Might Makes Right, Darwinism, and the Double Harm from Procreation

The argument for antinatalism is that having kids increases suffering. The world is filled with exploitation and suffering. The lion eats the antelope, humans eat meat, children are being raped, etc.

One argument given against antinatalism is that suffering is just nature, which I agree with, but this is more of an argument for antinatalism rather than against it. Suffering indeed is part of nature. Most suffering I think occurs due to exploitation. Life evolved to exploit others. When there is a mutation in a living being that increases its ability to exploit another weaker living being for personal gain, it increases the probability of survival, which means that this gene is more likely to be passed down. As such, exploitation is written in our DNA. Looking at it this way, the solution to reduce exploitation and suffering is to prevent DNA replication.

 

Is suffering objectively good or bad?

I'm not saying suffering is necessarily bad or good. I just personally dislike it. For example, if someone has a child, I would dislike it if he is raped by a paedophile, which could happen. Some people may argue that there is nothing wrong with a child suffering because he is being raped by a paedophile. That's just their preference. But because I dislike suffering, I think it's safer if living beings do not exist because existence is the catalyst for suffering.

Imagine if you have a child and he is raped and if the paedophile is an untouchable billionaire who then asks you to justify why the suffering of your child is bad. What would you say? This example illustrates how nature, Darwinism, and "might makes right" creates a world filled with suffering and exploitation. I would not want to bring a child into such a world.

I believe in cultural relativism. Morality depends on each individual and can change depending on who you ask. However, this is not an outcome I like. Think of the example I gave before. What if a very powerful politically connected billionaire rapes your child? There is nothing you can do because there is no objective morality and because "might makes right." So because "might makes right" and because there is no objective morality, any life exposed to this reality has to deal with these risks. If I don't have a child, he or she cannot be raped. He or she cannot grow up to become a rapist.

I do believe we live in a "dog eat dog" world, a hierarchy with the billionaires at the top exploiting the millionaires in the middle exploiting everyone else at the bottom. This is the nature of reality and the reality of nature.

 

The double harm from procreation

Another benefit of not having kids is that kids are expensive, which means that if you don't have kids, you become richer, which makes you more powerful, which makes you better off in a "might makes right" world. Because of the cost of having kids, you will literally become weaker by having kids because money is power. The less money you have, the more you will be exploited by those above you in the hierarchy.

When you have a child, you create yet another worker whom those at the top of the hierarchy can exploit, and because you have to pay so much money to look after your child, you yourself become less resilient to exploitation from those above you in the hierarchy, so there is a "double harm" from procreation. Your child starts from nothing and needs to work his way up the hierarchy and be exploited along the way while you drop many levels down the hierarchy because of the decrease in net worth associated with having a child.

Why bring a child into a Darwinian world?

Why Don't Cows Just Escape the Abbatoir?

I've been thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement as well as veganism. Many people are offended if you compare black people to animals, but there are undenable parallels, and the reason why they are offended by this is because they view animals as inferior, which proves the point of widespread speciesism. Imagine you lived in the eighteenth century when slavery against blacks was rife and you saw a poor white person who is being oppressed by his king. You suggest to him that the monarchy is oppressing him in a similar way to the way black slaves are being oppressed. Maybe this white peasant is offended by being compared to a black man, yet this offence is the product of racism. The white peasant views blacks are inferior and so does not want to be compared to blacks. It is the same idea today except rather than having widespread racism (which we still do have) we have even more widespread speciesism.

Something else I've been thinking of is the widespread belief people have that we have equality of opportunity when in fact we don't. There are three groups I'd like to talk about: first home buyers, black people, and livestock animals. First let's look at livestock animals such as a cow. Imagine a cow in an abbatoir or CAFO who is about to be slaughtered with a captive bolt gun put to its head. Now imagine this cow can talk and speak to you. You go up to this cow as it is about to be slaughtered and you hear the cow complaining about being killed. You then say, "Why don't you just escape the abbatoir?" The cow might say, "How can I? There are walls all around me. What can I do? I am trapped." Then you say, "Why don't you just organise with your fellow cows and kill all the CAFO workers and then escape?"

It is clear that this is ludicrus. You cannot expect a cow in a CAFO to escape because there are huge barriers to escaping, and the cow may simply not be able to escape. A cow is just a cow, not a well-connected billionaire military general. The cow cannot escape. This highlights the idea of "privilege" and shows that for many groups of creatures there are significant barriers in place preventing them from exercising freedom and personal autonomy.

Another example of this is first home buyers. There is widespread concern that many young people today are priced out from buying or even renting a home. A free market would indeed fix this problem. If there is a high demand for homes, then companies will build more houses and apartments to meet this demand, but the problem is that there are regulations put in place to cap the supply of homes e.g. there are restrictions on height of buildings and so forth. In order to make housing cheaper, prices actually need to go down, yet whenever there is a housing downturn (which is needed to make housing cheaper), there is quantititative easing, which inflates the cost of housing. This is done because home owners and investors are a powerful voting bloc. So young first home buyers face huge barriers, just the cow in the CAFO. There are institutions in place that prop up the property market to enrich investors so that they can get rich off people renting or paying interest to the bank. To say that there is equality of opportunity for the first home buyer or the cow is just not correct. The two face barriers that are inherent in the system, with the cow facing even more barriers than the first home buyer.

Black people face a similar problem. A billionaire military general could probably escape from a CAFO or human concentration camp but a cow cannot. Likewise, many black people do not have too much resources or wealth, so they are disadvantaged from birth and when you add discrimination due to racism, it is only worse. There are policies that can help e.g. government policies that educate children for free or even employment quotas for black people. It is analogous to the problems of the first home buyer and the cow. The only difference is the degree of oppression. The cow is clearly the most oppressed being with other beings facing less severe oppression.

Comparing Women to Animals

In animal rights, there are those who advocate humane slaughter and other measures to make slaughter of animals as painless as possible eg using a captive bolt gun to stun a cow before it is slaughtered. However, even when the cow is stunned, the cow still suffers, and when there is pressure by business to make money, there is pressure to slaughter as many cows as possible, which results in businesses not following regulations. The pressure of commerce ends up hurting the animals. Abbatoir workers take out their aggressions on the animal leading to atrocities.

This is why vegans believe that the problem starts with demand. Stop putting the cow in the supply chain as an economic commodity and it won't be exploited. To stop the cow being there, there must be reduced demand. If there is no demand for beef, it everyone went vegan, then cows would not be exploited. It would be unprofitable to start an abbatoir or CAFO business if no one will buy the meat. However this is difficult given so many people lust for eating meat. The problem is the demand of the end consumer.

The same can be seen in porn and sex work. There are those who argue for welfare of sex and porn workers. They argue for regulations on sex work eg in Australia sex work is legal but is regulated eg women must get regular STD checks. However, many times the pressure to serve clients as well as the demand from clients for rough sex, can take its toll on the women, which is why many believe a "vegan" approach is necessary ie stop consuming porn or visiting sex workers to reduce the demand. If there is no demand for porn or sex work, it would all disappear. Too often we focus on the supply (eg pornographers and brothels) without thinking of the demand. However, this faces the challenge that many people like to visit sex workers or watch porn, often violent porn. It is the male lust for female sexuality that drives the porn and sex work industry in the same way that human lust for meat keeps abbatoirs and CAFOs running, and in both cases, sentient beings are exploited to feed the desires of the end consumer.

The two are similar in that a group of beings are seen as lesser beings exploited through commerce to meet the desires of the end consumer who is completely addicted to the product.

There are multiple approaches for dealing with the problem, from mitigation of suffering to an abolitionist approach. The problem is made complex by the fact there there are many interest groups eg the businesses making huge profits from the exploitation and the end consumer who derives pleasure from consumption of the product. Both these groups conspire to keep the "lesser beings" continually exploited and oppressed.

Noting that animals are oppressed in abbatoirs and CAFOs and women are oppressed in brothels and in pornography, let's look at an example of abolition succeeding, which is the victory over human slavery. There is definitely slavery that exists today (so-called modern slavery) but the attitude and legislation is broadly against human slavery. While slavery has not been eradicated, I am confident the magnitude of slavery is much less than centuries ago.

Yet if we look at veganism and antipornography, the oppression of animals and women is very mainstream, which is why vegans and antiporn advocates are seen as extreme.

One of the problems is that the end consumer, as I mentioned, is addicted to the product. Many people like eating meat because it tastes good, and many people like consuming porn because it is stimulating. The self-interest of consumers is strong.

If human slavery back in the eighteenth century was normalised such that each household had a slave in their home whom they could use for slave labour, sexual exploitation, etc, I would imagine the abolitionist movement would not have succeeded. My understanding is that human slaves in the eighteenth century were mostly owned by wealthy slave owners, which meant consumers and households did not feel that freeing slaves hurt them, so they could easily support the abolitionist movement without feeling guilty they they themselves had done anything wrong. However, if meat or porn were banned or if environmentalists banned cars and made people ride bikes, these products strike into household demand.

This is why there is a knee-jerk reaction to banning cars, meat, dairy or porn. People don't want to admit to the truth that they are oppressive but want all the conveniences and stimulation that oppression provide them. Most consumers want the convenience of cars in spite of the environmental damage, the taste of meat in spite of the suffering to animals, and the sexual release of masturbating to porn in spite of the harm to women.

Had the household consumer had a personal slave, I fear there would be no way to eradicate human slavery. Once the masses are addicted and complicit in the oppression, it persists. The only solution it seems is gradually lowering demand either through boycott of the product or general human population decline.

Humanity Deserves Extinction and the Connection between Antinatalism and Financial Independence

Look around at everyone around you. They are mindless drones trying to do everything they can to keep their credit score healthy so that they can one day get a mortgage and car loan so that they can drown in debt.

My advice to everyone is to forget about your credit score. It should be called "slavery score" to reflect what it actually is. It is a signal to slave owners of how good of a debt slave you are. Debt is slavery.

What do you do instead of becoming a debt slave like everyone else? Don't succumb to consumerism, never have children, invest in shares and crypto, and live off dividends.

Of course, most people agree that too much debt is horrible and having children is wonderful. But the two are related. A child is a huge liability. Debt is characterised by an obligation to pay. Children are no different.

Living off passive income is great because you get an income and don't need to work. If you have debt, it is the opposite, that is, you have to work and someone else gets income for doing nothing.

Having children and living off passive income are related. How do you get the money in the first place to buy the financial assets to give you financial independence?

The answer is that you don't have children. Children are extremely expensive. The decision to never have children will save you approximately $1.1 million across your lifetime.

Of course, isn't living a childfree life for the sake of money selfish? Yes it is, but it is also highly selfless and altruistic. Breeding is the number one contributor to climate change. More people in the world means more pollution, more carbon emissions. Furthermore, as humanity grows in size, there are more meat eaters (assuming no vegans) contributing not only to climate change but also animal abuse as the need to feed more and more humans means slaughter of animals needs to occur much faster, which leads to industrial scale mass slaughter that currently kills one billion animals per week in a process so evil that it puts the holocaust to shame. This process will need to scale up much more to meet the demands of 10 billion people on the earth by 2050, and scaling up the factory farms will lead to unimaginable animal suffering.

As the apex predator, as the most dominant and intelligent and arguably most moral species, we humans have a moral obligation to impose a moral order on all animals below us, to protect the weak and vulnerable.

Instead we have completely failed. We exploit, oppress and torture the animals and destroy the earth. We have failed the world and we deserve nothing but extinction via antinatalism.

Linseed Meal or Ground Flaxseed for Omega 3

I bought some linseed meal from Chemist Warehouse. Linseed (also known as flaxseed) is a good vegan source of omega 3. It is best to eat ground linseed as crushing linseeds releases nutrients. One tablespoon of linseed meal contains about 1500 mg of ALA. ALA gets converted in the body into DHA and EPA. One to two tablespoons per day of linseed meal will provide you with enough omega 3. Even though the conversion of ALA to DHA and EPA is low, there is so much ALA in linseed that it doesn’t matter. The recommended amount of DHA per day is about 100 mg. Another vegan source of DHA and EPA is algae oil. Most DHA supplements are derived from microalgae. A non-vegan source of DHA and EPA is fish, but fish also contains industrial pollutants such as mercury, DDT, dieldrin, microplastics, and other industrial toxins. Better to stick with the vegan sources of omega 3, namely ground linseed/flaxseed or microalgae based supplements.

Lasting Happiness Depends on Ignorance of Atrocity

A few years ago, I made the decision to stop watching TV because it was filled with crap. There was nothing on TV other than silly renovation shows and other filthy reality TV shows like Big Brother or X Factor. So I decided to simply watch YouTube instead. I purchased a Chromecast and started streaming YouTube to my TV.

YouTube was addictive. One of the benefits of YouTube is that it learns what you like based on what you have previously watched, and it recommends videos to you based on your interests. I started to become very interested in certain topics, such as investing, veganism, digital nomadism, minimalism, and antinatalism. However, being exposed to and becoming obsessive with all of these non-mainstream ideas has somewhat alienated me from the mainstream. This is something I have realized today.

