Creutzer comments on [Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17) - Less Wrong

3 Post author: solipsist 17 February 2014 05:34AM

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Comment author: Creutzer 19 February 2014 12:41:54AM *  2 points [-]

You might want to look at the writings of David Benatar. He's a professional philosopher who argues something similar in spirit. His position it that it would be better for there to not be (and never have been) any sentient life. He is not as crazy as this may sound; the problem is just that he has one premise that is totally intuitive to some people while others completely fail to see its appeal, and there's no real reason for or against accepting it other than intuition. The shortest thing to read would be his paper "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence". He also has a book titled "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence".