If you could delete the universe, would you do it?

[LonelyHopelessDude]

The holocaust caused gruesome suffering that people had to endure. If this button of course, is painless and kills people in an instant, I'd press it. If people died without pain I see no problem. It's done for a higher and more important purpose which is the end of universal suffering. We are talking about an hypothetical case scneario here , and I don't think happiness has much of a moral importance if any, in comparision to the alleviation of extreme suffering.

So you wouldn't even try to save anyone ? People suffer so everyone should die ? You don't even ask yourself if all the suffering people want to die ?
What tells you that people will still suffer in 20years, 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years ?
Would you be okay if someone could choose if you shall live or die ?

 

[Forever or never]

Simple: No. Why should I. I want to CTB. If others enjoy their life, go for it. Why shpuld i end everything cause I dont ejoy it personally

 

[Epsilon0]

All the beauty in the world, all the seas and stars and poems, all the marvels and mysteries that our universe holds, all that can never justify one ounce of suffering.

And still, I would not take it upon me to end the universe, because what if my act would crush some miniscule creature's contented, perhaps even happy, existence?

Would I not then cause loss and suffering to them, and thus turn into the very monster I am trying to defeat?

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

, and thus turn into the very monster I am trying to defeat?

I love this sentence

 

[Sensei]

It will eventually delete itself.

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

So because some people are happy everyone should have the imposition of life upon them without their consent, taking into consideration that many of these lives will be utter misery?

So because some people are sad everyone should have the imposition of literally dying upon them without their consent ?

That's what having kids does everyday and nobody stops to question the morality of procreation. By pressing the button I'm stopping the imposition of life, which is wrong itself. By pressing the button, I end suffering forever. What's worse?

By pressing the button your not only ending the suffering of idk what % of humans but you also kill every living form in the entire universe including humans happy or not, animals happy or not and other living forms in the universe who knows if they question happyness or not.

When there is a problem, we need to work together and fix the problems, when you have a virus on your computer will you destroy your computed and buy another one or search a way to erase the virus from it ?
If someone is sick will you find a way to heal him or let him die against his will ?

I don't want to debate about being pro-life or pro-choice, but anybody should have the right to decide if they want to live or not, nobody should decide for them.

 

[Epsilon0]

I love this sentence

Merci beaucoup!

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

Merci beaucoup!

Mais de rien !

 

[Nnana]

So because some people are sad everyone should have the imposition of literally dying upon them without their consent ?


By pressing the button your not only ending the suffering of idk what % of humans but you also kill every living form in the entire universe including humans happy or not, animals happy or not and other living forms in the universe who knows if they question happyness or not.

When there is a problem, we need to work together and fix the problems, when you have a virus on your computer will you destroy your computed and buy another one or search a way to erase the virus from it ?
If someone is sick will you find a way to heal him or let him die against his will ?

I don't want to debate about being pro-life or pro-choice, but anybody should have the right to decide if they want to live or not, nobody should decide for them.

I'm not talking of ordinary sadness but extreme suffering. The answer is yes. If I had the button on my hands, I'd end this abhorrent thing for once. The harm caused by ceasing life for all for once is less worse than allowing suffering to remain occuring for countless more years, for countless more people in the future.

Humanity has been trying to fix the countless problems of existence for thousands and thousands of years, and guess what? solving some problems, only give rise to other problems, that will need generation upon generation of wasted suffering to be born to solve more problems, all that could be avoided for once if life ended on earth today by pressing the button.

In real life scenario, I'd not go around telling people to kill themselves, or live against their will. Let them choose when they have enough. That's different from my magic button scenerio for other reasons.

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

I'm not talking of ordinary sadness but extreme suffering. The answer is yes. If I had the button on my hands, I'd end this abhorrent thing for once. The harm caused by ceasing life for all for once is less worse than allowing suffering to remain occuring for countless more years, for countless more people in the future.

Humanity has been trying to fix the countless problems of existence for thousands and thousands of years, and guess what? solving some problems, only give rise to other problems, that will need generation upon generation of wasted suffering to be born to solve more problems, all that could be avoided for once if life ended on earth today by pressing the button.

