
“The answer is not to make more humans. Once you believe this whole thing is ultimately pointless, it is ridiculous to generate more adversity-facing meaning seekers.”
― Conversations about the Meaning of Life
― Conversations about the Meaning of Life
“absent pleasures are not bad”
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
“Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand! Jewish saying”
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
“A charmed life is so rare that for every one such life there are millions of wretched lives. Some know that their baby will be among the unfortunate. Nobody knows, however, that their baby will be one of the allegedly lucky few. Great suffering could await any person that is brought into existence. Even the most privileged people could give birth to a child that will suffer unbearably, be raped, assaulted, or be murdered brutally. The optimist surely bears the burden of justifying this procreational Russian roulette. Given that there are no real advantages over never existing for those who are brought into existence, it is hard to see how the significant risk of serious harm could be justified. If we count not only the unusually severe harms that anybody could endure, but also the quite routine ones of ordinary human life, then we find that matters are still worse for cheery procreators. It shows that they play Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun—aimed, of course, not at their own heads, but at those of their future offspring.”
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
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