“Doesn’t this all just add up to negative-utilitarianism and extinctionism? If all action is rooted in desire, if ‘everything is suffering’, then eliminating ‘desire and suffering’ means eliminating the motives for action, which ultimately means eliminating life.”
To which a reassuring voice responds:
“Think about eating habits. There is such a thing as healthy eating. But a lot of people’s eating habits are dominated by craving and gluttony; or self-loathing and bingeing; or other cycles of self-reinforcing suffering. Healthy eating doesn’t look like eliminating the action of eating, that is, starving yourself! (But it certainly doesn’t look like pigging out and hating yourself, or getting envious over whether your gourmet meal is less cool than the other guy’s, or eating whatever maximizes the profits of the food industry.) Attempting to starve yourself would be part of one of these cycles of suffering. Healthy eating entails eliminating those cycles. The same thing applies to other sorts of suffering.”
Worried voice again:
“Okay, sure, eliminating specific intense knots of ‘desire and suffering’ makes sense to me. But what about the limit case? If the theory says ‘everything in life is suffering’, then after you eliminate those knots, the theory is still going to aim at eliminating everything else in life. That’s extinctionism right there. Hey wait a minute, doesn’t nirvana mean extinction to begin with?”
Reassuring voice:
“Hey, hold on, I like that ‘knots of desire and suffering’ idea. You’re thinking of painful knots in a muscle, where it’s tense and it’s keeping itself tense, and causes you pain. But there’s a big difference between relieving a knot in a muscle, and never putting any tension on that muscle at all. Healthy muscle motion isn’t a knot, but it also isn’t disuse and atrophy. Unknotting the knots is part of getting to healthy motion. It doesn’t mean the end goal is to go totally limp and relaxed all the time. But if the reason you can’t relax at all is because of painful knots, then worrying about disuse and atrophy is the wrong cognitive behavior.”
W:
“Yeah, I was also thinking of Knots by Laing, and the idea of self-reinforcing interpersonal suffering. But seriously, what about the limit case?”
R:
“We are so far from the limit case that it doesn’t make sense to worry about it! If we set out eliminating knots of suffering, the heat-death of the universe would come long before we actually got to the limit case where it makes sense to worry about extinctionism. Extinction is going to happen anyway eventually, but it’s so very far in the future. And by reducing suffering, we would have had a happier future.”
W:
“So, you agree that present-day extinctionists are just wrong? That eliminating human life isn’t the correct way to eliminate human suffering?”
R:
“Yeah, definitely. They’re bonkers bozos and always lose. Entropy happens but there’s no point in worshiping it!”
W:
“Okay, fine, I’m a little bit more on board with this Buddhism stuff.”
This is a fascinating dialogue, thank you for sharing it! I want to jump on board of the Reassuring Voice and add some comments.
First, nirvana is not extinction of a person, life or experience. What is extinguished is suffering (dukkha) and its cause—craving (tanha). It’s the extinction of the fire of ignorance, clinging and aversion—not of consciousness or life. The result is described as the highest bliss, supreme security and freedom. All are positive terms. It is the end of problematic mode of being and not of being itself.
Second, the first noble truth doesn’t say “everything is suffering”. It says that life as conditioned by clinging (upadana) is pervaded by suffering (dukkha). It’s a statement about a process (clinging to the five aggregates), not a condemnation of pure sensory experience itself.
Eliminating the ‘knots’ (craving/clinging) is not like trimming a tree branch by branch until nothing is left. It’s like untying a knot in a hose. Once the knot (the obstruction) is gone, the water (life, energy, consciousness) can flow freely, without distortion or blockage. The goal isn’t to stop the flow; it’s to remove the distortions that cause the “painful pressure” and “blocked functionality”.
Third, the Buddhist path is about cultivating positive qualities, not just negating negatives (even more so!) The four noble truth, the noble eightfold path is a training in skillful action, not inaction. It cultivates: wisdom (prajñā), ethical conduct (śīla) and meditative absorption (samādhi). These states represent a re-orientation from “scratching itches” (craving-driven action) to skillful, compassionate and clear engagement with the world.
Last, on present day Extinctionists R is right to dismiss them. Extinctionism mistakes the problem (suffering born of craving and ignorance) for the vehicle of experience (life itself) and seeks to destroy the vehicle to solve the problem. The Buddhist solution is to repair the flawed navigation system of the driver (the mind), not to crash the car.
Your dialogue beautifully resolves the issue. The ‘knots’ metaphor is perfect. We aim to untie the painful, self-reinforcing knots of craving and aversion so that the muscle of our being can be strong, flexible, and capable of healthy, responsive tension—not perpetually knotted up in suffering, nor limp and atrophied in a pseudo-nirvana of inaction (stupor really).
The goal isn’t the extinction of life but the transcendence of a specific flawed operating system (the ‘itch-and-scratch’ or ‘knot-forming’ system) and its replacement with one of wisdom and compassion. That is the opposite of extinctionism, it’s about making life actually work.