I have become so angry with the world and with other people. I cannot stop seething with anger over just about everything. When I go out to lunch with my dad and he eats meat, I cannot stop seeing in my mind graphic slaughter of animals. I see pigs having their throats slit and cows being shot in the head, and they fall to the ground flailing. When I am with a group of women who talk about weddings and relationships, I seethe with anger because of how superficial these women are when they are obsessive about what colour of clothing they should wear or how to arrange flowers at a wedding. When I see someone at work feeling superior and putting down his subordinates or when I see someone putting down others because he has some status symbol, e.g. trophy wife, luxury car, or large mansion, I can only think about debt or wage slavery, and I know that status anxiety is the primary fuel of the wage slavery system. I see the dark side of everything and it makes me really angry and also really depressed. I cannot stop thinking about everything that is wrong with everything. There is absolutely no positive thinking with me. I can only think negatively, but that is because I am convinced that I am viewing the world objectively. I am convinced that, in reality, we live in a negative world, and positive thinkers are deluded.

It’s not just YouTube. I admit it’s also other circumstances in my life that affect me such as my parents’ divorce as well as tensions with friends and colleagues at work. I have also experienced painful breakups with girls.

There’s not much I can do. One option is to conform to society. I can try to be normal. I can assimilate. But once you know something, you cannot fool yourself. Ignorance is bliss, but once you know the truth, you cannot forget it. If you drank a yellow liquid thinking it was a delicious soft drink, then all of a sudden you realize it is some guy’s urine, you cannot simply erase that knowledge from your mind and go back to pretending that you are drinking a delicious soft drink. The same applies with all the filth in society. Once you’ve seen the truth, you cannot unsee it.

There is no option then but escape. I need to retire and get out of the country where I can be alone and start a new life. I need to save up enough money to do this. While I am doing this, I need to be an urban hermit. I just go to work, come back home, watch YouTube and Netflix, and then go back to work again. It’s tough working and pretending to be normal when you’re not. It’s hard faking it, but it has to be done. I need to become a millionaire before I drop out of society and go ghost. I just hope I can do it before I turn 40. My goal is to be a millionaire in my thirties. Once I am a millionaire, I will quit and retire. I will start a new life. I am thinking I will buy websites off Empire Flippers and spend the rest of my life managing websites for a living. Even if I fail, it doesn’t matter because I am a millionaire who lives off dividends. I will try something else. Managing websites for a living will allow me to live anywhere, but I am sure there are other things I can do to make money online, and even if it doesn't worki, it doesn't matter because I live off dividends. I can travel to, say, Kuala Lumpur, rent a one-bedroom apartment there, and then spend all my time in co-working spaces there managing my websites, and if I feel lonely I can use the internet to meetup with fellow vegans there. I will be free to be with whomever I want. It will be beautiful. Even if things don’t work out, I can just leave and go to another country, such as Bangkok, and even if things don’t work out, I can just fly back home. The bottom line is I have freedom to do what I want.

Are supplements useless?

Q: "Haven't studies shown vitamin pills to have no positive effect (apart from fish oil and calcium)?"

A: Some do and some don't. It's important not to generalize and say that because one supplement doesn't work (such as antioxidant supplements) then therefore all supplements don't work. Some have been proven to work while others have been proven not to work.

 

Be True to Yourself

I have just came back from brunch at Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava. I was there with some vegan friends.

It was really nice to be around vegans because I really click well with these people. Whenever I am with my family, they are so negative. All they do is complain about this or that. They usually gossip about what other people are doing or they complain about corrupt politicians. They don’t actually do anything. Most vegans are actually doing something. By not buying animal products and instead buying vegan products, they are reducing demand for animal exploitation.

I have so many people in my life who I just don’t like being with. On Friday after work I met up with a bunch of people I used to work with. Most of these people were working in other areas now. I hadn’t seen them in years. They were all grown up now and they were either getting married or were in the process of getting married. They were also planning children. Many also purchased houses and some were buying investment property. I felt left out and odd because I was single, I had no intention of ever marry or ever having children, and I prefer to invest in stocks or ETFs rather than property. I really felt like I wasn’t among my people. 

Many people have tried to change me. Some of my friends have tried to set me up with girls (my father did this as well) but I found that being in a relationship with a girl did not enhance my life whatsoever. I found it tiresome to be responsible for entertaining a girl. Whenever she was not happy, it was my fault. I prefer to just be single. 

I have always felt weird about being single because it’s not socially accepted. Society expects certain things from you, e.g. get a girlfriend, get married, have children, buy a house for yourself, and then buy an investment property. When I’m with my old work colleagues, it’s all about conformity to these ideals: who has a wife, who has an investment property, who is getting married, and so forth. I remember a few night ago when I told a friend that I like to spend my free time watching YouTube, and he told me that I should “find a girlfriend” as if that is for some reason the highest purpose of any man’s life. 

