The Brain - The Center Cannot Hold Anti Natalism 2022-12-12 | "Nobody who spends appreciable time with brain-damaged patients can avoid the obvious conclusion. The brain is the source of the mind. Descartes' idea, aside from being wrong in the particulars, has a deeper problem. There is no part of the brain that, when damaged, takes away the Cartesian soul. Instead damage to different structures takes away different chunks of the mind. The ability to formulate a sentence? Lost in damage to Broca's area. The ability to understand language? Lost in damage to Wernicke's area. The ability to see, imagine, or comprehend color? Lost in damage to specific regions of the visual system. The ability to think about the space around the body? Lost in damage to another set of brain areas. The ability to intuit the feelings and intentions of others? Impaired after a stroke to a specific network of brain regions. And so on. The mind is a collective and bits of it die when parts of the machinery are mucked up. Even awareness itself, as I wrote about last time, can be splintered apart and compromised by brain damage."Michael Graziano Professor of Neuroscience, Princeton University "Does nature not conceal most things from him-even concerning his own body-in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key. And woe to that fatal curiosity which might one day have the power to peer out and down through a crack in the chamber of consciousness" -Nietzsche"The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen." — Steven Pinker"Man crawls and dies: all is but born to die:The world ’s the empire of destructiveness.This frail construction of quick nerves and bonesCannot sustain the shock of elements;This temporary blend of blood and dustWas put together only to dissolve;This prompt and vivid sentiment of nerveWas made for pain, the minister of death:Thus in my ear does nature’s message run." Voltaire “He realized, you do not encounter death at all, for you are gone before it gets there. Your existence is attached by a thread; it rests only on the tip of your lips."Sarah Bakewell"Oblivious to our human yearnings for permanence, the universe is relentlessly wearing down, falling apart, driving itself toward a condition of maximum disorder.I don’t know why we long so for permanence, why the fleeting nature of things so disturbs. With futility, we cling to the old wallet long after it has fallen apart. We visit and revisit the old neighborhood where we grew up, searching for the remembered grove of trees and the little fence. We clutch our old photographs. In our churches and synagogues and mosques, we pray to the everlasting and eternal. Yet, in every nook and cranny, nature screams at the top of her lungs that nothing lasts, that it is all passing away. All that we see around us, including our own bodies, is shifting and evaporating and one day will be gone. Where are the one billion people who lived and breathed in the year 1800, only two short centuries ago?Over its 4.5-billion-year history, our own planet has gone through continuous upheavals and change. The primitive earth had no oxygen in its atmosphere. Huge landmasses splintered and glided about on deep tectonic plates. Then plants and photosynthesis leaked oxygen into the atmosphere. At certain periods, the changing gases in the air caused the planet to cool; ice covered the earth; entire oceans may have frozen. Today, the earth continues to change."Dr. Alan LightmanThere is no fixed you. It is an assembly of parts and connections that are in this moment coming together to be what you think you are but it is balanced on a precarious bundle of strings that can unravel by too much force, drugs, or disease. The self is a sandcastle that will not last the incoming tide of time and entropy.Homo Sapiens? The Wise Ape is much more the Superstitious Ape.Things fall apart; the center cannot hold - Yeats
The Bloody Gods Anti Natalism 2022-12-04 | The Gods are out for blood and our species keeps giving them new blood. Every new life is an inevitable sacrificial death. Blood offeringsBasic to both animal and human sacrifice is the recognition of blood as the sacred life force in man and beast. Through the sacrifice—through the return of the sacred life revealed in the victim—the god lives, and, therefore, man and nature live. The great potency of blood has been utilized through sacrifice for a number of purposes—e.g., earth fertility, purification, and expiation. The letting of blood, however, was neither the only end nor the only mode of human and animal sacrifice.A wide variety of animals have served as sacrificial offerings. In ancient Greece and India, for example, oblations included a number of important domestic animals, such as the goat, ram, bull, ox, and horse. Moreover, in Greek religion all edible birds, wild animals of the hunt, and fish were used. In ancient Judaism the kind and number of animals for the various sacrifices was carefully stipulated so that the offering might be acceptable and thus fully effective. This sort of regulation is generally found in sacrificial cults; the offering must be appropriate either to the deity to whom or to the intention for which it is to be presented. Very often the sacrificial species (animal or vegetable) was closely associated with the deity to whom it was offered as the deity’s symbolic representation or even its incarnation. Thus, in the Vedic ritual the goddesses of night and morning received the milk of a black cow having a white calf; the “bull of heaven,” Indra, was offered a bull, and Surya, the sun god, was offered a white male goat. Similarly, the ancient Greeks sacrificed black animals to the deities of the dark underworld; swift horses to the sun god Helios; pregnant sows to the earth mother Demeter; and the dog, guardian of the dead, to Hecate, goddess of darkness. The Syrians sacrificed fish, regarded as the lord of the sea and guardian of the realm of the dead, to the goddess Atargatis and ate the consecrated offering in a communion meal with the deity, sharing in the divine power. An especially prominent sacrificial animal was the bull (or its counterparts, the boar and the ram), which, as the representation and embodiment of the cosmic powers of fertility, was sacrificed to numerous fertility gods (e.g., the Norse god Freyr; the Greek “bull of the earth,” Zeus Chthonios; and the Indian “bull of heaven,” Indra).The occurrence of human sacrifice appears to have been widespread and its intentions various, ranging from communion with a god and participation in his divine life to expiation and the promotion of the earth’s fertility. It seems to have been adopted by agricultural rather than by hunting or pastoral peoples. Of all the worldly manifestations of the life-force, the human undoubtedly impressed men as the most valuable and thus the most potent and efficacious as an oblation. Thus, in Mexico the belief that the sun needed human nourishment led to sacrifices in which as many as 20,000 victims perished annually in the Aztec and Nahua calendrical maize ritual in the 14th century CE. Bloodless human sacrifices also developed and assumed greatly different forms: e.g., a Celtic ritual involved the sacrifice of a woman by immersion, and among the Maya in Mexico young maidens were drowned in sacred wells; in Peru women were strangled; in ancient China the king’s retinue was commonly buried with him, and such internments continued intermittently until the 17th century.britannica.com/topic/sacrifice-religion/Blood-offerings
Dying Stars and Dying Lions Anti Natalism 2022-11-28 | You will find more truth in the guts of nature, not on the tongues of men.Dying Stars and Dying Lions speak a much more profound language than the self-aggrandizement of human sounds. "The illusion that exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths."Aleksandr PushkinUltimately, the star swells to a huge size, its radius twice the distance between the Earth to the sun. This stage is called the red giant phase.As it dies, the star blows most of its matter out into space, forming an expanding shell of gas. What remains of the star is a white dwarf.In its death throes, the sunlike star destroys its planets.What does death mean, for the sun? It means our sun will run out of fuel in its interior. It’ll cease the internal thermonuclear reactions that enable stars to shine. It’ll swell into a red giant, whose outer layers will engulf Mercury and Venus and likely reach the Earth. Life on Earth will end."The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu""An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." Martin Buber“I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive...The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings."Milan Kundera“Forget the buildings and the monuments. Let the softness of dark come in, all those light-years between stars and planets. Cities were the works of men but the earth before and after those cities, outside and beneath and around them, was the dream of a sleeping leviathan--it was god sleeping there and dreaming, the same god that was time and transfiguration. From whatever dreamed the dream at the source, atom or energy, flowed all the miracles of evolution--tiger, tiger burning bright, the massive whales in the deep, luminescent specters in their mystery. The pearls that were their eyes, their tongues that were wet leaves, their bodies that were the bodies of the fantastic.Spectacular bestiaries of heaven, the limbs and tails of the gentle and the fearsome, silent or raging at will . . . they could never be known in every detail and they never should be.”― Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream
Genocide - Never Again? Anti Natalism 2022-11-28 | Never Again? That was the mantra after the Holocaust. The promises of Never Again were hope not history. What's in a word like genocide. For the world in Rwanda in 1994 it meant obligation to action. But there was no political will. When there is no political will the next thing to do is change the definition to allow for inaction. To justify suffering and genocide. Never Again? Just change the word or deny the suffering. How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide? Just a slight change in the meaning of a word can paralyze action and allow a million souls in Rwanda to go down in a grisly fate. And there was, very famously, an exchange that the State Department had with a journalist, where they asked very point blank, “Is this a genocide?” And the State Department said, “Well, there are acts of genocide that are being committed.” And the journalist responded, “Well, how many acts of genocide does it take to make a whole genocide?”“We are in the presence of a crime without a name,” Winston Churchill said in a 1941 speech. At the time of the Holocaust, there was no legal definition for an atrocity on such an enormous scale. And there wouldn’t be one for seven more years—until the United Nations adopted the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The edge of the Universe Anti Natalism 2022-11-28 | "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu""What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind [through the universe]? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day." Death By Black Hole, Neil deGrasse TysonJose Ortega Gasset:"Life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it up with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his ideas are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality."The spacetime horizon you’re most likely familiar with is the “event horizon” of a black hole, forming the “surface”. The event horizon is the limit beyond which nothing can escape (including light, which is how black holes earn their name). Something above the horizon is visible and, perhaps with great effort, can escape to meet an outside observer. Anything below the event horizon is gone forever. The cosmological event horizon is remarkably similar. It’s presently about 16 billion light years away, in every direction.The cosmological horizon is caused by the expansion of the universe. You can picture this as being like ants crawling on a balloon. As the balloon expands only ants that are close to each other will be able to run into each other; more distant ants can crawl at each other at full speed, but the expansion will add more rubber between them than their movement subtracts. If something moving away from us passes through the horizon, then the last light it emits before crossing the horizon will take forever to get to us.The universe hasn’t existed forever and a lot of stuff has happened in its history, so the oldest light we can see doesn’t come from close to the cosmic event horizon. Even so, the same slowing/reddening effect is visible to the naked eye.The event horizon is not just a boundary in space, it is in some sense a boundary in time. Someone falling into a black hole shouldn’t notice anything too exciting at the event horizon. Extreme gravity and the terrifying knowledge that your falling into a black hole notwithstanding, passing through the event horizon shouldn’t be something that really stands out to you.The first galaxies date to when the universe was a bit under an billion years old, with a redshift of a bit under ten, meaning that light coming from them is ten times as stretched out and the galaxies appear to be experiencing time at a tenth the usual rate. The oldest light we can see is the cosmic microwave background, which has been traveling for 13 billion years and redshifted by a factor of 1100. We can’t see any farther with light; the CMB is like the blue of the sky, completely overwhelming the sky behind it.askamathematician.com/2020/06/q-how-big-is-the-universe-what-happens-at-the-edgeHorizon at the edge of the universe
