Guy literally argues for end of humanity because he finds pain bad

Author: Best.Korea

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"Like a boxer who has practiced his counters, Benatar has anticipated a range of objections. Many people suggest that the best experiences in life—love, beauty, discovery, and so on—make up for the bad ones. To this, Benatar replies that pain is worse than pleasure is good. Pain lasts longer: “There’s such a thing as chronic pain, but there’s no such thing as chronic pleasure,” he said. It’s also more powerful: would you trade five minutes of the worst pain imaginable for five minutes of the greatest pleasure? Moreover, there’s an abstract sense in which missing out on good experiences isn’t as bad as having bad ones. “For an existing person, the presence of bad things is bad and the presence of good things is good,” Benatar explained. “But compare that with a scenario in which that person never existed—then, the absence of the bad would be good, but the absence of the good wouldn’t be bad, because there’d be nobody to be deprived of those good things.” This asymmetry “completely stacks the deck against existence,” he continued, because it suggests that “all the unpleasantness and all the misery and all the suffering could be over, without any real cost.”"


Yeah, thats what the extreme anti-natalist case amounts to. I guess someone needs to tell him that increasing life>reducing pain, and that most people disagree with him about the amount of pain in life that he obviously exaggerated to the fullest extent.
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@Best.Korea
I guess someone needs to tell him that increasing life>reducing pain
What do you mean by increasing life?

most people disagree with him about the amount of pain in life
Most people don't even come close to considering whether life is worth living, let alone any philosophy in general. Most people are caught up in their own worlds and just going about the motions. There's a % of people who don't even have internal monologue. A lot of justification for life is people living it and then coming up with Ad Hoc rationalizations as to why they should, if they ever do consider questions like these.

that he obviously exaggerated to the fullest extent.
Which part is he exaggerating?
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@Kaitlyn
What do you mean by increasing life?
I think that above all, we should work to increase the amount of human life to the maximum possible.
I agree that reducing pain is good, but it is not more important than increasing life.

Which part is he exaggerating?
"would you trade five minutes of the worst pain imaginable for five minutes of the greatest pleasure?"

Humanity does not have to make such trade in order to exist, so yes it is exaggerated.
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@Best.Korea
What do you mean by increasing life?
I think that above all, we should work to increase the amount of human life to the maximum possible.
I agree that reducing pain is good, but it is not more important than increasing life.
He argues that because life is by default suffering and pleasure isn't guaranteed, making more human lives would be a net negative. You haven't addressed this moral framework of his. You need to show that overall, "increasing life" leads to a positive outcome.

Which part is he exaggerating?
"would you trade five minutes of the worst pain imaginable for five minutes of the greatest pleasure?"

Humanity does not have to make such trade in order to exist, so yes it is exaggerated.
He used that analogy to demonstrate a point, not to imply that all humans will need to make this decision. The point was that on balance, an equal amount of units in both pain and pleasure is not valued equally by humans. In other words, humans experience far more negative emotion with one unit of pain than they do positive emotion with one unit of pleasure. That's his point.

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@Kaitlyn
You need to show that overall, "increasing life" leads to a positive outcome.
No. Increasing life is a positive outcome, since I hold value that life is the most important thing.


In other words, humans experience far more negative emotion with one unit of pain than they do positive emotion with one unit of pleasure. That's his point
It still stands that most people dont trade 1 unit of pleasure for 1 unit of pain. I am guessing the actual ratio is 100000:1.
Deb-8-a-bull
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Typical Benatar. 

And theres 8 billion of us .
Humans are soooooooooooooooooooooo 
So , so ,so 
So sooooooooooooo
So 
Soooo so.
So
And like so sooooo so so so so.
So mother fucking complex.  

Me personally :  I wouldn't care nor would i carry on like that if my parents named me Banatar. Or even Ratanab.
But like. 
Little dude Me personally :   l  llllllllllllllloathed  being named Banatar ( it felt like i was " set "up to fail ) 


Coming up Next on APL  (  Another persons life. )  ....  The trials and tribulations  of.       Jasmine.. 
' Crowd  applauds '

i cant fucking wait . 
# looking foward to watching person # 4 , 559, 298.181 053 tis me

' Grabs large cup of gingerale '   



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@Deb-8-a-bull
Well, yes being named Benatar is....
...
..
...

