i wonder what y'all have to say about this
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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me_irl
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Adolescents and younger teens aren't really know for their introspection, I kind of give them a pass for saying that stuff at that stage in their life. At that age, lots of us learn how stupid something is only when we hear it coming out of our own mouths. It becomes really cringe though when they graduate into adulthood and they're still saying that or holding that opinion. At that point even their peers are given them the side eye or saying something like "dude, that doesn't fly anymore. Get your shit together".
Hard disagree, from a 30-something. Two horny people fucked with no protection and now I'm expected to get an education, find and hold employment, be self-sufficient, and be fucking grateful for being forced to do this shit? And all of their inabilities to parent properly, leading to near-debilitating anxiety and stress, is somehow my fault? That I should cater to the two idiots that couldn't take a pill or unwrap a damn condom, because they want a mini-me? That I should blindly follow their religious views, of - again - two people that decided that momentary pleasure was better than lifelong calm and stability, for themselves and others? Two people who want to dictate what I like, what I'm interested in, my political viewpoint, my sexual preferences...? Two idiots that decided that mixing the worst part of one's DNA with the worst part of the other is a wonderful thing to do, and the visual issues of one, the deep constant anxiety of another, the risk factors of cancer and stroke, would be a delightful thing to impose on a new being. And I should fucking be HAPPY about this?! Are you FUCKING SHITTING ME?
Sincerely, a disabled gay satanic furry - with another disabled sibling (let's do it again!) - who was raised straight and christian and then manipulated and controlled, who is already plagued with health concerns, mental health issues, and had their first stroke at 21 years old. Everybody should freely fuck, it's great!
(To say 'I wish I was never born' is such an understatement it's actually hilarious.)
I don't have it as bad as you, but every day I wonder why my parents had me.
Except I know why, and it disgusts me. No consideration to what I would feel because they wanted another kid.
Well, there was no way to ask you, right? Some people like their lives, perhaps they hoped you'd enjoy it?
Yeah I get the gist of it. But I know the real reason for my birth and it's not purely altruistic.
I'm not saying I regret being born, but I certainly plan on making a suicide device.
My only fear is we don't stay dead.
Look, as the world's dumbest man you might not realize this but there are lots of suicide devices already on the market or even better free alternatives!
Why not try a skyscraper? Perhaps wading into a cold ocean and never coming back? You could drive a car into a tree?
Just trying to save you some time and frustration, plus a few bucks too!
...uh seriously though if you want to talk to someone feel free to dm me. Your life has value and I do hope you come to realize this and try your best to find some enjoyment in this world of ours. Of course, I say that as someone who has described life as being "trapped by existence" so I can kind of get what you're feeling. Hang in there, not literally though because tying a noose right can be hard.
Two of those tend to leave a mess behind for other people to clear up, and the other seems like a fairly prolonged, unpleasant way to go.
The ocean and the skyscraper both have horror stories aplenty for the dead coming back. In one, you ooze from the dark places, foul, rotting; and in the other you crawl out of the depths, bloated, fetid, teeming with the spawn of crabs and sea horses.
The car one might just be walking corpse.
Had a neighbor who worked for the Coast Guard. They said every body they fished out of the sea had crabs spilling out of its mouth and anus once it hit the deck.
Even worse: I was planned. My parents decided to do this to me.
Nobody fucking asked me when two dumbfucks in their early 20s took it upon themselves to just up and create a life. The most cruel thing you can do to a person is to bring them into this world.
I'm not saying this to belittle your situation, I have honest sympathy for you (and your sibling), but at some point in an adult's life, no matter how you were raised or what fucked up things your parents did, it has to stop being a excuse for the present day situation. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that's what you're saying here. I'm explaining further my prior post, not dismissing your response.
Hypothetically if an abusive parent cut off the legs of their child, the resulting adult will always be legless, but that can't be the reason the (now adult) still uses as to why they don't move forward with whatever life they have left.
I see where you are coming from, but when going through shit yourself that you can't explain to others, the only thing I can say is "that's easy to to say, not to feel"
Thats the point to reach for professional help, as in therapy. We're not born equipped to deal with all the shit life can throw as us. There's no shame in that.
The problem is not reaching out for help as an adult when you need it.
Therapy doesn't magically fix things.
I'm in therapy, have been for years. Had a virtual appointment with mine this morning.
I went to the psych ward last month bc I was actually about to kms, switched antidepressants and I'm on 3x the average doce and a bonus as needed one.
Still doesn't help enough to make me feel close to normal.
