How to convince dad not to throw me out of house with no job (free, the best)

[enamdar]

My dad is so pissed of that I quit one of the easiest and decent paying jobs you can get especially in this economy, because I was reading too much of Schopenhauer's pessimism about the cruelty of man, nature and existence. The stupid will to survive that "just is" and defies all reason. The selfish egoist sexual sadism of all nature and man. How can I live in a world like that? Maybe if I had been educated since childhood that thats the way the world is I could have accepted it. But in school they taught us lies about good guys and bad guys that I was the only fool stupid enough to believe.

My dad thinks I'm depressed because I have no friends or girlfriend. But this is a philosophical existential depression not a personal psychological one! I just can't move, get out of bed or live in this world under such cruel conditions!

How do I convince dad not to throw me out of the house because I wont get any job where I'm ruled by authority

I know that there is a libertarian argument that capitalism is the natural sister of democracy. That the free market is true economic liberty of personal responsibility, free will and voluntary choice. And you have an uncle named John Galt who used to have to lick toilets clean but then invented a autolicker and became a trillionaire. For the moment lets just leave that theoretical argument to the side.

What is the reality? In the USA all workers are at-will. Which means you can be fired for any reason whatsoever save race or sex. For rooting for another sports team, for complaining about an abusive employee, for doing your job too good, for listening to your manager, for asking for a raise or a pay decrease. For any reason whatsoever. So your boss has basically godlike omnipotent power over your life. Since there is limited welfare, its not impossible to starve from poverty so it literally is life and death. Without getting into a theoretical debate about capitalism, on a personal level its hard for me to just accept that some of the worst people in the world, the alpha male wolves should have such arbitrary power over my life. When you think that the lion's share of your time revolves around work, and your job pays your bills for the offhours. Since we're all such individualists, whats the solution for the individual. I guess theres the claim that anyone can be an entrepreneur. But for a young guy right out of college, what are the options really? Boss or death. I don't know if I can endure hierarchy and authority. Perhaps a public sector job would be better since then at least there is a system of checks and balances between unions and management, so its more like a constitutional monarchy. And in an indirect sense you are working for yourself since you elect the government you work for. Technically you can elect your boss out of office but its a rather tortuous process and not reality. Most you can really do is write your congressman complaining.

So I guess for me the question is both personal and philosophical. They feed off each other. I can sort of predict the responses. Its the boss' property so he can do whatever the hell he likes. And I should just toughen up and take my punches. Democracy has been such a big deal in my life politically and philosophically that I forgot to examine democracy in my personal life. I think this was a big mistake in college, because I took a pretty antagonistic view towards college life, when in reality there is more democracy there through hall councils, SA, and clubs than in the real world. Now college is over, and there is very little democracy in the real world. It seems individualism is valued over democracy. We are all lone atoms. There is value to that. But on the other hand you deal with your neighbors as atoms, not as a democratic body. Few people even know their local government. I'm very political and have no idea. And the small town Dem and Rep parties are surprisingly closed off, you would think they would WANT more members. So I started off with a sort of Jeffersonian democratic vision of the yeoman farmer breaking up the landed estates and farming his own land ruling his own nation like the Atheninan democrat or the New England Town meetings. With the values of a old New England town. But as I searched for daily life democracy I became more radical.

So I don't know what the solution is metaphysically or personally. Can this world be made livable? Can I put up with a job? To get a job is the ultimate affirmation of life. Its saying to the universe I'm satisfied with the decades that have come before, and I'm willing to work, fight and struggle to preserve whatever I already have. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that leap of faith and affirm my past life for the future

[Nomadicus]

I really think you need to face up to the real world and get a job. If you where mine you would be on the street. Period. I and everyone else should eat by the fruit of their labors. This is not an attack but my firm opinion. When the stomach rubs the backbone reality will set in. I or anyone else who expects to be fed off the labors of others is nothing more than a parasite is my firm conviction.

[bjornb17]

If i was your dad i would have thrown you out a long time ago.

[enamdar]

Isn't it irresponsible for parents to have children if they can not support them for life? After all it is the parent's choice to have children not the child's. Doesn't responsibility follow only from free choice?

[Nomadicus]

Originally Posted by enamdar

Isn't it irresponsible for parents to have children if they can not support them for life? After all it is the parent's choice to have children not the child's. Doesn't responsibility follow only from free choice?

No. You reach the age of accountability you are on your own.

[enamdar]

So if most people must work in our society to get money for consumption and to survive, and most people do not find their jobs in anyway satisfying... and a huge chunk of our lives are filled with this drudgery, why do we consent to live this way?

A follow up question,

If we are condemned to a course where nothing fulfills us in a work life, and we are forced into this unfulfilling unsatisfying position for much of our life by being born (which we didn't choose), was this a good decision by parents who knew this was going to be the lot of their child's life (which they can fathorm because they see that most people must do this)? In other words, does the fore-knowledge of condemning their child to an almost inevitable wage/salary unsatisfying life, make it wrong for them to put their child in this position? (I realzie that some people like their jobs, but a majority do not, so in a consequentialist approach I am taking the fact that the greater amount of people are not benefited by having to work).

A follow up question to this, and a deeper one is: If a person didn't want to be born, and that person is forced to do himself harm in order to get out of life, was it moral for parents to put a being in that situation, if they know that that is a possibility? The only option for the child is to accept life or do itself the ultimate harm...would you call that moral to put that undo decision on the offspring?

To work harder and study harder, does not take away from the fact that work can be stressful, menial, tedious, unsatisfying, etc.. But almost all of us take up 40 hours of our week with it. Sure, its the other side of leisure time, its the necessary evil, why is it acceptable that this is how it should be? And if your automatic response is "because there's no better way", then, why put more people into the world to experience this tedium/unsatisfying/stressfulness? If you're automatic response to this question is "working builds character or virtue (or some other nonsense)", my response is: "go join the sado-masichist club in your town, because in my opinion, you are imposing pain on a new being for the enjoyment of watching some supposed good consequence happen down the line (the child builds character or virtue)."

In other words, its NOT ok to have children knowing they will suffer merely for the possible outcome of the child building more character. And that's assuming that work even does build character. That can be another argument.

By work I'm defining what we do to stay alive. As far as leisure-work, that is a value statement to say that people should be working towards creativity. I mean it sounds like a good thing to do, but what makes that the goal, just because it might sound like a noble pursuit to some individuals? And what is defined as "self improvement"? Is this just something everyone should know? Is this something that society should know? Can society ever know that? Also, if the goal of leisure time is to work on creativity, personal growth and self-improvement and an individual who is born does not want to pursue this purpose of life, its a bad choice for that individual. Either the individual must live a life of trying to pursue "self-improvement" (which is not something the individual would like to do) or commit suicide (which is another thing the individual does not want to do). So the parent again, has put the child in a situation where it must accept the terms of life or commit suicide. The crux of the matter is, parents should be able to project upon the child's future life in a realistic fashion. I observe that parents DON'T project how their child's whole life will probably be in any realistic manner. The responsibility is on the parents to project a realistic view of their child's life rather than the idealistic pollyanaizing that occurs. By pollyanaizing i mean that they only imagine their child living the best of situations which is unrealistic and detrimental to the child who will in turn be born and obviously not live the charmed life the parents had imagined.

I've read David Benator's book and I simply can't see how anyone can disagree with his conclusions if they follow his main argument with a clarity of thinking philosophers should be prepared to cultivate. I am going to explain his theory in more detail than previous posters on this forum because an overview of his book warrants and requires careful wording in order to facilitate full comprehension in the reader.

His argument is simple but devastatingly persuasive. He states that if you are born you experience both good (positive mental states) and bad (negative mental states) during the course of your life. If, however, one is never born then one won't experience bad (pain, anxiety, discomfort etc). This is a good thing obviously. Of course, if one is never born one never experiences any positive mental states (joy, love, sexual satisfaction etc) either. However, if there is nobody to experience these positive mental states I challenge any poster here to suggest how this can be a negative thing FOR THE PERSON who never came into existence.

So let's look at the following analysis of the RELATIVE merits of being born as opposed to not being born:

Scenario A: You are born. You experience both pleasure and pain throughout your life. You die. Pleasure experienced? Yes. Pain experienced? Yes.

What can we say about this? We can say that being born was partly a good thing for the individual due to the pleasure experienced in his/her life (+1) and we can say that being born was also partly negative for that person because of the pain they experienced (-1) during the course of their life. So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born.

Now let's look at scenario B: You are not born. You never come into existence. End of story. Pleasure experienced! No. Pain experienced? No.

What can we possibly say about this non-existent person? Well, we can say that he never experienced (or will experience) any positive mental states. That's surely a bad thing, right? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Existence precedes essence. If there is no person to experience any deprivation of positive mental states how can we possibly say that that 'non-person' has been deprived or robbed in any way, shape or form? WE CAN'T!

As a result of this fact it would be wholly inaccurate to describe the non-existence of a person as a negative thing for the non-existent person in any way (pleasure OR pain considerations). Sure we can most assuredly state that being a non-existent person is not a positive thing either IN TERMS OF not being able to experience positive mental states - the obvious outcome of their not being born. But this does not give us licence to claim the opposite either - that somehow not being born causes a harm to the person who was not born as they would miss out on the positive things that life can offer. Clearly then not being born is neither positive or negative in terms of the inability to experience pleasure. It is clearly neutral.

Now let's look at the pain that a non-existent person avoids by not being born. He never comes into existence so he never experiences any pain. That is a good thing!(+1) But wait, I can hear you forming objections to this even as I type. Surely, you may object, if nobody is born how can the lack of experienced pain be a good thing as there would be nobody to experience the total lack of pain. Well...simply because of the fact that we can legitimately compare the suffering a person experiences in his life with the lack of pain he would have experienced if he had never been born in the first place to experience that pain. We can make that comparison I assure you. We can always say to somebody who was born: "I'm going to make you rue the day that your father ever laid eyes on your mother" shortly before torturing them to death. But we cannot say to a non-existent person (or anything else for that matter): "Suffer, non-existent person, suffer! Experience the deprivation of pleasure and weep for the lost opportunity you had to experience the wonder that life would have had in store for you if you had been born."

So we have a (+1) and a (-1) for being born and we have (neutral) and +1 for not being born. I'm not a math(s) whizz but you should now be able to clearly see why you should never have any children.

It is more important to protect a non-existent person from pain than it is to provide a non-existent person with joy because if a potential person is denied existence they are not deprived of anything because THEY DON"T EXIST. How then can there be a moral imperative to bring children into the world to experience joy when abstaining from creating new life does not cause any deprivation to the being who would otherwise have been born?! You only have a interest in experiencing joy if you have already come into existence.
How can there possibly be a moral imperative to bring a non-existent person into existence?! Who actually suffers if an individual does not come into being? Quite possibly the couple who would dearly love to have a child but we are not discussing the interests of the would-be parents here. We are discussing the interests of the individual who may or may not come into this world.

On the other hand, we are fully encumbered to prevent pain and suffering wherever and whenever we can through both action and inaction. We would vehemently dissaprove of a couple who brought another life into this world with the full knowledge that their child would live a short, wretched and painful life. That would be evil. Bringing excessively suffering people into the world without the knowledge that the individual brought into existence would suffer excessively is not necassarily an evil act on the part of the procreaters because their intentions as regards the future life of their unborn child might be be good. But is is clearly misguided because if they had not taken the risk of bringing children into this world no new sentient lifeforms would have sufered. The most effective and simplest way to avoid the risk of more suffering in the world is by not creating new life. If the human race became extinct tomorrow the world would be a better place. There would be nobody around to celebrate this fact. 'tis true, but there would be zero suffering and there would be zero deprivation of the joys of life. Compare that to how things stand now. True there are people out there who are, on the whole, glad to have been born and love their lives with a passion and a grateful awareness of the fact that they could so quite easily have been denied coming into existence. But the fact remains that they would NOT have been deprived of anything if they had never been born because there would not have been anybody to experience this deprivation. And all the present suffering in the world would terminate for good overnight with no prospect of emerging ever again - at least in relation to the human species.

Mankind's blindspot for this simple logical argument has led, and will lead, to unimaginable suffering for heaven knows how many more people in the future. It's as if the majority of people on this planet are all sharing in the mass delusion that it is justifiable, and indeed sometimes even a moral duty, to create little minature versions of themselves. And like the delusions of religeons, it leads all to often to needless and pointless suffering for countless millions. This is something that needs to be lamented. When people suffer due to the good intentions of others the word tragedy is often apt. When people suffer in this world as a result of being born, despite the best intentions of the parents, a new word in the English language needs to be invented to raise people's awareness of the risk of creating new life.

[Nomadicus]

One can only make something of themselves. The basics of freedom it that you can choose a career. That has not always been true.

[enamdar]

No one, including my folks, address the deep metaphysical existential issues. Instead its just "thats the way things are". So all the stuff about the "real world" and having to eat. Is really just saying what is is. My metaphysics are at that cosmic level. So just insulting me or pointing to practical considerations is sidestepping the issue. I don't know why people are so shocked by or hostile to my arguments. From my perspective they are not outrageous or extreme although there is certainly room for disagreement.

Its not that I'm lazy. If I freely willed to work without external pressure to self-actualize myself, I would quite willingly and voluntarily work as hard as a dog. Its not physically moving my body or using my mind I have a problem with. However working for an employer means accepting authority from necessity. And the boss hires me because he has property. So I'm tied to his property like a slave. Now sure I have the "freedom" not to work. But here I'm talking about that "freedom" on this thread, and look at the reactions I'm getting. So clearly no one on this thread believes thats a real option, so that freedom is an illusion. So yeah you CAN quit any job, and say FU to the boss. But again look how this very thread reacts to that option. Now as I said in my OP, you can make a whole libertarian argument about free markets, free will and property on a theoretical level. But when it comes down to ME as an individual in my concrete situation, basically I have two freedoms. The freedom to submit to the boss or the freedom you folks treat as a joke. What does the At-will law mean? Like I said it means the boss can fire me, just for blinking at the wrong time. Even if that power is not exercised, that potential authority is enough to take away my self-autonomy.

So I have no problem working hard physically or mentally for SELF-ACTUALIZATION. But I wont enchain myself to a boss to integrate into society.

My point is simply that employment, your job, earning a living takes up the bulk of your time and existence, and your salary determines your life offhours too. I'm just unwilling to commit my life to that. I think it is rational for me to say that. It is no more rational to say the opposite. Of course the practical results will probably be negative, but that doesn't address whether I'm right or not on the cosmic level.

The human drive to survive which you refer to is just Schopenhauer's will to life, Nietzsche's will to power, or Freud's Id. Or most recently Dawkin's self-replicating selfish gene that uses human as robots. That force no longer drives me. I could care less whether my genes are passed on. And at the end of the day thats what its all about. Thats why people put up with the hellish drudgery of work. Since I'm free from those restraints and have no desire to integrate, why should I have to put up with the same obstacles? At the end of the day I refuse to be a robot for Dawkin's selfish gene and that's what gets my dad so confused and angry. Its like I'm speaking a different language from Mars.

My argument to my dad is this: he brought me into life without my consent. In order to continue to live I have to work. But he made the life decision not me. Therefore he owes me a living.

So much for the stupid crassness of "nobody owes you anything".

[Nomadicus]

Good luck but I suspect anyone in your shoes is going to lose weight. Not by choice. I'd rather work than eat out of dumpsters.

[satx56]

Originally Posted by enamdar

Isn't it irresponsible for parents to have children if they can not support them for life? After all it is the parent's choice to have children not the child's. Doesn't responsibility follow only from free choice?

.......and as the parents get old and unable to care for the helpless offspring?? Snuff out their pitiful, non compliant, weak, incapable, fruitless lives??? So they no longer suffer their own inability to survive on their own ..smother them??