Sam Harris 2018 - Is Life Actually Worth Living With David Benatar
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- Sam Harris 2018 - Is Life Actually Worth Living With David Benatar
Subscribe Channels To Watch Latest The Thinking Atheist : goo.gl/evjZNC
Visit the website to hear the latest podcast : samharris.org/
![[Live] : ONE 168 วันนี้!! "โจนาธาน vs ซุปเปอร์เล็ก"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0jIN65KgJsI/mqdefault.jpg)
Antinatalism is a very simple concept. Buddhism and antinatlism go hand in hand. Life worth living vs life worth starting are two different subjects.
Life worth living is personal while life worth *starting* involves another sentient being, whereas you subject them to experience and the formation of the "ego/self".
I agree with Sam Harris on every topic he discusses such as the illusion of free will, the illusion of the self, etc. with the exception of this topic. I'm with David Benatar on this one where it is morally wrong to bring any new sentient life on this planet in order to prevent more suffering and this doesn't just apply to humans but to all sentient beings.
So for example, assuming that lions and gazelles are sentient beings who can suffer, a lion who experiences stomach pains because it has not eaten in days is suffering. A gazelle who runs in fear and then gets its neck snapped by a lion is suffering.
Agreed. Sam has a lot of interesting positions that really compliment buddhism well, and something about antinatalism possesses something to be so preventable and simple.
I wish Sam Harris would have made a more honest title. It should have been "Is Life Worth Starting". Antinatalism deals with starting lives, not ending lives. A title like "worth living" can imply suicide just as much as procreaton. David Benatar has never argued we should die, just that we should not start lives.
Tbh Benatar's arguments against promortalism were pretty weak and inconsistent. His arguments for antinatalism supported promortalism as well.
@@ciara7172 I disagree, but whatever.
@@ciara7172 I agree. Antinatalism collapses into promortalism. Every moment we are "born" into a new slice of time. It's just a different kind of birth.
@@Svankmajer if one were to pull the switch instantly ending all life, there is no being to experience any negative consequences.
@@ciara7172 Would it be okay to kill a familyless bum in the streets if no one were to miss him? If you say no, you should consider what you're saying.
Sam asks David if he is coloring his arguments by the quality of his experiences, and then proceedes to color his counter-arguments by the quality of his life experiences.
I have never heard Sam Harris so full of Copium as I heard him in this one podcast. Damn.
I still love you Sam.
Benatar is correct... once one awakes it’s very logical to see the inequality of life leaves many in horrible conditions. Also birth is essentially kidnapping.
hahahahaha
If your problem with life is inequality, doesn't that just mean that rich people can have children, but poor people shouldn't?
@Lonely guy based. fuck poor people.
Who does birth kidnap? How can you kidnap someone who doesn’t exist?
@@rickkyi4879 I think what he is implying is the fact that you are _forced_ into life. It is an imposition that once you have been forced into it, there is only one way out.
Amazing conversation, both of them maintaining decorum despite serious divergence in their fundamental moral intuitions. I tend to find David's pessimism more convincing but greatly appreciate Sam's sincere attempt at exploring the philosophy of antinatalism.
I agree with Sam Harris on every topic he discusses such as the illusion of free will, the illusion of the self, etc. with the exception of this topic. I'm with David Benatar on this one where it is morally wrong to bring any sentient life on this planet in order to prevent more suffering.
So for example, assuming that lions and gazelles are sentient beings who can suffer, a lion who experiences stomach pains because it has not eaten in days is suffering. A gazelle who runs in fear and then gets its neck snapped by a lion is suffering.
@@irrelevant2235 so you think we should just stop breeding to end the human species? Should we also kill all animals, cause their life is suffering too? and leave the world without life which is quite impossible cause there are viruses an bacteria ect. So what the point of benatar? how does this philosophy have any purpose? furthermore, this idea is free of any belive in god or a higher power or higher purpose, which is just pretty ignorant.
I have yet to see a compelling argument against anti-natalism! The book is amazing too, and does a great job at refuting almost all the major arguments!
How about the ones mentioned in the podcast? Like the fact that most people who are alive would prefer to have been born?
@@AnonymousuomynonA First of all, that's not a fact - its simply an assumption based on a statistical inference of a small population sample (which could ultimately be biased). It would have to be a survey which also includes , or could've included also all the people who have died of hunger, have suffered torture, have been born with painful genetic disease (ever existed) etc. And to conclude, almost all case studies mentioned are associated with 1st world countries, and rarely or almost never do they include developing or 3rd world countries (f.ex Albania , or Mali). So no, that is not a compelling argument!