Thats really good! I'm proud of you for taking action for your own health. You're proving my point though. You didn't let whatever your parents did to you hold you back from taking steps on your own. You aren't using how your parents raised you as an excuse to do nothing.
I want to say I'm glad you didn't go through with that negative thing you mentioned. The world is better with you in it. I know I'm no one to you, but you've made my life better by talking with me here and sharing a human moment. I want you to be here for all the other people you touch positively in the years ahead. Please be here for that.
Not the guy you were talking to but:
Just because I wish was was not born does not intrinsically mean I wish I was dead. Death is a lovecraftian horror to me, now that I exist. I cannot fathom not existing and the idea that eventually I will be dead terrifies me.
And in fact, my mortality is a major reason I resent having been born (not the only one). If I never was, I'd not have to face one day not being.
Being born is a pandora's box. Time flows in only one direction, so that I did not exist before brings me no comfort in the face of someday not existing once again.
The "I cannot fathom not existing" part. You already know what this is like. There were millions of years where you didn't exist. There was no pain, no loss, no yearning, no regret, no boredom no consciousness trapped in an infinite time of waiting or torture. What we will be like after death is just like that. We've been there before, and we'll be there again someday.
When I was younger this scared me too. As I got older, and I don't fear when my death will eventually take me.
The alternate to eventually dying someday is living forever. When you think about what infinite life would truly be like, that is MUCH closer to any definition of hell I've ever heard of. I'm happy to go into multiple theoretical scenarios of this, each more horrific than the next. Those that say they want to live forever lack imagination. Death isn't something to fear. At the end of a long life, it is a gift.
No I don't. I did not exist. Let me repeat: time flows in one direction. Had I never existed, I'd not ahve to one day face oblivion. I resent being brought into a finite pointless existence.
Eventual death of myself and everyone I know and love renders every act extremely pointless. If living forever would be hell, then it is even worse that I have been born because there isn't even a theoretical outcome to my existence that would not be existentially awful.
That said, obviously if I were to live forever, I'd want everyone I care about to live forever. And I'd want our existence to be one of contentment and enjoyment. This would still be worse than never having existed, but its the next best thing.
In our theoretical discussion, I'll allow it.
See here is where that breaks down. If humanity were capable of existence of contentment and enjoyment, we'd be doing that with our finite lives. We don't get that deal. So being granted infinite life, in this scenario, is you being stuck with the current "everyone I care about" watching time move forward infinitely. Any kids you'd have (or your loved ones) after you get granted this, would grow old and die while you still lived. Any new friends you'd make would be a slight blip in your life as they die away over your infinite years. In the best case scenario, your body would be fully healthy until the heat death of the universe. In worse cases, you'll grow old and decrepit, forever in pain, but never allowed to be free of it where everyone else escapes through eventual death.
You and your small band of those you care about would watch the world make the same mistakes again and again. The only ones you'd find any mutual understanding with would be your small band of folks that shares the same horror of infinite life. Would those people then resent you for giving them infinite life? Would they intentially avoid you throughout eternity? Anyone else not of your band would be like a child to you. You'd have seen humans grow and develop over hundreds of generations. Nothing would be new to you.
Eventually, people would catch on that you and your band never die. Your face, with infinite healing, would never be changeable and humanity would hunt for you and your band looking for the secret to your life. When you are eventually caught, you'd be imprisoned and studied for hundreds of years. They'd never let you out. Your world would become whatever cage they put you in. They might let you out to do dangerous or deadly things that would kill other humans, like cleaning out radioactive reactors by hand. As soon as you'd finish they'd lock you back up again. You couldn't stop them doing this to you. You're not a superhero with super strength, you're just a person that can't die.
You'd likely be around for the end of humanity. Bombs, plague, something will likely kill off humanity on Earth before we become a multiplanet species. Then its just you and your band in a crumbling Earth wandering the ruins and bored out of your minds having done everything possible there is in life.
Eventually the Earth (and the inner planets of our Solar System) itself would be consumed by the sun when it evolves into a red dwarf. You'll be there for that. You'd spend a about 5 billion years inside our sun (in pain? suffocating?) until the sun consumes the last of its hydrogen. Your best be is to be ejected from the sun during CME at some point, at least you wouldn't be stuck inside the sun anymore. However, at that point you are floating in interstellar space for billions of more years. You see where this goes? This is what you want as your alternative to death, to live forever.