Parasitic Wasps Anti Natalism 2022-11-25 | Charles Darwin “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [a family of parasitoid wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.”Parasitoid wasps form a massive group of superfamilies within the taxonomic order Hymenoptera, the insect group containing all wasps, bees and ants. In fact, each of those more familiar insects evolved from the parasitoid wasps, leaving behind their parasitic lifestyle when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.Parasitoid wasps are a truly enormous group. Best estimates suggest around one million different species worldwide. In the UK, which has 7,700 species of Hymenoptera, a whopping 6,500 are parasitoid wasps – and 4,000 of those are from just one superfamily, the Ichneumonoidea.Other wasps are ‘hyperparasitoids’ – feeding on other parasitoid wasps. Some species of ichneumonids can stick their ovipositor in a caterpillar and “taste” whether there is another parasitoid wasp larva inside. They then lay their own egg directly into that wasp larva."Oh, beauty is a beguiling call to death, and I'm addicted to the sweet pitch of its siren." - Johnny Quid, RocknRollaGlinting in shimmering shades of blue and green, the emerald cockroach wasp is surely a thing of beauty, but its shimmering exterior masks its cruel nature. The emerald cockroach wasp is one nature's most impressive neurochemists. At its core, it is a parasite. The female wasp lays her eggs on a cockroach host, and when they hatch, the larvae eat the creature from the inside out. You'd think the cockroach would be opposed to this idea, but instead the insect patiently awaits its fate while the larvae mature. Cockroaches are much larger than even a full grown wasp, and certainly could put up a fight, but that is where the wasps' ingenious manipulation of neurochemistry comes in. When she encounters a potential host, the female cockroach wasp first stings the cockroach in its abdomen, temporarily paralyzing its front legs and allowing the wasp to perch precisely on its head. She then stings the roach again, this time delivering venom directly into a part of the roach's brain called the sub-esophageal ganglia. This doesn't kill the roach. Instead, it puts the roach in a zombie-like trance. The roach is less fearful and loses the will to flee. It allows the wasp to lead it by its antennae, like a dog on a leash, to the wasp's burrow where the roach will play the martyr for the wasp's unborn children. Even though the roach is fully capable of locomotion during the week to month that passes from when the wasp stings the its brain until the hungry brood finish eating it alive, the zombified insect doesn't move. Emerald cockroach wasps have elevated neural manipulation to an art form to create perfect living incubators.though the roach has been rendered harmless, the wasp-to-be is threatened by other organisms. Humans aren't the only species that have to worry about their food spoiling—so do emerald cockroach wasps. Cockroaches truly are dirty creatures, and their insides are home to a suite of bacteria that can harm the wasp's vulnerable larvae. One of these potential threats is Serratia marcescens, a vile sort of Gram negative bacteria found in cockroach bodies. It's the same bacteria responsible for a number of human urinary tract infections and the weird pink stains that form in our toilets and showers. In insects, its effects are much more deadly. The bacteria possess a suite of protein-degrading enzymes that cut apart fragile larval cells.blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/parasitic-wasps-master-microbiology-on-addition-to-neurochemistryIf the world is full of worms, the parasitic worms who make their homes in humans are a staggeringly diverse group, ranging from those schistosomes, who are trematodes or flukes, flatworms without body cavities to the hookworms, which live in our GI tracts, where they hook on and suck blood. The hookworms are nematodes, or roundworms, a completely different phylum of invertebrates with a very different worm anatomy, and a completely different life cycle — their eggs hatch in warm moist soil, and the larvae burrow up through bare human feet. Other roundworms — such as the microfilaria, which cause elephantiasis and river blindness — are transmitted to humans by biting flies which inject the larval worms into our blood vessels.And then there are the cestodes, or tapeworms — again, a different biology, a different worm anatomy. These are hermaphroditic segmented flatworms, with each segment a complete reproductive system, so that each segment can become stuffed with eggs. And the tapeworms take a different route into our bodies; tapeworm larvae infect an intermediate host, a pig or a cow, and we get the infection by eating insufficiently cooked meat.
Non serviam Anti Natalism 2022-11-25 | “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call it God?”EpicurusThe more knowledge we attain we get farther from the shore of human centrality. The irony is we may have offended the actual god with our rush to superstitious conclusions or maybe the gnostics are closer to it. The "good" god is the underdog in this universe the evidence is all around. The "evil" god may be the real power. The power behind this universe and life force is not benevolent and is indifferent to suffering. Maybe in a thousand years if civilization is still around the evolution of human religions will catch up to this. "Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye thatwatched before there was an ocean...Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both ourtones flow from the older fountain."Romans 1:20 and the person who wrote that had no knowledge of earth history or natural history. If I take Romans 1:20 to heart the christian god would not be the god that I would think of at all. I think if one studies natural history and history in general it is hard to see how the christian god is a good explanation for what we see of creation. I do not see a benevolent god who watches the sparrow would be in charge of what has happened on earth for half a billion years. Millions upon millions of years of dinosaurs and their demise and at least 5 mass extinctions in earth history alone with an asteroid knocking off the dinosaurs from their throne. Its a record of amazing death and destruction long before mankind showed up. I think its about what you meditate on. You meditate on a man dying on a cross loving you personally. Try meditating on natural history and millions of years of that drama instead. It just doesn't go together. I do not believe we use our imagination enough on natural history. We humans use it on fictional characters alot when you see how much entertainment and stories we consume. We are more interested in stories we tell than the day to day grind of the blood and guts of life on earth for millions of years. The christian god just seems too small and human centered to be the god of the earth much less the universe.
Is life worth the price Anti Natalism 2022-11-11 | “Of all the world’s wonders, which is the most wonderful? That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die.”The Mahabharata unique knowledge is found by reasoning and questioning from first principles. Life for most of human society is never questioned just assumed to be a good and worth whatever the cost. The time has come to question these status quo assumptions.
Continents End Anti Natalism 2022-10-23 | The more knowledge we attain we get farther from the shore of human centrality. The irony is we may have offended the actual god with our rush to superstitious conclusions or maybe the gnostics are closer to it. The "good" god is the underdog in this universe the evidence is all around. The "evil" god may be the real power. The power behind this universe and life force is not benevolent and is indifferent to suffering. Maybe in a thousand years if civilization is still around the evolution of human religions will catch up to this. "Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye thatwatched before there was an ocean...Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both ourtones flow from the older fountain."Continent's EndAt the equinox when the earth was veiled in a late rain, wreathedwith wet poppies, waiting spring,The ocean swelled for a far storm and beat its boundary, theground-swell shook the beds of granite.I gazing at the boundaries of granite and spray, the establishedsea-marks, felt behind meMountain and plain, the immense breadth of the continent, beforeme the mass and doubled stretch of water.I said: You yoke the Aleutian seal-rocks with the lava and coralsowings that flower the south,Over your flood the life that sought the sunrise faces ours that hasfollowed the evening star.The long migrations meet across you and it is nothing to you, youhave forgotten us, mother.You were much younger when we crawled out of the womb andlay in the sun's eye on the tideline.It was long and long ago; we have grown proud since then andyou have grown bitter; life retainsYour mobile soft unquiet strength; and envies hardness, theinsolent quietness of stone.The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is yourchild, but there is in meOlder and harder than life and more impartial, the eye thatwatched before there was an ocean.That watched you fill your beds out of the condensation of thinvapor and watched you change them,That saw you soft and violent wear your boundaries down, eatrock, shift places with the continents.Mother, though my song's measure is like your surf-beat's ancientrhythm I never learned it of you.Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both ourtones flow from the older fountain.Romans 1:20 and the person who wrote that had no knowledge of earth history or natural history. If I take Romans 1:20 to heart the christian god would not be the god that I would think of at all. I think if one studies natural history and history in general it is hard to see how the christian god is a good explanation for what we see of creation. I do not see a benevolent god who watches the sparrow would be in charge of what has happened on earth for half a billion years. Millions upon millions of years of dinosaurs and their demise and at least 5 mass extinctions in earth history alone with an asteroid knocking off the dinosaurs from their throne. Its a record of amazing death and destruction long before mankind showed up. I think its about what you meditate on. You meditate on a man dying on a cross loving you personally. Try meditating on natural history and millions of years of that drama instead. It just doesn't go together. I do not believe we use our imagination enough on natural history. We humans use it on fictional characters alot when you see how much entertainment and stories we consume. We are more interested in stories we tell than the day to day grind of the blood and guts of life on earth for millions of years. The christian god just seems too small and human centered to be the god of the earth much less the universe.