@@XShollaj in that case, aren't you just making an antinatalist argument solely for parents who have shitty lives? Sounds like you shouldn't have a problem with happy wealthy and healthy families getting children.
@Random dude Yeah, so why should he have a problem with beginning a new good and happy life?
That analogy is kinda skewed, since you're implying that not being born is the same as not being kidnapped. You're implanting your conclusion into the premise of your hypothetical.
Firstly I have to agree that both the level of debate here and the manner in which it was conducted was admirable . Certainly here in the UK we sadly very divisive splits of opinion with opposing groups just abusing , dismissing or cancelling people who don't agree with them . Secondly , I wonder if Sam Harris is a fan of advaita Vedanta by any chance ??? When he was talking about sleep he was reiterating the views of Sri Ramana Maharshi that we enjoy deep sleep , even though deep sleep has no attributes apart from the experience itself which we recall on awakening - " I slept well" . Peace everyone ✌️
thank you Solar Sands for giving this a shoutout
I think Sam Harris deleted this episode from youtube:(
This isn't something that is supposed to be difficultto understand. Life is not worth starting. Like we don’t even know what this thing we're stuck on is. Defending life has to be some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.
this view is verry down bottom in consciousness development. The egoic mind is the master...terrifying
@@frankweiss335 Anti-natalism is the opposite of ego. Ego wants what it wants, one of those being a mini-me coded to the specifications of one's own particular strain of DNA. Nothing more egoic than forcing a soul into physical enslavement for those selfish reasons. It requires dissolution of ones ego in order to perceive and align with the truth, which anti-natalism is unequivocally an aspect of the truth. Procreation is the greatest crime one can commit.
@@lex.cordis you cant force a soul into existence. The soul choose to come into it. If less people decide to have kids. Less souls have the Chance to evolve in this realm.
@@frankweiss335 Oh, so souls force you to cvm inside a vaglna?
@@lex.cordis "Procreation is a crime" thats just stupid...
Please share your thoughts on the video "Is Life Actually Worth Living With David Benatar" by Sam Harris
The way a person deals with this question is directly related to their life experience on balance and their perception of their own suffering. If you judge your life on balance to have been worth the shit then one is pronatalist. If you wouldn't wish your life on someone else you are antinatalist. It doesn't't surprise me one bit that Sam Harris is pronatalist. The lovely thing is we all get to decide for ourselves. No need to make a categorical imperative.
@@DanMulberryYeah, it's false. We can just say that absence of suffering isn't good when there's nobody.
@@DanMulberry I understand. I have read Benatar's book several times, and the chapter with asymmetry is especially frequent. I still do not agree with his basic premise, he has no convincing arguments for it.
@@DanMulberry I am disagree :/
Well, we *aren't* non existent actually... Who exactly *is* if he non existent? There is nobody! That is the main reason why there is nothing positive in absence of suffering.
I find that in living, you have the opportunity of both, to have existed and not. If at any point in time, you are in fact dealt with a miserable hand, there is always the option to return to non-existence. Not advocating for it, but for the sake of this discussion.
A medically assisted, peaceful exit doesn't exist in most countries. Even if it does, you have to have a serious illness to be granted that opportunity. Without it, you're risking disability and it takes a lot of courage.
But to even think of that choice one has to suffer first. Nobody just wakes up one day in a perfect happy life and thinks 'I have experienced enough happiness, now I should just kill myself.' But if one is never even born they don't have any feelings at all. They don't have any desire to feel happiness. So we are not depriving them of any happiness. But also they won't even be born to feel the pain caused by the inevitable suffering of life. Which is a good thing.
You don't feel bad for your unborn brother or sister or uncle that could have existed had either your parents or grandparents had an additional unprotected sex.
This argument deposits that any level of suffering overthrows any level of pleasure, and that is not the case. Both are two sides of the same coin. I would submit that suffering only makes pleasure that much more powerful. Summer is only summer because there is a winter.
Sure but suffering is inherently bad no matter what. Even if it’s sometimes intrinsically necessary, like suffering tooth pain so you go to the dentist is needed so your tooth doesn’t get infected and you die. But it’s still inherently bad and would be better not to experience the tooth pain.
how does this philosophy has any purpose? what is benatars solution? not to breed anymore? vedic scripts say that there a multipple universes an dimensions. we have good evidence for reincarnation a tons of nde expiriences. so if we dont come in thes realm we woul maybe come to another one an sos on. this view is just atheistic and ignorant
Sam needs to review his arguments against William Craig related to divine command theory. Most of them are arguments against his optimism as well. Schopenhauer realized the reality of existence.’Wake up’
Sam is an actual fair enemy in Discussion to Benatar.
compare this to peterson, I think harris laid out fair counterpoints and made the opposite position vaild
@Val the proof that people don't want to die is proof enough that life is worth continuing, AND worth starting (because most people, once they're alive, will want to continue living). Now you'll say the desire to continue living is "social conditioning, optimism bias, intellect tricked by their genes/biology, they haven't thought about it as much as I have, they're mouthbreathers", and so on. But cant you see such psychologization amounts to little more than refined name-calling?
