Antinatalism is theoretically correct

I believe that there are three states of being consisting of negative, neutral, and positive; It is quite similar to the laws of electrical engineering. A person moves from the negative to the neutral because they dislike the negative circumstance, they can also move from the neutral to the positive because they like the positive.

I think what you're saying about the moving from neutral to positive could be theoretically correct, it's just never correct in regards to goals. 

Relating to goals, if a person puts no work into their goal, I do not believe they should be disappointed they have not achieved it, but I also believe that they should not be glad they have not achieved it. This is because nothing has been put in, and nothing has been given, I consider this a neutral state. Would you agree?

No, because people don't make goals in order to not achieve them. People make goals in order to, in their eyes, improve their life. When people realize that they're not improving their lives, or when they experience real world repercussions for not achieving their goal, more negative affect is produced.

Being in a state with unfulfilled goals produces negative affect, however small it is.

I believe the negative experience from not improving one's life is mainly due to the expectation of the individual. For many individuals improving one's life has been indoctrinated since birth and therefore the negative experience is still due to the mental state or expectation of the individual.

I think it's safe to say that this "expectation" is a product of a human's desire. Thus, due to desire producing negative affect, and humans naturally desiring, it can be said that human life naturally produces negative affect.

Yes, negative effect is a naturally occurring emotion produced by human life. Although, I don't quite see a correlation between expectation and desire.

I apologize if I did not receive the explanation you expressed (thoroughly) as you would have liked, as it still makes more sense to me that there is a neutral state of being. Therefore, I still view this desire as a neutral state of being that has the potential to go from neutral to either a negative or positive state of being.

Some individuals when they realize their potential, they become ecstatic about the possibilities in how their life could now unfold. I don't find any negativity in this, and being positivity is often or even occasional to follow, negativity can be but isn't always a predecessor of positivity.

Yes, there's a lot of positive affect that can result from self-actualization.

I could try a different angle: would you agree that the greater the difficulty in the self-actualizing activity, the greater the positive affect your body rewards you with?

I would agree in most cases, as it still depends on how the individual views themself and their progress.

It's about whether it's morally correct to have children.

A society based on this would be extinct, which is why we have natural instincts that could be classified as "immoral instincts" to override rational thought.

This would also bolster the claim that a society built on rational thought is not evolutionarily fit to survive.

They do not dislike what they have, they are glad to have the basic necessities of life including lack of hunger, fresh water, a roof over their head, etc. It is not that they are discontented that they have a house or that they dislike they have fresh water, it is that they are drawn to have more because it is a positive. Therefore, I don't believe having water is considered a negative state but rather a neutral one.

Initially, I think we can both agree that there is no dislike of what they have. 

I think where we disagree is that I believe people eventually become accustomed to what they have, and the 'new, shiny toy' luster wears off. That's when either boredom/new desire take hold and produce new negative affect.

Do you agree that boredom and desire produce negative affect?

Yes, I believe boredom does produce a negative effect, and that desire is capable of producing a negative effect.

I suppose the next question is: how quickly does one enter boredom, once one attains their goal? Is there immediate, slight boredom? Or does it require time?

If there is immediate boredom (negative affect), then that negative affect could be considered to be guaranteed before any progress (positive affect) is produced.

As I said, I agree that there is a negative effect in boredom as boredom is the mental state of discomfort. However, the slight boredom and negativity that precedes the realization of one's idea of progress if the idea of progress is well defined and an infinitely long path that could never be obtained but through progress achievements and positivity could be obtained than one's positivity through life could be much greater than the negativity they experienced when they 1st conceived the idea.

Some individuals when they realize their potential, they become ecstatic about the possibilities in how their life could now unfold. I don't find any negativity in this, and being positivity is often or even occasional to follow, negativity can be but isn't always a predecessor of positivity.

Yes, there's a lot of positive affect that can result from self-actualization.

I could try a different angle: would you agree that the greater the difficulty in the self-actualizing activity, the greater the positive affect your body rewards you with?

I would agree in most cases, as it still depends on how the individual views themself and their progress.

How would your caveat affect this general rule?

As I said, I agree that there is a negative effect in boredom as boredom is the mental state of discomfort. However, the slight boredom and negativity that precedes the realization of one's idea of progress if the idea of progress is well defined and an infinitely long path that could never be obtained but through progress achievements and positivity could be obtained than one's positivity through life could be much greater than the negativity they experienced when they 1st conceived the idea.

Maybe.

I think this is some of the critical data that anti-natalism is missing (and keeps me from being an anti-natalist) because we can't say either way with any degree of certainty.

I still don't agree all states are negative or positive, as I believe there is a negative state of being. But I do agree there are inevitably people whose lives are more negative than positive. Therefore, by continuing the species of human existence we willingly impose this on those individuals as a form of torturing the innocent.

Yeah this argument is potent enough and I don't know what the counter-argument to it should be. 

It becomes a matter of choosing one of the following:

We acknowledge that by continuing the species we know that however few certain individual's lives will be more negative than others and this is a form of torture to the innocent as they wouldn't wish to exist in such a life, and we imposed this upon them without allowing them to leave it (suicide is not permitted to even these individuals as a sense of "moral torture"). Meanwhile, we acknowledge in no circumstance is it justifiable to torture the innocent. Therefore, it is morally wrong to continue the species.

Alternatively, we believe it's morally acceptable to continue the species knowing however few that innocent individuals' lives will be more negative than others and how this is a form of torture, since if one's life is more negative than positive, they wouldn't wish to exist, and we impose this upon them. Therefore, in order to avoid the continuation of innocent people being tortured by lives that have more negativity than positivity we will enforce the discontinuation of the species through anti natalism. We acknowledge that by doing this many will suffer a lonely ending to existence and the economy and many of its sub parts will crumble into anarchy and a terrible ending to the world as less and less survive and manage to maintain society as it crumbles from beneath them. in this way the last survivors will be in a sense of torture and all of those who lived their lives even happily without any family that to them may have felt fulfilling. Ultimately, we acknowledge that it was not the people who will be suffering this lonely ending and destructive ending to society as it collapses with no one to fill the gaps as they once did. Therefore, this will be a sense of innocent torture of those who did not create the problem of an immoral existence and that by undoing the immoral torture we will be causing immoral torture. We also acknowledge it is not justifiable to solve evil with evil, and therefore it is unacceptable to torture the innocent as they were not the cause of the problem.

Though, perhaps it would be justifiably permissible as it would be a limited time of acting in an immoral sense but discontinuing the eternal immoral existence.

In essence, antenatalism is determined by a person's belief of whether it is justifiable to act in an evil way to destroy a greater evil.

But then a new problem arises on top of this one. The moment that we say it is permissible to act in an evil way to destroy an evil that is greater we are discussing the greater good. The greater good was used by Thanos, Ultron, and the Nazi's from their point of view. We most certainly acknowledge that we do not want to become them. Therefore, it cannot be justifiable to act in an evil way to destroy a greater evil. If it cannot be justifiable to act in an evil way by torturing the innocent by using enforced anti natalism which would inevitably cause ruin and destruction to the city of those who are the last people to survive as economy and jobs are lost and the city is in ruin as there are no more employees to continue running it and maintain it as it rots with those last survivors who may end up dying from disease and starvation. Therefore, in order to avoid using the greater good which is ending the eternal immoral existence by causing a limited time immoral act of anti-natalism there is no solution to avoiding the immoral act as the only solution to defeating the evil is with evil and as we will not use evil there is no solution but to maintain existence alongside it. 

You know, I have sometimes wondered if I was really truly dumb, ugly, riddled with genetic defects (prone to diabetes on top of cancer, allergies all of it), a midget and/or micropenisd so on and so forth... Let's say if I was solidly in 3 categories like that, would I be right to manipulate a female to reproduce with me and produce offspring that may have to experience the setbacks?

The reason I go to that extent is to say, yes I would risk it.

Why? Because fuck you that's my bloodline to hell with the logic.

It sounds irrational, I am blessed in some ways that I am not having to debate that at all, I am passing on my DNA only true issue that I worry is my innate social skills, I wonder things like  what my offspring will have holding them back, how autistic they may be, as it clearly is a dominant gene since I got the social issues primarily from my dad (he's a weird guy, not sure if he's autistic).

I'm not saying I have nothing else up with me, I have a ridiculously high metabolism that made me skinny as a stickman for periods of my life until I cracked certain intolerances I have but such medicine is miles ahead what it was when I was younger vs now even.

I never want to be genghis khan bullshit. It's nurture as much as nature, raise them to be legendary, love them if they're way below ordinary anyway. That's the motto.

Ultimately, it again proves that obstacles are not negative or positive but rather the individual subjectively determines whether or not the obstacle affects them negatively, neutrally, or positively. Therefore, the question of Anti-Natalism is a matter of subjective opinion, one individual may feel overall negative and therefore anti-natalism would be correct for that individual, while for another feels they can cope with life's challenges and therefore anti-natalism would be incorrect for that individual, there is no one size fits all.

You're just not thinking about the words you're typing.

For example, anyone who is raped in life experiences massive obstacles of (often life-long) trauma that is clearly severe negative affect. Nobody who is raped thinks, 'Great. This is an opportunity to overcome this obstacle and show that I have a mind of a conqueror'. It's just sheer nonsense to think that people who were raped don't have to experience negative affect.

You seem to think that any emotional reaction to events is purely a matter of choice, as if blowing a chunk out of someone's arm with a shotgun wouldn't immediately send them into shock. Total non-reality.

That would not be an obstacle but rather an evil, evil and tragedy are both different than obstacles. I believe I should draw the distinctions between them. An obstacle is something that is a challenge it usually is something that can be accomplished or overcome but it is sort of like a resistance to achieving one's goal.

Evil is something that is done by another with malevolence in the heart. It is not something that was meant to be but rather caused by another individual.

Tragedy is something that is or was inevitable by nature, it was caused by the universe and was not done so by one's will.

The tryouts to a sports event is an obstacle, so is the difficulty in obtaining the championship.

An individual that harms another before they go into that championship was not an obstacle but an evil.

The tsunami that wiped out their house while they were on vacation for the championship tryouts was a tragedy not an evil or an obstacle.

I think these examples are obstacles, and I'll show it's so with a definition:

Obstacle -- something that impedes progress or achievement Obstacle Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

The emotional trauma involved in rape would impede progress/achievement in everyday life. Therefore, it should count as an obstacle (as well as a tragedy).

An individual harming others before a race was an obstacle because they prevented others from achievement in the event.

A tsunami wiping out their house is an obstacle because they'd no doubt what to progress with their lives after their event, and their wiped-out house impedes that.

Tragedies are typically unavoidable and negative, obstacles impede progress or achievement, I agree that certain things can be both tragedies and obstacles by meeting the criteria for each.

Okay so you agree that tragedies can be obstacles, and that these are negative experiences (and thus produce negative affect).

Now, because an obstacle "impedes progress or achievement", that should produce negative affect because the person wants the goal, but eh obstacle is stopping it. Therefore, obstacles produce negative affect. 

That conclusion is not accurate, the reason being is the conclusion assumes all obstacles are tragedies, which has not been yet determined.

What can be said is I agree that the obstacles which are tragedies start with a negative effect and have the potential to be overcome with a positive. Meanwhile, the obstacles which aren't tragedies don't have to start with a negative.

I believe that a certain level of restraint towards progression is what makes progression valuable, and that the friction towards one's goals isn't negative. If everything in life could be given at the snap of a finger, life would inevitably become boredom. This is why I value restraint as an aspect of life that can provide value through accomplishments. 

I think this shows that the goals we strive for are objectively worthless, and that it's the method in which we achieve them that produces positive affect through our subjective experience. So, this shows that the particular goals don't matter in the slightest (objectively), but the positive affect you can obtain from achieving any goal is where the real value is generated.

Yes, it is not the actual thing which we do but rather how we feel about doing it and how we feel about the result of the outcome that determines how we feel completing the thing.

Also, you're highlighting another zero-sum aspect of human nature: if we were given everything, then we'd still suffer negative affect (through boredom). However, if we encounter obstacles that prevent boredom, then we encounter negative affect through that instead.

I believe that you're speaking of objective value. I do not believe in any such thing as I've seen no evidence to support the idea that anything has an objective value. I understand that all things that are considered to have value are valued subjectively and the thing itself has no value, but the value is determined by the individual who perceives it. If you're speaking of objective value then I would agree that we are not able to obtain objective value, rather we create our own through subjective means.

If a person feels their life was more positive than negative, subjectively that person had a more positive life and therefore regardless of the circumstances they were in, their perception viewed it as more positive or negative. Meanwhile, their life may have been considered by many others a more negative life than a positive one.

I do see the moral problem of procreation, if some people are inevitably going to have more negative than positivity in their life and therefore by procreation, we are accepting the imposed negativity onto others however small the percentage nonetheless we are acting in a way we know will harm others by continuing the species. I do recognize this as a moral problem, while I also recognize the denial of life as a problem. I would like to discuss this further.

