5 ms·

One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out o

by abound 6mo ago

One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out of existence. Do you push the button?" Some people get caught in minutiae about downstream effects, I tell them it can go however they want (house pets are free or gone too, planes land harmlessly, etc) In my circles, I've found it's about 50/50 button pushers to non-button pushers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, vegetarians are more likely to be button pushers.

squibonpig 6mo ago
If you've ever flown in an airplane and looked down at a town, it's outskirts and interface with nature, and the natural environment that surrounds it, you'll probably know the feeling. Our species, if it's even right to lay some kind of claim to the species or to the amalgam of biological, social, technical processes that we lump under that label, is a great colonial organism pervading a larger body. But like the bacteria that inhabit our bodies, even in the cases of bacterial infestations that are unhealthy for us, there's no ontological distinction between the bacteria and the body. The body is eating itself or burning itself up always like the body of a starving person; in doing so it produces beautiful and complex arrangements and unknowable futures, it produces itself anew and becomes somebody else. When we take moral judgements, which are no more than functional elements at work within the body, and attempt to apply them to the body at large, or to our representational, projected image of it, all we're doing is helping along the same process of self consumption (or immolation) that the body is already undertaking. Whether you press the button or don't press the button, the process, its beauty and its horror, continues along uninterrupted.
mock-possum 6mo ago
God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.
- itsanaccount 6mo ago
  Because that line of "enjoying your existence" making no mention of the monumental harm we cause to every biome on the planet is exactly the kind of selfishness that the button pushers would like to eradicate.
  - greygoo222 6mo ago
    Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve consideration. (Pigs are).
    - Capricorn2481 6mo ago
      > Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve consideration. (Pigs are). Where do you think animals live?
      - greygoo222 6mo ago
        Causing harm to biomes is not the same thing as causing net harm to animals inside biomes. The base rate of harm done to animals inside biomes is immense and horrific.
        Capricorn2481 6mo ago
        You're doing crazy gymnastics right now. Eliminating biomes drives animals to extinction. In what world could you argue that doesn't deserve even a little moral consideration? I'm not going to argue with someone who works this hard to be a contrarian.
        greygoo222 6mo ago
        It's not gymnastics, you just have no background on this topic. Species are not moral subjects. Individuals are. Killing an individual animal that could live a worthwhile life for longer is an individually bad act. Insofar as this happens in the process of species going extinct, that's bad. But it's also the default state of nature. Does replacing a forest with a city cause net harm to non-human animals? That's not clear. It might even be net good. Does that mean we should destroy wilderness on purpose to prevent wild animal suffering? Not yet, we don't have the technology to mitigate knock-on effects, and it should be done a way that does not harm individuals. But I can't get behind viewing biome destruction as some kind of atrocity against the animals within them, at least not as a whole. (Some species have better lives than others).
- stouset 6mo ago
  The point is that continuing to enjoy your existence is inflicting a massive toll of suffering around the world, to both others humans as well as non-humans. I’m not saying I’d be one to push the button, but I think it’s worth trying to understand the mindset of someone who would. It’s very arguable that pushing it would be the ethical thing to do.
  - mock-possum 6mo ago
    That’s an interesting point, but the degree to which enjoying my existence inflicts “a massive toll of suffering around the world” seems negligible, how much harm could I as an individual really be doing? I’m a very small drop in a very big bucket, and in the already tragically short time I am allotted on this earth, I would like to enjoy myself, thank you very much. I would not dream of asking others to kill themselves so that my existence might be marginally improved.
  - trylfthsk 6mo ago
    Not entirely convinced that outside the torment nexuses used in industrial meat farming, natural suffering is any lesser sans humanity.
    - aziaziazi 6mo ago
      Estimated scale of the torment nexuses: https://considerveganism.com/counter/ https://considerveganism.com/counter/
      - stouset 6mo ago
        The fish counter is horrifying, I had no idea.
        aziaziazi 6mo ago
        The fish counter comes from here https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-welfare/article/estimating-global-numbers-of-fishes-caught-from-the-wild-annually-from-2000-to-2019/83F1B933E8691F3A552636620E8C7A01 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-welfare/artic... One could argue there's a double count: about one-fifth of fish are caught to feed other animals (mainly fish, but also terrestrial animals). But I don't think one kill offsets another. > around half of wild-caught finfish numbers are destined for reduction to fishmeal and oil, of which, respectively, 70 and 73% are used for aquaculture feeds
