• baines@lemmy.cafe
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    6 hours ago

    only while the kids exist as you forced them into existence thereby incurring the responsibility

    for a thought experiment, imagine you could see your entire life and decide to be born or not based in your mind at the point of death

    what would be the point of living a ‘bad’ life?

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      6 hours ago

      I would personally have chosen No, and it’s a big reason why I’m not going to have a kid. Very grateful that my wife agrees

    • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      only while the kids exist as you forced them into existence

      Many parents have the same realization about their adopted children. You could argue that both types of parents are delusional but the causality isn’t relevant

      imagine you could see your entire life

      The capacity for imagining your whole life presupposes that you have already begun living, silly :3 but okay. Why would this primordial spirit be interested in life at all if it’s optional? Is living your life inherently worth considering, or something?

      • baines@lemmy.cafe
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        5 hours ago

        choosing to take on the responsibility is the same imo

        biological kid or not once you bring it home it’s then the same, feeling this for random strangers would be odd

        acknowledging that a optional life would be skipped kinda is my point

        • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Okay, so it is possible to find inherent meaning in lives you did not create. Yay!

          For part 2, you’re ignoring my question.

          Why would your thought experiment ghost even be considering life? Even before the point of knowing whether it would be “good or bad”. Why does it bother checking that at all?

          Put another way: when some dumb loser asks if I want to invest in an NFT, I don’t even need to consider that. I know inherently that what I’m being offered is fundamentally without value to anyone.

          The fact that you are evaluating your life at all in your thought experiment implies that the thing you are being offered has the potential to be valuable, yes?

          • baines@lemmy.cafe
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            4 hours ago

            Okay, so it is possible to find inherent meaning in lives you did not create. Yay!

            except predication of choice makes it literally not inherent

            neither does potential imply inherent either

            it’s trivial to imagine simple real world examples that would make any positive aspect of living rather insufficient to the point where dying young and unexpectedly is almost a blessing among alternatives

            if aggressive cancer, long lasting stroke or alzheimer’s is in my future let me die sooner in my sleep

            to say nothing of famine, massive drought and war

            if i knew i’d live to experience alzheimer’s let me never be born