The worried voice in my head says:
“Doesn’t this all just add up to negative-utilitarianism and extinctionism? If all action is rooted in desire, if ‘everything is suffering’, then eliminating ‘desire and suffering’ means eliminating the motives for action, which ultimately means eliminating life.”
To which a reassuring voice responds:
“Think about eating habits. There is such a thing as healthy eating. But a lot of people’s eating habits are dominated by craving and gluttony; or self-loathing and bingeing; or other cycles of self-reinforcing suffering. Healthy eating doesn’t look like eliminating the action of eating, that is, starving yourself! (But it certainly doesn’t look like pigging out and hating yourself, or getting envious over whether your gourmet meal is less cool than the other guy’s, or eating whatever maximizes the profits of the food industry.) Attempting to starve yourself would be part of one of these cycles of suffering. Healthy eating entails eliminating those cycles. The same thing applies to other sorts of suffering.”
Worried voice again:
“Okay, sure, eliminating specific intense knots of ‘desire and suffering’ makes sense to me. But what about the limit case? If the theory says ‘everything in life is suffering’, then after you eliminate those knots, the theory is still going to aim at eliminating everything else in life. That’s extinctionism right there. Hey wait a minute, doesn’t nirvana mean extinction to begin with?”
Reassuring voice:
“Hey, hold on, I like that ‘knots of desire and suffering’ idea. You’re thinking of painful knots in a muscle, where it’s tense and it’s keeping itself tense, and causes you pain. But there’s a big difference between relieving a knot in a muscle, and never putting any tension on that muscle at all. Healthy muscle motion isn’t a knot, but it also isn’t disuse and atrophy. Unknotting the knots is part of getting to healthy motion. It doesn’t mean the end goal is to go totally limp and relaxed all the time. But if the reason you can’t relax at all is because of painful knots, then worrying about disuse and atrophy is the wrong cognitive behavior.”
W:
“Yeah, I was also thinking of Knots by Laing, and the idea of self-reinforcing interpersonal suffering. But seriously, what about the limit case?”
R:
“We are so far from the limit case that it doesn’t make sense to worry about it! If we set out eliminating knots of suffering, the heat-death of the universe would come long before we actually got to the limit case where it makes sense to worry about extinctionism. Extinction is going to happen anyway eventually, but it’s so very far in the future. And by reducing suffering, we would have had a happier future.”
W:
“So, you agree that present-day extinctionists are just wrong? That eliminating human life isn’t the correct way to eliminate human suffering?”
R:
“Yeah, definitely. They’re bonkers bozos and always lose. Entropy happens but there’s no point in worshiping it!”
W:
“Okay, fine, I’m a little bit more on board with this Buddhism stuff.”
This is a fascinating dialogue, thank you for sharing it! I want to jump on board of the Reassuring Voice and add some comments.
First, nirvana is not extinction of a person, life or experience. What is extinguished is suffering (dukkha) and its cause—craving (tanha). It’s the extinction of the fire of ignorance, clinging and aversion—not of consciousness or life. The result is described as the highest bliss, supreme security and freedom. All are positive terms. It is the end of problematic mode of being and not of being itself.
Second, the first noble truth doesn’t say “everything is suffering”. It says that life as conditioned by clinging (upadana) is pervaded by suffering (dukkha). It’s a statement about a process (clinging to the five aggregates), not a condemnation of pure sensory experience itself.
Eliminating the ‘knots’ (craving/clinging) is not like trimming a tree branch by branch until nothing is left. It’s like untying a knot in a hose. Once the knot (the obstruction) is gone, the water (life, energy, consciousness) can flow freely, without distortion or blockage. The goal isn’t to stop the flow; it’s to remove the distortions that cause the “painful pressure” and “blocked functionality”.
Third, the Buddhist path is about cultivating positive qualities, not just negating negatives (even more so!) The four noble truth, the noble eightfold path is a training in skillful action, not inaction. It cultivates: wisdom (prajñā), ethical conduct (śīla) and meditative absorption (samādhi). These states represent a re-orientation from “scratching itches” (craving-driven action) to skillful, compassionate and clear engagement with the world.
Last, on present day Extinctionists R is right to dismiss them. Extinctionism mistakes the problem (suffering born of craving and ignorance) for the vehicle of experience (life itself) and seeks to destroy the vehicle to solve the problem. The Buddhist solution is to repair the flawed navigation system of the driver (the mind), not to crash the car.
Your dialogue beautifully resolves the issue. The ‘knots’ metaphor is perfect. We aim to untie the painful, self-reinforcing knots of craving and aversion so that the muscle of our being can be strong, flexible, and capable of healthy, responsive tension—not perpetually knotted up in suffering, nor limp and atrophied in a pseudo-nirvana of inaction (stupor really).
The goal isn’t the extinction of life but the transcendence of a specific flawed operating system (the ‘itch-and-scratch’ or ‘knot-forming’ system) and its replacement with one of wisdom and compassion. That is the opposite of extinctionism, it’s about making life actually work.