I am not arguing for the merits of either, but rather stating that there is a time for charity and a time for thrift. There can be no regret for a gift not recieved, especially when one was not aware of the gift one was about to get. It is your choice to get thrown out of your apartment, or to not give the stranger $100. But if you choose the latter, what grievance will be suffered by that stranger? None.
You're coming upon the most convincing argument against my position, and you've done so admirably. The problem I have with it is manifold, but can be broken down in a number of ways.
First of all, a baby is not a wad of bills. It's a baby. It will, in the fullness of time, but a walking, talking, functioning adult just like you or me. Life and love and hope and despair and all that. We can not lose sight of this when we are discussing this issue, even if we do not believe the fetus is a "person," per se, and even if we think it important that the fetus will "never know what hit it."
The issue of when he or she attains personhood is actually not the most important part of this argument. That is a very delicate and ephemeral subject. What is much more solid is the simple fact of this:
process.child = 1
[abortion]
process.child = 0
It is to this switching off that I stand opposed, whatever more or less anthropomorphic terms in which one might wish to couch it.
Furthermore, as this thread has demonstrated quite nicely, very few people would, in retrospect, wish to have been aborted. I've spent a great deal of time with some very hard done-by people, sir, and I can tell you that even among them there is very little in the way of this sentiment. If we were to tell a man twenty years down the road that he came this close to getting a hundred dollars for free today, I'd count it quite likely that he wouldn't then descend into the darkest halls of despair and frustration at such thwarted dreams. What we've seen, though, is a tendency to violently dismiss the idea of preemptively ending one's life, for all of its concomitant miseries.
With the exception of a very few tortured and unbalanced souls, it is universally agreed-upon that life is a very fine thing indeed, even when it isn't perfect. I oppose attempts to snuff it out before it even has a chance to get grim.
The money analogy also fails to really consider the emotional impact on the potential parents. The emotional investment in even an accidental child is, after all, quite enormous. Since you're the one making the analogy, I guess you can say that the impact of aborting your child and aborting your harebrained philanthropic plan at the last minute because you suddenly remembered something else you had to do if you'd like; I just don't have to accept it.
Quote from Harkius »
Furor:
Your argument, while logically coherent, is based on a potential flaw. No one can know whether a life will be good or bad, no. But, you are taking it as a given that life has an inherent value that is higher than the probability that the life in question will be bad, without any evidence. I understand why you would make this assumption, as why most people would, but you are not really proving your point.
In essence, your poll question could just as easily be: Do you think that life has inherent value. My answer: Nope.
Well, a fairly hefty part of my worldview is that people who do not value life are not very smart, and should not be approached for advice. :/
Existential nihilism, baby!
Yes, it's quite monstrous.
If I may ask:
Why, if life has no value, does it matter whether people are responsible or not? Just for starters.
EDIT:
Thanks to Goblinboy for fixing the poll.
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Then loom'd his streaming majesty From out that wine-dark fog, And spake he unto all our crew: "Go forth, and read my blog."
Until I exist, the magical ghostly image of my potential existence does not have some power over my parents. If they felt they were not emotionally or psychologically prepared to have a child, then yes, I would hope they at least had the choice. Notice that's why it's called the pro-choice movement, not the pro-letskillussomebabies movement.
I too have come to feed the troll....:kittybread: An offering of kittybread and spam.
Brilliant thread. A poll with a rhetorical question... I would suggest this thread be attached the to already existing Abortion Ban Passes thread, but you lose all of that important polling data.
Since you're inclined to be an ass, here's a spam warning. - sen
I've been through a lot of though sh*t in my life, but I'm definatly not here to complain. I wasn't born into a rich family, but not a poor family, a family that can just get by. And seeing how my playing magic can waste money, my parents encourage it because they know it makes me happy. I am a religious man; boy, I believe that there is a higher calling for me. I hope on becoming a doctor, or at least somebody who can help others in need. And there is many people in the world that need help despertly. I'm sure if they had a chance, they wouldn't have been born. If I were to die tomorrow? Thats fine. Although I have not experienced much in my 15 year life, I must say that to be able to be with God would be more than I can ask for. My friend's dad recently died, a day ago, and I don't want to know what hes going through right now. I think right now, he's feeling alot of things, maybe he wishes he was never born, maybe he doesn't feel anything. I don't know for sure, but thats not even the point.
To sum everything up, and to answer the question:
Do I wish I had been aborted? Hell no. Life is a sacred thing. We are all blessed to be living it. I know many will disagree with me, and I won't argue with you. Every night I pray for everyone in this world to be happy, to life their life to its fullest, to want to live.
P.S. Sorry if I "wasted" anybodies time if they disagree with me.
If I were going to be in extreme poverty with horrible drug addicted parents, I don't think I would want to be born either.
I do however think there is a difference. All of us, I assume, didn't have drug addicted horrible parents that definitley weren't ready to be parents at all. With that being said, I don't think the question is fair. Asking people now if they want to be aborted is kinda of a no brainer question. However, a fetus isn't alive, and wouldn't know the difference anyway. That may sound greedy, but it's the truth. This of course is just me.
I'm going to have to answer that this topic is irrelevant. No one that answers this poll could possibly have been aborted, otherwise they wouldn't be here. A more logical question would be "Do you wish you were dead?"
How odd. Even though I've already voted, the poll claims I have not. Is this happening to anyone else?
This is a result of the poll being fixed, which basically means it was deleted, remade in a private way, and then had the numbers tweaked to match the old one. Just don't vote twice.
Oh yes, and sorry for interrupting.
What's to interrupt? Clearly this thread is just a further example of my intellectual vacuousness and stubborn unwillingness to just stop trolling for even a goddamn moment rather than actually attempting to show some people how empty a certain argument is.
In other words, don't sweat it.
Quote from erikcu »
I too have come to feed the troll....:kittybread: An offering of kittybread and spam.
Jillickers, but you were justly warned.
Brilliant thread. A poll with a rhetorical question... I would suggest this thread be attached the to already existing Abortion Ban Passes thread, but you lose all of that important polling data.
This thread is attached to that thread. Note the several points at which I have mentioned that thread and provided links thereto. Note also the point in that thread in which I declare my intention to create this one. A clearer link there has never been.
Quote from Petear_Griffin »
If I were going to be in extreme poverty with horrible drug addicted parents, I don't think I would want to be born either.
I do however think there is a difference. All of us, I assume, didn't have drug addicted horrible parents that definitley weren't ready to be parents at all. With that being said, I don't think the question is fair. Asking people now if they want to be aborted is kinda of a no brainer question. However, a fetus isn't alive, and wouldn't know the difference anyway. That may sound greedy, but it's the truth. This of course is just me.
That's exactly the point. We can't ask the fetus. We can't tell the future. The only information we do have indicates a fierce and indomitable will to live in humans already existing, and it would be wrong to impugn a fetus with some sort of potential defeatist attitude merely on the strength of probability.
==
It is categorically wrong to kill people (or preemptively negate them or w/e) "for their own good" when we are in no way competent judges of what that "good" actually is. It is no job, as I have said, for the clumsy and malicious hands of man. Mere suffering is no sufficient reason to end life. To suffer is the lot of every man and woman born; it does not make us special.
Eugenics was wrong when it was a glorious buzzword, and it's still wrong now that it's a subtle agenda.
Quote from flaming infinity »
I'm going to have to answer that this topic is irrelevant. No one that answers this poll could possibly have been aborted, otherwise they wouldn't be here. A more logical question would be "Do you wish you were dead?"
Please read the thread, particularly any parts of it that might have enormous asterisks near them.
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Then loom'd his streaming majesty From out that wine-dark fog, And spake he unto all our crew: "Go forth, and read my blog."
I don't think that anyone believes that they are totally unemployable.
An earlier poster suggested that he was.
Some people can have a crappy job forever, "friends" that they don't really like, but they won't be contributing much, nor will they be happy. Maybe another disturbed person with several issues may love the person in question, but love is not always mutual.
A lot of things, like getting freinds/lovers/career are not just a simple f(w) function, where w is the amount of work. I can ask you to build a Star Destroyer...but the time, materials, and no-how do not exist...so it is impossible...yes things can actually be impossible.
In such a case, I would shrug off my desire to build such a Star Destroyer.
Trying to be likeble if you are a reject can be like trying to install Windows XP on a computer from the outside in....you just don't know what to do...and you get it from your childhood. It is not like a class, where you can learn it in a less than a lifetime and work to use it.
