Mucho texto

How did yall somehow make this negative

So sweet.

@Background Pony #4D7B  
Honestly, with the amount of crawling in my skin in these comments, I think it’s the last place you should bring rope.

OK I going in to read comments, pull me back up when I tug on the rope twice or if I’m down longer than 30 minutes

To all of the long comments:  

@Meh brony  
Outlooks become self fulfilling prophesies.
 
If everyone had an attitude more like yours, the world would have less than a tenth the problems it does.
 
It doesn’t just make you happier to be like that, it’s the ethical thing to do.

@Rubs  
So basically in the long run cynicism will always cause more harm than good?  
Seems about right.  
I’ve always found It odd how people with cynical outlooks such as nihilsts and misanthropes (the latter of which who are sadly common in the brony fandom.) look down on people with positive outlooks as foolish and weak when In reality it takes a lot more strength and wisdom to be positive than negative, In my personal life experience I’ve had to deal with, the fact my brother in law got another woman pregnant 5 years ago while he was dating my older sister something that nobody found out about until last November which caused my sister to be depressed for about a month, the fact that the cousin i saw as an older brother was hiding that he was selling drugs for years and was deported after being caught, the fact that I live in a neighborhood where shootings happen at least once a month sometimes once a week and more yet I refuse to let myself be consumed by the negativity of it all.

@Cirrus Light  
It’s toxic thinking with no benefits

@Rubs  
People forget that their actions have consequences all the time.
 
And you want them to remember their ideas have consequences, too? :p

Nihilism and its ideas never work.  
Negative outlook only results in negative experience.

I so want this happen

@Antonyourknee  
I think so.
 
I put a lot of work into that and it paid off nothing. Or, it seemed to. It made an hour or two of my life devoid of meaning.
 
Yet I decided to be optimistic - maybe because I got so upset, and decided to re-write it, but now with the ideas so much clearer in my head from having written it, I’ve probably written something much better.
 
So I decided to endow my suffering with meaning, and thus make it worthwhile, even if all I learned was “don’t waste so much time commenting” (though I also really do think it helped me sort ideas in my head).
 
That’s the response of someone who’s resilient against depression because they’ve fought with it a lot before.
 

 
Someone who hasn’t worked towards building that resilience and doesn’t practice it, will throw up their arms and say “it’s all meaningless!” as they do with life.
 
Everything is a microcosm of life in some way, since life is made of everything.

@Background Pony #92E7  
@PonyPonyPonyP0ny  
It’s a fundamental clash of underlying ideology.
 
The fundamental argument underpinning antinatalism is that life is a net negative. That you weigh the good times vs. the bad and measure life in that way.
 
But that’s not how people measure life.
 
Firstly, life has intrinsic value. We believe this because killing is bad, so it must be that life has some wonderful value to it.
 
Secondly, at some level we understand that existence itself is the highest good. Antinatalism completely fails to recognize this. We’ll go see a sad play or a scary movie or even fight in simulated wars in videogames because it doesn’t matter if the games make us rage, the plays make us sad, or the movie makes us scared. Those are all “bad” emotions, but we’d rather feel something than nothing. That’s because we understand that existence itself, not pleasure, is the highest good. And the more we feel, the more we exist in some way.
 
Thirdly, antinatalism is saying life has no meaning that makes it worthwhile. It’s just pain and pleasure, that’s all. No greater meaning to make all the pain “worth it”, ie worthwhile. If you waited in line for 3 hours for a 5-minute ride at Six Flags, then you decided before you entered that line, that those 5 minutes were worth those 3 hours of waiting in line.
 
Similarly, life is mostly waiting in line. It’s mostly working. Yes, there’s a lot of pain and misery. But the bits of joy we get to experience from it make it worthwhile. For me, that’s those moments of reflection, and I’m currently deciding what else to invest my life in - there are other things that will make it worthwhile, too. Certainly I hope to have a mate one day, and good moments together will make life worthwhile. I’ll also maybe write and weave wondrous worlds, learn a lot more physics, maybe design space launch vehicles - and those will also make life a bit more worthwhile.
 

 
This picture depicts one of the most wonderful, worthwhile things of life. The sheer unimaginable joy of feeling such love and care for an infant, and the wonder of introducing them to existence, and loving them so much you didn’t know it was possible to love that much. That is a sheer waterfall of meaning and joy that makes all of life worthwhile.
 
