti-natalism is the extremely provocative view that it is either always or usually impermissible to procreate.
You could call it the absolute antithesis of being pro-life but I think that's too disrespectful to pro-lifers to say as they actually have more basis for their stance (yes, I'm disrespecting antinatalists in their stance being valid). Anti-natalists want you, reader, to never have been born but they will con you into thinking it's for your own good. They don't care if your particular life was worth the suffering that occurred during it, they assert that you were not worth having existed because of the detriment you are to both yourself and the environment (funny how they stop at non-human life with their destructive agenda).
This is a dangerous mindset to allow to seep into the mainstream. It is blatantly morally incorrect to allow, we will all go EXCTINCT WHAT ON EARTH IS THE PREMISE?
I mean let's see the 2 premises that Pro gives...
1. Kant said people are ends in themselves, not just what they do.
Okay, so if people are ends in themselves, then why would we want none of them to be born?
2. Pain is active and asymmetrical the the passive pleasure...
What? Like what?
To justify this, Pro says the following:
If there is five people in a room and no one is feeling pleasure, Who cares? This is not the case if five people are in a room and feeling pain, People care.
Do you see now why it's asymmetrical? That's a clever rhetoric tactic.
Either way, I'm confused because imagine no pleasure at all like total lack of even pleasurable calm, completely on edge all 5 people... That's actually not nice. Also, imagine total lack of 'pain' okay that's imaginable but total lack of suffering? Can you have total lack of either really? Unless we talk extreme torture and abuse or extreme pleasure neither can totally be lacking in the experience. In other words, total lack of pleasure is definitively deep agony and total lack of pain is definitively deep pleasure.
Yep, I'm not even using the neutrality rebuttal here.
I want you to imagine what kind of scenario it is where one lives a life of total lack of pain... Are they supposed to be completely happy their entire life and once their sexuality develops be orgasming constantly and just over the moon all day long every day? Pro would basically say that unless life is like that, the very presence of pain and suffering justify never having a child ever and aborting if you would accidentally have conceived.
How is it morally correct, by the way? Pro didn't explore morality. While this theory doesn't say we, whom are alive, ought to kill ourselves it actually strongly implies that too. What kind of 'moral correctness' is there in it? Pro hasn't even explained it.
I think it is morally acceptable, but not right.