Then why be so obsessed with likability?
I am not saying that a "down man" is a "dead man", but that in a few cases, in certian areas, that is just the case.
How?? You're upset because of a lack of friends, so you want to never have existed? That is unbelievably petty.
Sorry, Harkius, I didn't see this reply until now.
Quote from Harkius »
That is, of course, your prerogative. Any good reasons why? Aside from the obvious claim that they don't offer rational advice, of course, as that is highly subjective.
Well, life, being the only thing you truly have, should perhaps merit some form of custodial consideration.
Let's not get offensive, now. I find your worldview just as detestable, but I won't attack it unprovoked.
What worldview is that, if you'd care to elaborate?
And I do not mean it offensively. If you think that existenstial nihilism doesn't logically lead to conclusions and actions that the rest of the world could consider monstrous, I'd like to know why. If we're going to speak of offense, anyhow, I might add that I am personally offended by the carefree way in which you throw such a concept around.
Of course you may. Let me clarify. Life has no inherent value. If you've done nothing to give your life value, than it is as if you'd never lived at all. Life, for life's sake, seems much less a profitable (in the non-monetary sense of the word, of course) enterprise than art for art's sake, and even that is debated, quite hotly. I hope this clarifies things. If I have given my life value, then someone else's irresponsibility could strongly impinge on my right to enjoy what I have worked for. As such, I find personal responsibility to be a very important (and sorely lacking) concept in the world these days.
How does something inherently valueless suddenly attain value? How does something inherently valueless improve itself?
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Then loom'd his streaming majesty From out that wine-dark fog, And spake he unto all our crew: "Go forth, and read my blog."
How?? You're upset because of a lack of friends, so you want to never have existed? That is unbelievably petty.
There are a lot of reason why it would better if I didn't exist. I never said "I have few friends so I want to have never existed", that is a strawman...on top of the fact that a will to live is arbitrary anyway...so "petty" as a subjective arbitrary term, since there is no correct reason for wanting to live.
Quote from T2 »
Then why be so obsessed with likability?
Who the heck is obsessed...humans are social animals...being able to communicate and not get a negative response most of the time is nice sometimes.
Interacting with other people is more than a small negligable fraction of life.
Please do not use strawmen like that, as it is trolling.
Click here to visit my userpage at Wikipedia, where I am currently an administrator.:cool2:
"Your attack has been rendered quite harmless, it is however, quite pretty." -Saprazzan vizier
"It was probably a lowsy spell in the first place." -Ertai, wizer adept
"The duel was going badly for me and Zur thought I was finished. He boasted that he would eat my soul--but all he ate were his words." -Gustha Ebbasdotter
There are a lot of reason why it would better if I didn't exist. I never said "I have few friends so I want to have never existed", that is a strawman...
The "you" was not directly refering to you. I was simply refering to an argument you listed as a possible reason. Not a strawman.
on top of the fact that a will to live is arbitrary anyway...
The will to live is inherent and instinctual.
so "petty" as a subjective arbitrary term, since there is no correct reason for wanting to live. Please do not use strawmen like that, as it is trolling.
Actually, my friend, this latter would be more of an ad hominem attack than a strawman, as it is (almost) insulting the reasons.
That said, it is neither fallacy, because the truth is, the will to live is inherent. A reason for defying one's instincts must be great indeed; a lack of good friends or a girlfriend (in one poster's case) hardly seem like good reasons for wanting to have never existed.
There is an inherent biological fear of death progammed into your mind that came due to evolution. I suppose, in effect, "not wanting to die" ends up being "wanting to live"...still, such a simple biological urge is not "correct/absolute" nor philosphically fundamental. If I did everything based on instinct...I would be in jail or dead right now.
Instinct can be useful...but it needs to be filtered through thought/logic. When you consider what is best for the world and how much suffering or hapiness is created...you realize that instinct and the "life is good NO MATTER WHAT, pain is better than nothing" idea that people often proport is just arbitrary.
If someone loses the will to live, why do people suddenly start wanting to make it impossible for that person to kill themself...and then go back not giving a damn afterwards? Sometimes people get suicidal over nothing and are loved, and needed...and so in that case people should try to save the person, and help them afterwards.