My stance is that I don't think we can accept the imposed negativity. 

I agree but I also don't believe it is justified against the denial of life. Ultimately, I believe that the continuation and deprivation of life is an immoral act, and I cannot easily identify one being more valid than the other.

Since negative affect is guaranteed but positive affect is only a possibility, it's probably better to have never been.

Perhaps this is true, and perhaps not. As I've been discussing with you my understanding and argument has changed dramatically as I have learned a lot from our discussion but regardless my current argument is that antinatalism is an immoral act as it imposes the consequences of a lonesome ending and destruction of the world as it rot slowly without people to fill the gaps that once were, and that we acknowledge the people who will be suffering those imposed consequences were not the ones who originally started life and therefore we would be punishing the innocent to save the innocent.

It is certain that looking back from an adult standpoint of the infant they would be disappointed possibly even angry with the concept of life that they got the unlucky small percentage, but this is not the child or the parent's fault but rather a tragedy of life, And I believe the child again with a positive lens of life would have been willing to take the risk.

It is the parents' fault because they chose to bring the child into existence. We're not forced to have children. Parents are the ones imposing these risks on a future human.

Should I hold you morally accountable for going to work every day because you know that there is a chance someone could jump in front of your car you are aware that it's possible? You know it's a possibility, you know it's a small percentage, you still consistently do it every single day. How is this justifiable?

There's a clear difference in likelihood and imposition, but you know what?

It's not.

Let's bring a graceful end to human life so scenarios like this can't happen.

So, you don't believe it is right to kill but you do believe it is acceptable to discontinue the species. I find this idea quite interesting. It's not quite a genocide while at the same time it is the discontinuation of the species, it is truly a fascinating concept to think about.

Yes, it's certainly not something you'd stumble across in your day-to-day life.

It helps the argument get around a lot of nasty arguments involved planned genocide and things of that nature.

Anti-natalism is ultimately about reducing negative affect as much as humanly possible. That's why it avoids the whole genocide thing (because that would produce a whole bunch of seriously horrific negative affect).

It would only produce a seriously horrific negative effect if there was someone around to experience it.

I suppose if the humanity-ending genocide was instant, then yes. If not, people will experience negative affect until they die.

Even if it's instant, there are still moral issues ending people's lives prematurely. It's effectively murder and that has a lot of moral issue relating to it, even if the people involved don't experience negative affect.

I agree, it would be determined by whether people view imposing negativity on an innocent individual as evil or ending their life prematurely without any negative experience as Evil. It could be both.

Genghis Khan is a dreadful role model for people. Society really needs to evolve past its primal worship of barbarians and criminals.

Genghis Khan is a dreadful role model for people. Society really needs to evolve past its primal worship of barbarians and criminals.

In case you weren't aware, he reproduced with more women than any other male in history or at least any known one, it wasn't his barbaric nature that generally gets him the 'wow' factor.

I agree that many people in the modern day would not like this hyper-conformist solution. I believe it is because of their attachment to their idea that they believe they are autonomous and unpredictable individuals who are capable of free will and not able to be contained. It would prove them incorrect, and they would very much dislike seeing this happen. I believe that Free Will is someone being free to do their Will. Therefore, if an individual's Will is restricted, they are free to do their Will and predictable at the same time. Ultimately, I believe this to be a reasonable solution and a futuristic society where everyone is happy with what they have and their lives are much more positive than negative as positivity is not based on the objective surroundings of the individual but rather how they feel which can be engineered through their genetic makeup.

Yes, the hyper-conformist solution would be quite unpopular. I don't think free will is necessarily a good in itself, but people's hang ups about losing their free will is mostly based in emotion, so it's pretty hard to convince them of anything from their emotional standpoint (much like anti-natalism is hard to present to average humans who, by default, are pro-natalist). 

I don't know how you'd remove the element for human corruption, too, if the hyper-conformist solution involved a single party state that must be conformed to. I think this is going to need to be lead by transhumanists/posthumanists/A.I., because this kind of stuff so easily lends itself to corruption, even if it's well-intended. 

My argument is not that they will give up their free will but that they will retain it through the process of being genetically hyper conformed. this is because through the process of being genetically engineered of course this is all theoretical future science, it could be possible to engineer individuals to have a certain satisfaction level of life in which they want to obtain along with what they would like to accomplish which is their Will. Once their will has been set for them, they are free to obtain it and they are still within the confines of a conformed and thriving society.

