• C1pher@lemmy.world
    782·
    4 months ago

    Bust a nut, pass your genetics and perish. Thats it. What you do in between that is up to you.

    • MDCCCLV@lemmy.caEnglish
      521·
      4 months ago

      No, social behavior has always been a party of biology. Even after you reproduce how you care for your young and your extended family has a huge impact on the species. Herd animals or anything that flocks can’t function solo. If all the adults just left after they reproduced the species wouldn’t survive. Reproduction is key for the individual, but it’s never that simple. The version you’re told in school is always a highly simplified version of the truth.

      • socsa@piefed.socialEnglish
        227·
        4 months ago

        Honestly the entire idea that the only purpose of humanity is to make the next generation or support that process in some way just feels gross in a very eugenics adjacent way. If you start with that premise, it’s just too easy to conclude that anyone who isn’t working towards that end is disposable.

        • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
          12·
          4 months ago

          I’m in the “there is no purpose,” camp. It seems like a bit of a mental disorder to me to (without any evidence) assume that oneself or one’s species isn’t just hanging around by random happenstance. Wouldn’t that simply be narcissism? People have long asked the question, “why are we here?” Yet there’s never been and never will be a definitive answer.

          • superkret@feddit.org
            3·
            4 months ago

            No, it’s not purpose. It’s just a process that perpetuates itself.

            It’s how you make the next generation, but if that generation doesn’t have a purpose, then neither does yours, nor the act of reproduction.

          • LePoisson@lemmy.world
            3·
            4 months ago

            Is it though? Because evolution is only really concerned with a thing living long enough to reproduce. It’s not planned like eugenics would be.

            That’s why there’s tons of examples of dumb as hell stuff in biology because as long as an organism is “good enough” to keep reproducing and spreading their genes that is fine and that species will continue to evolve.

            Eugenics would be more like if evolution somehow could select only for specific traits and then made sure to only let things with those traits reproduce. Evolution is much messier than that.

          • ObliviousEnlightenment@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 months ago

            Yes, but also it’s more complicated than that. Most species die off before being grandparents, and certianly they don’t participate in the rearing of grandchildren. We specifically live long enough and have emotional connection to keep being part of a family structure past that point. It helps retain and pass on knowledge that proved valuable for us. Likewise, younger siblings are more likely to be homosexual, and it’s hypothesized this was to build redundancy into family structures. If both parents die off in a hunting accident, you have a gay aunt/uncle who can step in; much better than being an orphan.

            Yes reproduction is the GOAL as far as evolution is concerened, but contributing does not require direct participation.

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 months ago

        We did evolve grandmother’s. That was an evolutionary pressure response. Deep knowledge and long growth have lead us through doors of perception far beyond the reach of all life we have yet precieved.

        • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
          1·
          4 months ago

          Tangential nitpick—the phrase “evolutionary pressure response” evokes the idea that there is an intelligent or benevolent purpose behind the process. When a beneficial trait randomly occurs and gets passed on, that is a release from evolutionary pressure, not a response to it.

          • superkret@feddit.org
            1·
            4 months ago

            Apple pie.

            The entire purpose of life and evolution up to this point was to evolve grandmother’s apple pie.

    • socsa@piefed.socialEnglish
      203·
      4 months ago

      How about I do something which will make life better for people who are actually alive already instead of increasing total human suffering by making new people.

      • EvilCartyen@feddit.dk
        1110·
        4 months ago

        Having kids can be extremely fulfilling, doesn’t increase human suffering at all. Having kids subjectively improved my life and the lives of many people adjacent to me, e.g. the lives of my family members and friends and my kids’ friends.

        I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.

        • Emerald@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          184·
          4 months ago

          You say it’s improved your life and the lives of those adjacent to you, your family members, friends, and your kids’ friends. But you haven’t said its improved your kids life. I think that’s what the OP was talking about. A being who doesn’t exist doesn’t desire to exist so making new life isn’t doing them a favor and only exposes them to harm.

          • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1014·
            4 months ago

            Don’t project your own depression onto others, and non-existent beings.

            If you think existence “only exposes [living things] to harm” and nothing else, nothing even potentially good?

            If you truly believe that, I’ve got no nice way to say this: You need therapy.

            • Emerald@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              133·
              4 months ago

              I mean I’m not depressed and I love living, so I wouldn’t be projecting depression on to others.

              I agree that people can experience good things as well as harmful things, but it’s not a risk worth taking. Giving birth is gambling with human life. You never know if someones life experience is going to be overwhelmingly positive or negative, but if they are never born, that’s not even an issue to worry about.

        • blarghly@lemmy.worldEnglish
          112·
          4 months ago

          I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.

          Because people who are chronically online are chronically online because they had shitty childhoods which gave them chronic depression. Thus they associate the creation of children with the creation of suffering.

          Source: me

        • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          53·
          4 months ago

          Human suffering is caused in part by overpopulation (as is the suffering of all creatures - we are invasive, destructive and afflicted with a superiority complex) and in part by religious indoctrination, so while you procreate, as long as you don’t force offspring into a single and restrictive belief system, I suppose it’s okay, and all the best to you.

        • trolololol@lemmy.world
          32·
          4 months ago

          Come on, it’s worth it but it certainly brings a lot of suffering that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Telling my teenager that he needs to shower 5x, every day that he does sports, is suffering for both me and him.

        • Squorlple@lemmy.worldEnglish
          01·
          4 months ago

          Virtually every sentient life experiences a non-zero amount of suffering. Progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t suffer; progeny that does exist is virtually certain to suffer to some degree. The hedonist argument that progeny may get to experience some joy falls apart because progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t experience any lack of joy (i.e. that would-be joy is not mourned by that which does not exist).

          Ensuring the certainty of the sum total of suffering in another person’s life just for one’s own self-fulfillment is incredibly selfish. Procreation is a cycle of blithe selfishness that perpetuates universal suffering and is at best wrought by apathy for others’ suffering and at worst wrought by enthusiasm for others’ suffering.

          I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.

          • EvilCartyen@feddit.dk
            1·
            4 months ago

            I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.

            Maybe you should find the empathy to see that your experience is not everyone’s experience, then?

          • Vox_Ursus@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 months ago

            Sure, life is imperfect, but is that really a reason to espouse something as radical as nonexistence? I find that the imperfection and thereby dualism of existence is part of what makes it beautiful; we get to experience both the good and the bad, pleasure and pain.

            I guess in some sense what I understand you’re saying is that to you, being thrust into the pain inherent of becoming and being alive, is the consequence of a bad moral or ethical (selfish) action and therefore wrong even if the children are able to adapt, because there is always more potential suffering throughout the course of a life. I get that, I think most of us would love to be in situations where we could have no-suffering-guarantees for our children.

            Maybe the point of friction is that it seems to me like you believe that there should be no suffering at all for it to be ethically permissible to have children (lest it be selfish) while many of us believe that the “base level” of suffering inherent to life (eg. death of parents, the setbacks of infancy, social interaction, etc.) is permissible, and it then falls on us as parents to make sure that there is no or as little additional or unnecessary suffering as possible by means of safe environment, education and tools to cope and overcome so that what could potentially be suffering doesn’t become so. When it comes to that I believe it to be more reasonable to discuss who ought and who oughtn’t be a parent than whether it’s ethical or not to have kids.

    • Squorlple@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      4 months ago

      If reincarnation were real, I’d hope that people who think the meaning of life entails procreation end up getting stuck as mayflies forever

  • Zacryon@feddit.org
    351·
    4 months ago

    Getting your finger bitten off by a person who is wearing a lot of make-up? Pls explain, I’m not a biologist. /j

  • VubDapple@real.lemmy.fanEnglish
    17·
    4 months ago

    Pynchon from Gravity’s Rainbow:

    “Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as a spectacle, as a diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks, continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hersey bars.”

    • orange_squeezer@lemm.ee
      4·
      4 months ago

      It wasn’t until I got to the cigarettes and cunts as currency that I realized this was not a particularly hardcore monologue from Gravity Falls, a popular show I had not watched, but Gravity’s Rainbow. Great excerpt though.

  • Zenith@lemm.ee
    141·
    4 months ago

    Y’all need to look into some of the less boring fields of philosophy, plenty of philosophy says physical pleasure is good and we should be having and enjoying it!

    • the_q@lemm.eeEnglish
      311·
      4 months ago

      Yeah the great philosopher Capit’l Ism promoted that belief.

      • Donkter@lemmy.world
        7·
        4 months ago

        That philosopher is widely debunked and is criticized for having good ideals but being a complete idiot for their prescriptions for how to implement them.

        • Zenith@lemm.ee
          1·
          4 months ago

          That Philosopher? There’s whole gilded of philosophy that incorporate carnal pleasure, epicureanism being one I like, but also things like aesthetic philosophy dip into that.

  • Nay@feddit.nlEnglish
    131·
    4 months ago

    Imo, the meaning of life is to experience as much as possible. Simple as that.

    • Vespair@lemm.ee
      4·
      4 months ago

      That’s the meaning you imbue life with; it’s not inherent to its state.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
      51·
      4 months ago

      Seems like that’s how you’d get murder, cannibalism, sadism, and things like that if you don’t put limits on it somewhere.

      • Nay@feddit.nlEnglish
        3·
        4 months ago

        No one can experience all things, and there are plenty more things to choose from than what you listed.

        Totally unrelated, but what does this ink blot look like to you…? Just curious! 😜

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          4 months ago

          How would you prioritize what to experience? By novelty? Or would you be happy to watch every movie ever made?

          I mention those because it’s a common trope in fiction for curiosity of experiences to lead down disturbing paths. Slanesh in 40k comes to mind.

          • Nay@feddit.nlEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            It’s all up to the individual. Whatever makes your motor run. But I’d universally suggest traveling to other countries to experience different cultures first hand. Other than that… Just interact with and experience as many new things as you’ve got the bandwidth for.

      • socsa@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        4 months ago

        On the other hand, if you go with reproduction as the main goal, then that gets you to eugenics from an uncomfortable number of very different paths.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          4 months ago

          Absolutely, that’d lead you to as many partners as possible while discouraging birth control. Plus tangentially it’d incentive trying to reduce the number of children other people have to increase your share of the gene pool. (Which I think is one of the paths you were getting at with eugenics)

      • Nay@feddit.nlEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        I swear I was just checked last week and it came up clean!

  • TedDallas@programming.devEnglish
    5·
    4 months ago

    Personally I feel like it is a dumb question. Life gives you meaning. By that I mean life enables the creation of symbolic truths. And what enables life is a different question.