- jancsika 6mo ago
  You should definitely watch the Black Mirror episode about the robot bees!
- hypeatei 6mo ago
  Well, some people do choose suicide but I have a feeling that you'd be uncomfortable discussing assisted suicide. These conversations around humanity and suffering typically end in thought terminating takes such as yours. Why even respond if you're effectively throwing your hands up in the air and ignoring nuance?
  - greygoo222 6mo ago
    The person you're responding to is explicitly saying they would be fine with suicide.
    - hypeatei 6mo ago
      > is explicitly saying I don't think it's explicit, that's why I put the quip in there about assisted suicide. This thread is showing me that perhaps a lot of people would be okay with the "complainers" offing themselves but I'm not sure... my gut feeling is that a lot of optimists hold conflicting beliefs around this.
      - greygoo222 6mo ago
        As a card-carrying optimist, I am strongly in favor of universal right to die. Maybe you should wait for the people in this thread to report their opinions before making assumptions? I don't want most "complainers" to kill themselves, nor would I recommend them to, but I support their right to. And if they showed me convincing evidence their life contains too much suffering to be worthwhile, I would agree with their decision.
- NoGravitas 6mo ago
  “optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
wincy 6mo ago
That’s wild to me. I’d hazard a guess that 0% of my friends would push the button (okay, lizardman tax, I’m sure I could find someone I know who would say yes). I think they’d also feel a need to go find whoever made said button and lock them in a cell for safekeeping.
moribvndvs 6mo ago
My first serious programming job was at a start up and the owner asked me this question. I was caught off guard, of course I wouldn’t! I couldn’t really explain why at the time, but it essentially revolved around the fact that I was young and optimistic. 25 years later, I’m not so sure. Now, said optimism has almost vanished and there are days pushing seems like the path to least suffering, but I also feel it’s unethical for one person to decide for everyone else.
- greygoo222 6mo ago
  I mean this sincerely, not as an insult: consider that the problem is with your mind or personal life, not with the world, and you should look for a way to address that if you haven't already.
  - moribvndvs 6mo ago
    Suggesting that the wholesale suffering wrought by humanity unto itself and all other life on this planet throughout its entire history is merely in my mind or a problem with my personal life is actually incredibly insulting on top of being willfully ignorant.
    - greygoo222 6mo ago
      That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting your attitude towards it might be.
      - NoGravitas 6mo ago
        “For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
glenstein 6mo ago
It's impossible to refute anecdotes purporting to represent populations based on what they might do in a hypothetical, and the people being described fade further out of tangible existence at every next layer of abstraction. But Most Vegans I Know (tm) regard human life as valuabe, speak in terms of harm reduction, and tend not to fantasize about making Vault Tec real.
- gowld 6mo ago
  If human life is net harmful, then harm reduction means targeting 0 humans.
  - glenstein 6mo ago
    How representative do you feel that view is of vegans generally?
bayarearefugee 6mo ago
FWIW I wouldn't push the button. I just think we are going to absolutely deserve the outcome as we collectively and metaphorically push that button... which we continue to do and are regressing on stopping ourselves from doing so a handful of super wealthy can watch gamified number go up.
- gowld 6mo ago
  What makes you think that we we collectively and metaphorically are pushing the painless button?
  - bayarearefugee 6mo ago
    Well you're right, the real world isn't so simple and the button we are pushing certainly isn't going to be painless.
hrimfaxi 6mo ago
Are you in silicon valley by any chance?
- relaxing 6mo ago
  Even more, Xoogler.
pmarreck 6mo ago
If I were to implement such a button, I'd make it so that only the people who said "yes" would disappear. Life is a gift. A painless life has no value. In fact, if you are genetically immune to pain, your lifetime survival rate is something like the teens.
pmarreck 6mo ago
We have examples of how that actually plays out (in a limited form). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
tengbretson 6mo ago
Ehhh no they wouldn't.
diacritical 6mo ago
Look up on negative utilitarianism and the Benevolent World Exploder if you want to find more info on the button idea. Basically the idea is that if minimizing suffering is more important than maximizing pleasure, a world with no life would have no suffering whatsoever. Regardless of whether you believe that, removing humans only would still leave the unfathomably huge amount of suffering of wild animals and after a while someone else will evolve and take the role of humans. However, if we leave humans exist, they could either destroy everything anyway (like with nukes or AI) or eliminate suffering like David Pearce and others imagine.

