r/Pessimism • u/SouthTomatillo4869 • 19d ago
Discussion If there was a big red button which pushing meant erasing humanity, would you push it?
I tried to post this in r/antinatalism but it got removed funnily enough. Figured here was the next best place to ask.
No suffering no pain no loss of loved ones or anything like that. But a button that meant whatever evolutionary mistake caused us to divert from apes and start suffering due to our degree of consciousness and destroy the world like no other life form would think of doing simply never happened. I know personally I wouldn’t hesitate, at least in theory, but there are many different forms of antinatalism many people have so I’m wondering how this group feels about it. My form of antinatalism or pessimism is rooted in our degree of self-awareness and capacity for delusion which has led to a ridiculous amount of suffering that in my perspective far outweighs any kind of pleasure as a net whole. I know this isn’t the case for everyone here, again, just curious.
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u/Moist-Friendship-840 19d ago
Assuming no pain. Yes it's absolutely the right thing to do.
Arguably even if it was painful it is the right thing to do.
Billions of lives are ended horrificly every day. It's dreadful. Life only continues because life compels us to continue living
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u/SouthTomatillo4869 19d ago
I agree 100%. I’m curious what would be the line of how much pain and where the ethical line perse
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u/Nocturnal-Philosophy 19d ago
I feel as though I should, but I’m not sure if I would be able to. But assuming I don’t get cold feet, I would absolutely push it.
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
sometimes you should go with your gut on things instead of overthink them.
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u/WanderingUrist 19d ago
What, just like that? That'd be boring. First, you should hold the world ransom for...ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
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u/nikiwonoto 19d ago
yes I would, especially if I could see that the future is going to be doomed anyway. No pun intended, but this actually starts to sound like Avengers Doomsday' story/theme, which is why I'm very excited. It's basically an escapism from this shitty, depressing reality where we are basically just powerless to do anything big to change anything, no matter how much we think big.
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u/Summer_Sad127 19d ago
Without a doubt, the amount of suffering that would end—and the suffering that would be prevented—would be immense; of course, animals like dogs and cats would suffer for a short time, but the net result is far more positive without humans. Our species is too malevolent; fortunately, we are bringing about our own extinction.
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u/Due-Day-45 18d ago
Whose gonna maintain nuclear reactors. It's important to follow the consequence to the very end, and this would be that.
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u/Reducing-Sufferung 19d ago
I would much prefer a red button that destroys all life and all suffering on earth but I probably would take the opportunity to destroy humanity to stop us from spreading the life virus to other planets
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
that sad part is that life is going to contiinually evolve over and over again from basic chemicals throughout the universe and nearly infinite universal timescales. There doesn't seem to be a permanent solution of its a physical destruction of just earth. There would have to be some sort of permanet destruction of all matter and energy...otherwise you'd just end up with another universe/big bang/chemistry/life/evolution again and again for eternity.
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u/Thestartofending 19d ago
I think you already lost if you are placed in such situation.
If you press it, you commit a genocide. If you don't press it, you are responsible for every evil having occured and that will occur for eternity.
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
hell of a trolley problem huh? I don't think its genocide if all species and races a equally erased though, isn't genocide the erasure of one specific subset of genetics only?
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
r/antinatalism is hilarious man. They promote the means but too scared to talk about what the end result of those means are. High cenroship in that sub and on the discord antinatalist servers. I've gotten kicked out of every single discord AN server by posing the red button question and saying I would. Also they cry if you're not vegan lol.
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u/number314 18d ago
Yes, it's not even morally wrong because there's none left to grieve the loss. Unless some alien observer gets angry that his favorite tv show has been canceled. I would rather destroy Earth to ensure no sentient life ever emerges in the vicinity.
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u/Impossible_Estate624 18d ago edited 18d ago
yes. but whole planet too. many animals are also conscious. even insects can suffer chronic pain. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/insects-can-experience-chronic-pain-study-finds-180972656/
life tortures many humans and trillions of other animals every day. DNA based life is the torturer
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u/Paul_sepp 19d ago
No, for we are a malevolent species, that has been destined for extinction for centuries. It shall happen naturally by and by.
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u/CaptainVulpezz Skeptic Determinist 19d ago
Nah because i’d be taking away everyone else’s right to choose, & we all have our own personal big red button, i could get behind spreading infertility propaganda to convince people to get vasectomies and tubes tied or whatever is most efficient
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
although I would push it. I think your viewpoint is the most altruistic one. personal choice and all that.
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u/Substantial-War4242 19d ago
There’s no real point. Humans would evolve again sooner or later.
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 19d ago
glad to see someone agree with me. Maybe not humans per se, but I ansswered along the same lines to another poster: "the sad part is that life is going to contiinually evolve over and over again from basic chemicals throughout the universe and nearly infinite universal timescales. There doesn't seem to be a permanent solution of its a physical destruction of just earth. There would have to be some sort of permanet destruction of all matter and energy...otherwise you'd just end up with another universe/big bang/chemistry/life/evolution again and again for eternity."
