this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Chaos theory will very soon screw you in that endeavour. You generally can't make spredictions like that on a single life, since you'd have to perfectly simulate that life beforehand. I think that means it's a very useless question.
someone (idk if it was you, too lazy to look it up) asked "who [gave] someone the right". I said that rights aren't given.
... the principle of ontology, I'm guessing? There isn't a something to give consent, ergo it can't give consent.
These binary cathegories of existence break down at the edges anyways. At some point it's mainly a process, at a later point, it's an entity. Ontology's a bitch like that.
Consent doesn't work like that. It can only be revoked at the moment. If something happens to you without your consent and you didn't know at the time, the best you can do is realize later that you didn't give consent. Something coming into existence can't give consent, since i, needs to exist, in order to be capable of consenting.
What do you mean "you didn't consent"? Would you have revoked consent, given the chance now, or are you lamenting that you couldn't give consent before existing?
Look at it in a more abstract manner. First, there are entities A and B which start a process P. This process results in entity C. Entity C would have to give consent to P, before it is an entity. But only entities can give consent. If starting P breaks consent, prematurely ending it sure as shit does (plz note, that I'm pro-choice; demanding consent of a non-entity is stupid).
Remember that not everyone is a strict utilitarian.
I think that you have a well-reasoned and valid view. It's not that I regret my birth, but that I didn't consent to being a living, conscious thing -- the consent portion of which you can reasonably view as an impossibility.
Suffering is a necessity of living, and therefore bringing a person into the world means they will suffer. You're right that I generally take a utilitarian view of things, upon reflection. Though, taking it to its most extreme conclusion, I could never be asked to choose between saving 5 million people if it meant killing 4,999,999. Such thought experiments leave me confounded.
Maybe it's the case we're faced with infinite impossible choices because the universe doesn't care and tends towards entropy. There is likely no perfect answer. All I can do as a person is try to beget as little pain into world as possible, but I recognize that my view isn't without flaw or applicable to everyone everywhere all the time.
This is also why I don't simply despise people who have children, like my own parents.
I appreciate you taking the time to explore this with me! Genuinely much food for thought.