In some cases an elderly person may become so sick and require so much artificial life support, suffering, and immobility that s/he does not want to live anymore. I do not see what is so unreasonable about that (getting a bit off topic). The biological "will to live" has its limits.
The automatic "suicidal people are just lazy self-ish retards" response people often give just does not cut it. Is that true for some people?...yes....but it sure is a broad stroke of the brush.
Click here to visit my userpage at Wikipedia, where I am currently an administrator.:cool2:
"Your attack has been rendered quite harmless, it is however, quite pretty." -Saprazzan vizier
"It was probably a lowsy spell in the first place." -Ertai, wizer adept
"The duel was going badly for me and Zur thought I was finished. He boasted that he would eat my soul--but all he ate were his words." -Gustha Ebbasdotter
The only information we do have indicates a fierce and indomitable will to live in humans already existing, and it would be wrong to impugn a fetus with some sort of potential defeatist attitude merely on the strength of probability.
Maybe so, but we are living, and know what we each have going for us. Other kids that could come from teen pregnancies probably wouldn't have many perks at all. I think since we know what it is like to live, it would mean more to take our life now, than to take the potential life of something that wouldn't know the difference anyway.
There is an inherent biological fear of death progammed into your mind that came due to evolution. I suppose, in effect, "not wanting to die" ends up being "wanting to live"...still, such a simple biological urge is not "correct/absolute" nor philosphically fundamental. If I did everything based on instinct...I would be in jail or dead right now.
Instinct can be useful...but it needs to be filtered through thought/logic. When you consider what is best for the world and how much suffering or hapiness is created...you realize that instinct and the "life is good NO MATTER WHAT, pain is better than nothing" idea that people often proport is just arbitrary.
If someone loses the will to live, why do people suddenly start wanting to make it impossible for that person to kill themself...and then go back not giving a damn afterwards? Sometimes people get suicidal over nothing and are loved, and needed...and so in that case people should try to save the person, and help them afterwards.
In some cases an elderly person may become so sick and require so much artificial life support, suffering, and immobility that s/he does not want to live anymore. I do not see what is so unreasonable about that (getting a bit off topic). The biological "will to live" has its limits.
The automatic "suicidal people are just lazy self-ish retards" response people often give just does not cut it. Is that true for some people?...yes....but it sure is a broad stroke of the brush.
Incidentally, I support the right to commit suicide. I don't think anyone has the right to prevent someone from ending their own life.
That said, I think there is a fine line---personally, that is---between committing suicide due to intense physical pain (as in Euthenasia), or real, intense emotional pain--and then on the other side, wishing to die due to a lack of friends and a good job.
You can say that it's arbitrary, but think about it. In the first case, there is no chance of recovery. But in the second, it is potentially (and most likely) short term. Just because you're a social reject at 24, that does not mean it will be so when you're 34. To end you're life based on what is ultimately a short-lived (no pun intended) condition is, undeniably, petty.
You're coming upon the most convincing argument against my position, and you've done so admirably. The problem I have with it is manifold, but can be broken down in a number of ways.
First of all, a baby is not a wad of bills. It's a baby. It will, in the fullness of time, but a walking, talking, functioning adult just like you or me. Life and love and hope and despair and all that. We can not lose sight of this when we are discussing this issue, even if we do not believe the fetus is a "person," per se, and even if we think it important that the fetus will "never know what hit it."
The issue of when he or she attains personhood is actually not the most important part of this argument. That is a very delicate and ephemeral subject. What is much more solid is the simple fact of this:
process.child = 1
[abortion]
process.child = 0
It is to this switching off that I stand opposed, whatever more or less anthropomorphic terms in which one might wish to couch it.
Furthermore, as this thread has demonstrated quite nicely, very few people would, in retrospect, wish to have been aborted. I've spent a great deal of time with some very hard done-by people, sir, and I can tell you that even among them there is very little in the way of this sentiment. If we were to tell a man twenty years down the road that he came this close to getting a hundred dollars for free today, I'd count it quite likely that he wouldn't then descend into the darkest halls of despair and frustration at such thwarted dreams. What we've seen, though, is a tendency to violently dismiss the idea of preemptively ending one's life, for all of its concomitant miseries.