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u/Emilydeluxe 18d ago
Evolution doesn’t have a built-in direction toward humans or even self-aware intelligence. And science currently has no idea how likely abiogenesis is in the first place. The universe is huge, but the observable universe is still finite and seems overwhelmingly hostile to life. For all we know, life may be extraordinarily rare, and humanity could even be the only self-aware technological species in the observable universe. So “given enough time, life and self-aware beings will inevitably reappear” is a much stronger claim than the evidence supports.
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u/Childless_Cat_Daddy 18d ago
Sure no preference for humans themselves, that's just how the cards fell. Self awareness is an evolutnary advantage for a self replicating chemical system so I disagree that it is not something that would be selected for through natural selection/evolution.
Sutherland, Blackburn, and that whole niche of scientists have published plenty of papers showing how nucleic and am, amino acid polymers form from simple chemical everywhere in space like ammonia, water, cyanide, carbon dioxide, nitriles, formaldehyde etc. Down to the exact reaction mechanisms and they've reproduced the reactions in the lab.
They have not demonstrated the translation of nucleic acides into amino acid polymers yet but I think once you have both polymers themselves it's not too big of a leap given billions of years that the right chemistry would eventually happen.
My inkling is that if it only took 300 million years for life to evolve from chemicals once earth formed... in a universe that is 14 billions years old (at least) and likely to be around much longer....chances are it will happen again since 300 million years isn't much relative to the age of this particular observable universe.
nucleic acid based life is just one chemical possiblity, there could be other types of chemistry that produce increasing complexity. There's theoretical peer reviewed papers postulating a few such alternative systems.
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u/Emilydeluxe 17d ago
The fact that life appeared relatively early on Earth does not by itself tell us that abiogenesis is likely. We have a sample size of one, and we necessarily find ourselves on a planet where life arose early enough for observers to evolve.
Showing that amino acids, nucleobases and other organic molecules form naturally is fascinating. but that is very different from showing that a self-replicating, evolving system will inevitably emerge from them.
And intelligence can certainly be advantageous once it evolves in the right niche, but that doesn’t mean evolution has any general tendency toward intelligence or self-awareness. Life on Earth remained essentially unicellular for roughly three billion years before complex multicellular organisms appeared. Evolution has no obvious destination.
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u/AramisNight 18d ago
My only issue with this premise is it treats the suffering of other creatures as unworthy of the same moral consideration as our own.
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u/TechnicallyLegit 17d ago
You wouldn’t even be able to get the full description out of your mouth before I’d press it
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u/FourthGroup 14d ago
There is a lot of money to be made in promoting suffering, in talking negatively, whole industries farm the negativity energy, just like gambling.
It's all a big game, circling a black hole of smelly emotions.
Anyway, first thing is that looking at the population chart mankind will doom itself most likely so you don't have to worry.
Second thing is that if mankind were to vanish tomorrow it would be a problem because it occupies a position in the food chain and without it there would be a large gap.
Better to let Nature do the adjustments.
If she needs to a lot of them will be vanished overnight.
She's done it before.
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u/Due-Day-45 18d ago
The definitive masterpiece of speculative nonfiction about humanity's disappearance is The World Without Usby Alan Weisman. Therefore, you don't want to push the button. Devastating but hopeful read because some times life doesn't ask for much.
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u/AriyaSavaka atheist / anarchist / anti-natalist 19d ago
No suffering no pain no loss of loved ones or anything like that.
How would one sure what the experience of others? Mind reading? Or assume that the gas chamber causes no suffering?
If there was a big red button which pushing meant erasing humanity, would you push it?
Sounds Hitler-esque.
No. It's just plain pure mass murder at that point regardless of justifications. Anyone who presses it directly causes the death of 8+ billion humans.
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u/AshamedBad2410 18d ago
Only God has the right to do that. And you're not God.
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u/SouthTomatillo4869 18d ago
God does not exist
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u/AshamedBad2410 18d ago
According to you. That's just your opinion, not necessarily the truth.
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u/SouthTomatillo4869 18d ago
True, but same goes for you. And if you were to be correct and there is a god, what gives it the right?
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u/AshamedBad2410 18d ago
Ever heard of the "divine right" ? Belongs to God.
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u/AramisNight 15d ago
And what then justifies "divine right"? I can claim there is such a thing as "super right" but that still wouldn't justify it.
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u/AshamedBad2410 15d ago
Nothing can justify it since the divine and rightness are consubstantial. And there's nothing/noone above the divine.
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u/AramisNight 18d ago
I don't recognize the moral authority of sadists, no matter their claim on divinity. Push the button and prove yourself God's moral superior.
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u/AshamedBad2410 18d ago
God won't let you push that button. A cockroach will never be able to destroy the planet all by itself.
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u/land48n3 19d ago
hell yeah
nobody else would care i pressed it either! they wont be sad or mad at me or anything