Hello Benatar
...

Whats up Benatar

...
...

"Lets invite Benatar"
...
...
But its easier to say:
...
...
"I would rather not invite Benatar"
...
....
..
.
Then Benatar gets upset and....
..
....
.
Thinks of a moral system....
.
.
That has a goal....
....
..
.
To end human life by telling people....
..
..
..
.
to not have children anymore...
...
..
And if you do have children....
...
.
.
The least you can do...
...
..
Is to....
....
....
not name them Benatar.
...
...
...
...
And the countries who decide not to have children...
...
..
...
Will be conquered....
..
..
By those...
...
...
Who choose to continue making babies.
...
...
..
 .
 ....
Unless all babies become Benatar.
Kaitlyn
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@Best.Korea
You need to show that overall, "increasing life" leads to a positive outcome.
No. Increasing life is a positive outcome, since I hold value that life is the most important thing.
Professor Benatar has argued that life isn't instinctually valuable. He's given analogies, philosophical framework and used axioms to reach this conclusion. Simply stating 'it is valuable' isn't a sufficient counter-argument. 

In other words, humans experience far more negative emotion with one unit of pain than they do positive emotion with one unit of pleasure. That's his point
It still stands that most people dont trade 1 unit of pleasure for 1 unit of pain. I am guessing the actual ratio is 100000:1.
Again, that isn't the point at all. 

Do you not understand how we can discover truths by using extreme hypotheticals?

It's like asking people 'what do you think people would do if they were given $1,000,000?' We don't have to give them the money to speculate on what they would do, and we can further think about the underlying human emotions involved in that decision (to perhaps discover some axiomatic truths about humans). 

Again, he's not saying that people do exactly this. He's using this hypothetical to undercover an underlying axiom about human nature: that we negatively value pain far more than we positively value pleasure. 

You can then compound the impact of this axiom by realizing that we're born into suffering but pleasure isn't guaranteed, and Professor Benatar's argument really starts to get going. 

So, we have all that against your guess of 10000:1 based on nothing.
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@Kaitlyn
Professor Benatar has argued that life isn't instinctually valuable.
Life is valuable. 


He's given analogies, philosophical framework and used axioms to reach this conclusion.
His conclusion is based on premise that reducing pain is more important than increasing life. This premise is just his opinion. No one has to agree with such premise.


Simply stating 'it is valuable' isn't a sufficient counter-argument.
Wrong. Simply stating "pain is the worst thing on Earth" is not even an argument, but an opinion. Therefore, when your premise is an opinion, I dont even need to refute it in order to disagree with it.


Again, that isn't the point at all.
I assume you will tell us what is the point.


Do you not understand how we can discover truths by using extreme hypotheticals?
Doesnt change the fact that his "extreme hypotheticals" dont happen in reality.


It's like asking people 'what do you think people would do if they were given $1,000,000?'
Would do if X happens =/= X actually happens


He's using this hypothetical to undercover an underlying axiom about human nature: that we negatively value pain far more than we positively value pleasure.
Doesnt change the fact that amount of pain and pleasure isnt the same.


You can then compound the impact of this axiom by realizing that we're born into suffering but pleasure isn't guaranteed
""Pleasure isnt guaranteed" + "born into suffering" + "not getting 1 amount of pain > getting 1 amount of pleasure" = Life is bad."

This "=" is your value. Not mine. Therefore, when we remove "=" from this and replace it with "=/=", it follows that there is no conclusion to tell us that life is bad.

Truth is that we are born into suffering. Truth is that pleasure isnt guaranteed, but happens often. Truth is that life in itself is a good thing. I would rather be alive and in pain than not be alive and not be in pain. If you think your life is so horrible that you think its better you werent born, well then it sucks to be you.


So, we have all that against your guess of 10000:1 based on nothing.
I have 7 billion people that literally disagree with you. If you have to teach them that their pain is so bad, then that already means it isnt.

I agree that reducing pain is good, but not at the expense of life.
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@Best.Korea
Professor Benatar has argued that life isn't intrinsically valuable.
Life is valuable. 
You haven't proven this at all.

He's given analogies, philosophical framework and used axioms to reach this conclusion.
His conclusion is based on premise that reducing pain is more important than increasing life. This premise is just his opinion. No one has to agree with such premise.
He's also argued that humans naturally agree with him on this. You should read his book on this, if you're interested in his argument, because he goes into some detail.

Simply stating 'it is valuable' isn't a sufficient counter-argument.
Wrong. Simply stating "pain is the worst thing on Earth" is not even an argument, but an opinion. Therefore, when your premise is an opinion, I dont even need to refute it in order to disagree with it.
He hasn't argued "pain is the worst thing on Earth", but he has argued that, 'pain, per unit, is more emotionally impactful than pleasure'.

You're really not contending with what his argument is.

Do you not understand how we can discover truths by using extreme hypotheticals?
Doesnt change the fact that his "extreme hypotheticals" dont happen in reality.
It's like asking people 'what do you think people would do if they were given $1,000,000?'
Would do if X happens =/= X actually happens
Are you one of those people who aren't able to comprehend abstract hypotheticals? Sure seems like it.

Mindblowing.

He's using this hypothetical to undercover an underlying axiom about human nature: that we negatively value pain far more than we positively value pleasure.
Doesnt change the fact that amount of pain and pleasure isnt the same.
Okay, if you want to argue that we have more instances of pleasure than pain in life, make that argument then. 

Benatar argues that by default, we experience pain, thus there are inherently more instances of pain than pleasure in life. You'll need to contend with that argument, too.

You can then compound the impact of this axiom by realizing that we're born into suffering but pleasure isn't guaranteed
""Pleasure isnt guaranteed" + "born into suffering" + "not getting 1 amount of pain > getting 1 amount of pleasure" = Life is bad."

This "=" is your value. Not mine. Therefore, when we remove "=" from this and replace it with "=/=", it follows that there is no conclusion to tell us that life is bad.

Truth is that we are born into suffering. Truth is that pleasure isnt guaranteed, but happens often. Truth is that life in itself is a good thing. I would rather be alive and in pain than not be alive and not be in pain. If you think your life is so horrible that you think its better you werent born, well then it sucks to be you.
Humans naturally agree that pain is bad, hence why we seek to avoid it. If life has more pain than pleasure, then it follows that life should be avoided.

Randomly asserting "life in itself is a good thing" isn't proven nor does it counteract Benatar's argument.

So, we have all that against your guess of 10000:1 based on nothing.
I have 7 billion people that literally disagree with you. If you have to teach them that their pain is so bad, then that already means it isnt.

I agree that reducing pain is good, but not at the expense of life.
People naturally agree that pain is bad lol.

The issue is that once life starts, ending it is also difficult. Benatar does not argue in favor of suicide, but rather preventing life from occurring in the first place (i.e. antinatalism). 

Also, humans have a will to live, even if it's at the expense of themselves (i.e. they suffer greatly). Just because someone doesn't kill themselves, that does not meant they're living a worthwhile, enjoyable life.
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@Kaitlyn
No, you do not get to kill your children by not giving birth to them.

Pain doesnt matter. You have to live and your children have to live too.
Kaitlyn
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@Best.Korea
No, you do not get to kill your children by not giving birth to them.

Pain doesnt matter. You have to live and your children have to live too.
You've dropped most contentions and haven't moved much past making bare assertions.

I'll take that as a concession.

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@Kaitlyn
As expected, you fail to understand that
life>decreasing pain.

Go ahead, tell us how life is horrible. Nobody cares about your pain to let you destroy life.

67 days later

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@Best.Korea
Kaitlyn and I discussed this in much greater depth on the forum link below: