if you could choose over whether you were born or not

[Vaer]

I think we align on all but one point. I see no spoiling it; there's only a choice to add something or not factor in at all.

 

But, I don't have anything more to add on this silly hypothetical. We are fortunate to not have our whole lives boil down to a single choice tailed by determinism, but rather a life made up of choices. There's no truly accurate prediction of what our future holds and for that at least, I am thankful.

Yeah...I'm tapping out as well.

But really, thanks for the discussion. If anything I definitely got a little more of a positive outlook. Thanks for your impact on my feeble existence.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Vaer

[Pignog]

Nah. A big factor in the surge of 'no' is that the people wish the bad things and sadness they caused didn't happen.

Killing oneself would just leave behind more bad things and sadness.

Yeah fair enough, I think the way I read the question made me jump to conclusions.

[Kinare]

It's difficult to see an existence as positive when it's a product of something negative and then unwanted, causing nothing but misery for those involved in the negative activity. I wish the negative thing had not happened to create me, especially since I've done nothing to balance the negative out at all. I see no place where I've benefited anyone, at least not once the excitement of owning a real live human wore off. Plus I was a little shit as a kid, so basically added to the negative impact. You could argue my job makes me helpful, but if not me they'd hire someone else, so I could very well be taking a job away from someone more deserving. At least I'm not adding to the negative now though, and I refuse to be the same way as my creators.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Kinare

[Pignog]

I think there are different ways to look at whether you leave a net positive or negative impact on the world. You can view yourself as an animal that gobbles up natural resources, contributes to environmental collapse, and if you're in the developed world, lives a lifestyle that relies on the exploitation of people in developing and undeveloped countries. And I'm not saying that's inaccurate, but you're stuck here.

Some of us find value in going to work each day, but I'd wager the vast majority of people are stuck working menial jobs they hate for employers who only use their labour to extract some kind of profit. So you create value for your employer but it's not the same thing as doing something valuable for yourself or humanity in general. Say a factory worker packages candy in plastic, or an engineer designs a shoddy microwave that breaks within a year because of cost-effective parts. Both deserve the necessities of life, because they're human, but I don't think the world is short on plastic garbage or defective electronics in landfills.

You're probably not going to change the way the world works. But you can also view yourself in terms of the decisions you make every day. You can always try to understand the problems around you and your community a bit better. And once you understand the problems, even a little bit, you can take individual and collective action to improve your conditions. If it's your personal health, you can learn about nutrition and exercise, make a plan, and execute it. If the issues are larger than yourself, you can help organize your workplace and community and demand better material conditions from your employer and government. In any of these situations you and the people around you are making a positive impact on the world, however small. I think that alleviates some of that negative feeling and self-loathing that we experience.

And then there's art, but I feel like I'm rambling so have my favourite Vonnegut quote:

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

[Vallium]

 

You're a really cool person and I like that you exist :0 You amuse me to no end and make meaningful contributions.

Nevermind the hypothetical of choosing nonexistence and how it would affect anyone, but just sayin', as far as existence goes in my personal opinion you make things a little brighter C:

[Phausk]

I'm honestly not sure. It would certainly benefit my parents.
An even more depressing thought is that if my parents knew beforehand how I was going to turn out, they never would've had me.

[#00Buck]

You people have horrible self esteem. 

You really all need to go for a ride on a jet ski. 

Nobody regrets being alive on a jet ski. 

[Ambrogio]

You people have horrible self esteem. 

You really all need to go for a ride on a jet ski. 

Nobody regrets being alive on a jet ski. 

I dunno I ran out of gas in the middle of the ocean and in that moment I didn't feel quite as alive

[#00Buck]

I dunno I ran out of gas in the middle of the ocean and in that moment I didn't feel quite as alive

Liar. Jet skis have infinite fuel. 

Everyone knows that. 

[Ambrogio]

Liar. Jet skis have infinite fuel. 

Everyone knows that. 

shit. fuck. fucing shi

[Wolflich]

If it was a choice between living out my life or having my consciousness extinguished, then I would probably choose life. If it was between being born or continuing to exist as some sort of weird ethereal consciousness capable of making these choices, then it would depend how I felt about that existence. But in any case being conscious of the choice would affect the outcome so it's hard to answer usefully.

[Lever Puller]

I just moved into a studio apartment with my dogs and foster kitten

I am the happiest I have ever been

LIFE FOSHO

[#00Buck]

Don't worry. Be happy.

[I Did It For The Cat Girls]

I think if you're answering "no" you're probably depressed or facing some kind of mental illness. People get depressed for lots of reasons, but seek help if it's available and don't kill yourselves.