Force a life into this, thresher Anti Natalism 2022-09-25 | "The hubris it must take to yank a soul out of non-existence into this, meat, force a life into this, thresher."Rust Cohle "And Time, a maniac scattering dust,And Life, a Fury slinging flame."Lord Tennyson
To live as a monster or die as a good man Anti Natalism 2022-09-25 | To live as a monster or die as a good man
Dystopia Anti Natalism 2022-09-25 | "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."George Orwell "Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."Peter Ustinov“If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” Thomas Hardy
One Funeral - Billions more to come Anti Natalism 2022-09-19 | The human tendency to turn away from mass suffering is well documented.Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said that "the death of one person is a tragedy; the death of one million is a statistic." (117 billion and more to come)Calculating the answer to the question “How many people have ever lived on Earth?” is complicated. “modern” Homo sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) were thought to have first walked the Earth around 50,000 B.C.E. Discoveries now suggest modern Homo sapiens existed much earlier, around 200,000 B.C.E. This major change in our understanding of human existence spurred new calculations and consultations with experts, resulting in an estimate that about 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earthCreating new life is creating new death. More meat for the machine. In your lust you must recycle star dust.In a world where people go around saying things like, "every life is precious" and "all people are equal," why do we react with such apparently unequal preciousness? If we take seriously the idea that every life is of equal value, we'd expect to feel twice the sympathy for two victims as for one; and we'd feel a hundred thousand times as much for a hundred thousand victims. And yet, we do the opposite.Recent studies that Daryl Cameron and I conducted shed light on why this might happen. We found evidence that as the number of victims goes up, so does the motivation to squelch our feelings of sympathy. In other words, when people see multiple victims, they turn the volume down on their emotions for fear of being overwhelmed.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-autopilot/201003/why-is-the-death-one-million-statistic
Time - A Maniac Scattering Dust Anti Natalism 2022-08-29 | "And Time, a maniac scattering dust,And Life, a Fury slinging flame."Lord Tennyson“We are in the land of no mercy now...Here doesn’t care. The river doesn’t care if you can swim. The snake doesn’t care how much you love your children. And the wolf has no interest in your dreams. If you fail to beat the current, you will drown; if you get too close, you will be bitten. If you are too weak, you will be eaten.”1883“Time, A maniac scattering dust.”"Earth’s situation is so unusual that Earth-like planets must be awfully rare. Here they consider the unique events that have gone into building our planet. Time and lots of it. Just the right kinds of stuff coming together to form a solid planet just the right distance from the right kind of star that allows the right sort of stuff, water specifically, to condense without boiling away into the heavens or condensing into permanent ice oceans. An exceptionally large moon that mixes ocean water and land daily. "The new science, astrobiology, tells us that maximum biological production was reached some 200 to 300 million years ago. Even in terms of species, a stasis has been reached. Species would come and go but the number would remain about the same even without human intervention. In E. O. Wilson’s terms, the island Earth is full-up. All this means we live on a planet that long ago reached maturity and is now well on its way to its inevitable decline and death.So what of the future? Well, at the moment the planet has this little problem, us. We’re killing things, both species and total biological productivity, with gay abandon and that alone would lead to warming the planet. And then of course, there is all that nice, warming carbon dioxide we’re turning loose. So things will get hotter for a while but in a few centuries the few remaining humans will skulk back to the caves they came from and things will get back to ‘normal’. The ice will come and go. Evolution will go to work, but new species will always reflect the planet’s history of human occupation. Continental drift will get all the continents together again and that will heat things up but good. The planet will get warmer and warmer. Plants will go first, starved for carbon dioxide. Then the animals will use up the last atmospheric oxygen. Eventually only the bacteria will survive, and we’ll be back to where we started. And then nothing, until the planet is consumed finally in its expanding star."Be near me when my light is low,When the blood creeps, and the nerves prickAnd tingle; and the heart is sick,And all the wheels of Being slow.Be near me when the sensuous frameIs racked with pangs that conquer trust;And Time, a maniac scattering dust,And Life, a Fury slinging flame.Be near me when my faith is dry,And men the flies of latter spring,That lay their eggs, and sting and sting,And weave their petty cells and die.Be near me when I fade away,To point the term of human strife,And on the low dark verge of lifeThe twilight of eternal day.
Earth - The Planet of the Life and Death Struggle Anti Natalism 2022-08-21 | “We are in the land of no mercy now...Here doesn’t care. The river doesn’t care if you can swim. The snake doesn’t care how much you love your children. And the wolf has no interest in your dreams. If you fail to beat the current, you will drown; if you get too close, you will be bitten. If you are too weak, you will be eaten.”1883Life feeds on Death. Death feeds on life. A circle of a merciless struggle. “Time, A maniac scattering dust.”"Earth’s situation is so unusual that Earth-like planets must be awfully rare. Here they consider the unique events that have gone into building our planet. Time and lots of it. Just the right kinds of stuff coming together to form a solid planet just the right distance from the right kind of star that allows the right sort of stuff, water specifically, to condense without boiling away into the heavens or condensing into permanent ice oceans. An exceptionally large moon that mixes ocean water and land daily. "The new science, astrobiology, tells us that maximum biological production was reached some 200 to 300 million years ago. Even in terms of species, a stasis has been reached. Species would come and go but the number would remain about the same even without human intervention. In E. O. Wilson’s terms, the island Earth is full-up. All this means we live on a planet that long ago reached maturity and is now well on its way to its inevitable decline and death.So what of the future? Well, at the moment the planet has this little problem, us. We’re killing things, both species and total biological productivity, with gay abandon and that alone would lead to warming the planet. And then of course, there is all that nice, warming carbon dioxide we’re turning loose. So things will get hotter for a while but in a few centuries the few remaining humans will skulk back to the caves they came from and things will get back to ‘normal’. The ice will come and go. Evolution will go to work, but new species will always reflect the planet’s history of human occupation. Continental drift will get all the continents together again and that will heat things up but good. The planet will get warmer and warmer. Plants will go first, starved for carbon dioxide. Then the animals will use up the last atmospheric oxygen. Eventually only the bacteria will survive, and we’ll be back to where we started. And then nothing, until the planet is consumed finally in its expanding star."popmatters.com/life-and-death-of-planet-earth-2496244069.html
Dystopia - Sorrow and Suffering on Planet Earth Anti Natalism 2022-08-13 | "Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."Peter Ustinov“If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” Thomas Hardy "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."George Orwell Dystopia - an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. It is dystopia for the many creatures on Planet Earth. The few profit off the suffering until they decay themselves and join their victims.Which is better, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?"Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless."Ecclesiastes 3:19antinatalismEarth lifehuman life future
The river doesn’t care if you can swim Anti Natalism 2022-07-30 | “We are in the land of no mercy now...Here doesn’t care. The river doesn’t care if you can swim. The snake doesn’t care how much you love your children. And the wolf has no interest in your dreams. If you fail to beat the current, you will drown; if you get too close, you will be bitten. If you are too weak, you will be eaten.”1883
Life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step Anti Natalism 2022-05-18 | "In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way against men. Life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we succeed, it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the weapon in our hand. "~ Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, 1851
Evolution - Bacteria to Apes Anti Natalism 2022-05-15 | Richard Dawkins gives a very brief summary of the Evolution of Life on this Planet from Bacteria to Apes. Evolution is not progress. It is adaptation of multicellular life to a changing planet over unimaginable epochs of time. Only recently have humans obtained this knowledge and humans are still grappling with what this means for our view of life itself on this planet. Chance and Fate play their part as the Dinosaur dominance ended with an Asteroid most likely combined with other factors(oceanic, volcanic, plate tectonics) on the planet. There have been 5 mass extinctions and there will be more and many scientists think we are entering the 6th mass extinction. The Holocene extinction. This one will be caused by the human species most likely. And there are the other factors of the ocean, volcanoes, and asteroids to add more uncertainty. Eventually with enough Time the Sun will start dying and in its red giant stage the oceans will evaporate and larger intelligent life will have nowhere to hide from extinction on Planet Earth. Again Evolution is not progress. It is adaptation and the cockroach is more suited for the long game than the talking ape. The common confusion comes from Man's arrogance and hubris in thinking it is somehow the ultimate goal of this whole drama on Earth. For example the confusion that humans come from modern apes. Humans (also apes) come from a common ancestor of modern apes. Evolution is not interested in our progress or our destiny. Humans are apes – ‘Great Apes’:Humans are classified in the sub-group of primates known as the Great Apes.Humans are primates, but the primates that we most closely resemble are the apes. We are therefore classified along with all other apes in a primate sub-group known as the hominoids (Superfamily Hominoidea).This ape group can be further subdivided into the Great Apes and Lesser Apes. Humans have bodies that are genetically and structurally very similar to those of the Great Apes and so we are classified in the Great Apes sub-group which is also known as the hominids (Family Hominidae).https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/humans-are-apes-great-apes/Evolution 101- What is evolution and how does it work? Evolution 101 provides the nuts-and-bolts on the patterns and mechanisms of evolution. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/Epochs In World History Since The Extinction Of The Dinosaursworldatlas.com/articles/epochs-in-world-history-since-the-extinction-of-the-dinosaurs.html
In this Universe | Strength over Beauty - Time and Fate rule all Anti Natalism 2022-05-09 | In this universe it is strength over beauty. Strength is universally acknowledged by all organisms. Beauty is provincial and limited to the biological species. A crocodile will eat an attractive human female/male in the same manner it would an unattractive one. What the crocodile will acknowledge is its strength and power to inflict force no matter what organism it is. A supermodel cannot seduce a crocodile. It is better to be viewed as strong by the crocodile than beautiful. Beauty can be eaten. Strength must be reckoned with. Even something as small as a virus. A virus must reckon with the strength of an immune system and vice versa. There are times strength and beauty overlap like the Greeks who found the human body at its most powerful to be beautiful. Zeus and Hercules were God and son of God. Christianity changed this aesthetic. The old gods or the new gods change human history but they cannot change natural history because the gods are man made and serve man. Nature's god does not serve man. It serves nothing. Humankind wants to serve this god but the god of this universe has not interest in such servility. I use the word god as human language has its limits. In the end strength and energy are not enough. Time and Fate are masters of all and will crush all in its path. The great Dinosaurs who ruled for millions upon millions of years could not anticipate the change that was coming from an evolving land and ocean and of course the asteroid that changed the world. When one sees the demise of these great beasts the Darwin quote comes to mind “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives.It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”Not even the great star in a solar system is immune to Time and change. The Sun will die...with time. "At its most elemental level the human organism, like crawling life, has a mouth, digestive tract, and anus, a skin to keep it intact, and appendages with which to acquire food. Existence, for all organismic life, is a constant struggle to feed – a struggle to incorporate whatever other organisms that can fit into their mouths and press down their gullets without choking. Seen in these stark terms, life in this planet is a gory spectacle, a science-fiction nightmare in which digestive tracts fitted with teeth at one end are tearing away at whatever flesh they can reach, and at the other end are piling up the fuming waste excrement as they move along in search of more flesh. I think this is why the epoch of the dinosaurs exerts such a strong fascination on us: it is an epic food orgy with king-size actors who convey unmistakably what organisms are dedicated to. Sensitive souls have reacted with shock to the elemental drama of life on this planet, and one of the reasons Darwin so shocked his time – and still bothers ours – is that he showed this bone-crushing, blood-drinking drama in all of its elementality and necessity: Life cannot go on without the mutual devouring of organisms. If the living spectacle of all that he had organismically incorporated in order to stay alive, he might well feel horrified by the living energy he had ingested. The horizon of a gourmet, or even the average person, would be taken up with hundreds of chickens, flocks of lambs and sheep, a small herd of steers, sties full of pigs, and rivers of fish. The din alone would be deafening. To paraphrase Elias Canetti, each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good.”Ernest Becker "Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power."Bertrand Russell“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” Machiavelli"Paradise is under the shades of swords." Bukhari