Is it? I didn't even go into the scenario where EVERYONE lives forever, and the Earth starts literally filling up with people because no one dies anymore. The cruelty we'll do to each other will ramp up immeasurably because the ethical argument against killing someone that has held us back is now removed. The worst tinpot dictators no long die, so they stay in power forever and make your life hell. Ironically, death cults will spring up. These being people promising an escape to nightmare of existence will be seen as prophets and holy men. Vast research will be poured into finding ways to die. Insanity will be so so commonplace because the human mind just hasn't evolved to live this long. Cognition will break down and we'll be marauding animals working through the path of destroying everything on Earth, because why not?
Me? I much prefer the certainty that there will be an end to this life eventually.
All of your premises are detailed extrapolations where immortality goes wrong and doesn't actually argue against the core issue: I simply do not want to die. I never will.
Its not that I want to live because life is wonderful. I want to never have to face the horror of impending future non-existence.
Like, I could go into some of my specific counter points to your premises. The people I care about extends beyond to people I do not know and it extends even to people I do not even like. And that I'd happily accept never having children be born anymore. That obviously the heat death would need to be somehow mitigated, etc. but this is just arguing over pointless detail.
These details don't fundamentally matter. I do not want to die.
I am arguing that not being allowed to die is a worse situation than being forced to die (as we are mortal creatures).
It isn't though. You say you don't want to die, but you're also handwaving away what it means to not die. Its like you want to live in a limbo, but that isn't a choice. What I'm getting more of is you'd prefer not to be human. I get that. We're kind of miserable creatures even when we're at our best, but if that is the argument you want to go with, then that is something else entirely.
Tell me that you accept the horrors of forced life as a human over a certain future of non-existence at some point, and I'll take you at your word.
I actually don't know what would be worse.
Well between our posts, I've described what I see is worse, but again, your opinion is equally valid for you as mine is for me. I'm sorry this existence won't give you want you want, but from my perspective I think we're better not having infinite life.
The fucked up thing my parents did was have children.
I still love my mom despite that because in basically every other way shes a good person. But it was still fucked up of her.
You're welcome to that opinion of course, but do you use that as a reason to not do anything with yourself? If no, then you're not part of the folks I was referring to.
Its not merely an "opinion", its nearly a universally held moral axiomatic fact that doing something to someone without their consent is, by default, wrong. Maybe you disagree, but most people do not. They usually just don't do any moral analysis to authentically reach the conclusion that birth itself is a moral injustice to the newly born. Because most people are willfully ignorant if the truth is uncomfortable.
I do stuff for me and people I care about, but I still resent even the expectation that I owe anyone anything, that I was born to inevitably one day die, and that I, having not choose to be here need to just "suck it up" as an adult and be a productive part of a natalist society I largely deem responsible for the grave injustice of anyone's birth.
I could kill myself and be in the right. I wont do that because death is a lovecraftian horror to me, but I could.
That said, alternatively, if I could indeed live forever I'd feel a little less disgusted with existence. At least I wouldn't have to face my mortality.
You're having an entirely different conversation than the one I'm having. I'm not arguing the ethical or morality of childbirth. I'm simply pointing out that after you are an adult, all the choices and responsibilities of making your life what you want it to be (or not to be) become yours irrespective of what happened to you prior in childhood. Thats it. No its not fair, but life isn't either.
This is absolutely your choice. There is no requirement that you are a "productive" member of society. You have the power to withdraw from society entirely if you like. There are dead towns scattered all over the world where you could simply walk into a house and start living there and no one would likely know or care for years or decades. You could scratch out a subsistence life eating whatever you could grow in the ground. You might never see another person in your life before you die (likely of preventable injury or disease). If thats what is most important to you in life, you can make that happen.
Well, I should have said this earlier.
Another complicating factor is that, I do not believe in free will.
So even though that technically means I can reject your choice based morality as well. I'll concede that it also contradicts my negative emotional feelings towards all parents and my feelings of injustice stemming from natalism and pro-birth being rational. Since... you know, they can't exactly meaningfully choose to be parents because choice is an illusion.
I'm still angry and depressed though.
Most definitions I've heard describing the lack of free will don't mean that you can't do something, but rather you were destined to do that thing. As in, it isn't the rejection of the outcome being true, but rather that you would never not do that thing was not in the cards.
That doesn't run afoul of what I described above. If you want to go live like a hermit away from society "lack of free will" doesn't prevent that, it just means that you were going to live like a hermit anyway.
Do you hold a different definition of "no free will"?