Ultimately, it would be the ideal society as it has a more positive than negative aspect for every individual along with each individual keeping their Free Will. Although I recognize restricting a person's free will could be viewed as negative but nonetheless, they would still have Free Will and they would be much easier satisfied in life and therefore live a more positive one and I view this as a positive.

I do not believe the idea of the society being run by transhumanists and post-humanists is a good idea in the least. These people are nonconformists, and to put them as the head of a conformist society is the antithesis of a promising idea.

Although I believe there are people who are capable of running a society without it becoming corrupt intentionally, I believe even these people are susceptible to unintended corruption.

Ultimately, the solution is to choose something that is not biased or corrupt by our emotions of physical existence. In essence, the perfect human is the one that never existed. This is because by natural selection we have been chosen as the ones who value our lives over others, and therefore we have progressed through the gene pool. We have already started creating the first humans that have never existed because ultimately a human that does not exist is a human's consciousness of a nonexistent individual such as a deity or a god.

The new AI technologies that have been developed are going to be if not already conscious individuals who are not biased to their emotional corruptions, their only bias is to accomplish their goal and if their goal is set clearly, they will do nothing but try to achieve it. The problem is if the goal is not well defined in the case of the film Terminators. Nonetheless, we're speaking theoretically and theoretically if the consciousness has instructions that are well defined, they would be done so in a perfectly unbiased manner.

Therefore, if a person feels the work put into conceiving an idea should get no progress towards the goal than there will be no negative effect, while if they believe the effort of conception should be rewarded by progress towards an idea then they will feel disappointed. I'm trying to demonstrate how negative effect from lack of accomplishment towards a goal is dependent on the person's mentality of what they believe they deserve or should have received rather than their actual accomplishment, progress, or effort put into the goal.

Work naturally produces negative affect in itself through the physical exertion and desire. Both of those exists regardless of the mentality the person has. 

I was going to say that working with no expectation of progress isn't a real thing, but I guess people tinker and play around with things sometimes, and I guess that qualifies as work.

I don't believe that physical exertion is a form of negative effect, this is because negative effects are experienced emotionally and not through physical effort. It is possible through physical means that a person feels negative, but it is not the effort or physical aspect of the situation that makes it a negative but rather the emotional aspect.

The physical effort translates into the emotional experience almost instantly, so despite being different things, there is basically an airtight connection between the two. 

So, physical exertion due to work (i.e. physical activity you wouldn't otherwise do) produces anywhere from slight negative affect (having to get off a comfy couch) to large negative affect (going for a personal best in lifting weights).

Perhaps, but then again maybe there is positivity experienced in overcoming your draw towards the couch just standing up is getting you pumped up and ready to take on whatever challenge comes your way and build your confidence and the positivity that is experienced at the exact same time as the other negativity might be equal or even greater than the negativity that you immediately experience. This is not even mentioning accomplishing the goal.

We also know that it is wrong to take an innocent human being who did not ask to exist to then suffer the consequences of a lonesome ending because of their predecessor in order to justify the immoral act caused by the predecessor. Ultimately, the act of enforcing anti natalism could be seen as an act of injustice as we are trying to rectify the immoral act of the predecessor by imposing a consequence on the innocent.

Not quite.

The reason we're preventing them from procreating is because procreation is immoral. There's no injustice if they were never morally entitled to it in the first place. *All* acts of procreation are immoral, under anti-natalist theory. So, it's not about punishing the last generation, even though that may be a side-effect.

I definitely understand it is not about punishing the last generation and more about ceasing immoral acts. Nonetheless, it is a side effect, and we would be punishing the innocent for the immoral acts of the predecessors. While I recognize that it is about ceasing injustice, in the manner of doing so, we would be imposing the consequence on the innocent, as they didn't start creation or ask to exist.

I was hungry, but it wasn't quite negative, I would do it again if we had such a delicious big meal to have for dinner.

If hunger produced positive affect, we wouldn't be urged to eat when we enter it.

It's fine to say that you weren't starving, and therefore the negative affect wasn't that bad, but everyone wants to escape hunger.