In real life scenario, I'd not go around telling people to kill themselves, or live against their will. Let them choose when they have enough. That's different from my magic button scenerio for other reasons.

You seem to have a lot of self-esteem and be wise enough to decide the faith of existence.
I don't think people suffering even extreme pain should be a reason to end the universe or at a smaller scale, mankind.
Earth isn't mean to be a Utopia, if I understand you reasoning, Universe should cease to exist because it isn't a Utopia ?

 

[Nnana]

You seem to have a lot of self-esteem and be wise enough to decide the faith of existence.
I don't think people suffering even extreme pain should be a reason to end the universe or at a smaller scale, mankind.
Earth isn't mean to be a Utopia, if I understand you reasoning, Universe should cease to exist because it isn't a Utopia ?

Your decision not press the button is a decision. Do you think it's wiser than mine? Do you think any individual human being is wise enough to choose bringing life to the world as it's done everyday? Or any human is wise enough to make any decision?

What if the person in extreme pain was you? What if this life of pain and torture was inescapable? Would you think the button should be pressed?

I think the earth needed not to be an utopia, as long as the reality of inequality and suffering wasn't so extreme as it is. But unhappily it is, and it needs to be brought to an end.

 

[Jean Améry]

No, it would be millions years of history wasted for human and earth, Billions years at a universe scale.
Stars dying, stars created, planets, who knows how many life forms in the universe died or existed, how many civilisations achieved scientifical advances.

You would be responsible for the largest genocide ever, if you consider Hitler as a monster, what would you be ?

When humanity will die out that history will be 'wasted' anyway. History does not have a purpose so I fail to see why it would matter when humanity ceased to be.

Why would the formation of stars or the extinction of life forms have any bearing on this? Even the lives of those who went before us and whom we did not know personally have no real meaning for us.

Given our history and the incredible amounts of bloodshed, needless cruelty and injustices on an unimaginable scale I'd say we as a species are a failure and deserve to perish. We've almost succeeded in making our planet unlivable for millions of our supposed 'fellow men and women'. Isn't humanity swell?

You mention scientific advantages: to stay in the same field it's not hard to name dozens of scientific inventions that were later turned into weapons causing many millions if not billions of deaths in total.

If no-one would be left there wouldn't even be someone to question the morality and legality of said action. The whole question would be moot.

I know the 'you're worse than Hitler' argument is popular and sounds good but could you actually explain why that would be so?

Adolf Hitler ordered one of the most cruel genocides in the history of mankind. The human suffering he and his henchmen caused is unquantifiable, baffling and beyond comprehension. To compare this with pushing a button that would instantly, painlessly and without any awareness of those involved remove from existence any living organism or at least humanity as a whole is rather ludicrous. While the end result would be the same for both groups (brutally murdered jews and others on the one hand and those who underwent what would be the equivalent of an immidiately fatal brain hemmoraghe in their sleep on the other) I can assure you qualitatively there is a world of difference so I do not accept your comparison at all.

If you're going to compare at least compare things that are in some way comparable. No-one is talking about rounding up people, abusing them, making them starve to death, beat them to death, torture them... Funnily enough those things happen every single day on planet earth. Why? Simply put: because humanity exists. Apparantly it's not possible for people to exist without major suffering to exist as well and most of it we cause to ourselves. Unless one is completely fine with abhorrent suffering one can't even imagine for oneself due to a complete lack of actual experience thereof this is a very real and very pressing moral problem.

Imo if those are the conditions under which life must exist it would have been better if it had never existed in the first place. Now that it exists it's better that it ceases to be as soon as possible. I will not condone needless suffering caused to any human-being but if it were to become possible to cause the extinction of humanity in the manner described above I think I would be doing all those who are suffering at that very moment a huge favour as well as those who would have suffered at some point in time had they continued to live. I do not believe I would harm those who liked living up till that point for the simple reason that I do not believe the dead can ever be harmed by anything or miss anything.

What you're basically saying it doesn't matter how many are suffering and dying since the happiness of the rest somehow makes up for this. Which is a) incredibly callous and b) completely unprovable.

If I were to tell you, purely hypothetically of course, that you had to choose between immidiately vanishing from existence right now or continuing to live but having a 10% chance of suffering unbearably without anything that could be done about it untill you died what would you choose? What about at 20, 30, 40...% I think it's beyond dispute pain can become so bad non-existence would be preferable. Imo it's rational to want death if that unbearable pain is foreseeable or at least has a relatively high likelihood of happening. It's even perfectly rational to never want to suffer ever again.

For some there is a very high chance they will suffer horrendously during their lifetime yet humans think they have the godgiven right to decide to allow those individuals to suffer. Humans also seem to think they have the right to periodically butcher each-other on ever increasing scales. If humans are allowed to do this and to condemn their own offspring to suffering and death why would it be wrong to want to end the whole bloody, useless, horrific, sick spectacle?

Unless humanity reaches a point whereby everyone is treated with love, kindness and provided with all the material support they need including the right to die painlessly and humanely if they so choose humans should have no right to bring other humans into this mess without their consent.

If you think you're entitled to call those who want to permanently eradicate human suffering on earth monsters I feel entitled to call those who reproduce the same thing since they are the true cause of their offspring's death which seems to be your sole criterium for calling someone a 'monster'. If no-one reproduced there would be no death whatsoever. Apparantly death is not a bad thing when it serves a supposedly larger goal or else reproduction would be considerd immoral. I posit that morally there is no larger, more worthy goal than the cessation of all suffering, everywhere and permanently.

 

[Nemeshisu]

When humanity will die out that history will be 'wasted' anyway. History does not have a purpose so I fail to see why it would matter when humanity ceased to be.

Why would the formation of stars or the extinction of life forms have any bearing on this? Even the lives of those who went before us and whom we did not know personally have no real meaning for us.

Given our history and the incredible amounts of bloodshed, needless cruelty and injustices on an unimaginable scale I'd say we as a species are a failure and deserve to perish. We've almost succeeded in making our planet unlivable for millions of our supposed 'fellow men and women'. Isn't humanity swell?

You mention scientific advantages: to stay in the same field it's not hard to name dozens of scientific inventions that were later turned into weapons causing many millions if not billions of deaths in total.

If no-one would be left there wouldn't even be someone to question the morality and legality of said action. The whole question would be moot.

I know the 'you're worse than Hitler' argument is popular and sounds good but could you actually explain why that would be so?

Adolf Hitler ordered one of the most cruel genocides in the history of mankind. The human suffering he and his henchmen caused is unquantifiable, baffling and beyond comprehension. To compare this with pushing a button that would instantly, painlessly and without any awareness of those involved remove from existence any living organism or at least humanity as a whole is rather ludicrous. While the end result would be the same for both groups (brutally murdered jews and others on the one hand and those who underwent what would be the equivalent of an immidiately fatal brain hemmoraghe in their sleep on the other) I can assure you qualitatively there is a world of difference so I do not accept your comparison at all.

If you're going to compare at least compare things that are in some way comparable. No-one is talking about rounding up people, abusing them, making them starve to death, beat them to death, torture them... Funnily enough those things happen every single day on planet earth. Why? Simply put: because humanity exists. Apparantly it's not possible for people to exist without major suffering to exist as well and most of it we cause to ourselves. Unless one is completely fine with abhorrent suffering one can't even imagine for oneself due to a complete lack of actual experience thereof this is a very real and very pressing moral problem.

Imo if those are the conditions under which life must exist it would have been better if it had never existed in the first place. Now that it exists it's better that it ceases to be as soon as possible. I will not condone needless suffering caused to any human-being but if it were to become possible to cause the extinction of humanity in the manner described above I think I would be doing all those who are suffering at that very moment a huge favour as well as those who would have suffered at some point in time had they continued to live. I do not believe I would harm those who liked living up till that point for the simple reason that I do not believe the dead can ever be harmed by anything or miss anything.