Life is War - The God of War is the God of Nature Anti Natalism 2022-04-23 | The God of War is the God of Nature. War is baked into life. Its essence is a primal competition and struggle for territory, resources, and energy at any cost to keep the machine going. Some Natalists would like to be viewed as altruists and peace loving. But in truth to be pro life is to support the origin of war...Life itself. Nothing cooperates better than an army of humans in a battle...so even our cooperation becomes a weapon. War for territory. War for status. War for honor. War for mates. War against nature and others. War against viruses, viruses at war with humans, War against bacteria, cancer, poverty, terror, an endless cycle of fight to live, and live to fight. Born in blood, need for blood, and finally expire in blood. Antinatalism gets to the root and origin of evil. The philosopher Epicurus stated "All good and evil lies in sensation."Some are putting their hope in a tech transhumanist future. The humans are playing with more fire on this desire. Every advance will open up vistas of opportunity for more power and violence to inflict on sentient beings. Artificial intelligence may come to an antinatalist conclusion and what then. Mother Nature and Human Nature - Machines of Suffering and Death Antinatalism philosophy, End of the world, extinction, Futurism, Transhumanism, Pessimism, Antinatalism, Suicide, Depression, Philosophy, Inmendham, Schopenhaur, David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, Jim Crawford, Zapffe, The Conspiracy of the Human Race, Robotic Revolution, End of human race. All religious traditions acknowledge that the world is imperfect. Where they differ is in the explanations which they offer to account for this imperfection and in what they suggest might be done about it. Gnostics have their own -- perhaps quite startling -- view of these matters: they hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner.Like Buddhism, Gnosticism begins with the fundamental recognition that earthly life is filled with suffering. In order to nourish themselves, all forms of life consume each other, thereby visiting pain, fear, and death upon one another (even herbivorous animals live by destroying the life of plants). In addition, so-called natural catastrophes -- earthquakes, floods, fires, drought, volcanic eruptions -- bring further suffering and death in their wake. Human beings, with their complex physiology and psychology, are aware not only of these painful features of earthly existence. They also suffer from the frequent recognition that they are strangers living in a world that is flawed and absurd.Many religions advocate that humans are to be blamed for the imperfections of the world. Supporting this view, they interpret the Genesis myth as declaring that transgressions committed by the first human pair brought about a “fall” of creation resulting in the present corrupt state of the world. Gnostics respond that this interpretation of the myth is false. The blame for the world’s failings lies not with humans, but with the creator. Since -- especially in the monotheistic religions -- the creator is God, this Gnostic position appears blasphemous, and is often viewed with dismay even by non-believers.Ways of evading the recognition of the flawed creation and its flawed creator have been devised over and over, but none of these arguments have impressed Gnostics. The ancient Greeks, especially the Platonists, advised people to look to the harmony of the universe, so that by venerating its grandeur they might forget their immediate afflictions. But since this harmony still contains the cruel flaws, forlornness and alienation of existence, this advice is considered of little value by Gnostics. Nor is the Eastern idea of Karma regarded by Gnostics as an adequate explanation of creation’s imperfection and suffering. Karma at best can only explain how the chain of suffering and imperfection works. It does not inform us in the first place why such a sorrowful and malign system should exist.Once the initial shock of the “unusual” or “blasphemous” nature of the Gnostic explanation for suffering and imperfection of the world wears off, one may begin to recognize that it is in fact the most sensible of all explanations. Charles Darwin - There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.antinatalismgnosticpessimismsufferingnature god death inmendhamhitchensdawkinspeter singeruncaring natural forcesindifferent universeproblem of evil
The War of Life (where there is Life there is War) Anti Natalism 2022-04-23 | The God of War is the God of Nature. War is baked into life. Its essence is a primal competition and struggle for territory, resources, and energy at any cost to keep the machine going. Some Natalists would like to be viewed as altruists and peace loving. But in truth to be pro life is to support the origin of war...Life itself. Nothing cooperates better than an army of humans in a battle...so even our cooperation becomes a weapon. War for territory. War for status. War for honor. War for mates. War against nature and others. War against viruses, viruses at war with humans, War against bacteria, cancer, poverty, terror, an endless cycle of fight to live, and live to fight. Born in blood, need for blood, and finally expire in blood. Antinatalism gets to the root and origin of evil. The philosopher Epicurus stated "All good and evil lies in sensation."Some are putting their hope in a tech transhumanist future. The humans are playing with more fire on this desire. Every advance will open up vistas of opportunity for more power and violence to inflict on sentient beings. Artificial intelligence may come to an antinatalist conclusion and what then. Mother Nature and Human Nature - Machines of Suffering and Death Antinatalism philosophy, End of the world, extinction, Futurism, Transhumanism, Pessimism, Antinatalism, Suicide, Depression, Philosophy, Inmendham, Schopenhaur, David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, Jim Crawford, Zapffe, The Conspiracy of the Human Race, Robotic Revolution, End of human race. All religious traditions acknowledge that the world is imperfect. Where they differ is in the explanations which they offer to account for this imperfection and in what they suggest might be done about it. Gnostics have their own -- perhaps quite startling -- view of these matters: they hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner.Like Buddhism, Gnosticism begins with the fundamental recognition that earthly life is filled with suffering. In order to nourish themselves, all forms of life consume each other, thereby visiting pain, fear, and death upon one another (even herbivorous animals live by destroying the life of plants). In addition, so-called natural catastrophes -- earthquakes, floods, fires, drought, volcanic eruptions -- bring further suffering and death in their wake. Human beings, with their complex physiology and psychology, are aware not only of these painful features of earthly existence. They also suffer from the frequent recognition that they are strangers living in a world that is flawed and absurd.Many religions advocate that humans are to be blamed for the imperfections of the world. Supporting this view, they interpret the Genesis myth as declaring that transgressions committed by the first human pair brought about a “fall” of creation resulting in the present corrupt state of the world. Gnostics respond that this interpretation of the myth is false. The blame for the world’s failings lies not with humans, but with the creator. Since -- especially in the monotheistic religions -- the creator is God, this Gnostic position appears blasphemous, and is often viewed with dismay even by non-believers.Ways of evading the recognition of the flawed creation and its flawed creator have been devised over and over, but none of these arguments have impressed Gnostics. The ancient Greeks, especially the Platonists, advised people to look to the harmony of the universe, so that by venerating its grandeur they might forget their immediate afflictions. But since this harmony still contains the cruel flaws, forlornness and alienation of existence, this advice is considered of little value by Gnostics. Nor is the Eastern idea of Karma regarded by Gnostics as an adequate explanation of creation’s imperfection and suffering. Karma at best can only explain how the chain of suffering and imperfection works. It does not inform us in the first place why such a sorrowful and malign system should exist.Once the initial shock of the “unusual” or “blasphemous” nature of the Gnostic explanation for suffering and imperfection of the world wears off, one may begin to recognize that it is in fact the most sensible of all explanations. Charles Darwin - There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.antinatalismgnosticpessimismsufferingnature god death inmendhamhitchensdawkinspeter singeruncaring natural forcesindifferent universeproblem of evil
Perspective Anti Natalism 2022-04-16 | “History is a child building a sandcastle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world.” Heraclitus"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu""Denying reality in order to preserve a view of the world is not a practice confined to cults. Cognitive dissonance is the normal human condition."philosopher John Gray "What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind [through the universe]? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day." Death By Black Hole, Neil deGrasse TysonDante : “I saw this globe so lost in space that I had to smile at such a sorry show.”Jose Ortega Gasset:"Life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it up with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his ideas are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.""The black hole teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, That time can be extinguished like a blown out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as sacred, as immutable, are anything but."-John WheelerFreud dying…Near the end of his illness, when he could no longer smoke, he described life as “a small island of pain floating in an ocean of indifference.”“The rest is silence.”A young shepherd I saw, writhing, gagging, in spasms, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much nausea and pale dread on one face? He seemed to have been asleep when the snake crawled into his throat, and there bit itself fast. My hand tore at the snake and tore in vain; it did not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me; "Bite! Bite its head off! Bite!" Thus it cried out of me — my dread, my hatred, my nausea, my pity, all that is good and wicked in me cried out of me with a single cry.The shepherd, however, bit as my cry counseled him; he bit with a good bite. Far away he spewed the head of the snake — and he jumped up. No longer shepherd. no longer human — one changed, radiant, laughing! Never yet on earth has a human being laughed as he laughed! O my brothers, I heard a laughter that was no human laughter; and now a thirst gnaws at me, a longing that never grows still. My longing for this laughter gnaws at me; oh, how do I bear to go on living! And how could I bear to die now!Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra"The Vision and the Riddle" ends with a shocking scene where Zarathustra comes upon a shepherd with a snake in his throat. The snake--"the heaviest and the blackest"--could symbolize the choking effects of the slave morality, and, as my students have suggested, the snake's head, which Zarathustra exhorts the shepherd to bite off, could represent the Christian God himself. At the passionate urging of Zarathustra, the shepherd does decapitate the snake and is immediately transformed: "No longer shepherd, no longer human--one changed, radiant, laughing . . . a laughter that was no human laughter." After the death of God, there is only eternal recurrence, and this "cosmic" laughter of Hesse's immortals is the only proper emotional response to such a meaningless existence. As Graham Parkes says: "laughter [is] an often necessary concomitant of insight into the way things are."Cosmic laughter is instead the "Olympian laughter" of the "deeply wounded,"97 those, like Nietzsche, who have suffered greatly, who know eternal recurrence as an "abysmal thought," but who still realize that they must embrace it with a child's acceptance. It is the laughter of the lion, who has come home to Zarathustra's mountain retreat resigned to the futility.