Then we get people in the comments saying, “life isn’t worthwhile! She shouldn’t have had that child that makes her so happy and makes her life so meaningful and wonderful because life is miserable and has no meaning or wonder.”
 
Your actual words are “life is net suffering so I don’t think I should have children”, but you always think you should do what you believe is right, so you’re asserting indirectly that not having children is the right thing to do, ie, Rarity shouldn’t have. And the reason you assert that, is “life is net suffering”, which means you believe life isn’t meaningful and wonderful.
 

 
In other words, you’re indirectly, yet very strongly attacking all the sweet love and tender joy the image invokes, even if a little. You’re literally ideologically combating the meaning and purpose in life.
 
Naturally, people’s response is to be hostile and defensive since you’re actively posing a threat to everything they value by attacking the idea of value itself.
 
While I halfway agree with nihilism’s assertion that there’s no fundamental value - there is most certainly value. Each person chooses what they value, and lives according to that. But those values are very real. But if you’re arguing life isn’t worthwhile, you’re arguing there are no values, since values are what make life worthwhile.

@Cirrus Light  
I feel like theirs a metaphor in their somewhere.

I just spent like an hour writing a response… Maybe two. Writing it, carefully editing it and making things right…
 
And “your comment could not be posted”.
 
The whole thing is gone now.
 
…
 
…
 
I feel a little like crying.

@Background Pony #92E7  
See, here’s the thing, if people are enjoying something, and you kick the door down and screams your bloody lungs out about how you don’t enjoy the subject matter, of course you’re gonna be told to shut up.  
Yeah, life sucks, what of it? You think you’re fucking special because you “figured it out” or some shit? No, everyone knows it, but unlike you mopey idiots, we try to make the most of it, or at least try to better our situation instead of just going around whining about how much our life sucks. Get your head out of your ass, you’re not important enough for people to go out their way to cater to you, if people want to enjoy their lives and you don’t feel like they should no one will give a shit.
 
How’s that for tolerant?

@Deserter  
It amounts to discharing, but apparently if the flavor of your discharge doesn’t exactly match what’s in vogue, you get told that you’re wrong by default and to keep your head buried in the mounds of artificial sweetener that is modernity. So much for our “Tolerant” Times.

@Background Pony #92E7  
Because bitching and moaning about how shit your life is in the internet while other people are trying to enjoy themselves amounts to nothing.  
Because, hey, you’re in a shit mood, so everyone else has to be as well, right? How dare they enjoy what you don’t.

@mjangelvortex  
Not everybody is subscribed to the modern world’s obsession with Posivity and wuv. How did feeling in any way dissatisfied and jaded become a crime, is beyond me.
 
What is this? ‘It’s a Good Life’?

@PonyPonyPonyP0ny  
No I’m fine, I could enter the conversation as I’ve been keeping up with it but let’s be frank. It’s not going to accomplish anything for the greater good, its merely and exchange and nothing more. Reminds me of my ethics course back in college, a battle of words not inherently bad mind you. Just what is the end game?

@FeroxUltrus  

 
The last few comments aren’t hostile as the first few controversial ones. You might learn a thing or two if you read them with an open mind. :)
 
@Cirrus Light  
I’m referring to the ‘sure a vegan says that’ thing when it comes to my comment addressing the ad-hominem, but I made a dire mistake in mistaking you as someone else. My apologies, my attention was probably elsewhere.
 
I hope you don’t mind that I occasionally tackle your statements head-on one by one, for it’s the easiest way I can try to tackle your reasoning at the moment.
 
Your enthusiasm for progress and science is nothing but charming and inspirational. I wish more people reflected your attitude. I don’t need to tell you that the world would be far better off, even if we have come so far already. But, realistically speaking, most people don’t, and I have a feeling (nothing more than that) that education isn’t the soul cause of this. Though a lot of talent in the world lies untapped, not every single person can become a scientist or researcher. Not everybody has that intellectual capacity. Even a lot that do focus it on other interests such as philosophy or mathematics - though I would readily admit that the latter is far more practical and useful than the former.
 
This is not to say we cannot appreciate what science has done for us. I know just as strongly as you how much we take for granted things that would otherwise not exist; just how comfortable the average life has become even compared to a mere century ago. I realize just as strongly as you how much it opens our minds to the possibilities and what lies within reach. I see this on a daily basis myself, no small thanks to the power of the internet. Space and astrophysics is amazing and exciting. I had a love for it myself as a teenager and still find interest in it, even if not as much. A lot of people realize it. But most people don’t. Most people don’t seem to have a single clue about space, with some even citing old, invalid statements from some Greek philosopher about gravity existing because ‘objects yearn to be close to one-another’, which is blatantly false. I don’t think I need to stress on the general level of ignorance on science in our world.
 