What you're basically saying it doesn't matter how many are suffering and dying since the happiness of the rest somehow makes up for this. Which is a) incredibly callous and b) completely unprovable.

If I were to tell you, purely hypothetically of course, that you had to choose between immidiately vanishing from existence right now or continuing to live but having a 10% chance of suffering unbearably without anything that could be done about it untill you died what would you choose? What about at 20, 30, 40...% I think it's beyond dispute pain can become so bad non-existence would be preferable. Imo it's rational to want death if that unbearable pain is foreseeable or at least has a relatively high likelihood of happening. It's even perfectly rational to never want to suffer ever again.

For some there is a very high chance they will suffer horrendously during their lifetime yet humans think they have the godgiven right to decide to allow those individuals to suffer. Humans also seem to think they have the right to periodically butcher each-other on ever increasing scales. If humans are allowed to do this and to condemn their own offspring to suffering and death why would it be wrong to want to end the whole bloody, useless, horrific, sick spectacle?

Unless humanity reaches a point whereby everyone is treated with love, kindness and provided with all the material support they need including the right to die painlessly and humanely if they so choose humans should have no right to bring other humans into this mess without their consent.

If you think you're entitled to call those who want to permanently eradicate human suffering on earth monsters I feel entitled to call those who reproduce the same thing since they are the true cause of their offspring's death which seems to be your sole criterium for calling someone a 'monster'. If no-one reproduced there would be no death whatsoever. Apparantly death is not a bad thing when it serves a supposedly larger goal or else reproduction would be considerd immoral. I posit that morally there is no larger, more worthy goal than the cessation of all suffering, everywhere and permanently.

Wow, I must say that is pretty well-thought argument.

I however see small problem with this. Don't get my wrong, I don't want in any way impose my views on you. I just want you to rethink if what you are going to do by pressing this button is really good for others.

In your argument you assume that such absolute value like greater good exists. You subjectivly perceive greater good as ,,cessation of all suffering forever". I believe that no absolute value exists in this world. No decision is ,,good" or ,,bad".

Any being is born into this world with freedom to choose any option they like. And I believe that freedom of every invidual should be respected. After all invidual himself knows what is best for him. By choosing to cease all suffering by eliminating all life in painless way possible you would still impose your authority onto others. By this you would take away freedom from every living being. As no being would be alive they would no longer have freedom to do what is best for them.

You believe that cessation of suffering is good. You believe that same is for others. You are therefore enforcing what you subjectivly perceive is good for you onto others. By comparing you to Adolf Hitler, I am sure nobody meant to insult you in any way. I am sure they meant to compare you to dictator because by ending other people lives even in painless way, you just like every dictator take away other people freedom and impose your version of greater good onto others.

People may enjoy life despite it's absurdity. Despite all suffering. You would take away this ability from them by ceasing their existence against their will. You also take away even that small one in billion chance for world to turn into good place.

Life isn't just black and white. There is no absolute value in life. I want just make sure that you know that cessation of all suffering would also bring cessation of all freedom. If you are completly fine with it, well that's your choice.

I however believe just like others didn't have authority to bring you into this world, you don't have any authority to end their lives. That just how absurd that life is.

 

[LonelyLight]

No, the world is a beautiful place. Amazing animals, beautiful sunsets, oceans still undiscovered, so many amazing cultures, flowers, raindrops, forests, so many flavours of foods, smiling faces that are genuinely happy, beautiful people with beautiful families, people that only ever want to do good things, space, amazing planets yet to be explored, tribes people who know nothing about this world we live in.
Why would I be selfish enough to take the world away from people who want to live?
Just unfortunate it's not meant for everyone. And unfortunate bad people ruin it for the good.

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

Your arguments make sense in a way but I must disapprove your logic here.
What I don't understand in your reasoning is how can an individual decide for the mass, for 7 Billion people (and more billion more known life-form).
You are also omit a point, how can you be sure that people will not suffer more pain death than alive ? Your choice is around suffering, before "pushing the button", how can be sure that people will not suffer after death ? With this lack of knowledge how can you be sure that your choice will be the right one ?

