TMB wrote:
You are also arguing that when your loved ones die, it is worse for the one left alive. This sounds a bit like Hillary Clinton's view that women are the real victims when men get killed in war because they are left alive to suffer. If we assume that dead people do not suffer as do the living, if life was so bad for these victims of war they would end their lives

Suicide is not the only option for someone experiencing suffering so your assumption that anyone who does experience it in the above scenario has no choice but to end their life is demonstrably wrong. Since human beings can experience incredible quantity and quality of non life threatening suffering without resorting to the ultimate solution as a means of eradicating it Of course some do but some is not the same as all. I disagree with Hillary here as it is not only women who are bereaved by war as men obviously are too. Now would you suggest the same for them if they experienced that type of suffering too. And if you would not then why not

People respond to stimuli differently. Some people will struggle on while suffering to the same extent people who killed themselves over the matter did. Being alive is no indication of a lack of suffering. Lots of people who have shitty lives die of natural causes.

This thread is amazing. Now it's turned into a discussion of are dead people dead?

Men having shorter lives is a problem, I haven't seen anyone here say it wasn't a problem. Or anyone here argue that because women live longer that they suffer more and are worse off. TMB is the only one beating that strawman and assigning it to other people.

TMB has said that because people who survive after their partner dies (in this case men who die in military service) do not kill themselves then they are not really suffering or real victims. So thus men suffer more by having a shorter life span even though military service is only a part of that. Men dying in conflict is hardly a feminist issue, I suspect most people here who say they are feminists or not would like to see women able to serve alongside men in combat roles. This isn't out of some desire to ensure that more women die but instead just to ensure the women who would like to join the military are capable of trying it.

Of course TMB has before said something that sounded a lot like he thought women would be incapable of filling the military combat role. So lets clear that up, who hear thinks that women should be able to join the military? And who here thinks that men having shorter lives (on average) is a problem that some amount of time should be spent on fixing as much as possible?

I am yes on both.

I am yes on both as well.

Fallible wrote:

Thommo wrote:
There is a pretty meaningful sense in which we can say that some people suffer less
than dead people if we view suffering as something that can be net positive or negative

There is a meaningful sense in which we can say that some people suffer less than dead people?
This is where I apparently keep falling down. Would that not require allowing that dead people suffer?

There is no meaningful sense in which those who are alive suffer less than those who are dead because on a scale of zero suffering death is the ultimate and absolute scenario and eternal death even more so. You cannot suffer any less if you are dead. The psychological interpretation of suffering does not alter that fact one iota. Even if someone takes the entirety of their lifetimes suffering and thinks of it in purely positive terms that still does not equate to the non suffering of someone who is dead. For when an individual dies their suffering will cease from that point on. Which logically means the suffering they experienced while they were alive was of a greater order of magnitude regardless of how they thought of it of or how little they may have actually experienced

I'm not convinced that the dead can be considered to be non-suffering. They are incapable of any sensation, so the application of suffering to the dead is a meaningless exercise. Suffering, like all experiences, are the domain of living entities.

A living entity can experience zero suffering, in so far as we are able to assess life experiences on a range of "everything is wonderful = zero suffering" and "I feel like a pig shat in my head = lots of suffering." Even then, suffering is subjective and different individuals with different mindsets will view the degree to which they have suffered any experience in a different way.

A dead entity cannot, as it is incapable of experiencing anything. It is not on the scale at zero suffering.

Fallible wrote:I am yes on both as well.

And me.

On the women in combat roles thing, I seem to recall TMB's questioning their 'ability to demonstrate that they would be able to "die gracefully in the trenches" ', or some such, a sentiment which made me feel so sick on behalf of those poor men who did die in the trenches that I couldn't even begin to contemplate addressing it.

They'd probably just get their periods all over the place. Women in men's spaces, goddamit.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:So lets clear that up, who hear thinks that women should be able to join the military?

Absolutely. They have should have the opportunity to apply for the same posts as men and also meet the same criteria necessary to deem someone suitable for these posts.

DarthHelmet86 wrote: And who here thinks that men having shorter lives (on average) is a problem that some amount of time should be spent on fixing as much as possible?

I do not think it is a problem.
I think it is an inequity which can cause problems and is something that we can address and are addressing.

The difference in life expectancy between men and women is, like, 5%? I think it's a matter that deserves a proportionate response, yes.