Terrible Fish and Hell Pigs (Terror in the Universe series # 1) Anti Natalism 2022-04-09 | During the late Devonian period, which took place 360 million to 380 million years ago (via Fossil Guy), Dunkleosteus ruled over the world's oceans, and it was only the period's mass extinction event that finally ended its reign of terror. Here's what we know about this long-extinct fish and what made it possibly the scariest creature of its time.Given that the word "dinosaur" is derived from the Greek words for "terrible lizard," Terrell was seemingly inspired by the far more famous prehistoric creatures, initially dubbing his find as "terrible fish" — accurate, but perhaps not the most creative choice. Decades later, it was decided that the animal should be named after Dunkle instead, though Terrell was eventually honored when the largest species was given the name Dunkeosteus terrelli. Read More: grunge.com/484840/dunkleosteus-the-scary-truth-about-this-gigantic-extinct-fish/?utm_campaign=clipXiphactinus was one of the largest bony fish of the Late Cretaceous and is considered one of the fiercest creatures in the sea. A powerful tail and winglike pectoral fins shot the 17-foot-long (5-meter-long) monster through the surface waters of the ocean. Unlucky fish and unsuspecting seabirds were snared inside Xiphactinus's upturned jaw, which was lined with giant, fanglike teeth, giving it an expression akin to that of a bulldog.A 13-foot-long (4-meter-long) Xiphactinus could open its jaw wide enough to swallow six-foot-long (two-meter-long) fish whole, but it itself was occasionally prey to the shark Cretoxyrhina.Xiphactinus trolled an ancient ocean called the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of central North America during the Cretaceous. Though long extinct, if alive today the bony fish would look like a giant, fanged tarpon.ENTELODONT - The Hell Pig - The smallest of the hell pigs grew to around 330 pounds (50 kilograms), while the largest grew to around about 2,000 lbs (900 kg).One of the better-known entelodonts was Archaeotherium, which were common in western North America. These were large animals, several times the size of modern pigs, with the skull reaching near more than 3 feet (1 meter) long. "The dentition suggests they were effective bone-crushers. These surely were fierce, imposing animals . . . hence, the common name 'hell pig,'" said Wilkins.Many hell pigs had heads that were massive when compared to their bodies. Another example is the Dinohyus. Its head was 35 to 45 percent of its total length, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Large scars, up to 0.8 inches (2 centimeters) deep, found on the remains of hell pigs suggests that they fought with their own kind. Research also suggest that one hell pig would even put another's head in its mouth during a fight, according to BBC Nature. The hell pigs had boney areas on their faces that protected their nose and eyes during these types of attacks. Though it would be easy to assume that such a fierce creature with large tusks and imposing body size were carnivorous predators, the hell pig's teeth say differently. More than likely, they were omnivores, eating plant life as well as meat.The front teeth where large and pointed, perfect for ripping flesh from bone. The back teeth were flat, which is perfect for crushing plant material. Fruits, leaves and seeds, as well as other animals and eggs were probably all part of the hell pig's diet.It may not have even been a killer. Some believe that hell pigs may have been scavengers, letting other animals make the kills. Once the prey was dead, the hell pig may have intimidated the predator and taken its prey, according to National Geographiclivescience.com/56797-hell-pigs-entelodonts.html
The dangers of Nature and Fate Anti Natalism 2021-12-19 | “Nature rises up against us, majestic, cruel and inexorable.”“It was precisely because of these dangers with which nature threatens us that we came together and created civilization. […] For the principal task of civilization, its actual raison d’être, is to defend us against nature”—Sigmund Freud, The Future of an IllusionIt is nature herself that we seek to “to escape through the work of civilization” (Freud, 1962, p. 12).http://psychoanalyzadnes.cz/2019/01/28/death-and-civilisation/In both works (Civilization and its Discontents and The Future of an Illusion), Freud mentions that it is other men that are a great source of sufferings for the individual; yet we form societies and put up with this kind of suffering, for human cruelty is preferable to the cruelty of nature. Moreover, compared to living in the state of nature, we are less likely to be violently harmed by other individuals in a civilised society.Men form civilisations to escape nature, and then they wish to return to a state of nature to escape the discontents of civilisation. It seems that men view both nature and civilisation as threatening: this is the motivation behind forming religion as a way of psychological protection “against the dangers of nature and Fate, and against the injuries that threaten him from human society itself” (Freud, 1962, p. 14).Not only does our fear of death explain why we form civilisations, but it also explains the means we develop to keep civilisations in place: it explains how religions come to be by humanising nature.“Impersonal forces and destinies cannot be approached; they remain eternally remote. But if the elements have passions that rage as they do in our own souls, if death itself is not something spontaneous but the violent act of an evil Will, if everywhere in nature there are Beings around us of a kind that we know in our own society, then we can breathe freely, can feel at home in the uncanny and can deal by psychical means with our senseless anxiety” (Freud, 1962, pp. 12-13).By humanising nature and its forces, man “gives them the character of a father” (Freud, 1962, p. 13), and just as every child eventually learns to rebel against his/her father, so do we learn to rebel against our heavenly fathers. Consequently, a doctor is not just a healer in society; a doctor is a warrior who rebels against Death, for “it is in fact natural to man to personify everything that he wants to understand in order later to control it” (Freud, 1962, p. 18).Suffering comes from three quarters: from our own body, which is destined to decay and dissolution, and cannot even dispense with anxiety and pain as danger-signals; from the outer world, which can rage against us with the most powerful and pitiless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations with other men. The unhappiness which has this last origin we find perhaps more painful than any other; we tend to regard it more or less as a gratuitous addition, although it cannot be any less an inevitable fate than the suffering that proceeds from other sources.Another method operates more energetically and thoroughly; it regards reality as the source of all suffering, as the one and only enemy, with whom life is intolerable and with whom, therefore, all relations must be broken off if one is to be happy in any way at all. The hermit turns his back on this world; he will have nothing to do with it. But one can do more than that; one can try to re-create it. try to build up another instead, from which the most unbearable features are eliminated and replaced by others corresponding to one’’s own wishes. He who in his despair and defiance sets out on this path will not as a rule get very far; reality will be too strong for him. He becomes a madman and usually finds no one to help him in carrying through his delusion. It is said, however, that each one of us behaves in some respect like the paranoiac, substituting a wish-fulfilment for some aspect of the world which is unbearable to him, and carrying this delusion through into reality. When a large number of people make this attempt together and try to obtain assurance of happiness and protection from suffering by a delusional transformation of reality, it acquires special significance. The religions of humanity, too, must be classified as mass-delusions of this kind. Needless to say, no one who shares a delusion recognizes it as such.Sigmund Freud - Civilization and Its Discontentsgenius.com/Sigmund-freud-civilization-and-its-discontents-chap-2-annotated
The Drowned and the Saved (Edit) Anti Natalism 2021-11-21 | "Deserves got nothing to do with it" - Unforgiven “For why does Fortune with her fickle handdeal out such changing lots?The hurtful penalty is due to crime,but falls upon the sinless head.Depraved men rest at ease on thrones aloft,and by their unjust lot can spurn beneath their hurtful heelthe necks of virtuous men.Beneath obscuring shadows lies bright virtue hid;the just man bears the unjust's infamy.They suffer not for forsworn oaths,they suffer not for crimes glazed over with their lies.But when their will is to put forth their strength,with triumph they subdue the mightiest kingswhom peoples in their thousands fear.O You, who weaves the bonds of Nature's self,look down upon this pitiable Earth!Mankind is no base part of this great work,and we are tossed on Fortune's wave."Boethius"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made on the fate of those who suffer by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." Herman Melville“Our ignorance allowed us to live, as you are in the mountains, and your rope is frayed and about to break, but you don't know it and feel safe.”― Primo Levi"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu""The role of luck in our lives appears decisive...this poses a problem"[for the way humans traditionally speak and think about social structure] -Sam Harris"Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men’sopinions for the most part look not to real merit, but tothe event; and only recognize foresight where Fortune hascrowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes topass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon theunfortunate. [...] I will just say that the final burden which misfortune heaps on her victims, is that some accusation is made against them, they are believed to have deserved all that they suffer."Boethius
Apex Predators - Lions and Men Anti Natalism 2021-11-21 | The Circle of Life (Eat for Energy. Fight for Access to Resources and Mates. Die.) Even at the top of the food chain for Lions and Men it is a vicious and cruel circle. Is there anything that can break the circle? Eat for Energy. Fight for Access to Resources and Mates. Die. Work to survive. Survive to Work. The Cruel circle is complete."Earth is fashioned by Satan and erected upon a knoll of skulls" Khalil Gibran
The Drowned and the Saved Anti Natalism 2021-11-14 | "Deserves got nothing to do with it" - Unforgiven “For why does Fortune with her fickle handdeal out such changing lots?The hurtful penalty is due to crime,but falls upon the sinless head.Depraved men rest at ease on thrones aloft,and by their unjust lot can spurn beneath their hurtful heelthe necks of virtuous men.Beneath obscuring shadows lies bright virtue hid;the just man bears the unjust's infamy.They suffer not for forsworn oaths,they suffer not for crimes glazed over with their lies.But when their will is to put forth their strength,with triumph they subdue the mightiest kingswhom peoples in their thousands fear.O You, who weaves the bonds of Nature's self,look down upon this pitiable Earth!Mankind is no base part of this great work,and we are tossed on Fortune's wave."Boethius"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made on the fate of those who suffer by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." Herman Melville“Our ignorance allowed us to live, as you are in the mountains, and your rope is frayed and about to break, but you don't know it and feel safe.”― Primo Levi"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu""The role of luck in our lives appears decisive...this poses a problem"[for the way humans traditionally speak and think about social structure] -Sam Harris"Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men’sopinions for the most part look not to real merit, but tothe event; and only recognize foresight where Fortune hascrowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes topass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon theunfortunate. [...] I will just say that the final burden which misfortune heaps on her victims, is that some accusation is made against them, they are believed to have deserved all that they suffer."Boethius
The Real Horror - The Ghosts of Evolution Anti Natalism 2021-11-14 | "Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good." The nightmares of the evolutionary past make for good horror movies of the present. The fear is to be attacked at night. The terror is to be eaten. The fear of the night when one is most vulnerable to the animals that could kill our primate ancestors and cousins. Do ghosts and demons need to kill and eat for food to keep their metabolism rate going? And yet we humans attribute the same features to these fictional beings because what terrifies us in our primitive core is what terrified us before the rise of technology and civilization. The superstition and fear of demons and ghosts is the imaginary world of our present that flows from our real evolutionary past. Present horror is steeped in the evolutionary past. Of course human beings in different situations on this rock are still getting maimed and killed by other animals just not at the same level of vulnerability as our ancestors. But at those times that a shark, big predator, or crocodile takes us down it should remind our species that we are part of nature and despite the wonders of technology or the myths of our gods we are still subject to its cycle of consumption. Even where we have beaten back our ancestral predators, we bear their mark. Our brains are wired for fight and flight because of predators. We are anxious. We readily fear what used to threaten us, such as snakes. We are who we were, but more so than that, we are what we wanted to escape. Our first words may have been uttered to warn our family of cats, snakes or eagles. Even our screams, those wordless sounds we make when we are afraid, are an echo of the ghosts of our pasts. Whether we notice or not, our bodies remember those days in which the wolf in Grandma's bed may really have been a wolf; they remember the species we ran from, screaming as we tried to flee.Rob Dunn is a biologist at North Carolina State University. His new book, The Wild Life of Our Bodies It tells the stories of our changing relationships with other species (be they worms, bacteria or tigers). In doing so, it considers questions such as what our appendix does, why we suffer anxiety, why human babies tend to be born at night and whether tapeworms are good for us, all from an ecological perspective."There was also the threat of predators in the grassy woodlands. These were the home of browsers and grazers and also the predators that eat them, like hyenas, leopards, and lions. This was a danger to the small and slow bipedal Australopithecines. They were not as talented in trees as apes or as facile on the ground as us. However, adaptation must have served them well, since the anatomical stability of the group over millions of years attests to this. The very first Australopithecine discovery of a juvenile appeared to have been a victim of a giant eagle. At another site, there was convincing evidence that hominid remains were the remnants of leopard meals. At the site of Swartkrans, there was direct evidence that at least some of the South African early hominid fossils were victims of leopards. An immature skull was found with twin puncture marks, indicating a leopard bite mark."