Carl Sagan himself said it perfectly: “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” I do not know how the trends look for careers pursued in STEM, but it remains a point to be made that not everybody can wonder and marvel at the universe like you do - not only that but the vast majority of people don’t, so I don’t think that’s a good argument. Consequently I don’t find it rationally sound that it is worth pro-creating just to give someone the chance to experience the ‘wonders’ of the universe when there’s little chance they will. You’d have to be gifted in one way or another for life’s woes and concerns to be dampened by your curiosity and pursuit of understanding. Not a lot of people are. No offense meant, but unless I misunderstood you, there’s not a whole lot of essence to that argument.
 
You mentioned that “you’re not giving birth to people in impoverished foreign countries. You’re giving birth to someone in the pinnacle of human civilization” I agree wholly, as mentioned earlier, that our lives are far more easier and that there’s considerably much less suffering because of our pursuit of progress, but not everybody gets to enjoy that progress. Drought, sickness, human trafficking, war, natural disasters and crippling socioeconomic circumstances still affect a lot of people in the world. That’s listing just a few things. We may be at the pinnacle of human civilization but there’s still a good chance you’ll be born to conditions that don’t see much benefit from it; first-world scientific advances aren’t enjoyed by every single person in the third world.
 
HIV and AIDS are still rife in Africa, and people consider it to be far worse than a whole lot of diseases that historically plagued us, pun intended! Getting from point A to B has become far easier than ever before, thanks to the power of internal combustion, and this has drastically improved quality of life, but not everyone benefits from it all the time. Walking is still the primary form of getting from here to somewhere else, in today’s world. Computers have had, arguably, perhaps the greatest of impact on the world today in comparison to other breakthroughs, but there are still many millions of people who are very illiterate about digital technology because they never got the chance to learn about it – so this doesn’t help them that much. All in all, those who benefit from technological leaps are those who can afford to benefit from them.
 
That tiny amount of people you mention is many millions of people. Are they negligible to you? Not to imply that you suggest so, but that is 1 million successful suicides every year, and about 1 out of 25 people attempt suicide. It is a minority, I agree, but it is still a lot of people whose account you cannot just turn away from.
 
Overpopulation can’t be considered something that ‘solves problems’, because that is a problem in itself and that much is obvious. So procreation doesn’t always solve problems.
 
As mentioned in my first comment, it is impossible to bring about someone else into the world for their own good. You cannot deny someone who doesn’t already exist the right to life. This becomes a little dubious when it comes to abortion but is otherwise perfectly sound. It’s referred to as the ‘non-identity’ problem in moral literature. The gist of the antinatalism argument is that very thing; by bringing someone into existence, you always harm them in doing so, because most lives are worse than their consciousness (honestly) admit and the good cannot outweigh the bad from a logical point of view. I believe that’s a good reason most, if not at least a lot of our senior citizens are always grumpy. The average life isn’t as good as you pretend it to be, not even today. It’s just much better than it would have been even just two centuries ago, and that shouldn’t be confused with the former statement.
 
Now that we can drive our own cars, more people can own homes, cellphones and computers, etc…, it does bring into the realization a new form of harm such as cyber-bullying (something I personally would have been far better off with), crime as a result of the poverty that technological advances create (they will slit your throat in my country just to take your cellphone), hate groups and communities that cause harm (pedophiles use the anonymity of the internet to get away with what they do, human trafficking and illegal arms and drug markets), the anonymity itself that can cause personal harm and ruin people’s lives (far easier now that we trust tech companies with all our personal information). It’s not all sunshine and daisies, even if it appears so.
 
“It’s literally the most wondrous and existentially thrilling thing you’ve ever experienced” I don’t understand what you’re saying here, sorry. Not unless you mean it’s the only thing you’ve ever experienced, because it doesn’t make sense to me otherwise.
 
