Zacryon
I see what you mean. However, it was at no point my intention to equate the severity of those two different contexts. But given your interpretation, I understand why you found it to be a ridiculous comparison. I just wanted to highlight that even seemingly harmless things can become a tool for harming someone regardless of the actual severity. Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough before.
Given that this protest is performed by adults and not 5 year olds, and assuming that they are not shy about their hostility towards tourists, I would argue that the severity of such an confrontation can linger for a while with someone. I am absolutely sure that this would keep my mind busy for a while if it were to happen to me or those close to me. Therefore, I would rank this higher in terms of severity than a child being silly. (Of course it would be no match with being bullied.)
my response was to demean the overdramatic use of the word “attacked”.
Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t interpret the wording in such a dramatic manner like you did. I’ve seen it in a more general, abstract manner. Not in a way that would motivate me to call the police, no. Almost like the phrasing “verbal attack”, which is also understood rather lightly. It seems this is why we’ve got into this misunderstanding. So thank you for clarifying this. :)
How so?
It illustrates the hostility experienced by the target. It’s just water, which is by itself harmless.
But:
In the one case it is a demeaning gesture by bullies, which does imply so much more than “just water”.
In the other case it is experiencing aggression, possibly being shouted at or insulted, which also causes more than “just water”.
How would you feel?
You plan a trip to the city, with your partner and kids. And then you come accross angry people who tell you to fuck off while shooting at you and your family with water pistols.
Would you feel the same way about this as if it was just raining?
To me, and probably a lot of people, this is certainly another and far more hostile experience, which is also not a pleasant one.
And they’re not really letting us kill ourselves humanely anyway - Medical Assistance in Dying laws are still incredibly restrictive and they actively prosecute people who sell alternatives.
Which is an important practial limiation of course. But I’m currently discussing this on the level of the underlying ethical principle, less on the level of practical implications, because the latter could possibly be changed by forming an appropriate mindset in our society.
Just because I find joy in life I can’t force that on other people. We all have different perspectives. I look at it like joy is not guaranteed. The only thing that is guaranteed through life is suffering and death. […] Why guarantee suffering in another person.
Sure, but would it be equally okay to deny someone their shot at joy? Even without (much) joy, some might see the suffering as part of their journey, a part of the experience of life which they could still prefer to not being born at all. We never know until we can ask and expect an answer to that question.
I don’t need to have kids for survival and we have too many people already.
And it’s totally okay for me if these are your reasons for not having children. I agree with a multitude of reasons why someone want’s to be childless. So I hope you don’t get me wrong here. I don’t give a fuck whether someone wants or doesn’t want children. It’s their life and their decision regardless of their reasons. I just find the topic of natalism interesting from a philosophical point of view.
Put like that, it’s of course not a conclusion which feels right. Which is interesting and which I would explain by the “greater goods” which are relevant in such considerations.
In your example, the greater good is an autonomy about one’s own body and what happens to it in presence of other people. An issue which we’ve developed understanding and respect for one’s individual will.
In the context of natalism however, there are different goods at play depending on how you look at them:
Antinatalism: “creating new humans is wrong, because they have guaranteed suffering. Allowing that will cause unneccessary suffering.”
Pronatalism: “Creating new humans is okay, because their life can be joyful (and/or brings me joy). Denying that robs the possible being from this experience.” (Depending on who you ask, it might not even be necessary to be joyful, as the experience of life is already seen as valuable by itself.)
In other words: Antinatalism’s greater good: preventing suffering. Pronatalisms greater good: allowing joy and the experience of life.
But again, asking for consent here is pointless, as I’ve detailed before. If you want to have sex with someone who is unconcious, they are able to form on opinion about that before the incident, possibly during the incident and directly after the incident. In other words, they have agency about this. With unborns it is different: they don’t exist and have no agency prior or during the incident of being born. They develop this ability during their childhood. Then you can ask. Without such a capacity I don’t see any value in moral evaluations. Because to me, this is currently almost similar to asking a stone whether it wants to exist in this universe.
I understand that. It’s a very scary feeling for most. (btw: If you really feel like this damaged you, I hope you’ve considered therapy.)
However, if someone decides they don’t want to be alive (and we can ensure that this decision is made of “sound mind” (whatever that might look like)) I can imagine that they might get used to the idea of death and ending it.
At least they asked for further opinions on this by other researchers:
But some experts urged caution in interpreting the findings. Jacqui Hanley, head of research funding at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Without a detailed picture of what is going on in the brain, we don’t know if being a ‘morning’ or ‘evening’ person affects memory and thinking, or if a decline in cognition is causing changes to sleeping patterns.”
Jessica Chelekis, a senior lecturer in sustainability global value chains and sleep expert at Brunel University London, said there were “important limitations” to the study as the research did not account for education attainment, or include the time of day the cognitive tests were conducted in the results. The main value of the study was challenging stereotypes around sleep, she added.