Especially when I could just as easily turn it around and say antinatalists only hold their pessimistic views because "mood disorder, anhedonia, higher than average trauma or sensitivity to pain or neuroticism, their body has been tricked by their overreliance on intellect/thought, they lack a sense of wonder or the numinous, they're probably unattractive and are resentful no one wants kids with THEM" and so on. Think of how many people far smarter than either of us have claimed life is an eminent miracle? Were they all bad people and deluded? The Buddha, Plato, Einstein, etc. are you saying they were all immoral dullards?
why does Sam keep deleting this podcast from his channel? he did it twice. wtf?
might be youtube
Probably because his handlers have forced him to do so, since his masters need a constant supply of slaves born into this world to serve as their food. No one gets to Sam's level of visibility in this Earthly hierarchy without being a puppet on strings. That's how this world works and to believe otherwise is profound naivety.
We are intelligent apes discretionarily well aware that the brute extinction of everybody is inevitable in deep time, including even Harris and Benatar. .
I'll make the ultimate case against antinatalism: If I never had existed, I couldn't have listen to this great podcast. That'd clearly immoral isnt it
But you wouldn’t need to listen to it if your weren’t born…
@@aaziis But if I wasn't born, I wouldn't have had the pleasure to listen to it. So, if pleasure from this podcast is 5 points, and I was never born, I would miss those 5 points.
@@Cookiekeks no deprivation, not bad. I think that's what he would say.
@@Cookiekeks Every pleasure comes from a need, a deprivation. Non existence cannot deprive anything.
@@aaziis What need does my pleasure come from when I'm eating candy? What am I deprived of when I'm petting a cat? What need did I satisfy when I received an unexpected tip at work? None, because it was unexpected.
Pleasure isn't necessarily the fullfilment of a need, it is a reaction of our brain to stimuli that seem to be productive to survival to the body.
Disappointed by Harris' lack of even trying to consider this edit around 33 minutes in it gets ridiculous how pitiful the effort he spent on this. I never even considered antinatalism until I heard Benetar and Harris owes this man a dinner or something.
Sam Harris really is a master of reason.
Not at all. He's a master of mental gymnastics.
It seems that Benatar is saying we are alll too stupid to tell if we are having good or bad experiences in our lives, and whether our lives are worth living. He appears to hold no value to good experiences. Very presumptious of him thinking we are all so. He sounds like a miserable person. I wouldn't want him as a neighbour.
I wonder what his parents were like.
I know that this isn’t a particularly rational point, but there is honestly zero humility present in this entire conversation. There’s absolutely no acknowledgement that Life is bigger than us and that Reality is more vast than what we can know and understand. Who are we to suggest that Life should cease to exist? Who are we to fight against the essence and structure of Nature itself?
You're right, it isn't a rational point.
Rationalism always leads to nihilism in the end
I do find the assertion that we should try to destroy all life as an impossible task to set for ourselves. Sure it might be possible to destroy all life on Earth but of course, it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to wipe out all life across the universe. An additional challenge though, even if we somehow do manage to wiped out all life, is the simple fact that inanimate matter has shown itself to have the trait of organizing itself into living creatures. So I guess at best anti-natalist can only briefly shorten the amount of time life exists. That's why I'd rather focus our energy on developing forms of consciousness and life that can enjoy being alive (in fact there's a good chance they already exist, haha). That'd result in forms of life that don't suffer all that much. Creating happy forms of life seems far easier than killing off all life, when I look at it probabilistically.
@@davidwade4291 That's not what antinatalists are proposing though. They're just saying don't have children to minimise what little harm you add to the world.
@@mohammadsultan935 You can read about it here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism#Harm_to_non-human_animals. Scroll down to the subheading Procreation of non-human animals. What I'd most like to hear from antinatalists is a response to the fact that life may evolve again. The same can happened for advanced consciousness too. Meaning that if humans choose to go extinct, apes or some other smart animal might just evolve to fill the ecological niche of advanced consciousness we leave available.
Oh, just wanted to check if Harris is still as silly as he was when he discussed racial issues.. And he is....