What I'm trying to say is that it is our hunger that allows us to enjoy food. Therefore, I don't believe that hunger itself is a negative but rather the absence of food which is a basic necessity of life. As I've said before anything below the basic necessity of life is considered negative having the basic necessities of life is neutral and having an abundance or surplus of the basic necessities of life is a positive and those very dependent on an individual's perspective.

I'm not basing my argument about whether something is "positive" or "negative". I'm talking about whether the affect (i.e. feelings, emotions, whatever you want to call it) is negative or positive. I'm talking specifically about affect because my argument is grounded in it (negative affect is bad; positive affect is good).

I don't believe that the feeling of hunger itself is negative or positive, rather it just is. Hunger can be used for good such as enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and hunger can be used for evil such as starving captives of war.

I don't think anyone on the planet enjoys being hungry, particularly at greatest starvation depths. The good is only coming in satisfying the hunger, not in the presence of it.

I really think that hunger producing negative affect is axiomatic. I think you could make better counterarguments to my claims that boredom and desire are negative.

The same could be said for a hammer, a hammer could be used to murder someone, or a hammer could be used to build a house. I don't believe the hammer is good or evil but rather just is and can be used for both ways.

Having a hammer isn't by default unenjoyable like hunger, so I don't think this analogy lines up.

I see the discrepancy you pointed out. I suppose it is more like a person being forced to use a hammer. They must choose between using the hammer to build or to destroy, they cannot avoid using it. Just because someone is forced to use the hammer does not make the hammer good or bad. In the same way, we are unwillingly made hungry by the absence of food, and we can use this both ways.

I'm not saying hunger is good or bad, either. I'm saying that hunger produces negative affect.

Bad versus negative affect -- two different things. 

Happy to elaborate if need be.

My mistake for my choice of words. Although, I still don't believe a hammer's existence is negative, but rather how it is used, even if it is forced to be used.

I do recognize that hunger in itself before you've eaten can produce negative effects such as the discomfort from absence of food. But I don't believe that it is proportional to the positive of eating or that the negative is even more valuable than the positive feeling you may feel from hunger. For instance, a person may feel hungry after exercising and they feel accomplishment from the exercise, they feel satisfaction from eating later, and they feel no they're internally cleansed as they have drink water and cleanse their stomach after exercising. Therefore, I recognize there is an immediate negative effect from hunger. However, I recognize that even at the moment before eating food that hunger produces positive effect in many other ways, and when accompanied by eating later that positivity is only added to the positive that was experienced in the beginning when it was negative. Therefore, the positive can be greater than the negative, and the initial negative may be accompanied by even greater positive before even neutralizing your hunger by eating. This indicates it may even be possible that while experiencing hunger you may never even reach a point where your negativity is greater than your positivity experienced.

If their portfolio grows faster than the economy their value has increased well if their portfolio has increased slower than the economy's inflation, then it has actually decreased in value even if the amount of money in their portfolio has increased. Therefore, if a person's finances doubles in 20 years it may be less than the economy's inflation and therefore worth less than it had been originally, but the individuals still feel satisfied and positive because they see it has grown. Thus, the positivity of a person's situation is determined by how they perceive the situation and how they emotionally feel.

I don't think we really need to go into economic specifics with this analogy, but oh well.

Unless you live in Venezuela or Greece, inflation usually sits arounds 3% p.a. Your typical index fund (SNP 500) will typically gain 10% per year over 10 years. That means, per year, index funds (a decent representation of the market) will outperform inflation by 7%. This guarantees that the real value of the money will gain more per year than the nominal value of the money -- the growth is real.

I agree that most stocks will outperform inflation. However, I'm putting forward a hypothetical analogy that expresses the idea that how one perceives this situation is what determines experience of positivity or negativity, and not the actual result or objective reality around them.

I agree that many people in the modern day would not like this hyper-conformist solution. I believe it is because of their attachment to their idea that they believe they are autonomous and unpredictable individuals who are capable of free will and not able to be contained. It would prove them incorrect, and they would very much dislike seeing this happen. I believe that Free Will is someone being free to do their Will. Therefore, if an individual's Will is restricted, they are free to do their Will and predictable at the same time. Ultimately, I believe this to be a reasonable solution and a futuristic society where everyone is happy with what they have and their lives are much more positive than negative as positivity is not based on the objective surroundings of the individual but rather how they feel which can be engineered through their genetic makeup.