When humanity will die out that history will be 'wasted' anyway. History does not have a purpose so I fail to see why it would matter when humanity ceased to be.

No history will not be wasted if humanity goes extinct, a lot of civilisations have been extinct, we still have informations about them, how they got extinct, their cultures, religions, some writings..
Another life form can still discover the ruins of our civilisation, and learn about it 50, 100 or 80 Million years after our extinction.
So even if humanity die out, that history will not be "wasted" it will still live on, our history would still be recorded and how can you know that humanity will even go extinct in the first place ?

Why would the formation of stars or the extinction of life forms have any bearing on this? Even the lives of those who went before us and whom we did not know personally have no real meaning for us.

Yes it has a meaning for us, how many people who died contributed in humanity ? By religious, cultural or scientific way ?

Given our history and the incredible amounts of bloodshed, needless cruelty and injustices on an unimaginable scale I'd say we as a species are a failure and deserve to perish. We've almost succeeded in making our planet unlivable for millions of our supposed 'fellow men and women'. Isn't humanity swell?

How can you say humanity deserve to perish ? Well we are still here.
Animals, even insect made an incredible amount of bloodshed very species in the universe have done so, for any reason (not always justified), again religious reasons, land control etc.. Its every developed living form nature to wage war and kill each other, this doesn't make us a failure.
Why always talk about the "negative" form of humanity and not what we have accomplished ?

You mention scientific advantages: to stay in the same field it's not hard to name dozens of scientific inventions that were later turned into weapons causing many millions if not billions of deaths in total.

It's the people who were behind and in control of those weapons that led to all those deaths.
Let's talk about the nuclear weapon a scientific weapon, one of the most cruel one, it was used against civilians two times in history. (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
But thanks to them, the majority of the world is in peace and it will be for a long time even the world leaders you can think as crazy wouldn't push the nuke button ever again even the most suicidal one, the repercussions would be gigantic.
Humanity or even the human is a baby, we are still "primitive" in a certain way or on a big scale, we still have a lot to learn and we are learning. The future of humanity is bright.
We are just the result of 300.000 years of evolution, this is nothing, really nothing on a big scale we still have a long time ahead of us.

I know the 'you're worse than Hitler' argument is popular and sounds good but could you actually explain why that would be so?

I used it because when I was answering Nnana, he mentionned the Holocaust.
And comparing the holocaust with the complete annihilation of the universe is still comparable.
It would be very close to Hitler, he lead to the extermination of 6M jews, by pushing the button someone would lead to the extermination 7B people, Billions of animals and I don't know how many Trillion of life-form.
In the end you would directly lead to the death of Trillions of life-form when you have the choice of not doing it.
For what reason ? Because people are suffering ? How can it be the reason of killing every single lifeform in the universe ?

Why would I be selfish enough to take the world away from people who want to live?

That's the word I have been searching for, selfishness.
How can someone be so selfish that if he had the choice, would eradicate every life-form because of his own psychology on the matter ?

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

Every single human alive now will die (This is the biggest one truth that no one can deny).

I'm sorry, but what if in the following years, scientific and medical advances led us to immortality by extending our life expectancy ?

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

I don't buy that . I think every human will die anyway. It's aging that's the worst thing imo. After a certain age who would want to live? You want to live to be 95 when everything hurts your mind is going?

Personally i'm tired of living already and wouldn't want to live much longer anyway even if they offered longer life . I don't want to age anymore no matter what. Even if i could stay healthy which is also impossible i'm tired of life.

But it think it's almost impossible to make a human immortal you'd basically have to reengineer billions of years of evolution from the ground up , every cell.

It's sure hard the believe in those times but it's still possible.
I'm not saying it is, but it's still a possibility.
From the day the first human was born to today, our life expectancy got higher.
We managed to cure diseases, etc
It can be in 500years but what tell you that with the speed science is advancing that we will not develop a form of immortality ?

Wow, I must say that is pretty well-thought argument.