Lately I have been trying to just be honest with what I care about. Be firm with my beliefs. In the past I would just stay quiet and allow people to lead me. They would try to find girls for me or try to get me married. Now there is no compromise. I do what I want to do and I don't accept other people trying to direct my life. In fact, when I was with my old work colleagues, they asked me how my dating life was, and I told them flat out that I did not want to date ever and that my family has given up on trying to get me date because I am stubborn and will never bend to anyone else's values. I would rather die. I also told my friends that I will never get married and I will never have children because I have been turned off my annoying children. Surprisingly, they seemed to respect my choice. I think that makes all the difference. People will respect you if you have a view of how you should live. If you’re wishy washy, they will try to push their views on you because you seem lost and in need of direction. I need to be firm with my values and my beliefs. If I am a vegan, I should stick with it and never waver. If I want to be a man who goes his own way and never gets into a relationship with women or never marries them, I need to give my reasons for it and loudly advocate it. The same applies for my investment beliefs. If I truly believe it is better to buy stocks, I should give firm reasons why. Even if you believe property is a good investment, you can easily buy property funds on the stock exchange. 

I think I have been inspired especially by Durianrider in a video called Why I Don’t Care Anymore where he discusses the importance of being true to yourself. If you are bold and forceful for what you believe in, people will hate you for it, but these people are people you don’t want to be around anyway, so your honest behaviour is a filter that removes people you shouldn’t be around, and people you should be around will be drawn and attracted to you, and you will spend more time with them.

Are All Men Pedophiles?

I remember a few weeks ago, during the evening, my father picked me up from my house and drove me to his house where I waited for a van to drive us to the country where we were going for a short trip. While waiting, Greg, a family friend, visited us, and he brought his daughter Tanya along. Tanya is probably six or seven, and she is really cute and playful. She kept playing with me, and for some reason I enjoyed playing with her quite a bit. It made me feel good to play with a little girl. There is a hesitation in me when I have this feeling because maybe it is forbidden. I don't like to entertain the thought that I may have pedophilic tendencies. I don't think I'd want to have a child, but I don't I mind playing with some of them.

I remember watching a video on YouTube by Jerry Liu where he explains that many men think they are attracted to Asian women when really they are simply attracted to neotenous (i.e. youthful) features, and this makes me wonder whether pedophilia is natural. Even if it is, that is certainly no reason to condone child abuse. It is similar to the argument meat eaters use to justify killing animals, i.e. we have been killing animals for millions of years and we crave meat. We have also been killing and raping fellow humans for millions for years, and we also crave refined sugar and maybe even pedophilia and rape.

Replace Animal-Based Products with Plant-Based Products

I skipped the gym today. Last Friday I skipped the gym because there was alcohol in my system. Today I skipped the gym because the protein shake leaked out of the bottle in my gym bag and completely stained my gym clothes. Luckily, the protein shake seemed odourless, and there wasn’t that much leakage. Nobody noticed anything. I skipped the gym, brought everything home, and cleaned it all up. The problem, I think, was that I didn’t close the bottle properly.

The protein power that I’m using, which is Michelle Bridges Protein Blend with Ancient Grains, was starting to run out, and I didn’t want to buy the same protein powder simply because it is too expensive. I can get protein powder over three times cheaper from Bulk Nutrients. I just ordered the Earth Protein from this website. I purchased one kilogram for $27, not including $12 for shipping. I could have purchased more for the same shipping costs, but I want to try out a small amount before I get more. It would be even cheaper to bulk buy, of course. Earth Protein is simply pea protein mixed with rice protein. Interestingly, you can buy pea protein and rice protein separately from this website, mixed it together yourself, and you pay $25 per kilogram instead of paying $27 per kilogram. Paying $25 per kilogram for pea or rice protein is even cheaper than whey protein, which is $27 per kilogram. I am not buying pea and rice protein because it is cheaper or because I have any allergies or lactose intolerance. I just feel bad that animals are abused and tortured, and I feel that the only way to address this problem is to divert money away from animal-based products and towards plant-based products. I now also try to drink oat milk or almond milk. As much as possible, I direct my cash towards plant-based products. I use ethanol-blend fuel in my car and I’m starting to invest in agriculture ETFs. I am not a vegan. I still eat meat. I find it is far too difficult to eat only vegetables or salads for lunch. But as much as possible I eat only meat from free-range and grass-fed animals, and eggs I eat are also from free-range chicken.

Does caring for animals make me less of a man, less on an alpha male? I don’t think so. I am happy to attack people, but I usually only attack those who I feel have wronged me. Animals are completely innocent and defenceless.