Antinatalism - His eye is on the sparrow? Anti Natalism 2021-10-31 | Dinosaurs among us - The ancestor of all living birds lived sometime in the Late Cretaceous, and in the 65 million years since the extinction of the rest of the dinosaurs, this ancestral lineage diversified into the major groups of birds alive today."There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars"-Charles DarwinThe origin of birdsThe discovery that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic was made possible by recently discovered fossils from China, South America, and other countries, as well as by looking at old museum specimens from new perspectives and with new methods. The hunt for the ancestors of living birds began with a specimen of Archaeopteryx, the first known bird, discovered in the early 1860s. Like birds, it had feathers along its arms and tail, but unlike living birds, it also had teeth and a long bony tail. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06antinatalismgnosticpessimismsufferingnature god death inmendhamhitchensdawkinsuncaring natural forcesindifferent universeproblem of evil
George Clooney on getting Older | Time is undefeated Anti Natalism 2021-10-31 | Even if you are Rich and Famous - Time and Math are undefeated - Poverty and Power it melts them like ice, Fate strikes down the strong man. For 10 years Clooney has declined offers to be on the cover of this magazine, though he did consider doing it as a joke when he turned 50. “I wanted to do a funny bit, which would be Sexiest Man Still Alive. I would have done some funny picture, like with a walker,” he says over Zoom from the screening room of his Los Angeles house."Now that I'm about to turn 60, it's not as funny,” he adds, running a hand through his cropped more-salt-than-pepper hair. And when AARP The Magazine's Movies for Grownups awarded him the Career Achievement Award, he surrendered: “I always say to my dad, ‘I'm middle-aged.’ And he goes, ‘You know a lot of 120-year-olds?’ ”For him, he says, it's just a year. The last of his 50s. Whatever. Clooney explains that he doesn't care about turning 60 in May, because his body basically feels fine. Yet he knows time is moving. “Seventy will be more of a shot to the throat,” he says about becoming closer to the age of his character in The Midnight Sky. “I'm telling you, 70 will f--- me up."
Astronomer on the End of Stars and the Universe Anti Natalism 2021-08-22 | Pamela Gay is an astronomer, writer, and technologist dedicating to using new and social media to engage people in learning and doing astronomy. You can find her online as starstryder, and professionally she is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute where she is the chief cat herder for CosmoQuest.http://www.astronomycast.com/about-usThe Death of StarsThe End of the UniverseHeat DeathBig CrunchThe Future Extinction Dying Stars and a Cold Universe
Astronomer on the End of Earth and the Sun Anti Natalism 2021-08-22 | Pamela Gay is an astronomer, writer, and technologist dedicating to using new and social media to engage people in learning and doing astronomy. You can find her online as starstryder, and professionally she is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute where she is the chief cat herder for CosmoQuest.http://www.astronomycast.com/about-usEnd of Earth lifeExtinctionDeath of the SunRed Giant The End is inevitable
Intelligence fashioned on a pile of Skulls Anti Natalism 2021-08-02 | The Circle of Life (Eat for Energy. Fight for Access to Resources and Mates. Die.) Even at the top of the food chain for Lions and Men it is a vicious and cruel circle. Is there anything that can break the circle? Antinatalism, Efilism, Future robots technology. Eat for Energy. Fight for Access to Resources and Mates. Die. Work to survive. Survive to Work. The Cruel circle is complete."Earth is fashioned by Satan and erected upon a knoll of skulls" Khalil Gibran
Heartless Immensity - The Sinking of the Estonia Anti Natalism 2021-08-02 | The Sinking of MS Estonia ( 852 lives lost at Sea)On a stormy night on the Baltic Sea, more than 850 people lost their lives when a luxurious ferry sank below the waves.She was carrying 989 people: 803 passengers and 186 crew. Most of the passengers were Swedish, although some were of Estonian origin, while most of the crew members were Estonian. "the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way?"Herman Melville Survival that night was a very tight race, and savagely simple. People who started early and moved fast had some chance of winning. People who started late or hesitated for any reason had no chance at all. Action paid. Contemplation did not. The mere act of getting dressed was enough to condemn people to death, and although many of those who escaped to the water succumbed to the cold, most of the ultimate winners endured the ordeal completely naked or in their underwear. The survivors all seem to have grasped the nature of this race, the first stage of which involved getting outside to the Deck 7 promenade without delay. There was no God to turn to for mercy. There was no government to provide order. Civilization was ancient history, Europe a faint and faraway place. Inside the ship, as the heel increased, even the most primitive social organization, the human chain, crumbled apart. Love only slowed people down. A pitiless clock was running. The ocean was completely in control.The Atlantic: theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940
The Brutal Circle of Life Anti Natalism 2021-08-02 | The Circle of Life (Eat for Energy. Fight for Access to Resources and Mates. Die.) Even at the top of the food chain for Lions and Men it is a vicious and cruel circle. Is there anything that can break the circle? Antinatalism, Efilism, Future robots and technology. Eat for Energy. Fight for Resources and Mates. Die. Work to survive. Survive to Work. The Cruel circle is complete."Earth is fashioned by Satan and erected upon a knoll of skulls" Khalil Gibran
150 million years of Crocodile Anti Natalism 2021-07-05 | Crocodiles are part of a group of animals known as archosaurs, or “ruling reptiles." This group dominated land, sea, and sky across the planet for more than 150 million years. While they may look like lizards, crocs are more closely related to dinosaurs, including modern birds.Crocodiles as long as school busses and as heavy as elephants roamed the Earth as recently as 8 million years ago. These massive crocs tackled some of the most ferocious prey around: dinosaurs. Bite marks on the bones of two tyrannosaurs found in North America match the teeth of the giant crocodile Deinosuchus. One of the wounds was partially healed, signaling that these crocs weren’t just scavenging—they were hunting live tyrannosaurs. amnh.org/exhibitions/crocs/ancient-crocsCrocodiles are the ultimate survivors. Having arisen some 200 million years ago, they have outlived the dinosaurs by some 65 million years. Even humans, the most fearsome predators ever to stalk the Earth, have failed to force into extinction any of the 23 species of crocodilians.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/extraordinary-lives-of-crocsWhile crocodylians as we know them today—the alligators, gharials and crocodiles that live at the water’s edge—have been around for about 85 million years, they belong to a much more diverse and disparate group of creatures that goes back to the Triassic.Crocodylians are the last living representatives of the crocodylomorpha, an even bigger group that originated over 205 million years ago. They shared the world with the dinosaurs and came in a startling array of forms. Some—like the 112-million-year-old, approximately 40-foot-long giant Sarcosuchus—looked quite similar to their modern cousinsThe evolutionary story of sharks is primarily one of teeth. With the exception of rare fossils that preserve remnants of soft parts, teeth are usually all that is preserved from cartilaginous shark bodies. An articulated specimen of the early shark Doliodus problematicus pushes the shark’s existence back to at least 409 million years ago, and they are probably even older than that.About 80 to 73 million years ago, Deinosuchus ruled over marshes and swamps, and feasted on unsuspecting dinosaurs. Fossils have been found showing that terror crocs grew up to 10 m (33 ft) long. And they likely weighed close to 5 tons, just about the size of a city bus. It had banana-sized teeth with jaws powerful enough to crush bones.Most crocodiles eat, on average, 50 full meals a year. As ectotherms, they gather heat from their environment. So they don’t need to eat as much as some animals to stay warm. In fact, the Nile crocodile can eat up to half its body weight in one meal. If the terror croc ate this much, it could eat about 2,000 kg (around 5,000 lbs) in a day. That’s about 36 average-sized humans for breakfast.Crocodiles have a unique valve in their heart. It increases blood flow to their stomachs through a special aorta. This allows them to secrete gastric acid ten times faster than most animals. This means they can dissolve entire animals, bones and all.whatifshow.com/what-if-terror-crocs-were-still-aliveRock-hard feces and oddly bitten bones are helping to flesh out one of the biggest crocs of prehistory, researchers say.As long as a stretch limo, Deinosuchus—"terrible crocodile"—likely prowled shallow waters and hunted dinosaurs its own size, the evidence suggests.Last week paleontologists announced their conclusions after analyzing pieces of 79-million-year-old fossilized dung, or coprolites, that appear to be the first known droppings from Deinosuchus. The discoveries offer the newest insights into the lives of the giant crocs, which roamed much of what is now the United States and northern Mexico.Sand and shell fragments in the droppings, found within the last few years near a Georgia stream, suggest the croc preferred estuaries, where, at least in the Georgia—home to a great concentration of Deinosuchus remains—it probably dined mostly on sea turtles, researchers say.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/100323-giant-croc-crocodile-dinosaurs-deinosuchus-feces-poop
The Guts of Nature vs the tongues of men Anti Natalism 2021-06-13 | Dying Lions and Dying Stars speak a much more profound language than the self aggrandizement of human sounds. "The illusion that exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths."Aleksandr Pushkin"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." Martin Buber“I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive...The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings."Milan Kundera"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"antinatalism cruel god of nature philosophy