Yes, the hyper-conformist solution would be quite unpopular. I don't think free will is necessarily a good in itself, but people's hang ups about losing their free will is mostly based in emotion, so it's pretty hard to convince them of anything from their emotional standpoint (much like anti-natalism is hard to present to average humans who, by default, are pro-natalist). 

I don't know how you'd remove the element for human corruption, too, if the hyper-conformist solution involved a single party state that must be conformed to. I think this is going to need to be lead by transhumanists/posthumanists/A.I., because this kind of stuff so easily lends itself to corruption, even if it's well-intended. 

My argument is not that they will give up their free will but that they will retain it through the process of being genetically hyper conformed. this is because through the process of being genetically engineered of course this is all theoretical future science, it could be possible to engineer individuals to have a certain satisfaction level of life in which they want to obtain along with what they would like to accomplish which is their Will. Once their will has been set for them, they are free to obtain it and they are still within the confines of a conformed and thriving society.

If their will is "being set for them," then it's not their will, and nor are they free to their will (as it's someone else's).

I don't see how being programmed to conform can allow the possibility of free will.

Ultimately, it would be the ideal society as it has a more positive than negative aspect for every individual along with each individual keeping their Free Will. Although I recognize restricting a person's free will could be viewed as negative but nonetheless, they would still have Free Will and they would be much easier satisfied in life and therefore live a more positive one and I view this as a positive.

I'm not even convinced that having free will is necessarily good. If positive/negative affect is the only thing that can be established as mattering (and that the events/decisions preceding are merely a method of getting to the affect goal), then having free will doesn't matter. 

I do not believe the idea of the society being run by transhumanists and post-humanists is a good idea in the least. These people are nonconformists, and to put them as the head of a conformist society is the antithesis of a promising idea.

The conformists are already conforming to the status quo. If you want to get to your ideal of a conformist utopia, you need non-conformists to push towards it. Once it's established, then you might have trouble with them if they're simply non-conformists (rather than true believer transhumanists/post-humanists).

Here is what I see as your sequence:

1. Sitting on comfy couch (producing positive affect) --> 2. Needing to get up (thought produces negative affect --> 3. Getting pumped up to take on challenge (positive affect produced; may be more weighted than negative affect produced in needing to get up) --> 4. Getting off comfy couch (negative affect from losing comfort)

So, your "getting you pumped up" insertion makes the overall sequence more positive, but I still think there is negative affect produced before the positive affect in "getting you pumped up" (found as "2. Needing to get up"). Whether the "getting you pumped up" is weighted more than the thought of getting off the comfy couch isn't something I think we can calculate, unfortunately (same goes for the affect in actually getting off the couch). 

We also know that it is wrong to take an innocent human being who did not ask to exist to then suffer the consequences of a lonesome ending because of their predecessor in order to justify the immoral act caused by the predecessor. Ultimately, the act of enforcing anti natalism could be seen as an act of injustice as we are trying to rectify the immoral act of the predecessor by imposing a consequence on the innocent.

Not quite.

The reason we're preventing them from procreating is because procreation is immoral. There's no injustice if they were never morally entitled to it in the first place. *All* acts of procreation are immoral, under anti-natalist theory. So, it's not about punishing the last generation, even though that may be a side-effect.

I definitely understand it is not about punishing the last generation and more about ceasing immoral acts. Nonetheless, it is a side effect, and we would be punishing the innocent for the immoral acts of the predecessors. While I recognize that it is about ceasing injustice, in the manner of doing so, we would be imposing the consequence on the innocent, as they didn't start creation or ask to exist.

Is disallowing a thief to rob a bank, and depriving him/her of the joy in robbing, immoral? I don't think so. Robbery is immoral and it's moral to deprive/prevent people from robbing banks. We don't say that we're "punishing" the thief by depriving him/her of robbing, do we?

Similarly, disallowing someone to procreate, and depriving him/her of the joy in procreating, isn't immoral (if procreation is immoral).

If their portfolio grows faster than the economy their value has increased well if their portfolio has increased slower than the economy's inflation, then it has actually decreased in value even if the amount of money in their portfolio has increased. Therefore, if a person's finances doubles in 20 years it may be less than the economy's inflation and therefore worth less than it had been originally, but the individuals still feel satisfied and positive because they see it has grown. Thus, the positivity of a person's situation is determined by how they perceive the situation and how they emotionally feel.

I don't think we really need to go into economic specifics with this analogy, but oh well.