And it's easily attributable to lifestyle factors. I don't consider it my right to interfere with the self-determination of men. My grandfather and uncle are smokers and alcoholics. It's devastating (the poor health of men sucks for the women around them too; we aren't jumping up and down cheering about the fact men die first) but it's also the case that everything that can be done has been and no good can come of any further intervention.

I can see value in taking a deeper look at why men live shorter lives than women. I think what we'll find though is that it's very much in the hands of men themselves and all we can do is tell men what they already know.

I don't perceive men's life expectancy as a matter of oppression because there's no indication it has a thing to do with entrenched, systemic marginalisation. It seems to have to do with how men are socialised and the lifestyles they pursue.

Women should be able to join the military and at all levels too. Over here women are allowed to join though there are still restrictions as to which regiments will permit them. With regard to men dying early I would say that quality of life is just as important if not more so than quantity of life. Men are responsible for their own and so should therefore accept that where applicable. You cannot guarantee a long life if you follow the four health commandments though the probability increases if you do. Men may on average abuse or ignore them more than women who as a consequence may on average be more health conscious and therefore live longer. And I say on average because one cannot generalise on something as universal as gender

Fallible wrote:Given that I usually agree with you I am leaning towards to concluding that the fault here is mine, yet at the same time I cannot seem to see the sense in what you are saying. Firstly, what exactly are you referring to with your 'most relevant sense of the word suffer"'? Most relevant according to whom? Taking it as a given that the dead neither suffer nor thrive does not allow that the living suffer more? How do you reckon? If someone scratches their face a little harder than they intended and that manifests as a little pain, they have immediately suffered more than a dead person can. A dead person.

Let me try and put a bit of context back to the comments and see if that clears up our disagreement:-

In post #786 (which I found to be a good post, with much to agree with in it), you wrote in response to Sendraks' and TMB's discussion on the previous page:-

Fallible wrote:I think this is an instance of someone being so desperate to not admit they are wrong that they begin to make clearly counter-factual 'arguments'. 'If we assume that dead people do not suffer as do the living'? One thing which would appear to be rather beyond dispute unless you believe in life after death is that the dead experience nothing at all, be that pleasure or pain. Quite clearly then, the living experience more suffering by virtue of the fact that the dead do not experience at all, and it is therefore worse for the one left alive when a loved one dies, simply because the loved one no longer 'is', and the one left behind is suffering.

With TMB's last post, which I take as the context for this remark being:-

TMB wrote:This is not how life expectancy is measured. Men die more often than women at every age. In the womb, as babies and adults of every age. In addition to this, women are also likely to live longer than men.

You suggesting that life somehow allows advantage to be gained, but I se life as an end in itself as long as it has quality. If you are not alive you have no opportunity whatever unless you believe in life after death. I do not see that there is a difference in the latter years of either gender in terms of the degrading quality of life, illness as they approach the end. Since this is the case, we can assume that women will generally get more years where the quality is OK.

You are also arguing that when your loved ones die, it is worse for the one left alive. THis sounds a bit like Hillary Clinton's view that women are the real victims when men get killed in war because they are left alive to suffer. If we assume that dead people do not suffer as do the living, if life was so bad for these'victims ' of war they would end their lives.

He also quoted some of Sendraks text from further back, which included:-

Sendraks wrote:The end result is that women still live longer than men, but those additional years of life hardly confer any sort of significant advantage to women. It's not as if we're seeing the female octogenarian workforce as a powerhouse of industry in the absence of competition men of a similar age.

Instead what we see is old women. Growing sicker, weaker and poorer. Many of them alone because their loved one died years ago. A curious "advantage" this longer lifespan.

Now, aside from the last half sentence (marked in red) I do not see much wrong in TMB's view. It doesn't strike me as particularly unreasonable to say that most people (even those suffering) see their lives postively or to say that life is an end in itself as long as quality of life is good.

What you said, that I contest (marked in blue) is a corollary to the dead experiencing nothing - that the living who do experience therefore have it "worse". Now, answering one question above, I am saying that it is not reasonable (in light of TMB's and Sendrak's exchange) to assume that the only relevant factor here is how much the death itself hurts the parties, instead the debate (which I find to be slightly in poor taste in the first place) about "who has it worse that men die sooner" clearly involves some kind of appraisal of whether the extra life the women get is "worth living", I think this is apparent in (for example) the text marked green above.

Fallible wrote:Not a dying person. If you have nothing of a thing, anyone who has even the tiniest amount of said thing has more of it than you do. If you have nothing of a thing and never have, anyone who has ever had at any point the tiniest amount of said thing will have had more than you do. Someone may have suffered long and hard in life right up until the point of death. That is still the suffering of the living.

Absolutely, so if there is no way to say that the living experience either no suffering or negative suffering then it follows that the living always suffer more than the dead. I think there is a very contextually relevant sense in which this can be true - for example if a bereaved person sees their life as a net positive there is a clear sense in which they are "better" rather than "worse" off than the lost loved one.

Fallible wrote:

Many living people, even the bereaved, view their ongoing life positively.

Did I say otherwise? Some people even view suffering as a positive experience. That people can see their ongoing, bereaved life positively does not suggest that they are not also suffering.

Sure, for a given meaning of "suffering". If, as I suggested is possible TMB has in mind some view of "net suffering", when he talks about life being a positive in and of itself as long as quality is present then there's no reason "suffering" cannot be nil or even negative (i.e. positive overall quality of life), in which sense it is not readily apparent that the dead have it "worse".

I think by assuming a particular view on suffering your rebuttal fails - because for TMB to be wrong ("so desperate to not admit they are wrong") in accordance with the criticism of yours quoted above in this post, he must have taken that view and I think it is clear from the context of his comment that he does not do what you did and restrict the scope of suffering to strictly negative feelings regarding the death of the loved one, but instead was comparing whether "men" or "women" have it worse overall based on the shorter life expectancy. Which is where my comments about bereaved persons with positive life outlook fitted in.

As I've already posted, variability in healthy years of life is strongly linked to deprivation. The greater the deprivation the greater the number of years in poor health.

However, how this effects the sexes varies with deprivation. The greater the deprivation, the more years of ill health women experience than men. At the lowest levels of deprivation, the number of years of ill health is almost equal but with a slight advantage to women.

We can either talk about life expectancy (which TMB doesn't like), or quality of life which TMB has so far ignored.

Fallible wrote:There is a meaningful sense in which we can say that some people suffer less than dead people? This is where I apparently keep falling down. Would that not require allowing that dead people suffer?

No, if suffering can be negative, for example if we look at net suffering (i.e. some measure of suffering offset by happiness or "thriving") then someone who does not suffer can be worse off than someone who has negative net suffering.

The point is that you seem to be taking a reasonable view that suffering is a one way street, but I don't think it's the only reasonable view. Which is why the consequences start to look less uncontroversial, for example when we talk about how the living must have it worse than the dead.

Sendraks wrote:As I've already posted, variability in healthy years of life is strongly linked to deprivation. The greater the deprivation the greater the number of years in poor health.

However, how this effects the sexes varies with deprivation. The greater the deprivation, the more years of ill health women experience than men. At the lowest levels of deprivation, the number of years of ill health is almost equal but with a slight advantage to women.

We can either talk about life expectancy (which TMB doesn't like), or quality of life which TMB has so far ignored.

I think this is reasonable and more productive than this endless deliberation over the exact word "suffering", which wasn't really central to the conversation and has been rather overburdened.

I don't think we can completely dismiss the views of people in ill health or otherwise as to whether their life is preferable to death (overall net positive) or less preferable to death (overall net negative) in such a conversation though. If people regard more years, even in poor health as positive, who are we to tell them otherwise?

That is not to say we wouldn't all prefer good health to poor health, it merely acknowledges that this isn't a choice we all have.

Thommo wrote:
I don't think we can completely dismiss the views of people in ill health or otherwise as to whether their life is preferable to death (overall net positive) or less preferable to death (overall net negative) in such a conversation though. If people regard more years, even in poor health as positive, who are we to tell them otherwise?

I think the problem with the "life in ill health vs death" preference test, is that there is no opportunity to seek the views of the dead as to whether they consider being dead an improvement.

Sendraks wrote:

Thommo wrote:
I don't think we can completely dismiss the views of people in ill health or otherwise as to whether their life is preferable to death (overall net positive) or less preferable to death (overall net negative) in such a conversation though. If people regard more years, even in poor health as positive, who are we to tell them otherwise?

I think the problem with the "life in ill health vs death" preference test, is that there is no opportunity to seek the views of the dead as to whether they consider being dead an improvement.

You can ask them before they die. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with reasoning in the presence of incomplete information anyway.

There are people who regard their existence as intolerable and "want out" and there are people who very much value and cherish every second of their life. Allowing people their own view on what is preferable seems the only remotely sensible grounds for comparing the situations, although, frankly the whole exercise seems as mad as a box of frogs to me. I have no idea why people want to be able to say that bereaved spouses have it better than their deceased love one, or vice versa, it seems like some peculiar version of oppression olympics to me with no real consequences, since I tend to assume all of us would prefer better medical care and life outcomes for everyone anyway.

Anyone who doesn't want that for one gender or the other pretty much isn't worth talking to.

Jesus. Tittyfucking. Christ.

I cannot believe that - on a forum called Rational Skepticism no less - there exist people who want to defend the idea that not being killed is worse than being killed.

Men are overwhelmingly the primary victims of war: they are fucking overwhelmingly the ones who are fucking killed. To call those who are left behind to scrabble for some kind of life in war's aftermath is not intended as some kind of insult. It does not belittle their difficulties or their suffering. It simply describes the situation. Accurately.

The primary victim of a killing is the person who has been killed. The people suffering due to that person's death are the secondary victims. That's just what the terms "primary victim" and "secondary victim" mean in that context.

Just as an aside, I don't believe for a second that Hilary Clinton does not understand this. The quote TMB provided is a transparent attempt to curry favor. That the attempt is so transparent should tell you what she thinks of her intended audience.

Thommo wrote:

Fallible wrote:
There is a meaningful sense in which we can say that some people suffer less than dead people?
This is where I apparently keep falling down. Would that not require allowing that dead people suffer?

No, if suffering can be negative, for example if we look at net suffering (i.e. some measure of suffering offset
by happiness or thriving) then someone who does not suffer can be worse off than someone who has negative net suffering

The point is that you seem to be taking a reasonable view that suffering is a one way street, but I don't think it's the only reasonable view. Which is why the consequences start to look less uncontroversial, for example when we talk about how the living must have it worse than the dead

You are conflating the objective fact of suffering with the subjective interpretation of how it feels to the one experiencing it. This is wrong because the two are not the same thing even though one is conditional on the other. Furthermore within that context there is no universal constant. For example what about someone who is experiencing suffering and adopts a positive mental attitude but still suffers psychologically from it ? Because just having a positive mental attitude does not in and of itself guarantee that that will not revert to a negative one either because the physical suffering is too great or the psychology of the individual in question is too weak or both

The spectrum therefore is more nuanced than you are allowing for. For it can range from someone experiencing minimum suffering but being unable to adopt a positive mental attitude to it to someone experiencing maximum suffering but being able to adopt a positive mental attitude to it. And every point in between those two extremes. It is therefore not something that can be reduced to simple binaries because no two human beings experience physical pain and the psychological reaction to it in exactly the same way

If the positive mental attitude cancels out the negative physical suffering then the result is zero. Since zero is the default setting for the dead too then in this scenario the living experience no more suffering on average than the dead. But this is only true for one scenario for the living and not for the entirety of their existence. Where as for the dead the scenario is universal because there is no variation as they experience zero suffering from death to infinity. Even if as I have previously stated one adopts a positive mental attitude to suffering that does not in and of itself negate the actual suffering in question Furthermore one can adopt positive mental attitudes where there is no suffering and therefore no requirement to do so. And therefore the existence of suffering in other scenarios is a conditioned response with regard to positive mental attitude and the fact that it is makes it demonstrably less positive than for those scenarios where it is not a conditioned response

surreptitious57 wrote:The spectrum therefore is more nuanced than you are allowing for.

I've been pretty clear in my posts that there are no empirical measures of suffering and that this is very much a personal experience. I've also covered that people can experience similar "suffering scenarios" in very different ways because of mental attitude. I've got the nuances covered thanks.

surreptitious57 wrote: Since zero is the default setting for the dead too then in this scenario the living experience no more suffering on average than the dead.

No. The dead are not at zero on the scale of experiencing, as they cannot experience anything. Therefore they cannot experience zero suffering, as they have no means of doing so.

All that can be said about the dead is that they cannot experience suffering. They are therefore not on the scale.