With the exception of a very few tortured and unbalanced souls, it is universally agreed-upon that life is a very fine thing indeed, even when it isn't perfect. I oppose attempts to snuff it out before it even has a chance to get grim.
The money analogy also fails to really consider the emotional impact on the potential parents. The emotional investment in even an accidental child is, after all, quite enormous. Since you're the one making the analogy, I guess you can say that the impact of aborting your child and aborting your harebrained philanthropic plan at the last minute because you suddenly remembered something else you had to do if you'd like; I just don't have to accept it.
Well, since you brought up consequentialism, I will offer this.
No Abortion= Highest number of babies born
Abortion= Highest proportion of babies born into familes that want them.
I throw my lot in with that which desires the most happiness and prosperity for all directly involved. Somewhat utilitarian, but I'm odd that way.
EDIT: This was a good thread for me. not one, but TWO people acknowledging (somewhat) a good argument from me? I think this is a historic day.
Furthermore, as this thread has demonstrated quite nicely, very few people would, in retrospect, wish to have been aborted. I've spent a great deal of time with some very hard done-by people, sir, and I can tell you that even among them there is very little in the way of this sentiment... What we've seen, though, is a tendency to violently dismiss the idea of preemptively ending one's life, for all of its concomitant miseries.
This is not argument against abortion. This is an argument against birth control and any sort of population limitation whatsoever.
Would anyone, in retrospect, wish that their parents were celibate or had chosen not to have them? Even possibly in the worst and most cruel corners of the Earth, you are unlikely to find more than a handful who wish they had never been born. Humans have a will to live... so what? All potentials should be appropriately honored? I think it's pretty obvious population control is a good thing.
I don't see where (or how) you make a distinction between the merely unborn and the unreal, so this the natural line of attack. You realize that process.child starts in some sense upon having sex, or choosing to become intimate, or getting in a relationship, or even upon the birth of the parents.
I don't seriously expect this argument to score a hit, but I want to see your response.
DC makes the fair point, and I'd also like to see a response to my statement. Why is the question yes/no? Am I happy that I wasn't aborted? Sure. Did by unborn spirit have magical powers over my parents to stop them from doing what they thought was fiscally and psychologically expedient? No.
[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=black]An earlier poster suggested that he was.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=#000000][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=#000000]In such a case, I would shrug off my desire to build such a Star Destroyer.[/COLOR]
[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=black]Then why be so obsessed with likability?[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=#000000][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#00008b][COLOR=black]How?? You're upset because of a lack of friends, so you want to never have existed? That is unbelievably petty.[/COLOR][/COLOR]
hey, I missed this exchange, maybe this guy had autism or something, so he can't make friends or relate to people and doesn't understand why.
It's one thing to suffer but an entirely different thing to suffer in social isolation. None of us can claim to be truly isolated. But if you're autistic it's possible. If you can't speak, or are deaf, its possible.
I'm not saying life as an autistic person isn't worth living. But don't judge until you have taken a spin in the other mans moccasins.
hey, I missed this exchange, maybe this guy had autism or something, so he can't make friends or relate to people and doesn't understand why.
And, I'm sure, does not care.
It's one thing to suffer but an entirely different thing to suffer in social isolation. None of us can claim to be truly isolated. But if you're autistic it's possible. If you can't speak, or are deaf, its possible.
Deaf persons are not "isolated" in the same way as those with autism. They socialize nicely, though perhaps with a little more effort.
I'm not saying life as an autistic person isn't worth living. But don't judge until you have taken a spin in the other mans moccasins.
I'm not even sure what you're talking about. I was not judging people for being physically isolated--the people to whom I was refering are those social outcasts with no foresight.
Quote from Stax »
Why is the question yes/no? Am I happy that I wasn't aborted? Sure. Did by unborn spirit have magical powers over my parents to stop them from doing what they thought was fiscally and psychologically expedient? No.
And yet, several posters have been able to answer the question, in hindsight, which is the key here.
The actual question is: Would you prever a swift, painless death, before awareness kicks in, or a slow, painfull death, 'enjoying' the slow deteriation, or having to choose death while fully concious!?
No matter how hard you try or 'get over yourself' ultimately one will see themself becoming a shadow of their former self, slowly losing everything. Or possibly die a violent death. The latter sounds almost merciful.