“And life is just so horrible that it’s not right to let anyone new experience all of that?” You cannot bring a child into existence for that child’s sake. Depriving someone of existing cannot constitute a net harm to them because they wouldn’t have experienced not knowing it, and that assumes that, were they real, they would love to experience it in the first place. As I mentioned before, that’s not nearly as often the case as you think it is. But assume the opposite for a second. How would there be a net benefit by bringing someone into existence for this very reason when it’s happening in the first place? I might have misunderstood, but you’re either contemplating a scenario in which very few people decide to have children, or that one couple not bringing a person into existence  
is bad because that possible person will never get to experience the wonders of the universe - which blithely ignores the pain they will experience. This is illogical, whether it’s the former or the latter. You’re assuming that their fascination with life will make up for all the suffering in their life. How does this work?
 
“It’s worthwhile even if just to see that, never mind the possibility of personal joy in a mate, family, etc.” Though it may apply to many more people than the collective population who have STEM careers as well as teaching careers, I believe this argument is nothing more than anecdotal. It seems that you assume you are speaking for everyone, if not the majority of people alive today, which, if that be the case, is a little delusional (of a position to hold, not of you yourself).
 
Try not to shoot down an idea just by hearing a few stanzas about it and calling it bullocks based off of that. More often than not, one simply can’t paraphrase an entire book’s worth of information into a few lines of text. A quote usually (but falsely) attributed to Aristotle goes as follows: “It is the mark of an educated person to entertain an idea without accepting it.” This phrase reflects a lot with me, no matter how much it’s been taken out of context, because it carries meaning. I see a lot of people hear something, formulate what it really means in their minds just after hearing a personal interpretation of it that takes the form of a few sentences, then decide to accept or deny it based on that alone. I hope you see where I am going with this. But I know assumptions can’t always be helped.
 
Just a last thing though. Were you sarcastic about the genocide thing? I don’t mean to be offend but if it weren’t, that’s some backwards logic. Not creating people is somehow killing a large group of people?

@Pagan  
The Earth’s immune system? So the world was overpopulated at 450 million? What about the several billion we comfortably sat at for a long time?
 
There is absolutely no issue with raw resources on Earth. It can certainly look that way due to poverty around the world, but in terms or raw natural resources, the Earth has plenty and more. The damn thing is 5.97*10^24 kg, and cities cover some 2-3%, with vast unending tracks of untouched land bigger than you can imagine. Honestly that 2-3% figure looks ridiculously inflated, to me.
 
You know the whole “space is big. Very big” thing? Well, Earth is an astronomical object. It is big. Very big. You can fly a plane for hours in many parts of the world without seeing another human being. To say nothing of the oceans. We do not have an issue with raw resource availability. A few rare earth metals are in short supply or monopolized by just one or a few nations, but asteroid mining is on its way to reality and may really change things there.
 
With poverty, what we have is an issue with resource management, not availability. And the issue is way more complex and nuanced than many people would like to believe. But I believe at least some segments of humanity will figure it out.
 
But it’s hardly an issue that offsets how great all the rest of it is. Politicians love to inflate issues wildly out of proportion so people will take their side, but you shan’t fall victim to that.
 
And like I said, basic economics. 10x as many people will accomplish more than 10x as much, meaning more for each person. Since we’re nowhere near the limit of Earth’s carrying capacity, more people can only help. And consider what people you’re introducing - see the global picture more accurately.
 
If you drink a cup of water in the US, you’re not denying some starving African a cup of water.
 
That’s very significant, because it kind of goes to show - yes some parts of the world are impoverished and some areas are overpopulated (not the whole Earth, but some areas sure are), but you’re not adding more people to poverty or to those overpopulated areas. Even if you have a dozen kids, a population boom in first-world nations of the kinds of people who are conscious and aware of the world as a whole is not going to cause more impoverished people and people who can’t look beyond the next meal.
 
Humans cause problems, but humans are the creators of solutions, and we’ve had more solutions than problems in the world or else we wouldn’t be here. Civilization is proof of that. We need solutions, and people with the mind and power to act - if you don’t increase the number of those people in the world - and actively decrease it by letting population of first-world nations continue to drop - then you’re selectively breeding out the people who are in the civilization that have the power and mind to solve the world’s problems, but you’re not doing anything to the number of people that cause and/or are victim of those problems.
 
If you have internet, and you even think enough that the world like this is on your mind, then you’re in a position to help, even if all you do is help a poor, starving artist on Deviantart by commissioning from him, so he can make enough money to move out of Venezuala and to Chile’ to fulfill his dreams of becoming an airline pilot (real story). Even if you think you’re the most poor, impoverished person on Earth, if you can commission some pony art for $5 then you’re being part of the solution to worldwide poverty. And even if you and your children never move up in the world, they will, too.