Why gay men are better than liberal women

we're discussing a case where we have no idea what the individual would want and we have to guess

But that already assumes equality of all cases, equality of all wants.

If you say 70% of people would want to live in some scenario, you also have to assume 70% outweighs 30%, which is only true if wants are equal.

But generally, wants arent equal. Being in greatest pain for an hour isnt equal to feeling pleasure for an hour, and these two arent equal in negative want and want.

Wants have degrees, and while most people want to live, most people would rather live in pleasure than constant horrible pain. So even if most would choose to live under constant horrible pain rather than die, degree of that want is generally much lower than living in pleasure.

So even under assumption of same values for pain and pleasure, the case where pleasure doesnt exist, but there exists both pain and pleasure, isnt actually valued same as pleasure, even by most people.

So if we assume 3 persons have negative 10 want for pain (30), and 7 people have positive 10 want for pleasure (70) and arent bothered by pain at all, in case where there is only pain, the 3 persons would still have 30 value, where 7 people would have 0 value (no pleasure achieved).

And when we assume 3 persons have negative 10 want for pain (30) and 7 people have 5 want for life in pain, the 7 people would have 35 points where 3 persons would have 30.

But if we assume some severe pain, the value for 7 people could drop under 5, and in that case, the value of 3 person's wants outweighs value of 7 people's wants.

So it is not just "person wants, person doesnt want", but degrees of wants easily create logical cases where minority outweighs majority.

Even if we assume value of greatest pain and value of greatest pleasure are equal by default, the cases where pain outweighs pleasure in amount would always score in value which doesnt favor pleasure.

And even when we assume most people wouldnt choose to die when under greatest pain, the value of their want would be significantly lower than value of want for greatest pleasure.

So while people who dont want to live under greatest pain can have greatest logical negative value of that want, people who choose to live under greatest pain cannot have even close to greatest value of such want in overwhelming majority of cases.

Again, your case is built on treating all wants as equal in degree, and then selecting majority of wants.

But wants arent equal in degree. Want for life in pleasure isnt equal to want for live in pain, for almost all people.

Oh, I forgot to say that I made $4.5 million day trading so my net loss was one half million.

You should invest in gold not crypto.

Those are just numbers you made up though. Even among those wanting to die there's a lot of hesitation; the desire to live tends to be much stronger and people fight tooth and nail to not die.

Those are just numbers you made up though

All want value numbers are made up. What would you even logically deduce it from?

Even among those wanting to die there's a lot of hesitation; the desire to live tends to be much stronger and people fight tooth and nail to not die.

there are also a lot of people who commit suicide. there are also a lot of people who say their life is horrible. So your argument just goes back to number values of wants, which you cannot realistically determine and also cannot deduce equal value.

How to regain desire for life?

8 Ways to Get Psyched About Life Again

1. Figure out what's actually tanking your motivation. ... 
2. Pinpoint one joyful thing you can do each day. ... 
3. Get outside. ... 
4. Try your hand at a new hobby. ... 
5. Recall a person or activity that inspired you in the past. ... 
6. Pay it forward. ... 
7. Show yourself some grace. ... 
8. Ask for help if you need it.

a lot of people who commit suicide

A lot more who take significant steps every day to not die. Working out/going to the doctor/getting health insurance, etc. And those people tend to be in a much more rational mental state than the ones who kill themselves.

people who say their life is horrible

Yet more of them go to the doctor than kill themselves. Horrible means below average, not worse than nonexistence.

A lot more who take significant steps every day to not die

So your argument essentially rests on 3 parts:

A. Actions reflect wants

B. All wants are equal in value (Equal or close to equal is necessary to conclude that majority of wishes outweigh minority by value)

C. Wants are to be respected

B obviously cannot be proved by any means. We could at best say desire to live outweighs desire to die in most people, so desire to live is above 50%. However, this means virtually nothing in case of value of desire. A 51% to 49% is about as close to 1 to 1 ratio, where 99% to 1% is ratio of almost 100 to 1. And this is before we even establish any number values. Someone having 10000 desire to die and 1 desire to live isnt really same value as someone having 100 desire to live and 99 desire to die.

Now, A is problematic too. Actions dont reflect wants, at least not in direct sense of "action = want".

Most people shorten their lifespan by smoking, drinking lots of alcohol, speeding, eating unhealthy, living a bad lifestyle...ect.

this doesnt mean most people want to shorten their lifespan. Person who smokes doesnt smoke to shorten his lifespan, even if that is result. So person in this case choosing to reduce his lifespan by smoking cannot be said to have desire to have lower lifespan. Person has desire for cigarette, and shortening lifespan is just unintentional undesired but unavoidable part.

Likewise, most people can be persuaded to do bad things. Most people can be persuaded to kill each other in war. this doesnt mean people have desire to kill each other, or have desire for war, but a combination of other goals achieves those results.

So just because most people choose not to kill themselves, it doesnt mean they want to live. Because there are other goals at play. Person who commits suicide wouldnt merely end that person's life, but ruin life of entire family that person is part of, and cause devastating long term effects on them. Or person has someone depending on a person, and suicide would harm others. So it is not merely "desire to live" at play, and "desiring to live or desiring to not live" is a false dichotomy because person can desire neither, but desire something else, and living just being part of it, not desire of itself.

And finally, C. Even if A and B were granted to somehow say most people want to live, and that such wants outweigh wants to die, the problem with C is that it doesnt work to support ban on abortion. Most people support abortion being legal. So by same logic, the very aborted fetus would, if not aborted, likely support abortion being legal.

It would be counter productive for the aborted to support abortion bring legal. He would never get to vote.

A and B aren't absolutely true, but they are necessary proxies given that we don't have a better way to measure wants.

Most people support abortion being legal

But they are not at risk of being aborted and generally have less to gain from abortion than someone has to lose by being aborted.

Most women want the right to their own bodies.

Well, having a body to own requires actually being born/not killed in utero, so from a utilitarian lens the right to not be aborted is more important than the right to end a pregnancy. I do think the utilitarian lens is a bit reductive for the issue as a whole, but it's kind of what my dispute with SatanLucy was over.

But they are not at risk of being aborted and generally have less to gain from abortion than someone has to lose by being aborted.

And in that case, we again end up with weighing of wants, because you are making decision based on wants.

P1. Majority of people (including future unborn) want abortion to be legal

P2. Wants are measured by mere majority to determine best wants (When A and B from previous is conceded, and C is taken as true)

C. Abortion being legal is best want

Now, when it comes to unborn, we only consider future wants. Unborn doesnt have current wants. Unborn has no "desire to live" in any sense of that word.

So when we consider future wants of majority of unborn, and wants of current majority of born, they want abortion to be legal.

Your original argument was based on wants where wants of people who are majority outweigh wants of people who are minority.

But if you want to at the same time create another standard that excludes wants of majority any time when minority suffers from it more than majority:

"But they are not at risk of being aborted"

P1. Minority always suffers when wants of majority prevail over wants of minority

P2. Saying that wants of most people who want to live matters more than wants of people who dont is wants of majority prevailing over wants of minority

C. Minority suffers if wants of most people who want to live matters more than wants of people who dont.

So saying that minority is at risk of wants of majority (abortion) coming true while at the same time saying wants of majority should prevail over minority is a logically impossible standard to hold.

"and generally have less to gain from abortion than someone has to lose by being aborted"

If you assume equality of wants, then gains are higher for legal abortion. Greater number of people achieve their want if abortion is legal. Even majority of aborted unborn achieve their future wish of abortion being legal, as well as negative wishes and prevent unfulfilled wishes.

Further, unborn has a lot to lose by being born, when we assume negative wants and unfulfilled wants. While aborted fetus has no wants and thus loses no wants from abortion, his future born self would lose a lot of wants by being born, in form of negative wants and unfulfilled wants. Negative wants are wants for something not to happen, but it happens. So they act as negative. And unfulfilled wants are wants for something to happen, but it doesnt. Now, if you base your argument on achieving wishes, then having a wish and failing to achieve it is a negative, where not having a wish is neutral.

So under equality of wants, your best argument would be:

"Unborn's number of lost wants > Born person's number of realized wants"

But unborn doesnt have wants. No more wants are lost by aborting a fetus than are lost by not having sex to make it in the first place.

So for this reason, you can only logically consider future wants of unborn, not current wants.

But no number comparison there is possible, because you cant possibly account for:

A. Realized wishes (negative and positive)

B. Unrealized wishes (negative and positive)

C. Lack of wishes

While abortion being legal, in some countries, fulfills millions of wishes, not just of abortion being legal but also women having control over their body and not having to be forced to pregnancy, aborted fetus has no realized wishes, but also has no unrealized wishes, and also has no wishes, and also, number of aborted fetuses are far lower in number compared to number of people who want abortion legal, and who benefit from abortions in terms of other wishes being realized.

You realistically cant count wishes to see what fulfills more wishes and prevents more unrealized wishes, in case of aborted fetuses.

However, we know this:

Aborting a fetus prevents all its unrealized wishes. So it effectively prevents any negative life of fetus, while fulfilling wants of actual born people and improving their life.

A and B aren't absolutely true, but they are necessary proxies given that we don't have a better way to measure wants.

But this rests on unproved assumption that your current way of measuring wants is good. A is terribly inconsistent, where B is likely to be false. So your standard of measurement rests on inconsistent (A) and likely to be false (B).

In other words, measuring using that standard has more potential for mistake than correct answer.

And just to be clear here, are we still talking of 7 year old dying from cancer, where being aborted would prevent years of pain?

Because such cases are rare, and you cant reasonably claim that 7 year old is lucky to be born so he can suffer for years and die from cancer at age 7.

that 7 year old on his own probably has more unrealized wishes than realized wishes. Merely having a wish isnt a positive for anyone. In fact, having a wish and it being unrealized is worse than not having a wish in the first place.

Majority of people (including future unborn) want abortion to be legal

But only after they have been born and are guaranteed not to be aborted; it's a perverse incentive. Also it's pretty easy to measure the loss and gain from pregnancy vs. dying. Account for how much people want each thing, which can typically be approximated for how much they will pay for certain things. Human life has been valued at several billion dollars based on what people will pay for safety features in cars and stuff, and pregnancy only lasts a fraction of a life typically.

But only after they have been born and are guaranteed not to be aborted

Same applies to any other wish. You could say people who choose to not to give birth and not reproduce and who choose to keep lack of reproduction legal only do so after being born (so they are guaranteed not to be "not born").

Also it's pretty easy to measure the loss and gain from pregnancy vs. dying

If you asked a pregnant woman who wants abortion, would she rather die or keep pregnancy, she would most likely keep pregnancy. But likewise, if you asked a pregnant woman would she rather die or abort, she would most likely choose abortion.

this only tells you that her personal gain from "not dying and keeping pregnancy" is higher than "dying".

But it also tells you her personal gain from "abortion and not dying" is higher than "keeping pregnancy and not dying".

So abortion is a gain for a woman, and for majority of people who support abortion being legal.

And there are cases where abortion is obvious gain for fetus too, such as cases where fetus would live very short after birth, and in great pain so giving birth in that case is just doing torture.

Same applies to any other wish. You could say people who choose to not to give birth and not reproduce and who choose to keep lack of reproduction legal only do so after being born (so they are guaranteed not to be "not born").

Yes that's true, but as I said I'm not 100% utilitarian in all circumstances, we are just discussing this from a utilitarian perspective. I think the benefit of being born outweighs the convenience of not reproducing, typically speaking.

And there are cases where abortion is obvious gain for fetus too, such as cases where fetus would live very short after birth, and in great pain so giving birth in that case is just doing torture.

Those are a vast minority and not really what we were originally talking about though.

Those are a vast minority and not really what we were originally talking about though.

We were originally talking of 7 year old dying from cancer, would he prefer being aborted. Now, while we cant exactly predict which fetus will die from cancer, there are some cases which basically guarantee an extremely short and painful life of a fetus even if not aborted. Scientific pattern predictors use history to predict future (what repeated consistently in history, repeats consistently in future) , and give us the most likely scenario of life expectancy for a fetus.

We can talk about average fetus, but legal abortion is obviously gain for woman and for majority of society. It is a loss for fetus (when we assume equality of wants and accurate determination of wants), but loss in terms of not having a want, rather than having want and not achieving it (which is a greater loss).

I think the benefit of being born outweighs the convenience of not reproducing, typically speaking.

So should not reproducing be punished by extra taxes then, or treated as basically worse than murder? Because if we apply your so far reasoning, living for 30 years is better than living 0 years, so aborting a fetus is worse than killing a 30 year old.

Fetal Cancer or Anomalies

If a fetus is diagnosed with a severe condition, the justification for termination typically falls under the category of fetal anomalies. 

1. Lethal Anomalies: Many legal and medical frameworks view termination as justifiable if the fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life outside the womb.
2. Medical Grounds: In many regions, laws allow for termination if there is a substantial risk that the child would suffer from "physical or mental abnormalities" that result in a poor quality of life or severe suffering. 

3. Ethical and Legal Considerations

1. Patient Autonomy: Leading medical organizations, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), emphasize that the pregnant person is the ultimate decision-maker regarding their health and pregnancy.
2. Legal Landscape (2026): In jurisdictions with strict abortion bans, exceptions for the "life of the mother" may be vaguely defined, creating legal risks for physicians attempting to provide necessary cancer care that might end a pregnancy.
3. Moral Perspectives: Views vary widely; some argue that abortion is never morally acceptable, while others maintain it is an essential component of comprehensive health care. 

originally talking of 7 year old dying from cancer, would he prefer being aborted

Which is still 7 years of life, and

loss in terms of not having a want, rather than having want and not achieving it (which is a greater loss).

I dispute that's a greater loss. If someone has never heard of money and I scam them out of their inheritance, that's pretty much just as bad as stealing money directly.

With objectives like yours, it is best to remain unknown.

So should not reproducing be punished by extra taxes then, or treated as basically worse than murder?

I think I already mentioned earlier in the thread I'm not 100% utilitarian in all circumstances. Not reproducing is not the same as abortion, it's more along the lines of not extending someone's lifespan. If you want to discuss the morality of abortion more broadly maybe that merits another discussion, but I thought we were talking about wants.

Not reproducing is not the same as abortion, it's more along the lines of not extending someone's lifespan

Hmm but then same question remains. Is abortion worse than murdering a 30 year old? Or an 80 year old? When we assume more lifespan is better?

I think I already mentioned earlier in the thread I'm not 100% utilitarian in all circumstances

I can understand that. While consequentialism-based morality is one of most popular ones, the problem lies in which goals are set to be achieved by it. For example, goal of maximum freedom isn't same as goal of maximum life. The latter implies a whole different set of laws than former, and you generally can't achieve maximum life without violating a lot of freedom, because individuals don't naturally follow goal of maximum life.

Is abortion worse than murdering a 30 year old? Or an 80 year old? When we assume more lifespan is better?

Prima facie yeah, although there could obviously be exceptions where the 30 year old is about to cure cancer or the fetus has a lower estimated lifespan due to health issues.

You wouldn’t abort a fetus that had a chance to live to 30 or even 80.