I however see small problem with this. Don't get my wrong, I don't want in any way impose my views on you. I just want you to rethink if what you are going to do by pressing this button is really good for others.

In your argument you assume that such absolute value like greater good exists. You subjectivly perceive greater good as ,,cessation of all suffering forever". I believe that no absolute value exists in this world. No decision is ,,good" or ,,bad".

Any being is born into this world with freedom to choose any option they like. And I believe that freedom of every invidual should be respected. After all invidual himself knows what is best for him. By choosing to cease all suffering by eliminating all life in painless way possible you would still impose your authority onto others. By this you would take away freedom from every living being. As no being would be alive they would no longer have freedom to do what is best for them.

You believe that cessation of suffering is good. You believe that same is for others. You are therefore enforcing what you subjectivly perceive is good for you onto others. By comparing you to Adolf Hitler, I am sure nobody meant to insult you in any way. I am sure they meant to compare you to dictator because by ending other people lives even in painless way, you just like every dictator take away other people freedom and impose your version of greater good onto others.

People may enjoy life despite it's absurdity. Despite all suffering. You would take away this ability from them by ceasing their existence against their will. You also take away even that small one in billion chance for world to turn into good place.

Life isn't just black and white. There is no absolute value in life. I want just make sure that you know that cessation of all suffering would also bring cessation of all freedom. If you are completly fine with it, well that's your choice.

I however believe just like others didn't have authority to bring you into this world, you don't have any authority to end their lives. That just how absurd that life is.

I approve 100% what you just said.
You just written everything that was inside my mind and that I couldn't express, I like your way of thinking !

 

[LonelyHopelessDude]

I didn't say what will happen in 500 years. i'm saying that for us we will die . In our lifetime there will be no imortality . Every human alive now will die imo.

500yrs was just an exemple, it can be in 1 or 80 years.
How can you be that sure ? Science can sometimes impress us..

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

500yrs was just an exemple, it can be in 1 or 80 years.
How can you be that sure ? Science can sometimes impress us..

Well if you believe that tech will improve for that then and want it then go for it. I don't think any immortality will happen in 80 years. I wouldn't want to live another year anyway no matter what ever for me. Everything i read about brain science, the human body etc. leads me to believe it's impossible anyway but it's a "gift" i would pass on.

 

[Skathon]

I would rather revert its existence.
The tear in nothingness should have never formed.

 

[RationalGirl]

No I wouldn't

 

[BabyYoda]

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So I imagine the universe deleted as a huge black canvas with no stars or planets. But even that is "something". We don't even know what came before the big bang, and we can't tell what happened way before it since we do not have evidence for it.

 

[peacefully31425]

No. It's not my place to make that decision.

 

[snorli]

No, would like to see the effects of a reboot though. In the words of Roy from The IT Crowd, "have you tried turning it off and on again?".

 

[WhyIsLife56]

Yes I would delete it. Too much suffering. I would press the red button 100%. Or sit on it. Whichever one.

 

[Misanthrope]

No. Since I cannot know what everyone's value judgements on life and suffering are, or how that changes. Just because someone is dying painfully of old age, does that invalidate all their other experiences prior? These are not things you can objectively measure, so it is just personal projection. I also cannot know what they value and may have found meaning in despite suffering or if they did at all? As I am not them. They are also not me. I am also not other animals or potential distant aliens.

If I were to press the button I would be culpable in deciding on behalf of everyone like I can speak for them and choose for them. Pretty much the opposite of choice so it goes against the grain of what I value. I also don't believe in objective morality as good and evil seem pretty subjective, complex and nuanced beyond me. So who am I to apply a singular view on everyone in the universe that has the consequence of ending all life?

It does not matter if it is a kind end free of suffering. It is still a violation of their right to choose. It is still premeditated murder for that reason. Sanitising the process of death does not make it any less murder. Does not make it any less of a dictator move to impose your will and universally apply it.

Who am I to violate choice and consent by committing mass murder for an apparent greater good I cannot even prove?

Avengers assemble comes to mind.