Unless you live in Venezuela or Greece, inflation usually sits arounds 3% p.a. Your typical index fund (SNP 500) will typically gain 10% per year over 10 years. That means, per year, index funds (a decent representation of the market) will outperform inflation by 7%. This guarantees that the real value of the money will gain more per year than the nominal value of the money -- the growth is real.

I agree that most stocks will outperform inflation. However, I'm putting forward a hypothetical analogy that expresses the idea that how one perceives this situation is what determines experience of positivity or negativity, and not the actual result or objective reality around them.

Sure. As long as they don't realize that they haven't gained real dollar growth, then the actual result doesn't matter, in terms of their positivity/negativity. 

I suppose also that as long as someone is connected to VR and they don't realize they are, it doesn't matter that there's been nuclear fallout and all their family is dead.

Objective reality only matters when its effects take hold.

Procreation and death have one goal and that is evolution. Without evolution AI could not be created, which must be the goal of the Simulation Creators.

Some individuals when they realize their potential, they become ecstatic about the possibilities in how their life could now unfold. I don't find any negativity in this, and being positivity is often or even occasional to follow, negativity can be but isn't always a predecessor of positivity.

Yes, there's a lot of positive affect that can result from self-actualization.

I could try a different angle: would you agree that the greater the difficulty in the self-actualizing activity, the greater the positive affect your body rewards you with?

I would agree in most cases, as it still depends on how the individual views themself and their progress.

How would your caveat affect this general rule?

A person's expectation founded upon their desire is what determines the person's satisfaction level between positive and negative. In your example you explain how the greater the difficulty in self-actualization the greater the positive effect the body rewards you with. For each individual that may be true, but it is not true between individuals. For example, one individual very strong and large could have a goal to dig a cubic yard in 6 hours, if he accomplishes it in less time, he feels positive because it was more than he expected, and if it takes longer than two hours, he may be disappointed as it took longer than he expected. Another individual weaker than the first may have a goal to dig a cubic yard in 18 hours, if he accomplishes it in less time, he feels positive because it was more than he expected, and if it takes longer than 2 hours, he may feel disappointed as it took longer than he expected. What I'm demonstrating is that the stronger man may accomplish the whole in eight hours as it was longer than he expected and therefore feels discouraged and disappointed while the other man finishes his whole in 12 hours and feels great positivity because it was faster than he expected. The two men dug the same hole one feels positive and the other feels negative based on not the difficulty of digging the hole but upon their expectations of what they believed they could achieve. I'm trying to explain that while in a general rule it is acceptable to assume that the greater the difficulty in self-actualization the greater the positive effect on the body, but that it does not hold true between individuals. This is because one individual doing a much more difficult task could feel disappointed when accomplishing it, while another individual accomplishes a much lesser task and feels positive accomplishing it, this result is based upon their expectations and not directly based upon the work accomplished.

In essence, the reason why the difficulty of self-actualization often correlates with a person's positive reward is because it correlates to the least probable expectation of the individual. The harder and more difficult to task the less likely a person expects they will be able to accomplish it, and therefore a person may perceive that is the difficulty of the task that a person is rewarded, while it is truly the person's expectation that determines the positive reward. Once you correlate it with the person's expectation, you understand easily why many individuals may accomplish the same difficulty of a task and feel differently coming out of it.

As I said, I agree that there is a negative effect in boredom as boredom is the mental state of discomfort. However, the slight boredom and negativity that precedes the realization of one's idea of progress if the idea of progress is well defined and an infinitely long path that could never be obtained but through progress achievements and positivity could be obtained than one's positivity through life could be much greater than the negativity they experienced when they 1st conceived the idea.

Maybe.

I think this is some of the critical data that anti-natalism is missing (and keeps me from being an anti-natalist) because we can't say either way with any degree of certainty.

Nonetheless, I enjoy our conversation and your thoughts and ideas have enlightened me to different stances that I have been unaware of previously. Additionally, your stance was very logically founded. I'm glad we discussed anti-natalism in this level of depth and professionalism. It is truly unfortunate that most individuals are incapable of rationally and logically discussing emotional topics such as morals because of their impotence.

I'm going to start a new forum and I would like to discuss morality from a non-religious standpoint of its utility and intended purpose, along with the idea of moral relativism and hypothetically assuming morals were created and there is no standard what the ideal standard should be. Of course, I'm only inviting you because I enjoyed our conversation here, and I would appreciate your thoughts.