The Victims in Ethiopia - There was no one to listen Anti Natalism 2021-05-15 | Rape is being used as a weapon as fighting rages in remote parts of Tigray region. “Even if we had shouted,” one woman said, “there was no one to listen.”nytimes.com/2021/04/01/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-sexual-assault.htmlEven the most pessimistic and imaginative among us cannot drink from the cup of pure reality (the macro and micro drama that goes on in this planet) without diluting it with psychological partialization. Partilization: The psychologist Otto Rank came up with a useful term for what we all do. We partialize. We pretend our something is everything. The world is just too much, so we take a slice of it and call it our own, often discounting, dismissing, and disparaging the paths we didn’t take.You hear traces of partialization in the pride with which we show and tell and post about the life we’ve got and the opinions we hold. We say what we need to hear to keep us feeling comfortable in our comfort zone. The more threatened it is, the more we’ll partialize, hunkering down, battening down the hatches.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/201910/everybodys-got-thing-some-dont-know-how-handle-it"Rank has a perfect, key term for this natural human talent: he calls it "partialization" and very rightly sees that life is impossible without it. What we call the well-adjusted man has just this capacity to partialize the world for comfortable action.In other words, men aren't built to be gods, to take in the whole world; they are built like other creatures, to take in the piece of ground in front of their noses. Gods can take in the whole of creation because they alone can make sense of it, know what it is all about and for. But as soon as a man lifts his nose from the ground and starts sniffing at eternal problems like life and death, the meaning of a rose or a star cluster-then he is in trouble. Most men spare themselves this trouble by keeping their minds on the small problems of their lives just as their society maps these problems out for them. These are what Kierkegaard called the "immediate" men and the "Philistines." They "tranquilize themselves with the trivial"- and so they can lead normal lives.”-Ernest Becker
Deserves got nothing to do with it - Unforgiven Anti Natalism 2021-04-18 | The two most important quotes in the movie Unforgiven. "We all have it coming kid""Deserves got nothing to do with it"Right before the Eastwood character, William Money, kills Gene Hackman’s character “Little Bill”, Bill says, “I don’t deserve to die like this.” Eastwood’s reply is simply, “Deserves got nothing to do with it.”
Anti Natalist News # 1 - Security is a myth Anti Natalism 2021-04-18 | Two news stories. Two wonderful women who were struck by fatal accidents from a loose gate to a tree falling down on a wire. A real news reminder of the gamble that all parents make when they pro create. There is simply no way to anticipate the fateful dominos that will come your way in life when you come to this planet as a living being. There is no way for parents to de-risk life. Anytime, Anywhere, Anyone.Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is a perfect story for those who think that if you do things just right and hide in your castle you will be safe. The truth is anybody can be touched by tragedy, violence, and death anywhere and at any time. There are a thousand ways it can strike but what is certain is that when you are born into this existence you have entered into a game of risk. All of life is a gamble. Security is an illusion. What is important is to relate to the victims and understand that Life itself is inherently dangerous. Life itself is a gamble and no parent can really promise security to their child. As Helen Keller said:“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” "Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death“When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.” - EuripidesInstead when a good man or woman is hurt there are many who (to protect their fragile illusion of security) will attack and blame the good man or woman as deserving of their tragedy. This is clearly the case with those xenophobes blaming and shaming Louisa Jespersen for traveling to Morocco. They attack her as if hiding behind their Walls in the West they will somehow escape terror and suffering that all life is subject to. "We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."Tennessee Williams "Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men’sopinions for the most part look not to real merit, but tothe event; and only recognize foresight where Fortune hascrowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes topass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon theunfortunate. [...] I will just say that the final burden which misfortune heaps on her victims, is that some accusation is made against them, they are believed to have deserved all that they suffer."Boethius Rest in Peace Louisa, nothing can touch you now. "O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,To come to me: of cureless ills thou artThe one physician. Pain lays not its touchUpon a corpse."AeschylusAntinatalismAtomic AgeExtinction
Tragedy can strike Anywhere, Anytime, Anyone | The Masque of the Red Death Anti Natalism 2019-02-22 | Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is a perfect story for those who think that if you do things just right and hide in your castle you will be safe. The truth is anybody can be touched by tragedy, violence, and death anywhere and at any time. And random explosive violence is not just coming from groups like ISIS it can come from some white kid in South Carolina or Connecticut or from a government regime. There are a thousand ways it can strike but what is certain is that when you are born into this existence you have entered into a game of risk. All of life is a gamble. Security is an illusion. What is important is to relate to the victims and understand that Life itself is inherently dangerous. Life itself is a gamble and no parent can really promise security to their child. As Helen Keller said:“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” "Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death“When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.” - EuripidesInstead when a good man or woman is hurt there are many who (to protect their fragile illusion of security) will attack and blame the good man or woman as deserving of their tragedy. This is clearly the case with those xenophobes blaming and shaming Louisa Jespersen for traveling to Morocco. They attack her as if hiding behind their Walls in the West they will somehow escape terror and suffering that all life is subject to. "We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."Tennessee Williams "Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men’sopinions for the most part look not to real merit, but tothe event; and only recognize foresight where Fortune hascrowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes topass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon theunfortunate. [...] I will just say that the final burden which misfortune heaps on her victims, is that some accusation is made against them, they are believed to have deserved all that they suffer."Boethius Rest in Peace Louisa, nothing can touch you now. "O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,To come to me: of cureless ills thou artThe one physician. Pain lays not its touchUpon a corpse."AeschylusAntinatalismAtomic AgeExtinctionterrorismnew zealand christchurch
Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness? Anti Natalism 2019-02-22 | "Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness? Truth?"Dead Japanese Soldier, The Thin Red LineAntinatalismAtomic AgeExtinction
Born Into This | Charles Bukowski Poem Dinosauria, We Anti Natalism 2018-08-23 | Dinosauria, Weby Charles BukowskiBorn like thisInto thisAs the chalk faces smileAs Mrs. Death laughsAs the elevators breakAs political landscapes dissolveAs the supermarket bag boy holds a college degreeAs the oily fish spit out their oily preyAs the sun is maskedWe areBorn like thisInto thisInto these carefully mad warsInto the sight of broken factory windows of emptinessInto bars where people no longer speak to each otherInto fist fights that end as shootings and knifingsBorn into thisInto hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to dieInto lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guiltyInto a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closedInto a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroesBorn into thisWalking and living through thisDying because of thisMuted because of thisCastratedDebauchedDisinheritedBecause of thisFooled by thisUsed by thisPissed on by thisMade crazy and sick by thisMade violentMade inhumanBy thisThe heart is blackenedThe fingers reach for the throatThe gunThe knifeThe bombThe fingers reach toward an unresponsive godThe fingers reach for the bottleThe pillThe powderWe are born into this sorrowful deadlinessWe are born into a government 60 years in debtThat soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debtAnd the banks will burnMoney will be uselessThere will be open and unpunished murder in the streetsIt will be guns and roving mobsLand will be uselessFood will become a diminishing returnNuclear power will be taken over by the manyExplosions will continually shake the earthRadiated robot men will stalk each otherThe rich and the chosen will watch from space platformsDante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playgroundThe sun will not be seen and it will always be nightTrees will dieAll vegetation will dieRadiated men will eat the flesh of radiated menThe sea will be poisonedThe lakes and rivers will vanishRain will be the new goldThe rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark windThe last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseasesAnd the space platforms will be destroyed by attritionThe petering out of suppliesThe natural effect of general decayAnd there will be the most beautiful silence never heardBorn out of that.The sun still hidden thereAwaiting the next chapter.