by abound 6mo ago

squibonpig 6mo ago

If you've ever flown in an airplane and looked down at a town, it's outskirts and interface with nature, and the natural environment that surrounds it, you'll probably know the feeling. Our species, if it's even right to lay some kind of claim to the species or to the amalgam of biological, social, technical processes that we lump under that label, is a great colonial organism pervading a larger body. But like the bacteria that inhabit our bodies, even in the cases of bacterial infestations that are unhealthy for us, there's no ontological distinction between the bacteria and the body. The body is eating itself or burning itself up always like the body of a starving person; in doing so it produces beautiful and complex arrangements and unknowable futures, it produces itself anew and becomes somebody else. When we take moral judgements, which are no more than functional elements at work within the body, and attempt to apply them to the body at large, or to our representational, projected image of it, all we're doing is helping along the same process of self consumption (or immolation) that the body is already undertaking. Whether you press the button or don't press the button, the process, its beauty and its horror, continues along uninterrupted.

mock-possum 6mo ago

God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.

itsanaccount 6mo ago
Because that line of "enjoying your existence" making no mention of the monumental harm we cause to every biome on the planet is exactly the kind of selfishness that the button pushers would like to eradicate.
- greygoo222 6mo ago
  Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve consideration. (Pigs are).
  - Capricorn2481 6mo ago
    > Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve consideration. (Pigs are). Where do you think animals live?
    - greygoo222 6mo ago
      Causing harm to biomes is not the same thing as causing net harm to animals inside biomes. The base rate of harm done to animals inside biomes is immense and horrific.
      - Capricorn2481 6mo ago
        You're doing crazy gymnastics right now. Eliminating biomes drives animals to extinction. In what world could you argue that doesn't deserve even a little moral consideration? I'm not going to argue with someone who works this hard to be a contrarian.
        greygoo222 6mo ago
        It's not gymnastics, you just have no background on this topic. Species are not moral subjects. Individuals are. Killing an individual animal that could live a worthwhile life for longer is an individually bad act. Insofar as this happens in the process of species going extinct, that's bad. But it's also the default state of nature. Does replacing a forest with a city cause net harm to non-human animals? That's not clear. It might even be net good. Does that mean we should destroy wilderness on purpose to prevent wild animal suffering? Not yet, we don't have the technology to mitigate knock-on effects, and it should be done a way that does not harm individuals. But I can't get behind viewing biome destruction as some kind of atrocity against the animals within them, at least not as a whole. (Some species have better lives than others).
stouset 6mo ago
The point is that continuing to enjoy your existence is inflicting a massive toll of suffering around the world, to both others humans as well as non-humans. I’m not saying I’d be one to push the button, but I think it’s worth trying to understand the mindset of someone who would. It’s very arguable that pushing it would be the ethical thing to do.
- mock-possum 6mo ago
  That’s an interesting point, but the degree to which enjoying my existence inflicts “a massive toll of suffering around the world” seems negligible, how much harm could I as an individual really be doing? I’m a very small drop in a very big bucket, and in the already tragically short time I am allotted on this earth, I would like to enjoy myself, thank you very much. I would not dream of asking others to kill themselves so that my existence might be marginally improved.
- trylfthsk 6mo ago
  Not entirely convinced that outside the torment nexuses used in industrial meat farming, natural suffering is any lesser sans humanity.
  - aziaziazi 6mo ago
    Estimated scale of the torment nexuses: https://considerveganism.com/counter/ https://considerveganism.com/counter/
    - stouset 6mo ago
      The fish counter is horrifying, I had no idea.
      - aziaziazi 6mo ago
        The fish counter comes from here https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-welfare/article/estimating-global-numbers-of-fishes-caught-from-the-wild-annually-from-2000-to-2019/83F1B933E8691F3A552636620E8C7A01 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-welfare/artic... One could argue there's a double count: about one-fifth of fish are caught to feed other animals (mainly fish, but also terrestrial animals). But I don't think one kill offsets another. > around half of wild-caught finfish numbers are destined for reduction to fishmeal and oil, of which, respectively, 70 and 73% are used for aquaculture feeds
jancsika 6mo ago
You should definitely watch the Black Mirror episode about the robot bees!
hypeatei 6mo ago
Well, some people do choose suicide but I have a feeling that you'd be uncomfortable discussing assisted suicide. These conversations around humanity and suffering typically end in thought terminating takes such as yours. Why even respond if you're effectively throwing your hands up in the air and ignoring nuance?
- greygoo222 6mo ago
  The person you're responding to is explicitly saying they would be fine with suicide.
  - hypeatei 6mo ago
    > is explicitly saying I don't think it's explicit, that's why I put the quip in there about assisted suicide. This thread is showing me that perhaps a lot of people would be okay with the "complainers" offing themselves but I'm not sure... my gut feeling is that a lot of optimists hold conflicting beliefs around this.
    - greygoo222 6mo ago
      As a card-carrying optimist, I am strongly in favor of universal right to die. Maybe you should wait for the people in this thread to report their opinions before making assumptions? I don't want most "complainers" to kill themselves, nor would I recommend them to, but I support their right to. And if they showed me convincing evidence their life contains too much suffering to be worthwhile, I would agree with their decision.
NoGravitas 6mo ago
“optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