Sorry to make a giant effort post, but on the contrary, a lot of sociological and psychological research points to the environment as a major predictor of a person's behaviour and their life chances. Obviously it's not the only predictor, but it plays a large role and it's something we can actually control.

The easiest example I can think of here in Canada is the difference in a variety of outcomes between Aboriginal people and the general population. Aboriginals are incarcerated at higher rates, make lower incomes, are more likely to be unemployed, commit suicide at higher rates, and graduate from every level of education at lower rates than the national average. The only genetic evidence I can think of links a change in their diets over the last couple hundred years to health problems (eg. a change from their 10,000yr+ diet of hunting and gathering to a settler / western diet, and rates of obesity far higher than the national average).

Most of the evidence points to systemic discrimination (eg. abuse of past generations in the "residential school system", police arrest rates, discrimination in hiring), lack of resources (eg. funding for schools in rural regions/on reserves, lack of preparation for post-secondary, no funding for post-secondary), lack of opportunities (eg. poor job market, no activities for youth) and other factors like poor parenting (due to a lot of the factors above experienced by parents themselves) not preparing kids with the behavioural skills that we see in more successful people (social skills, grit, determination, problem solving, etc.).

tl;dr our environments play a major role in who we become. I think it's very seductive to think that the most successful among us are self-made people who rose to the top on strong work ethics and good decision-making skills, but this ignores the opportunities, upbringing, resources, and even the role of random chance (think of all the people who work just as hard but for one reason or another end up in a dead-end job) that made them.

I'm not sure if I can quantify this, but Canadian Aboriginals may be having difficulties establishing themselves in Canadian (see: White Northern and Western European) society because they simply haven't had enough time to genetically tune themselves to such an alien environment. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Canadian Aboriginals, but the mental tool set that natural selection equipped them with is principally propitious to success in the civilisations that they themselves manifest and cultivate, not those engineered and maintained by Europeans. By trying to bind Canadian Aboriginals to a NW European standard of society and culture, early Canadian settlers were effectively forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Judging from their unique history, I can only posit that Canadian Aboriginals are a determined, hardened, and intelligent people, and that they are no stranger to persecution or hardship. If they can survive Canada's harsh winters, then they should be fully capable of weathering Canadian xenophobia.

I think it's the meshing of a foreign people with an equally foreign culture that creates income discrepancies and academic attainment gaps, not past discrimination or institutionalized racism.

To somewhat illustrate how just much of an impact genes have on individuals (and by extension groups), let's take a minute gander at the historical homicide trends associated with Europe:

[Homicide rates in England, 1200-2000 (Eisner, 2001)]

At one time, Europe was easily one of the most violent and dysfunctional places on Earth, but as the centuries rolled onward (and as both the state and the church reduced the violent male from urban hero to social washout), violence maintained a bumpy yet gradual downward trend that would eventually culminate in Europe securing (and maintaining) an iron monopoly on civil decorum and peace:

The violent European male was, more or less, driven into extinction by administrative and religious institutions that he himself created and enforced the will of. I guess in a way environment does matter, but not exactly in the way you (or most people) think.

You'd be better off leaving Canada's native inhabitants alone to their own devices lest you wish to recreate the cultural calamities that befell this group of folks upon their full induction into an offshoot piece of European civilisation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by I Did It For The Cat Girls

[Ginpanther]

ITT: a lot of good insight about where I am in my projected lifespan, and how that age probably means that it's really too soon to tell.

In previous iterations of this question, almost without fail I would opt for the choice of "Nope, sign me up for the cold embrace of oblivion/non-existance." But sometimes I think I do a good thing in this world by caring for my special-needs pets, and donating to the local animal rescue, and by tipping my server heavily to offset all the cheap bastards on this planet. These things that I see as defining and positive... they're tiny little grains of sand likely to be obliterated by the uncaring ocean around me, but maybe they make it worthwhile for somebody else. I'd like to think so, anyway. So I guess I'll opt with "yes" for this particular instance.

 

[Clove Darkwave]

I am happy that I have existed in these moments when humans for the first time in history began to explore and try to understand the cosmos, and I am infinitely happy for every moment spent with my spouse. I suppose it is love's ultimate cruelty that one day we will be forced apart forever, but I try not to think about that.

OP I would happily shed every last shred of this body of mine if it meant I could continue to learn more about our universe and have the company of my other half. I could certainly exist as just a consciousness, a mind hooked up to a neural network or even a brain in a jar. Perhaps we will see that day.

Enjoy the existence you have been given, for it is all the universe asks of your purposeless existence on a mere speck of dust that matters not at all in the grand scheme of things.