Monday, October 4, 2010

Judgement Day

“Is life worth livin, should I blast myself” The words and wisdom of the late Tupac Shakur. It’s a question asked almost every day, what’s the meaning of life. To many people, they find a lot of things in life that make them happy and make life worth living. But with so many problems and struggles in the world why would you ever want to bring children into this world? Peter Singer asks the very complicated question, “Should this be the last generations?”

You may chose to not have a child because you believe they will live a life of pain and struggle from something our generation has caused, or because of a genetic disease that has no cure or way of coping. But, I don’t believe that is enough reason to not have children. If you look at the brighter side of life you will find faith in humanity, and faith that we will find solutions to the worlds problems. Who knows? Your child may be the one who changes the world and saves the lives of millions.

Singer also talks about if we could get a global agreement to sterilize everyone so that we could have no children that we would have nothing to worry about and just party. I know he is being sarcastic and that would be pretty ideal, but would never happen. The reality would be that the value of life would become so much more valuable because nobody could carry on your legacy. And with all the problems that already exist in the world most likely war would break out, wiping everyone off the earth much earlier than anticipated.

I understand that singer doesn’t actually believe we should sterilize everyone. But he is bringing up questions that I believe shouldn’t even be issued. With the advances of technology we have made over the last century I have no doubt we will find solutions. There are already so many pieces of technology that are so mind blowing the technology in 10 years will be just even greater. If anything I think we should stop advancing technology so quickly or the world with end up just like in the Terminator.

Even if technology fails us, and the world does fall apart on us, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the human race. After catastrophes we just rebuild and start over new. This could lead to the world being even better than before because we will have had learned from our mistakes. But no matter what would happen we need to fight for a better world. With hope we will find a solution to all the worlds problems, that’s for sure.

It’s possible sterilization of the world population really could be the best solution to all our problems. But we would never know unless we actually went through the whole process. Then if we realize it was a mistake, there is no going back. Then the world will have even more problems then we ever dreamed of. Singer would be the first to go..

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Is Life Worth Living

In Peter Singer’s blog post, “Should This Be the Last Generation,” he makes some interesting claims and arguments. When I first read through his post I thought, “This guy is insane!” However once I re-read it I realized all Singer was doing was asking a simple question, Is life worth living?


I disagreed with most of Singer’s arguments because they were somewhat extreme. Within the blog post the quote that stood out to me the most was, “we could party our way into extinction!” To me, this quote was very sarcastic and in some way made me laugh. I am glad that the author threw in some humor because if he had not, I would have thought he was insane. Partying our way into extinction sounds like a blast, but is it really what we want in the end? I would like to interview Singer and ask him where he thought of this ideal and what his true thoughts are on the topic. Most of the readers’ comments were pro-life and each one offered me a new insight on the subject. Ro Mason’s comment said, “the best answer is to have few children and teach them well and love them well.” This made me realize that the best solution is to have fewer children so that we improve ourselves environmentally and socially.

Although I did not agree with his ideals, Singer did make many valid points. However, the argument I agreed with most in his article was the thought experiment regarding climate change. As of now society is very concerned with the environment’s well-being and we are doing all we can to save the environment, “but the people who will be most severely harmed by climate change have not yet been conceived.” It blew my mind to think that if there were no more future generations, we would not have to feel guilty or worried about the deteriorating environment and its effects on the human race.

My answer to the question, “Is life worth living,” is yes. Every human being encounters suffering and joy; there is no way to avoid that, it is just human nature. Sure, being the last generation on earth would be somewhat special, but I feel most of those “last generation humans” would be unsatisfied. Most couples conceive children so that they can start a family and begin a new chapter in their life. In the readers’ comments section of the blog David Sarasota pointed out that “life is something to do. Having children is something to do and people find worth in doing things.” Without children people would have nothing to do and therefore no worth. If we are going to become extinct anyways in the future, why not just have as many kids as we desire and continue living our lives? However, only live life in a way from which we “learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now.”

Friday, October 1, 2010

Suffering?

Everyday, everywhere, at any time, people in the world contemplate the biggest mystery of all: life. Mankind thinks about how they can make their life more successful and more prosperous for their children and future generations to come. Even though life can sometimes not go according to what some people have planned, people still enjoy life and get the best use out of it. However, there are people like Professor Peter Singer who have a drastic view towards life. In his article “Should This Be the Last Generation?” Singer argues that mankind is the reason for all of the unrest and bad tensions in the world, and the only solution is to end the human race.


One of his arguments that he makes is that married couples think too much about the happiness they will give to their child and instead should think about all of the suffering their child might have to endure in the world. In addition, he implies that couples only think about themselves and their own happiness more than respecting the child. Singer believes that reproducing more children will just create more suffering for future generations of children. Now I agree that future generations of children will suffer, the fact of the matter is that the world has and will always contain some amount of suffering. Since the world began there has been suffering. Every generation has suffered in some way, more so than other generation. For example, during World War I, a whole generation of men was basically deleted from society because of the world’s new technological warfare at the time. Today we are suffering from dramatic climate change-that Singer says is our fault, which it is- and I don't think we suffer nearly as much as people who lived through the Great War. We can’t avoid suffering; we can ease it by making more intelligent decisions, but we can’t delete it by just telling everyone to stop reproducing and go jump off a cliff.


Singer continues his article by saying that he supports David Benatar’s argument that people come into the world full of hope and wild desires only to be met with disappointment. While I agree that people do deal with the feeling of sadness over a crushed dream, and sometimes lose happiness, not all desires and expectations are left unfulfilled. People all over the world succeed in reaching their expectations and discover a place or occupation that leaves them in a state of sheer joy. Katleen from Mill Valley, California said that “happiness and reward can be found in unlikely places;” this I believe to be true. Happiness is everywhere in the world and takes the form of many different objects and people. Whether it is from traveling to Europe or to playing with a ball of yarn, people find some way to make not only themselves happy, but also make others happy. The author of Unbridled Enthusiasm said in her blog post, Why Do We Have Children, that she knew couples that wanted to have children so they could be happier with their lives. Just like these couples, everyone has something that makes them happy enough to forget about all of the problems in the world.


Singer may think that a world without humans may be the ideal habitat because it is full of suffering that mankind has caused, but the reality is that the world contains much more happiness and prosperity than Singer thinks.

Should we be the Last Generation?

After reading the article about whether or not another generation should come to be, I decided that the author brought up many good arguments, but the fact that us being the last is so unrealistic threw me off a little. I think the article would've been more convincing and made me question future life if he hadn't made it sound so brutal and and inhumane.

The first point that made me cringe and differ from the author is when he states that every being suffers and as time goes on we will suffer more and more which will eventually make life too miserable for anyone to endure. Suffering is a part of life, everyone will suffer at some point in time weather it's over an injury, broken heart, loss of family member, or any other dismay in life. But just because we are burdened with suffering doesn't mean I'd rather die instead of work through it. And I don't believe that suffering is going to become worse as the generations pass, in fact, I think there will be less suffering. Technology will be so enhanced in the future that the things that I stated caused suffering before like illness and death will be so rare. Of course there will still be the normal suffering that happens with age and between the sexes but this is only natural. These things build our characters and make us stronger. They are a valid part of our lives and will not increase over time. Suffering depends on an individual, not on a group as a whole.

While reading the article I also realized that this idea questioned my personal religious beliefs. Getting rid of the human race by sterilizing ourselves wouldn't be right. God put us here for a reason and destroying ourselves on purpose would be the worst type of disgrace we could ever show our creator. After looking into what other people thought, I discovered I wasn't the only one that felt this way after reading the article. This article elaborates much more on what I agree with. I hadn't really thought about the factor of love and God's wish for everyone to experience that feeling until I read this article. It is true though, our existence revolves around love. We spend the most time with the people we love and devote our lives to them. They're the people that give us reason and make us fight for our lives when we're put in danger. These people alone, apart from anyone else make life worthy and unforgettable. God created us to have this affection which is why life can't be based on what would scientifically be the best for future generations.

With all that being said, of course there will be new hard ships that every generation has to deal with, but so far there has been nothing that has shut the human race down completely. There would have to be a tragedy so large that would make life impossible for humans to completely go away. Suffering will never become so terrible that we will no longer want to be. And furthermore, sterilization is the most morbid thing I've ever heard of and even though he immediately shoots the idea down, the fact that its even brought up makes me question the authors motives. Our existence is to rich to shut down like that. We are not the last generation and nor should we be no matter what science can say or prove.

Should we be the Last Generation?

After reading the article about whether or not another generation should come to be, I decided that the author brought up many good arguments, but the fact that us being the last is so unrealistic threw me off a little. I think the article would've been more convincing and made me question future life if he hadn't made it sound so brutal and and inhumane.

The first point that made me cringe and differ from the author is when he states that every being suffers and as time goes on we will suffer more and more which will eventually make life too miserable for anyone to endure. Suffering is a part of life, everyone will suffer at some point in time weather it's over an injury, broken heart, loss of family member, or any other dismay in life. But just because we are burdened with suffering doesn't mean I'd rather die instead of work through it. And I don't believe that suffering is going to become worse as the generations pass, in fact, I think there will be less suffering. Technology will be so enhanced in the future that the things that I stated caused suffering before like illness and death will be so rare. Of course there will still be the normal suffering that happens with age and between the sexes but this is only natural. These things build our characters and make us stronger. They are a valid part of our lives and will not increase over time. Suffering depends on an individual, not on a group as a whole.

While reading the article I also realized that this idea questioned my personal religious beliefs. Getting rid of the human race by sterilizing ourselves wouldn't be right. God put us here for a reason and destroying ourselves on purpose would be the worst type of disgrace we could ever show our creator. After looking into what other people thought, I discovered I wasn't the only one that felt this way after reading the article. This article elaborates much more on what I agree with. I hadn't really thought about the factor of love and God's wish for everyone to experience that feeling until I read this article. It is true though, our existence revolves around love. We spend the most time with the people we love and devote our lives to them. They're the people that give us reason and make us fight for our lives when we're put in danger. These people alone, apart from anyone else make life worthy and unforgettable. God created us to have this affection which is why life can't be based on what would scientifically be the best for future generations.

With all that being said, of course there will be new hard ships that every generation has to deal with, but so far there has been nothing that has shut the human race down completely. There would have to be a tragedy so large that would make life impossible for humans to completely go away. Suffering will never become so terrible that we will no longer want to be. And furthermore, sterilization is the most morbid thing I've ever heard of and even though he immediately shoots the idea down, the fact that its even brought up makes me question the authors motives. Our existence is to rich to shut down like that. We are not the last generation and nor should we be no matter what science can say or prove.