Life should be stopped.
I haven't made up my mind yet; I think it's too early to tell. The marriage between sentience -- or, at least, deprivation and negative sensation -- and life may end at some point.
However, I can imagine that stopping life will ultimately prove to be a good thing. Such a scenario seems perfectly reasonable to me.
The next questions:
When should life be stopped?
How should life be stopped?
I've provided some possibilities in my last two posts. I don't accept them, and I don't reject them.
I wonder about them, and hope that anyone reading this does as well.
I agree with it. The first question, I guess, must be answered with a: "as soon as possible".
ReplyDeleteHow life should be stopped? Well... I guess people should prepare themselves to it...
But these are very nice topics, that should be addressed to all anti-birth blogosphere.
addressed by*
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by "stopped." I think existing sentient beings have a right to continue to exist if they want. But new experiencing beings should not be created.
ReplyDeleteSister Y: So do I, though I see some merit in the idea that life is inherently "bad," and thus, something which could never result in any kind of meaningful state of positive existence. I see a high probability, based on my limited perspective and context, of logically motivated organisms choosing to will themselves from existence, though I also see the inverse as being likely, depending on the circumstance. More importantly for this decision to be made, I suppose, is to what extent an intelligent processor can be considered "alive" in the absence of any of the emergent, organic properties associated with life (reproductive capacity, DNA, the need to eat and excrete waste, and, in some cases, sentience).
ReplyDeleteI also wonder whether any future, "augmented" persons would choose to feel pleasure -- even if only via computer-simulated "hallucinations" -- while processing sensory input for potentially more pertinent and selfless reasons.
oh no, not the transhumanist paradigm
ReplyDeleteIs that a serious comment? If so, forgive me if I seem hostile, but I think that it was lazy, pointlessly contrarian, and purposely incendiary. May I ask what good you think comments like that do in the absence of an argument or further elaboration?
ReplyDeleteIn my previous post, I stated:
"6. I highly doubt Ray Kurzweil's claims of an impending technological singularity, and think that he has greatly misapplied several key variables, while potentially ignoring many others."
It sounds like you have your own set of witches that you like to hunt. Your comment may not be a troll, but it seems purely reactionary and reflexive, which is disappointing. I am not interested in transhumanism, in favor of transhumanism, or in any way condoning the rather religious tenets and pseudoscientific projections of that movement. Wouldn't it be better to ask me in what contexts or per which conditions I'd be in favor of augmenting humans than to emit a disapproving groan which does nothing to help the discussion?
For the record, I'm in favor of anything which reduces suffering, so long as it doesn't generate a larger amount of suffering in some other realm; while not everyone would have to participate in a world interested in these things, I'd hope that they'd at least support their peers' (in this case, perhaps, people for whom death is frightening) wishes to be allowed to avoid the pain and terror that death often entails. We're both in favor of the human species no longer having children, an act lacking in consent from both parties; what to do after being born, in most cases, should be up to someone to decide themselves (rationally).
I am aware of the huge number of people who roll their eyes at these concepts, but they strike me as being no different from those members of the early KKK who might have rolled their eyes at the notion that blacks are fully human, demanding scientific "proof" and all.
Also, the guy that you just made a post about, Inmendham, has an entire channel dedicated to virtual reality. What do you think about that? Are you going to leave one-liners on all of that channel's videos, too?
These rapid-fire, back-and-forth, with-us-or-against-us tactics really are strange and discouraging. The idea that someone must agree with everything that you say or he or she is no longer in the "club" is utter nonsense. I'm willing to hear your arguments. Why aren't you willing to hear mine? Furthermore, how many blogs on this planet are in support of some ideal to which you are opposed? Why don't you leave similarly disapproving comments on them?
Note: Your comment struck me as hostile. If you have some kind of other explanation for it and its length, I would like to hear it. I will not moderate or censor you.
ReplyDeleteYou have the floor, if you want it.
Well, i think most antinatalists (and most anarchists, for that matter) are pretty hostile to transhumanism. It's seen as a distraction and dehumanization more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI think Ray Kurzweil is oblivious and too optimistic. I also think that transhumanism is mostly science fiction.
ReplyDeleteThe above exchange is a bit old now, but what basically happened was that I took issue with the ostensibly unproductive and dismissing tone of the poster, who seemed more interested in being belligerent than in trying to convince me of a particular stance. I would have appreciated some elaboration.
I also didn't appreciate the pigeonholing of some of my retroactive solutions to our problems into a "paradigm." To get through this, we have to be both proactive and retroactive, so under that premise, there shouldn't have been any contention with his position. I think the problem was moreso that my propositions sounded vaguely transhumanist, and it was much easier to simply put a label on them than to address the points themselves. If he'd done the latter, he would have realized that what I was suggesting didn't conflict with his way of viewing the world at all.