So I haven’t read this because there’s all this other stuff higher in my queue that’s based on the assumption that he’s wrong and life is good, but David Benatar wrote “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence” claiming, roughly, that because humans seem to innately experience a loss of X as three times as bad as a gain of X, it would be better on average for a person not to be brought into existence.
From the reviews it seems Benatar’s practical upshot is that people shouldn’t kill themselves right away, nor kill their existing children, but neither should any more children be brought into existence.
If anyone is really into this topic it would be awesome for someone to read through the book and write a review that assumes the audience understands cognitive biases, astronomical waste, and the coming possibility of revising human nature so that “human nature” arguments aren’t acceptable unless they cover “all possible human natures we could eventually edit ourselves into”.
Still haven’t had time to read the book, and probably never will, but John Danaher has been covering some arguments over the book on his (excellent) blog: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
So I haven’t read this because there’s all this other stuff higher in my queue that’s based on the assumption that he’s wrong and life is good, but David Benatar wrote “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence” claiming, roughly, that because humans seem to innately experience a loss of X as three times as bad as a gain of X, it would be better on average for a person not to be brought into existence.
From the reviews it seems Benatar’s practical upshot is that people shouldn’t kill themselves right away, nor kill their existing children, but neither should any more children be brought into existence.
If anyone is really into this topic it would be awesome for someone to read through the book and write a review that assumes the audience understands cognitive biases, astronomical waste, and the coming possibility of revising human nature so that “human nature” arguments aren’t acceptable unless they cover “all possible human natures we could eventually edit ourselves into”.
Still haven’t had time to read the book, and probably never will, but John Danaher has been covering some arguments over the book on his (excellent) blog: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
I have the book. Maybe I’ll publish a reply from the transhumanist perspective if I ever find the time.