wincy 6mo ago

That’s wild to me. I’d hazard a guess that 0% of my friends would push the button (okay, lizardman tax, I’m sure I could find someone I know who would say yes). I think they’d also feel a need to go find whoever made said button and lock them in a cell for safekeeping.

moribvndvs 6mo ago

My first serious programming job was at a start up and the owner asked me this question. I was caught off guard, of course I wouldn’t! I couldn’t really explain why at the time, but it essentially revolved around the fact that I was young and optimistic. 25 years later, I’m not so sure. Now, said optimism has almost vanished and there are days pushing seems like the path to least suffering, but I also feel it’s unethical for one person to decide for everyone else.

greygoo222 6mo ago
I mean this sincerely, not as an insult: consider that the problem is with your mind or personal life, not with the world, and you should look for a way to address that if you haven't already.
- moribvndvs 6mo ago
  Suggesting that the wholesale suffering wrought by humanity unto itself and all other life on this planet throughout its entire history is merely in my mind or a problem with my personal life is actually incredibly insulting on top of being willfully ignorant.
  - greygoo222 6mo ago
    That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting your attitude towards it might be.
    - NoGravitas 6mo ago
      “For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

glenstein 6mo ago

It's impossible to refute anecdotes purporting to represent populations based on what they might do in a hypothetical, and the people being described fade further out of tangible existence at every next layer of abstraction. But Most Vegans I Know (tm) regard human life as valuabe, speak in terms of harm reduction, and tend not to fantasize about making Vault Tec real.

gowld 6mo ago
If human life is net harmful, then harm reduction means targeting 0 humans.
- glenstein 6mo ago
  How representative do you feel that view is of vegans generally?

bayarearefugee 6mo ago

FWIW I wouldn't push the button. I just think we are going to absolutely deserve the outcome as we collectively and metaphorically push that button... which we continue to do and are regressing on stopping ourselves from doing so a handful of super wealthy can watch gamified number go up.

gowld 6mo ago
What makes you think that we we collectively and metaphorically are pushing the painless button?
- bayarearefugee 6mo ago
  Well you're right, the real world isn't so simple and the button we are pushing certainly isn't going to be painless.

hrimfaxi 6mo ago

Are you in silicon valley by any chance?

relaxing 6mo ago
Even more, Xoogler.

pmarreck 6mo ago

If I were to implement such a button, I'd make it so that only the people who said "yes" would disappear. Life is a gift. A painless life has no value. In fact, if you are genetically immune to pain, your lifetime survival rate is something like the teens.

pmarreck 6mo ago

We have examples of how that actually plays out (in a limited form). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

tengbretson 6mo ago

Ehhh no they wouldn't.

diacritical 6mo ago

Look up on negative utilitarianism and the Benevolent World Exploder if you want to find more info on the button idea. Basically the idea is that if minimizing suffering is more important than maximizing pleasure, a world with no life would have no suffering whatsoever. Regardless of whether you believe that, removing humans only would still leave the unfathomably huge amount of suffering of wild animals and after a while someone else will evolve and take the role of humans. However, if we leave humans exist, they could either destroy everything anyway (like with nukes or AI) or eliminate suffering like David Pearce and others imagine.