Arkham, the 1920's. Investigators battle horrors from beyond time and space, risking life and sanity while conspiracies of cultists and malign servitors seek gateways for their outer gods to return...
Soon, the stars will be right! Great Cthulhu shall rise!
And yet, several posters have been able to answer the question, in hindsight, which is the key here.
But the hindsight answer is completely pointless. Of course people who are alive want to stay alive. Wow, amazazing. The issue is that when a woman is pregnant and feels she cannot care for the child (for whatever reason) or is warned the child could harm/kill her in birth, she should not be forced into bringing it into the world just because it will eventually not want to die. You can insult the analogy (as many have in the past) as much as you want, but you need a liscense to own a gun in the US but you don't need a liscense to own a block of steel (which could become a gun under the right processes). Potential humanity /=/ humanity under the law.
First of all, a baby is not a wad of bills. It's a baby. It will, in the fullness of time, but a walking, talking, functioning adult just like you or me. Life and love and hope and despair and all that. We can not lose sight of this when we are discussing this issue, even if we do not believe the fetus is a "person," per se, and even if we think it important that the fetus will "never know what hit it."
The issue of when he or she attains personhood is actually not the most important part of this argument. That is a very delicate and ephemeral subject. What is much more solid is the simple fact of this:
process.child = 1
[abortion]
process.child = 0
It is to this switching off that I stand opposed, whatever more or less anthropomorphic terms in which one might wish to couch it.
Furthermore, as this thread has demonstrated quite nicely, very few people would, in retrospect, wish to have been aborted. I've spent a great deal of time with some very hard done-by people, sir, and I can tell you that even among them there is very little in the way of this sentiment. If we were to tell a man twenty years down the road that he came this close to getting a hundred dollars for free today, I'd count it quite likely that he wouldn't then descend into the darkest halls of despair and frustration at such thwarted dreams. What we've seen, though, is a tendency to violently dismiss the idea of preemptively ending one's life, for all of its concomitant miseries.
With the exception of a very few tortured and unbalanced souls, it is universally agreed-upon that life is a very fine thing indeed, even when it isn't perfect. I oppose attempts to snuff it out before it even has a chance to get grim.
The money analogy also fails to really consider the emotional impact on the potential parents. The emotional investment in even an accidental child is, after all, quite enormous. Since you're the one making the analogy, I guess you can say that the impact of aborting your child and aborting your harebrained philanthropic plan at the last minute because you suddenly remembered something else you had to do if you'd like; I just don't have to accept it.
Well, a fairly hefty part of my worldview is that people who do not value life are not very smart, and should not be approached for advice. :/
Yes, it's quite monstrous.
If I may ask:
Why, if life has no value, does it matter whether people are responsible or not? Just for starters.
EDIT:
Thanks to Goblinboy for fixing the poll.
From out that wine-dark fog,
And spake he unto all our crew:
"Go forth, and read my blog."
Oh yes, and sorry for interrupting.
By kingcobweb and Goblinboy.
Official Elitist of [thread=40859][RBS][/thread]
Brilliant thread. A poll with a rhetorical question... I would suggest this thread be attached the to already existing Abortion Ban Passes thread, but you lose all of that important polling data.
Since you're inclined to be an ass, here's a spam warning. - sen
To sum everything up, and to answer the question:
Do I wish I had been aborted? Hell no. Life is a sacred thing. We are all blessed to be living it. I know many will disagree with me, and I won't argue with you. Every night I pray for everyone in this world to be happy, to life their life to its fullest, to want to live.
P.S. Sorry if I "wasted" anybodies time if they disagree with me.
Like what you see? Drop by {TB&J} Sigs & Avvys and request one of your own!
I do however think there is a difference. All of us, I assume, didn't have drug addicted horrible parents that definitley weren't ready to be parents at all. With that being said, I don't think the question is fair. Asking people now if they want to be aborted is kinda of a no brainer question. However, a fetus isn't alive, and wouldn't know the difference anyway. That may sound greedy, but it's the truth. This of course is just me.
What's to interrupt? Clearly this thread is just a further example of my intellectual vacuousness and stubborn unwillingness to just stop trolling for even a goddamn moment rather than actually attempting to show some people how empty a certain argument is.