I wasn't taking the "living as a hermit" as a good faith suggestion. We're you actually serious? Because that's "If you are unhappy with human existence, go live a worse life than you are already living." My answer is no.
My issue isn't even just that "We live in a society" (lol), my issue is that society produced my existence and expects me to accept it as my problem.
My issue with free will is that its a gibberish concept that fundamentally makes no sense. Not that its "free will" vs "pre-destination"
My definition of "no free will" is that our "will" is based in physical reality, which is primarily made up of highly predictable phenomena, with a extremely and laughably tiny influence from quantum mechanics, which is metaphorically random dice rolls anyway so it doesn't matter.
A better way to look at my stance though is more to ask yourself, "What is your will actually free from?" If you think there is a metaphysical aspect to our will even then that implies that our will is then determined via the metaphysical and still isn't really free.
That said, it kind of ties together with the whole "can't choose to be born" issue, because its impossible to choose to even exist or in what environmental context and with what physical body you were born into you can't reasonably say we ever make any true decisions. Our existence stems from a domino effect starting at the big bang (or maybe something before that)
EDIT: I thought more about my response here after a time and realized I was frustrated with the direction you were taking the conversation. So I apologize. I am trying to have a practical discussion, and you took it in a metaphysical direction. There's nothing wrong with a metaphsycial discussion, but that wasn't what it started with and wasn't the topic I was intersted in exploring. I'll leave my response below unedited, but if you sense my frustration I wanted you to know why and to know I retract my frustration even if my opinions still stand.
I hope I haven't dampened your day. That wasn't my intent.
I said nothing about how to define happiness for you. You made statements that you didn't like responsibilities of society ("productive member" etc). I was offering an alternative that is available to you. I can't tell you what is going to make you happy. Thats not for me to determine. Thats one of those responsibility that is on you as an adult.
Wait, again with society? So which is it? Are you upset by society or not? If you wanted to march yourself off into a desert, and just lay down you likely could. I'd prefer you don't, though. Society will have no expectation for you out there. If you get cold or hungry that has nothing to do with society though. You can't reasonably expect the benefits of society (readily available warmth and food) without interacting with it though.
Okay, fine. There's no problem with that as an abstract concept as someone trying to apply reason to randomness (or order if you see it that way instead). Is that an actionable ethos though? Does your theory have any practical application in your own life? Does it lead you to action (or inaction)? It certainly doesn't have to, but I'm not sure how useful it is as a guiding principle of understanding the universe if it doesn't.
This is my opinion of course, but that is a straight up bonkers take. It is completely illogical and unreasonable. It is defeatist in the worst and most disingenuous kind of way.
What it sounds like you're saying is (and please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you): "If I cannot choose every aspect of my being, even the things divorced from the boundaries of the physics of our known universe, I am not really able to make any decision on my own."
I'll be honest, I have serious concerns for you and what may have happened to you for you to arrive at that conclusion.
Sorry for the late response, I only have access to this account at work.
No worries, you haven't. A little bit of push back to my ideas is honestly something I find motivating. Usually other people grow tired of it.
My point wasn't that I did not personally like the responsibilities. I shouldn't have used "expect me" because that implies this is more personal than it is (my bad). Its that I resent that they exist at all for anyone. Further, that we live in a society that wants individuals forcefully born within it to sacrifice themselves for said society, and self imposed exile is not an escape from this injustice. My individual choices (lacking the power to change things on a society level) cannot permit a true escape from that.
Now, extrapolating this to an actual actionable belief to today's world would be that I think society should operate as if it serves each individual, not that individuals ought to serve society by default. And we have the technology and logistical capacity to do that.
It means that no individual can be held fully responsible for their actions and we should structure society purely around consequences, like harm reduction and maximizing contentment.
The results of this belief in my own personal life, I generally have held that it is irrational to hate someone and for a long while that gave me a lot of patience with people I knew for their transgressions or moral failures.
Admittedly, I've faltered in my patience as of late due to the state of the world. A more emotionally hedonistic attitude has taken hold in me.
Lots of debate and research regarding philosophy, resulting in a lot of critical thinking happened to me. A ruthless desire to get to the truth of reality, no matter how much it hurts.
If I were to guess if anything emotional fueled those desires, it was a desire to feel self worth. I thought I was an idiot for most of my early life and thought everyone else around me had a grip on practical life things. That I would have to fake my way through life and perpetually be in a state of imposter syndrome. Tends to make you prefer spending all your time reading and debating on the internet. (and playing video games)
After a long period of harsh self judgement and self loathing over being stupid, I realized most other people were somehow worse. So now I'm a terrified and alienated egotistical autist. I'd rather be the village idiot that I thought I was.
