I don't think the good in existence can make up for the bad -

[RMQualtrough]

What I argued was quite possibly the opposite of egocentric. I’m saying you’re being egoist by assigning everyone your pessimistic outlook on life.

You don’t know what these people who lived these horrible, awful lives thought of their situations. Maybe they found respite in their awful situations and were able to be content in the end. I’ve been to countries where running water was rare, yet people managed to overlook the fact most basic necessities were basically luxuries and find a way to be content.

Your definition of “bad” is purely subjective. What may be a fucked existence for you may be a state of absolute euphoria for someone else. You’re coming in here with your doomer attitude and just assuming everyone who doesn’t have it as good as you do is wallowing in their own misery so you can feel better about your shit attitude. I’m sorry to tell you that you’re wrong. Most people in relatively bad situations would disagree with your assessment and think existence holds more good than bad.

I don't have any attitude.

Because perspective is subjective, the situation people are in is fully mental. Generally because of the way we are made, people in shitty situations tend to not have good lives as a general rule (but there are exceptions of well off people like Robin Williams). Because of this, many parents will not have a child if that child has a high chance of being born seriously deformed or disabled.

Why if people in such situations are magically happy would anyone ever choose to do that? From that unborn child's perspective, existence never exists. And that is the decision most people make. Even happy disabled people tend to not have kids if they are told their child will have the same disease. Why? I thought they were super happy?

What is being proposed really, is that it's okay that some people (and animals) are born to endure suffering just so the lucky ones who get some level of joy from life can have that joy. From most people's perspective that is great and worth it because it is not them. But the negative spin on the heads/tails flip is not made equally.

If someone offered a coin flip chance at either living, say, 50 years of the rest of your life in constant never ending bliss, or 50 years in constant never ending pain and terror, not many people would flip the coin. Technically it is neutral because the extremes should balance, but they don't... Same with existence, it's a rigged flip.

If you and everyone you know in your family etc has an enjoyable existence, that does not mean existence itself is a positive. It just means you got lucky. You do not have to care about this, and actually it's irrelevant in real terms because preventing existence is impossible. So you can just live and die and be happy and w.e. you won the coin flip. This is a philosophical question and purely cerebral.

 

[Bloitzhole]

That is a completely worthless existence but mercifully short.

Again, you are assigning worth and are doing so throughout every statement you make about existence. What makes an existence worthwhile? Is it lack of suffering or more joy than suffering as you seem to propose? Why?

If existence never ever happened at all full stop, that would have been better

By which metric? Just your personal feelings based on nothing beyond that? If so and if all your insights are derived from nothing more than this, why do you feel you are in a competent position to pass universal judgement?

 

[RMQualtrough]

Again, you are assigning worth and are doing so throughout every statement you make about existence. What makes an existence worthwhile? Is it lack of suffering or more joy than suffering as you seem to propose? Why?

By which metric? Just your personal feelings based on nothing beyond that? If so and if all your insights are derived from nothing more than this, why do you feel you are in a competent position to pass universal judgement?

Yes. Lack of suffering not more joy IMO unless every life outweighed the bad (no Christ-like figures born to just suffer and die, every single one must adhere).

There may be some creatures who love pain and bad things. It seems most humans share that feeling though, when a couple is told that if they conceive their child will be severely crippled etc they rarely have kids.

The Absolute does not give a fuck about good or bad. Good and bad don't even exist objectively. So we are making a subjective value judgement as to whether we like pain or pleasure.

 

[The Great Chandler]

You post like a Redditor, saying so much only to signify so little

Like dude, Chill! You're not the Buddha!

 

[RussianParasite]

You post like a Redditor, saying so much only to signify so little

Like dude, Chill! You're not the Buddha!

I think OP just took his first philosophy 101 class or something and now feels like he must enlighten the world. Only an annoying, know-it-all university student would behave this way.

OP, no one cares. You are not the first person to ever have these thoughts or ideas— most adults have had them. You clearly don’t believe in what you are saying enough to act on it, just enough to post it on some autistic website where people are going to bully you.

You are not as smart as you think you are.

 

[Finder]

As long as there isn’t a God everything the OP says is true and it is hilarious to watch kiwis get upset about it and try to deny it. If the universe exists without a God humans have been cursed by existence.

If there is a God all arguments in this thread are irrelevant either way.