Richard_Kennaway

Wiki Contributions

Comments

Today in Azathoth news:

"Eurasian hoopoes raise extra chicks so they can be eaten by their siblings"

It seems that the hoopoes lay extra eggs in times of abundance — more than they would be able to see through to fledging — as a way of storing up food for the older siblings. It is rather gruesomely called the "larder" hypothesis.

“What surprised me the most was the species practicing this aggressive parenting,” says Vladimir Pravosudov, an ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. Hoopoes primarily eat insects, he notes, so their long, curved bills aren’t ideal for killing and eating chicks. That might be why, Soler says, mother hoopoes often grab the unlucky chick and shove it into the mouth of an older chick, which swallows it whole.

Literal baby-eaters!

Who among us hasn't seen a video of a robot falling over and felt a tinge of empathy.

Raises hand.

Are there any elements that you still find value in, even having left the religion?

This is a cosmic trolley problem: whether to destroy one Earth-sized value now to preserve the possibility of a vaster tomorrow. And then it repeats: do we sacrifice that tomorrow also for the sake of the day after — or billion years after — and so on as long as we discover ever vaster possible tomorrows?

This is one of the standard paradoxes of utilitarianism: if you always sacrifice the present for a greater future, you never get any of those futures.

The counter to this is, always take your time whether you need to or not.

The biggest issue for me in what you said above: "You are assuming that life consists of nothing but suffering, then death". I'm not, though, importantly. (You can review my original essay to double-check.) That suffering is a dominant qualitative feature of existence does not negate the grand diversity of experiences, nor does it deny or under-weight joy, ecstasy, bliss, ineffable revelations, relief/healing, nor do I intend to deny anyone their dignity in living.

But you are and you do. I have reviewed the OP. It contains not a single mention of the positive things you have just listed. You have spoken only of suffering and death (a phrase occurring eight times in the OP and six more in your comments — do you have a keyboard macro for it?). You say that procreation is a vile crime, the vilest, beyond any (other) child abuse. I see that about 140 million people are born every year. Hitler had his millions, but procreation has its hundreds of millions. 24 Holocausts every year. This is what you are saying.

Do you regret having been born? Do you hate your parents for the dreadful crime they committed in bringing you into existence?

Your argument — your argument, not the pile of "settled" papers — consists of ejaculations like this (which is the one you lead with):

Reproduction increases suffering and death without consent, by definition. This is simple addition, multiplication, an undeniable fact of biology—science long settled.

"By definition"? "Undeniable fact of biology"? At least biology isn't quite the swamp of p<0.05 that psychology is. Show me some biological papers about this.

mathematical truth (2 > 1 > 0) ... irrefutably correct answer ...

So now it's not even psychology, or biology, but mathematics? Spare me.

And of course, everyone disagreeing is "irrational", "cruel", has "over-confidence bias" (ha! but of course you believe your own opinions, so all others must be wrong), and "there is no rigorous, rational, consistent argument to dispel this problem". There seems to be a positive feedback loop in your head. The more you believe this, the more irrational everyone else looks, which confirms your beliefs even more, with 24 Holocausts every year riding your back and driving you onwards.

Despite claiming that you do not want to discourage people from living, you write this:

euthanasia technology ... if pursued in tandem with refraining from reproducing suffering and death without consent (childbirth), results in objectively less suffering and death, approaching zero

Please speak directly into the microphone, to borrow a phrase from Zvi. Are you suggesting euthanising the newborn to save them from the curse of suffering-and-death?

I've been acting on my anti-natalist beliefs for many years

Like this? https://xkcd.com/359/

Or something more proactive than just talking about it?

Splitting hairs. If something true of each part is not true of the whole, then something true of the whole is not true of each part.

No part of a car is a car, yet there is the car. How this can be is not a deep problem.

deliberately thinking "I'm feeling warmth" and so on, when you know, that you don't

This does not describe any experience of mine.

I guess I'll go look what people did with actual electrodes

I don't think that will help.

Load More