And they’re not really letting us kill ourselves humanely anyway - Medical Assistance in Dying laws are still incredibly restrictive and they actively prosecute people who sell alternatives.

Which is an important practial limiation of course. But I’m currently discussing this on the level of the underlying ethical principle, less on the level of practical implications, because the latter could possibly be changed by forming an appropriate mindset in our society.

Just because I find joy in life I can’t force that on other people. We all have different perspectives. I look at it like joy is not guaranteed. The only thing that is guaranteed through life is suffering and death. […] Why guarantee suffering in another person.

Sure, but would it be equally okay to deny someone their shot at joy? Even without (much) joy, some might see the suffering as part of their journey, a part of the experience of life which they could still prefer to not being born at all. We never know until we can ask and expect an answer to that question.

I don’t need to have kids for survival and we have too many people already.

And it’s totally okay for me if these are your reasons for not having children. I agree with a multitude of reasons why someone want’s to be childless. So I hope you don’t get me wrong here. I don’t give a fuck whether someone wants or doesn’t want children. It’s their life and their decision regardless of their reasons. I just find the topic of natalism interesting from a philosophical point of view.

Put like that, it’s of course not a conclusion which feels right. Which is interesting and which I would explain by the “greater goods” which are relevant in such considerations.

In your example, the greater good is an autonomy about one’s own body and what happens to it in presence of other people. An issue which we’ve developed understanding and respect for one’s individual will.

In the context of natalism however, there are different goods at play depending on how you look at them:
Antinatalism: “creating new humans is wrong, because they have guaranteed suffering. Allowing that will cause unneccessary suffering.”
Pronatalism: “Creating new humans is okay, because their life can be joyful (and/or brings me joy). Denying that robs the possible being from this experience.” (Depending on who you ask, it might not even be necessary to be joyful, as the experience of life is already seen as valuable by itself.)
In other words: Antinatalism’s greater good: preventing suffering. Pronatalisms greater good: allowing joy and the experience of life.

But again, asking for consent here is pointless, as I’ve detailed before. If you want to have sex with someone who is unconcious, they are able to form on opinion about that before the incident, possibly during the incident and directly after the incident. In other words, they have agency about this. With unborns it is different: they don’t exist and have no agency prior or during the incident of being born. They develop this ability during their childhood. Then you can ask. Without such a capacity I don’t see any value in moral evaluations. Because to me, this is currently almost similar to asking a stone whether it wants to exist in this universe.

I understand that. It’s a very scary feeling for most. (btw: If you really feel like this damaged you, I hope you’ve considered therapy.)

However, if someone decides they don’t want to be alive (and we can ensure that this decision is made of “sound mind” (whatever that might look like)) I can imagine that they might get used to the idea of death and ending it.

That seems like incredibly callous and unnecessary pain for all involved.

Which is - at least to some extent - a culturally formed perception. We know cultures where suicide was not frowned upon nor was seen as an inherently bad thing. For example:

• Harakiri / Seppuku: ritual suicide commited by Samurais (and later officers during WWII) (lazily taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ) as a way to restore or uphold their or their families’ honour.
• Ättestupa, sites with cliff-like rock formations in Sweden where old people threw themselves off in order to not burden their community. (There are quite a number of examples regarding such kinds of senicides in different cultures. Currently this is also a topic regarding assisted suicide for (old) people who are severly ill with no realistic hopes of improvement.)

This proves that it can be possible to embrace such decisions of mature adolescents, be it for life or against it.

Consent 101: If you’re unsure about whether or not someone would consent, the answer is no. And since we can’t ask the unborn, people who don’t want kids assume the answer is no.

We can turn this easily around: If you’re unsure whether someone would consent to not being born, the answer is no and therefore they should be born.
But more importantly, to ask that question at all is already built on a erroneous premise, in my opinion: The unborn child has no sufficient agency to form an opinion about this question. It is therefore pointless to ask it. The ability to make such decisions comes with time and maturity of the child. Until this level is reached, you could also deny plants and even stones their existence because you are not able to ask them whether they want to exist at all. They have about the same level of agency as an unborn child.

India: “I need many children to support my everyday life and me when I’m old.”

Germany: “wtf are children?”

(A bit exaggerated of course, but should illustrate your point.)

The child can still consider taking the one-way exit as soon as it is able to make such considerations and thereby gets a choice.

You could ask in a similar manner:
Wouldn’t it be immoral to disallow this decision making process by leaving the child no choice by not having it?

Asking for consent of an unborn is paradoxial and inherently impossible. It’s almost like asking a plant whether it consents into being planted and eaten afterwards. It has no agency. Is it immoral though to plant it and eat it anyway?

Having a child is similar. Get it, let it grow and develop its agency. Then it can decide for itself.

Who is Kevin Bacon?

Well, baldness also requires care. A shampoo will be fine for your head-skin. Also, moisturise. Especially important for people who tend to have dry skin like me. There aren’t many good moisturisers for men around though. (At least none which I found good so far.) So, moisturisers marketed towards women it is.

And if it smells like peach, roses and aloe vera paired with coconuts, even better. If your girlfriend/wife likes to smell herself that way, you can bet she would also like to smell your floral skin-desert.

• Disruption doesn’t sour public opinion toward a cause, but it’s not clear if it’s more effective than noon-disruptive methods

Meh. I hoped there would be news on that. I’m following and reading through various materials on the topic of “effective protest”, especially regarding the disruptive forms. And it seems as always: not enough data to draw conclusions or contradicting data.

Sorry, replied in the wrong comment level apparently.

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Like becoming rich?

Yes. Exactly. Although there isn’t much left worth stealing from Microsoft.

(This was a low-key “Microsoft bad, Linux supreme”, comment.)

(And now it’s no longer low-key.)

(I’m using a touch-screen keyboard for writing this. And yet I can’t open my doors using the keyboard. Ever wondered why that is?)

(Correct, because I forgot my keys at home and didn’t put them on my keyboard.)

(Now it’s just a –board.)

(Oral diarrhea over. Go get some guhd Linux!)

Radioactive waste disposal is better than ever now.

But is it good enough?

That depends on where you live.

Yes, I know. That’s why I said:

However, not a simple solution for everyone in every country.

No one is preventing you from visiting a library, which would be a fesible alternative.

However, not a simple solution for everyone in every country. Knowlegde should be a free and shared common good.

It made me a better person.

If that is meant literally, how did it make you a better person?

Capitalism wherever it is found. Not just the USA.

Or Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or any other major religion.

But no, suddenly I am the maniac for believing that – in reality – we are pink elephants, hopping on the moon and imagining life as we believe it to be true. No one can prove I am wrong. But uh oh, sky grandpa mad.

(/s I don’t believe anything. Just making a sarcastic point.)

Here is a nice visualisation of the logical paradox: