329. What Good is Pessimism? feat. David Benatar
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Humans have a tendency to see the glass as half full. What arguments can be made on behalf of the half-empty perspective? Whether it's evaluating your life or making decisions about becoming a parent, viewing things through a pessimistic lens could ultimately help reduce suffering in the world.
David Benatar is a professor of philosophy and director of the Bioethics Centre at the University of Cape Town. He is also the author of several books. His latest book, titled The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions, explores the meaningfulness of life.
David and Greg discuss optimism versus pessimism and the positive and negative qualities that they both possess. David talks about suicide and the historic and where our views on it have evolved from. David and Greg talk about the ethics of having children, what true immortality would really mean, and how to get the most out of our time on the hedonic treadmill of life.
unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.
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Benatar is the sanest person in this insane world! let him know we all love him and admire the life he has led
Couldn’t agree more. He sounds “crazy” at first because his philosophy flies in the face of so much of what we’re taught, but after seriously thinking about his arguments - as well as those by Schopenhauer as well other pessimists and antinatalists - it’s clear he is one of the sane people in our world of 9 billion or so insane people.
Finally another interview of Prof. Benatar!
Prof. Benatar I doubt you will ever read this comment but in my humble opinion you are one of the most significant philosophers of modern times. You don’t resort to sophistry or semantic tricks to defend your views and let the strength of your arguments speak for themselves. I especially love your honesty, humility and sense of humour (the Jordan Peterson debate comes to mind). You exemplify the spirit of true philosophy. Much admiration.
Benatar is awesome
Davud Benatar gives great relief to anyone who harbours anti natalist sentiments. I was raised in an environment where apparently life was a guft from God !!! This was despite the fact i was surrounded by poverty and suffering.
When i heard Dr Benatar in you tube for the first time i was moved by the thousands of supportive comments. I thought ' ih uts not just me then ! ' 🙂.
Animals in the jungle put us to shame. They dont drink, do drugs, smoke, vape, watch porn, alter thier sexes anatomy, pollute the planet, believe in god, take meds or need vaxex and live fairly healthy lives although they live in what we considered unsanitary conditions. And some show some rationale. Like my domesticated animal, my dog. He's pretty smart you know. He taught me that it's better to come to life as a dog (Ppl love us) if you have a loving owner. He said, he doesn't have to work a day in his life, run around and play, be patted often, free healthcare, free food, dont have to drive, clean up messes, worry about paying taxes, going to church, read anything, run around the house, sleep in the bed and when he gets old and decrepit, at my owner's discretion he could be euthanized or laid to rest peacefully. All I have to do is be a good boy. Roof! I said: "you lucky dog" . I never ever thought that I could be jealous of a dog or envy it. Lmso! A dog's life. 🤔
Benatar's point of view was never forced on me. What WAS forced on me, and still is, was the believe that life on earth is worth all the trouble and pain.
The more I listen to David the more I like and respect him. What I mean is he's able to talk about really bleak topics without getting over-passionate in the doom and gloom direction, rather he's still constantly weeding out cognitive distortions in every direction.
It does take some discipline. He's not a nutty professor like sophist.
Great interview. Thank you ❤
I love David Benatar. You can’t find one hole in his theory. He weirdly cheers me up.
smart people can't be sane without having someone to relate to
I love him too, and I find his mostly cleared eyed pessimism refreshing. However, it is important not to idolize a person to such an extent that one does not see potential flaws in their argumentation. I was victim of this because I related a lot to much of his argumentation and the general point of pessimism and antinatalism. However, there are potential holes in his theory for antinatalism, which many have pointed out. Read my master's thesis if you're interested in a discussion of some of them ;) Search for "Better Never to Have Been?: A Critique of David Benatar’s Axiological Asymmetry Argument for Antinatalism" on diva portal.
Theres a loophole in any argument.
Prof. Benatar is brilliant. He had Sam Harris running out the clock. 😅
Based Benatar
David Benatar is the only human I will ever idolize.
Have you seen the discussion between Hijab, Mark Oppenheimer (from the channel BrainInAVat) and Eron Fasser concerning Atheism versus Islam? Mark was a student of Benatar if I am not mistaken and both him and Eron were true gentlemen during the discussion. Though I am not sure whether they are "Vegantinatalists".
Schopenhauer was probably much more intelligent and charismatic, but if you mean among humans living today I can understand you.
Another David Benetar book and interview!
more interviews with him! 🖤
None of us see even a tiny fraction of the harsh, tortured reality of the world in which we currently live. Our bodies and brains did not evolve to live under such conditions, particularly the isolation portion, and if we were conscious of how absolutely depraved this reality is, we would die very quickly, probably from a heart attack or stroke or something. Fight or flight is a temporary and unsustainable state, and so our brains have adapted to this very isolating and unnatural reality by falling into a chronic “freeze” state, or dissociation from reality, essentially. Not only are we alone much of the time, which is antithetical to how we evolved to live, but when we are with other humans, they look at us as a potential threat. No human can possibly feel safe enough under these conditions to actually be conscious. We “traded” consciousness for self consciousness about 10,000-15,000 years ago.
Thank you for posting this! I've been eagerly waiting to find another interview of Benatar. Subscribed!
38:07 - One thing I'd love to hear David comment on, or perhaps find out where he's already commented on it, is the question of whether the parts of our own firmware that measure Darwinian success or failure see optimism, even in it's most flippant and care-free forms, as a sign of high genetic value (ie. lack of trauma suggests not having been defeated by other people or circumstances) where pessimism or even realism of any kind looks like thinking, non-autistic people only think when they fail, failure's a sign of bad genes, ie. that they're in the presence of someone farther down the socioeconomic or even genetic ladder thus they're foundationally worth less than a person whose recklessly optimistic even if the reckless optimist has a knack for setting many things on fire that they touch or getting their close associated behind bars while they walk away Scot-Free.
I'm guitarist and David rock !!!
Thankx 4 that, so little out there about Antinatalism/Pessimism in a academic Level, so it goes total under the radar..
Optimism-bias is running the whole World it seems
Excellent 🙏
I absolutely loved this, I'll try to listen to it everyday. I'm sold on the human beings part, just having a hard time giving up animal products, everything vegan is so expensive, I'm scared of malnutrition.
[13:24] Seeing meaning in horrific experiences
[29:24] Breeding chickens to eat so that they don't go extinct
[41:05]
[56:31] Delusions
[57:24]
Antinatalism or the philosophy of brings out the great debaters bc it raises some unanswered questions and just how rational the creator of our existence is. That is, it gave us brains unlike the beast of the field. Well, some of us. Now don't get it twist bc even rational minds can be irrational at times esp living in a moment in time and space when the answer(s) are not readily available and think wrong. However, as rational beings we seek solutions to problems perhaps why antinatalism rose as one after careful thought that involves observation, experience and knowledge or what is known or common and shared by most ppl if not all.
Most ppl who was forced into existence was brought here to fill that void of nonexistence. Once here it doesn't matter if they live or die. I
51:19 had me in stitches. The last time I laughed this hard was when I watched Ricky Gervais (th-cam.com/users/shorts6Cao7euQqbA?si=eWGGnz2NV0rGPRQr) "What a f***ing waste of time that was!"
Greg LeBlanc...did you grow up in Huber Heights, Ohio? If so, I might have gone to high school with you.
Not me! Must be another…
@@user-vl4mf4nq1x No worries, you guys just have identical names. Peace!
56:32
Both of those noobs ie the interviewer and Benatar went along with the covic garbage so where is their mental credibility?
Covic garbage?
@@louisburke8927 The media lies about covic
you're just crazy go to a mental ward please if you think covid didn't create piles of burning dead people in india
@@louisburke8927i think they mean covid
How did Benatar go along with it? I didn't see.
Benatar is awesome