In other words, don't sweat it.
Jillickers, but you were justly warned.
This thread is attached to that thread. Note the several points at which I have mentioned that thread and provided links thereto. Note also the point in that thread in which I declare my intention to create this one. A clearer link there has never been.
That's exactly the point. We can't ask the fetus. We can't tell the future. The only information we do have indicates a fierce and indomitable will to live in humans already existing, and it would be wrong to impugn a fetus with some sort of potential defeatist attitude merely on the strength of probability.
==
It is categorically wrong to kill people (or preemptively negate them or w/e) "for their own good" when we are in no way competent judges of what that "good" actually is. It is no job, as I have said, for the clumsy and malicious hands of man. Mere suffering is no sufficient reason to end life. To suffer is the lot of every man and woman born; it does not make us special.
Eugenics was wrong when it was a glorious buzzword, and it's still wrong now that it's a subtle agenda.
Please read the thread, particularly any parts of it that might have enormous asterisks near them.
From out that wine-dark fog,
And spake he unto all our crew:
"Go forth, and read my blog."
An earlier poster suggested that he was.
Some people can have a crappy job forever, "friends" that they don't really like, but they won't be contributing much, nor will they be happy. Maybe another disturbed person with several issues may love the person in question, but love is not always mutual.
A lot of things, like getting freinds/lovers/career are not just a simple f(w) function, where w is the amount of work. I can ask you to build a Star Destroyer...but the time, materials, and no-how do not exist...so it is impossible...yes things can actually be impossible.
In such a case, I would shrug off my desire to build such a Star Destroyer.
Then why be so obsessed with likability?
I am not saying that a "down man" is a "dead man", but that in a few cases, in certian areas, that is just the case.
How?? You're upset because of a lack of friends, so you want to never have existed? That is unbelievably petty.
Well, life, being the only thing you truly have, should perhaps merit some form of custodial consideration.
What worldview is that, if you'd care to elaborate?
And I do not mean it offensively. If you think that existenstial nihilism doesn't logically lead to conclusions and actions that the rest of the world could consider monstrous, I'd like to know why. If we're going to speak of offense, anyhow, I might add that I am personally offended by the carefree way in which you throw such a concept around.
How does something inherently valueless suddenly attain value? How does something inherently valueless improve itself?
From out that wine-dark fog,
And spake he unto all our crew:
"Go forth, and read my blog."
There are a lot of reason why it would better if I didn't exist. I never said "I have few friends so I want to have never existed", that is a strawman...on top of the fact that a will to live is arbitrary anyway...so "petty" as a subjective arbitrary term, since there is no correct reason for wanting to live.
Who the heck is obsessed...humans are social animals...being able to communicate and not get a negative response most of the time is nice sometimes.
Interacting with other people is more than a small negligable fraction of life.
Please do not use strawmen like that, as it is trolling.
"Your attack has been rendered quite harmless, it is however, quite pretty." -Saprazzan vizier
"It was probably a lowsy spell in the first place." -Ertai, wizer adept
"The duel was going badly for me and Zur thought I was finished. He boasted that he would eat my soul--but all he ate were his words." -Gustha Ebbasdotter
The "you" was not directly refering to you. I was simply refering to an argument you listed as a possible reason. Not a strawman.
The will to live is inherent and instinctual.
Actually, my friend, this latter would be more of an ad hominem attack than a strawman, as it is (almost) insulting the reasons.
That said, it is neither fallacy, because the truth is, the will to live is inherent. A reason for defying one's instincts must be great indeed; a lack of good friends or a girlfriend (in one poster's case) hardly seem like good reasons for wanting to have never existed.
Instinct can be useful...but it needs to be filtered through thought/logic. When you consider what is best for the world and how much suffering or hapiness is created...you realize that instinct and the "life is good NO MATTER WHAT, pain is better than nothing" idea that people often proport is just arbitrary.
If someone loses the will to live, why do people suddenly start wanting to make it impossible for that person to kill themself...and then go back not giving a damn afterwards? Sometimes people get suicidal over nothing and are loved, and needed...and so in that case people should try to save the person, and help them afterwards.
In some cases an elderly person may become so sick and require so much artificial life support, suffering, and immobility that s/he does not want to live anymore. I do not see what is so unreasonable about that (getting a bit off topic). The biological "will to live" has its limits.
