butthead aka 216

ummm ok well i still think its a bad analogy and we can disagree on that. you certainly have infinitely more influence over how your child ends up than you do on whether or not that trigger pull is your last. thats not debatable for me

WWWP

Did you read my response at all?

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#DEMODFROWNLAND
#TERMLIMITSFORMODERATORS

ladyislingering

I have, naturally - mostly due to poor decisions. I wish I would have had the rational thought thing down when I was 18. It would have saved me a lot of grief.

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butthead aka 216

yah and thats why i said theres things we obviously cant control and can only teach how to deal with those things. i just dont agree with your thinkin as far as havin kids. i dont find bearin children immoral for someone like myself.

Burning Down

But you can't ignore the nature side of the "nature vs nurture" argument. Before I posted, Steph left a post in response to you that I think you should read.

Mr. Charlie

So it's an extension of Schopenhauer's philosophy? I've read one of his books, On The Suffering Of The World. He seemed a clever guy and quite insightful but rather depressive with it. Much like Nietzsche in that respect.

Personally, I have a hard time putting my faith in any philosophy that can't make it's creator happy. It is my firm belief that Nature creates everything for it's own good, sure sometimes thing go wrong and things are born with defects and/or diseases, but generally speaking we are all equipped to experience the joy of life. Strip away the heavy thinking, the desire to make sense of everything, the thirst for knowledge, and all abstractions of the mind and I believe we get down to the base human condition, a condition of joy.

Anyway, like I alluded to earlier, I'm not putting your ideas down. Merely presenting an alternative.

John Wilkes Booth

I just wanted to put that out there, bizarre isn't the same as insane but it dawned on me that it was less than polite.

I don't actually disagree with the idea that imposing life is imposing harm, when it gets right down to it. I know what you're saying there. I just disagree that imposing harm is an absolute wrong. If the harm comes bundled with all the joys of existence, then I can't see it as a bad deal in most cases.

And when I think about the fact that our brains are a part of the tiny tiny percentage of matter in the known universe with the capacity for consciousness, I usually think of that as an amazing privilege rather than a burden to bear, though it is admittedly both.

I don't expect any of that to change your mind, that's just where I'm at with it.

butthead aka 216

whos ignorin nature?? i just said a few times theres things you cant control in life and nobody would disagree with that.

could have a kid with a deadly disease, could have a kid get hit by a car, etc. im thinkin about my graduatin class of a few hundred. how many have cancer? got killed by a car? maybe 4-5 out of a few hundred. nurture has a far greater influence than nature, and thats why i said its a bad analogy (russioan roulette). because there isnt a 20% chance or whatever that youre kid is gonna have any of that happen to them.

i will take any sufferin to have the glory. we all would. or else if life was so unbearable youd all have offed yourselves by now

ladyislingering

And there's another reason I don't find breeding to be a great idea. I already have to deal with the pain of knowing that the people in my life will die someday; I don't want to risk losing a child. Better to save the money it takes to raise a kid than to lose it to some unforeseen tragedy. (Funerals are pretty expensive, too.)

That hasn't stopped a number of us from trying, whether it be in the past or recently. Nobody ever talks about that sort of thing, but I get the feeling there are some among us (even in this thread) who have legitimately considered or attempted suicide.

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Mr. Charlie

Indeed. It makes one wonder whether consciousness is an integral part of the universe, whether the universe 'wants' to be conscious, or maybe want is a poor choice of words, if the universe is arranged in such a way that consciousness is common and unavoidable. Or is consciousness a crazy fluke that happened amidst crazy odds. Either way it's pretty remarkable that the same stuff in rocks and stars and water can evolve to the point where it can ask 'what am I'. It's quite nuts.