Is there a consensual birth option I'm not familiar with?
Without at least some sacrifices to society, society ceases to to be. So the choice is some sacrifice vs living in a lawless hellscape.
If you mean the metaphysical injustice you've described earlier as having to simply exist and responsible for procuring your own food and shelter, sure. That's life. Death is the only escape from life.
If that's where you're going, its far less metaphysical in my thinking of it. We are simply self-aware collections of atoms. There's no feeling that drove this existence. Simply evolution at work to have us arrive at where we are today. Proteins fold, amino acids coalesse, and an uncountable versions of that eventually gave rise to us.
I've been there. "Comparison is the thief of joy." Teddy Roosevelt.
I did that too. I spent a year playing an MMO religiously to the detriment of nearly everything else in my life. After the year had passed I had an epiphany. A year passed and nothing had changed. I was effectively the same person I was the year prior. I had spent one of my precious years of my life doing nothing of consequence. I was a year older and I had nothing to show for it. I thought about all the things I wished I was, wished I had, wished I knew, and how much a year of effort into one of those things would have accomplished.
I had dropped out of college after high school, not completing my degree, and while I was loathed to admit it, I always felt "behind" my same-aged peers. The older I got, the more "behind" I felt and the hard it felt to do anything about it. That is when I developed a mantra that would help me for the next 10 years. "If I hadn't played that game as I did, I would have been a year ahead in my goal." Swallowed my pride and at 30 years old signed back up for undergrad college. It took many years going part time (because I was still working professionally the entire time), but I graduated and now have a Bachelors degree. Any time I was feeling weak or felt like quitting I'd remember "If I hadn't played that game as I did, I would have been a year ahead in my goal." which in my last year became "If I hadn't played that game as I did, I would have graduated by now."
For every large life goal I set after that, I still used a modified version of my mature. Home ownership, career advancement, personal growth, further professional and personal education and skill acquisition all came from realizing that change only came from my action, and nothing came from my inaction.
I came to a different realization. I realized the race in life was never with other people, it was always with the previous version of myself. If you've ever played racing video game with a "ghost" mode where you are see a pale version of yourself representing a prior run on the same course at the same time, this is a helpful visual for me. Here's an old n64 1080, which is snowboarding game. You can see the camera is centered on the the current player on the current run, and the ghost is the one not center in frame.
That ghost is you, but he prior "you". That's who you're competing against. That's who you need to beat. He has no advantages over you. He was born at the exact same time as you, has the same gifts, the same faults. There's nothing about him that you don't have. Except you have a cheat code to the game of life that he doesn't have. You, unlike your ghost in the game, can see where the ghost had difficulty and learn from his mistakes. You can keep practicing to get better, to get farther, to get faster. You have the capacity to always beat him, but you have to try. You have to put in the effort. However, if you are the same person today as you were yesterday, at best you will only be equal to him. Without your effort to improve, the ghost will always cross the finish line the same time you do. You know what it is you don't like about yourself better than any other person on the planet. You also have the capacity to improve or fix many of those things.
The race isn't against other people, it is, and always has been, only against prior versions of ourselves.
I know there is satisfaction from self improvement. I do that and compare myself to others both. I can't help it.
Sure, but atm society is built around leaning into that individual's sacrifice for the sake of... just bolstering humanity as a whole. That's not really for any one individual within humanity as a result it doesn't truly benefit us like it ought to IMO.
I think given the level of technological level we are at, we should be working far less for the exact same comforts and progress. We aren't largely because of a culture of self sacrifice and a imposed expectation of that sacrifice on others.
I mean, no obviously. That's sort of my point.
Yes, we are a cosmic accident. That means that there is no greater purpose we serve by suffering as individuals and I don't think building a "greater" human civilization justifies individual suffering.
The closest I think is justified is to work simply to make life easier, safer, and more pleasurable. But we're beyond that, now we work because work brings you closer to god, or will bring about a grand society, or with bring pride to your nation, or because you must prove yourself, etc. Shit that doesn't mean anything.
Bruh
Surely hope your child won't happen to be depressed or traumatized in some way. That would be really cringe after all. 😑
We're not talking about "in some way" here. The piece you're clearly responding to is my point we're talking about how some adults use how their parents treated them as children as a continuing excuse for inaction in adulthood. We're safe though. I have no children and won't be having any.