The automatic "suicidal people are just lazy self-ish retards" response people often give just does not cut it. Is that true for some people?...yes....but it sure is a broad stroke of the brush.
"Your attack has been rendered quite harmless, it is however, quite pretty." -Saprazzan vizier
"It was probably a lowsy spell in the first place." -Ertai, wizer adept
"The duel was going badly for me and Zur thought I was finished. He boasted that he would eat my soul--but all he ate were his words." -Gustha Ebbasdotter
Maybe so, but we are living, and know what we each have going for us. Other kids that could come from teen pregnancies probably wouldn't have many perks at all. I think since we know what it is like to live, it would mean more to take our life now, than to take the potential life of something that wouldn't know the difference anyway.
Incidentally, I support the right to commit suicide. I don't think anyone has the right to prevent someone from ending their own life.
That said, I think there is a fine line---personally, that is---between committing suicide due to intense physical pain (as in Euthenasia), or real, intense emotional pain--and then on the other side, wishing to die due to a lack of friends and a good job.
You can say that it's arbitrary, but think about it. In the first case, there is no chance of recovery. But in the second, it is potentially (and most likely) short term. Just because you're a social reject at 24, that does not mean it will be so when you're 34. To end you're life based on what is ultimately a short-lived (no pun intended) condition is, undeniably, petty.
No Abortion= Highest number of babies born
Abortion= Highest proportion of babies born into familes that want them.
I throw my lot in with that which desires the most happiness and prosperity for all directly involved. Somewhat utilitarian, but I'm odd that way.
EDIT: This was a good thread for me. not one, but TWO people acknowledging (somewhat) a good argument from me? I think this is a historic day.
Would anyone, in retrospect, wish that their parents were celibate or had chosen not to have them? Even possibly in the worst and most cruel corners of the Earth, you are unlikely to find more than a handful who wish they had never been born. Humans have a will to live... so what? All potentials should be appropriately honored? I think it's pretty obvious population control is a good thing.
I don't see where (or how) you make a distinction between the merely unborn and the unreal, so this the natural line of attack. You realize that process.child starts in some sense upon having sex, or choosing to become intimate, or getting in a relationship, or even upon the birth of the parents.
I don't seriously expect this argument to score a hit, but I want to see your response.
hey, I missed this exchange, maybe this guy had autism or something, so he can't make friends or relate to people and doesn't understand why.
It's one thing to suffer but an entirely different thing to suffer in social isolation. None of us can claim to be truly isolated. But if you're autistic it's possible. If you can't speak, or are deaf, its possible.
I'm not saying life as an autistic person isn't worth living. But don't judge until you have taken a spin in the other mans moccasins.
And, I'm sure, does not care.
Deaf persons are not "isolated" in the same way as those with autism. They socialize nicely, though perhaps with a little more effort.
I'm not even sure what you're talking about. I was not judging people for being physically isolated--the people to whom I was refering are those social outcasts with no foresight.
And yet, several posters have been able to answer the question, in hindsight, which is the key here.
Obviously everyone is happy to recieve the gift of life. Does that mean one is obligated to give it? No.
No matter how hard you try or 'get over yourself' ultimately one will see themself becoming a shadow of their former self, slowly losing everything. Or possibly die a violent death. The latter sounds almost merciful.
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But the hindsight answer is completely pointless. Of course people who are alive want to stay alive. Wow, amazazing. The issue is that when a woman is pregnant and feels she cannot care for the child (for whatever reason) or is warned the child could harm/kill her in birth, she should not be forced into bringing it into the world just because it will eventually not want to die. You can insult the analogy (as many have in the past) as much as you want, but you need a liscense to own a gun in the US but you don't need a liscense to own a block of steel (which could become a gun under the right processes). Potential humanity /=/ humanity under the law.
You're just rephrasing the fundamental difference of opinion between the two sides, Stax.
To pro-lifers, a fetus is not a potential human, it is a human.
A) I think you're insane. Also, your post is borderline trollish, and I'd hope the mods see it that way as well.
B) You should be shot for even thinking to use a Star Trek quote in a serious debate thread.
C) The original Riker line is "Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever." If you're going to quote, do it right.
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