Antinatalism | Earth vs Mars | The Rest is Silence Anti Natalism 2018-08-12 | All that remains is silence...if we were to contemplate that suffering does not exist, for example, on Mars, we would think it positive that the beings that don’t exist have escaped suffering. Voltaire's Poem:static1.squarespace.com/static/55316a91e4b06d7c3b435f17/t/553ee5d5e4b037292cdd7e85/1430185429744/Voltaire+-+Poem+on+the+Lisbon+Disaster+%282014%29.pdfWhen we consider the uninhabited corners of the universe (which would be most of the universe), we don’t consider the absence of good that could be out there. Is being born worth it? If you weighed life’s pleasure against the suffering and sorrow, do you end up ahead? Gustave Flaubert claimed that he would have cursed himself if he became a father, as he desired to “transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky was even more bleak in The Brothers Karamazov, writing, “I'd have let them kill me in the womb, so as not to come out into the world at all.”Arthur Schopenhauer was especially pessimistic on this topic: If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?Welcome to anti-natalism, a small but lively corner of philosophy that, in our time of climate change, prospects of nuclear war, and divisive populist politics, has been growing of late. Though David Benatar, one of the chief modern architects of this philosophy, may or may not have coined the term “anti-natalism”—he’s done “intellectual archaeology” to figure it out, and his jury of one is still debating—his recent appearance on Sam Harris’s Waking Up podcast further solidified his stake in this long debated topic: Is life worth living? Benatar says no, at least for the unborn.According to Benatar, head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town and author of Better Never to Have Been, being born is “not always a harm, but always a very serious harm.” Summating his philosophy, he continues:We ought not to bring new people into existence, but I think the view is broader, that we ought not to bring new sentient beings into existence. It’s not just the view that it’s harmful to come into existence, but a further view that it’s wrong to bring beings into existence. Harris finds a correlation with Buddhism. According to a translation of Buddhist texts by Sir Hari Singh Gour, Buddha claimed that men are ignorant of the suffering they unleash; existence is the cause of old age and death. If man would realize this harm he would immediately stop procreating. That might offer insight into why Buddha named his own son Rāhula, which means “fetter” or “impediment.” Of course, Buddha had his son before embarking on his legendary quest, so selfishly the name implies Rāhula was getting in the way of his father’s search for enlightenment. Read More:bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/anit-natalism-david-benatar-sam-harris-waking-up
The Atomic Age Anti Natalism 2018-08-12 | Victims of the Atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.The Atomic Age Ushered In the Anthropocene, Scientists SayGeoscientists have concluded that the Age of Humans officially began at the start of the nuclear age. The term “Anthropocene”–from anthropo, for “man”, and cene, for “new”–has been slowly gaining popularity as an environmental buzzword to describe humanity’s planet-scale influence since 2000, when it was popularized by the atmospheric chemist and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen.In recent years, however, there has been a growing movement amongst scientists to formally adopt the term as part of the official nomenclature of geology. Those who advocate this action argue that the current epoch dominated by humanity is markedly different from the Holocene epoch of the past 12,000 years, the time during which human societies developed and flourished.The new study is not the first to propose a formal establishment of an Anthropocene epoch–Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin of the University of College London made a similar recommendation last year– but it is one of the most comprehensive to date. In it, Waters and his colleagues sought to answer whether human actions have left measurable signals in the geological strata, and whether those signals are markedly different from those of Holocene. The answer to both questions, the scientists say, is overwhelmingly yes.The researchers conducted a review of the published scientific literature and found evidence for numerous ways that humans have changed the Earth to produce signals in ice and rock layers that will still be detectable millions of years from now. Among them: a preponderance of unique human products such as concrete, aluminum and plastics; elevated atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane; higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil from fertilizers and pesticides; and radionuclide fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the 20th century.Humans have also indelibly shaped the biological realm by raising a few domesticated animals and cultivated crops to prominence while pushing other species toward extinction.“I think these changes will be really obvious in the fossil record,” says Scott Wing, the curator of fossil plants at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.“Imagine the abundance of beef and chicken bones and corn cobs in sediments from now versus sediments deposited 300 years ago,” says Wing, who was not involved in the study.Humans have also facilitated the mixing of species to a degree unprecedented in the history of the Earth, says Waters, who is also the secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group, an organization within the International Union of Geological Sciences.“If we find a plant that’s nice to look at, within years we’ve transported it across the globe,” Waters says. “That is creating pollen signatures in sediments that are very confusing. Normally, you have to wait for two continents to collide until you get that kind of transfer of species, but we’re doing it in a very short period of time.”As far as epochs go, the Anthropocene is a young one: Waters and his team argue that it only began around 1950 C.E., at the start of the nuclear age and the mid–20th century acceleration of population growth, industrialization, and mineral and energy use. In this, the group differs from Lewis and Maslin, who suggested the Anthropocene’s “golden spike”– the line between it and the Holocene–be set at either 1610 or 1964. The year 1610 is when the collision of the New and Old Worlds a century earlier was first felt globally, and the year 1964 is discernable in rock layers by its high proportion of radioactive isotopes–a legacy of nuclear weapons tests. Read more: smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-anthropocene-officially-thing-180957742AntinatalismAtomic AgeExtinction
Rust Cohle | The Angry River Anti Natalism 2018-08-12 | It’s all one ghetto man, giant gutter in outer space.I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.We all got what I call a life trap, this gene-deep certainty that things will be different, that you’ll move to another city and meet the people that’ll be the friends for the rest of your life, that you’ll fall in love and be fulfilled. F*cking fulfillment and closure, whatever the f*ck those two… F*cking empty jars to hold this shitstorm, and nothing is ever fulfilled until the very end, and closure…No. No, no. Nothing is ever over.True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto has recently talked about texts that influenced his writing of Rust, describing him as an "anti-natalist nihilism." What can we learn about Rust as a person informed by works like Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, Eugene Thacker's In the Dust of this Planet, David Benatar's Better to Have Never Been?We would know that he is drawn to the extreme fringes of philosophical speculation and that much of the material he is reading is unpalatable to most people. We would also know that he sought out these texts perhaps after being dissatisfied with more mainstream mediations on our place in the universe. He is not at home in the world, expects nothing from it, and has a fundamental mistrust of all discourse of hope. It is also likely that he sees hypocrisy as the norm and is attuned to delusion as the natural state of the human mind. This is perhaps why he is so good at soliciting confessions.Nuances dividing these thinkers aside, I’d say philosophically Rust considers consciousness an aberration or evolutionary error/mistake, that he is not concerned with filtering knowledge according to "the pathetic twinge of human self-esteem" [to quote philosopher Ray Brassier], and that, as an anti-natalist, he subscribes to the old maxim of "better to have never been born." Better yet, many of these thinkers argue, as Rust mentions, that we should stop reproducing in order to end the cycle of existence. This worldview is often correlated with self-destructiveness and I would say Rust’s fascination with murders, drugs, and the criminal lifestyle flower naturally from it. Despite this, I do not expect him to be the killer. It’s the fact that apparently normal people are killers that, I suspect, intrigues Rust, and since he knows what he is, the need to act out violently against others is likely lacking. He’s a bad man, but he knows the real bad men wear masks.Read More:http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/philosopher-assesses-true-detective-characters-rust-cohle-marty-hart.html
Antinatalism | Little Ones | Security is a Myth Anti Natalism 2018-08-12 | Antinatalism is a dangerous idea for a dangerous reality. "Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent." - R. D. Laing "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. "Helen KellerWelcome to the world little ones. Your parents may not tell you or know what they have brought you into but there is wisdom in the darkest intellectual corners of the web that will tell you the hardest truths. O Time! consumer of all things; O envious age! thou dost destroy all things and devour all things with the relentless teeth of years, little by little in a slow death.Leonardo da Vinci (The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci)Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.Leonardo da Vinci (Thoughts on Art and Life)
Antinatalism - The Cruel God of Nature* Anti Natalism 2018-04-24 | *re upload updated version for viewing availability All religious traditions acknowledge that the world is imperfect. Where they differ is in the explanations which they offer to account for this imperfection and in what they suggest might be done about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnf2R... Gnostics have their own -- perhaps quite startling -- view of these matters: they hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner.Like Buddhism, Gnosticism begins with the fundamental recognition that earthly life is filled with suffering. In order to nourish themselves, all forms of life consume each other, thereby visiting pain, fear, and death upon one another (even herbivorous animals live by destroying the life of plants). In addition, so-called natural catastrophes -- earthquakes, floods, fires, drought, volcanic eruptions -- bring further suffering and death in their wake. Human beings, with their complex physiology and psychology, are aware not only of these painful features of earthly existence. They also suffer from the frequent recognition that they are strangers living in a world that is flawed and absurd.Many religions advocate that humans are to be blamed for the imperfections of the world. Supporting this view, they interpret the Genesis myth as declaring that transgressions committed by the first human pair brought about a “fall” of creation resulting in the present corrupt state of the world. Gnostics respond that this interpretation of the myth is false. The blame for the world’s failings lies not with humans, but with the creator. Since -- especially in the monotheistic religions -- the creator is God, this Gnostic position appears blasphemous, and is often viewed with dismay even by non-believers.Ways of evading the recognition of the flawed creation and its flawed creator have been devised over and over, but none of these arguments have impressed Gnostics. The ancient Greeks, especially the Platonists, advised people to look to the harmony of the universe, so that by venerating its grandeur they might forget their immediate afflictions. But since this harmony still contains the cruel flaws, forlornness and alienation of existence, this advice is considered of little value by Gnostics. Nor is the Eastern idea of Karma regarded by Gnostics as an adequate explanation of creation’s imperfection and suffering. Karma at best can only explain how the chain of suffering and imperfection works. It does not inform us in the first place why such a sorrowful and malign system should exist.Once the initial shock of the “unusual” or “blasphemous” nature of the Gnostic explanation for suffering and imperfection of the world wears off, one may begin to recognize that it is in fact the most sensible of all explanations. Charles Darwin - There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.antinatalismgnosticpessimismsufferingnature god death inmendhamhitchensdawkinspeter singeruncaring natural forcesindifferent universeproblem of evil
The Hopeless Emptiness - Revolutionary Road Anti Natalism 2018-04-19 | "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" - Henry David Thoreau “You're painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road“The hell with "love" anyway, and with every other phony, time-wasting, half-assed emotion in the world.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary RoadRevolutionary Road Quotes “Now you’ve said it. The hopeless emptiness. Hell, plenty of people are on to the emptiness part; out where I used to work, on the Coast, that’s all we ever talked about. We’d sit around talking about emptiness all night. Nobody ever said ‘hopeless,’ though; that’s where we’d chicken out. Because maybe it does take a certain amount of guts to see the emptiness, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more to see the hopelessness. And I guess when you do see the hopelessness, that’s when there’s nothing to do but take off. If you can” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road“That’s how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that’s what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road“The hell with reality! Let's have a whole bunch of cute little winding roads and cute little houses painted white and pink and baby blue; let's all be good consumers and have a lot of Togetherness and bring our children up in a bath of sentimentality -- and if old reality ever does pop out and say Boo we'll all get busy and pretend it never happened.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
