𝕮𝕬𝕭𝕭𝕬𝕲𝕰

A Literal Cabbage. What do you want from me?

  • 2 Posts
  • 77 Comments
Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 6th, 2024

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  • You’re moving the goalposts.

    You made two key points;

    1. That suffering can be beneficial and
    2. That denying someone the opportunity to experience something beneficial is immoral, somtomhave kids is moral positive.

    My primary objections are

    1. That suffering is always bad (although we disagree on the definitions of suffering, somits likely to be a moot point)
    2. Having children on the basis of it being morally good presents a number of very upsetting and dangerous implications.

    Gaza was an example of a point, and of my own views on suffering; that suffering is something you cannot escape and that you do not choose, not something that’s difficult or temporarily painful you can choose to do which will ultimately produce some good. I’d posit that everyone experiences some form of suffering in their lives, to varying degrees, and the minimisation of this can only ever be a net positive.

    Personally I don’t want children for a number of reasons, but boiling it down to a moral reason is reductive, unhelpful, and can be dangerous.


  • I’d put it to you that suffering, in the sense that we’re discussing, would be something more than the pain of exercise - the people of Gaza are suffering, when I go into the ‘pain cave’ on a bike ride I’m enduring something for the benefit of it; I can stop, pause or relent if it becomes overbearing. It’s type 2 fun. It’s not suffering if you can opt out; challenge, and difficulty arent bad; suffering is.

    It’s interesting that your anti-theistic approach has led you to what I would see as a very religious adjacent approach to reproduction; my worry with approaches like the outline you gave is that it can end up punishing any sort of reluctance to have kids (and can paint those who aren’t able to as immoral in some way). Not saying that’s you’re intention, just saying.


  • Could an artist not suffer for their work that brings great joy to themselves and others? Is that suffering not then worthy and good?

    This is an awful take. Not suffering is always preferable to suffering.

    If something is worthy and good then denying others the opportunity to exist and be worthy and good is itself immoral.

    Does this mean that you have a moral imperative to have children because there are “worthy and good” things in the world? Is the logic “I can have children, there is good in the world, therefore it’s immoral to deny a potential life the opportunity to experience life”?

    I say this as someone who can, but won’t, have children, and who grew up in an evangelical church - that’s a bizarre logic that feels an awful lot like some fundamentalist Christian quiverfull shit.












  • I mean I live in the UK so it’s not a massive risk (part of why it’s acceptable) but I have a farmer friend who almost lost a seasons worth of crop to a fire started by a fag end flicked from a car.

    But yeah, smoking correlates with poor behaviour more broadly in various ways (in my experience). I feel like such a crank but I identify strongly with Costanza screaming “we live in a society” more than I’m comfortable with when I see people brazenly littering (esp. fag ends).


  • My neighbour’s douchebag boyfriend drops his cig butts all over the front of their (her) place.

    I found one flicked onto my front windowsill literally this morning, on my doorstep nearly daily, and it turns out that he’s been chucking them out of a window and they have been ending up in our shared guttering for months. This affects about 4-5 other houses as well.

    Smoking is an inherently selfish act - but at least have the good grace to keep your fucking plastic pollution to yourself - especially when you’re smoking outside your own goddamn residence!