I DID NOT ASK TO BE HERE.

Is it preferable not to have existed? Some people think it would be better if there was no conscious life at all. The philosophical position known as antinatalism holds that procreation constitutes moral evil. Therefore, we ought to steer clear of it. Some antinatalists believe that just humans should stop having children, while others argue that it would have been better for all sentient beings if they had never existed. But isn't it wrong to be against childbirth? Why would somebody be opposed to the development of new life? David Benatar is one of the most well-known antinatalist thinkers of our time. Instead, Not to Have Been, one of the books he wrote, contains a thorough explanation of his antinatalist beliefs. Benatar contends that creating new sentient life is always evil because doing so causes grave harm. Therefore, the most beneficial thing we may do for our future offspring is to avoid procreation because those who haven't been born aren't subject to the pain of life. His antinatalist stance is, therefore, not motivated by a dislike for sentient creatures. It is motivated by compassion because it wants to stop the inevitable misery of being born. Antinatalism is a contentious issue that conflicts with many people's worldviews. The general public likely opposes antinatalism since they view it as misanthropic. After all, isn't destroying all sentient life to alleviate suffering a bit harsh?

When we consider life, we can conclude that we encounter both good and evil, pleasure and suffering. In light of this, life is worthwhile when the good outweighs the negative. But life is not worthwhile when the terrible outweighs the good. Nevertheless, from an antinatalist perspective, no matter how you look at it, the negative always outweighs the positive. Because of this, it is always better not to be born than to be alive, even when we think our lives are nice and enjoyable. David Benatar asserts that existing causes pleasant and unpleasant feelings, such as pain and pleasure. When we encounter pain, it hurts, and as a result, we suffer. We sense delight while we are enjoying ourselves. Life comprises the Eight Worldly Winds, as the Buddhists would put it: gratitude and resentment, gain and loss, achievement and failure, joy and sadness. A child we bring into the world will unavoidably be subjected to these winds. An upbeat, hopeful perspective on this situation might be that the youngster now has the chance to experience all the wonderful things life offers. The person could have a lot of enjoyable experiences and discover lasting meaning that serves as the cornerstone of his existence. But do these pleasures of life—such as enjoying delicious cuisine and listening to lovely music—make living preferable to nonexistence? Do these encounters worth the hardships of life? And even if a child's life ends up being at least somewhat pleasant or happy, would it nevertheless be preferable to prevent its birth? Benatar believed a child might have been more fortunate if it had never been. He explains an imbalance between the degree of discomfort and pleasure we encounter when we are present and its absence when we are not. The following graph, which can be found in his book, illustrates the benefit of nonexistence over existence due to this asymmetry. We encounter both pleasure and pain when we are alive, both undesirable. However, when we are not present, neither pleasure nor suffering is felt, which is desirable and acceptable. Therefore, both good and bad come with being alive. Being dead brings both good and terrible. As a result, nonexistence is preferable. Benatar offers us various methods of contrasting existence with not existing that demonstrate the validity of the asymmetry. One typical argument regarding the antinatalist approach is that if we aren't born, we miss out on all of life's beautiful, enjoyable experiences. For instance, we could claim that the lack of pleasure isn't "not bad" but "bad." Therefore, we might think missing out on life is bad. Can we, however, conclude from a different graph's symmetry that the absence of pleasure that results from nonexistence is just as unpleasant as the presence of suffering that results from existence? According to Benatar, the lack of pleasure is not awful "unless there is someone for whom the absence is a deprivation." Therefore, a non-existent person doesn't go through deprivation or experience a lack of pleasure. Someone who exists undoubtedly feels pain, including the lack of pleasure that only existing people may experience. The absence of pleasure is neutral for someone who doesn't exist; it has no effect. Therefore, it would be unfair to categorize as "bad" the absence of enjoyment (which results from nonexistence).

Benatar uses the following example to demonstrate the asymmetry: While we are understandably sad for foreign nationals whose lives are marked by suffering when we learn that an island is uninhabited, we are not identically sad for the joyful people who, if they had existed, would've populated this island. On Mars, no one genuinely laments the existence of hypothetical people like this, feeling bad that they cannot experience life. However, if we discovered that there was intelligent life on Mars but that the Martians were in pain, we would feel bad. Quote completed. Nevertheless, people appear to prefer existing over having nothing and would not want to have missed out on it, despite existence's drawbacks compared to nonexistence. We even create new beings who experience a similar fate to our own. And to assume that "misfortune in general is the rule," in the words of one particular philosopher, "pain far outweighs the pleasure in this world."

According to the infamously pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, "we tend to find pleasure to be not nearly as enjoyable as we expected, and pain very much more painful." He provided a thought experiment to support his assertion. Which sensation—the joy of eating or the agony of being eaten—is more intense? Contrary to non-life, life is a constant tragedy. And if we reproduce, we add to the number of living things and their pain. The actual birth is terrifying for the mother. The child's future is bleak after being thrust into life without consent. Imagine how individuals, especially toddlers, deal with psychological issues like trauma, chronic illnesses, and pains. Many people are hungry and homeless because they live in war-torn places or great poverty. Many others abuse antidepressants despite having access to plenty of safety, comfort, and wealth. And even though our disasters are minimal, we nevertheless feel the unhappiness that is a natural part of life (which we'll discuss later). We cannot avoid the deterioration of age, which ultimately leads to death. Many people are afraid of the vast, black unknown that exists before and after this brief interruption of time we call life; therefore the very idea of death is a cause of sorrow in and of itself. There is an existential sorrow ingrained in human life caused by our complete ignorance of who we are, why we're here, and where we're headed. Schopenhauer compares early childhood to being in a theater "before the curtain is raised," anxiously anticipating the beginning of the performance while being gifted with the gift of ignorance. Children sometimes appear like innocent convicts who have been sentenced to life in jail rather than death, and they are all still unaware of what their sentence entails if we could foresee it. However, everyone wants to live till old age, a stage of life where one might say, "It's bad today, it'll be worse tomorrow, and so on until the worst of all." Let's say that by "being alive," we discover misery everywhere, with no sign of alleviation from the excruciating torment.

We could be better off not existing at all if Schopenhauer was right when he said that life is an "unprofitable show, disturbing the fortunate calm of nonexistence." However, not everyone has a miserable experience with life. These people consider their life to be joyful and feel fortunate as a result. But according to Benatar, due to a psychological phenomenon known as the Pollyanna Principle: a human predisposition toward optimism, people fool themselves by having an "unduly rosy picture" of their existence. We tend to remember happier than negative events and overestimate how great things will be. Thus our self-evaluations are misleading. Humans are also quite good at adapting to new circumstances. Instead of considering a more objective, cosmic perspective or the possibility that the great calm of nonexistence might be a preferable state, they base their judgments on comparisons with other people. Therefore, our evaluation of our life is subjective instead of objective. Since suffering is all we are familiar with, we cannot really comprehend what it would be like to be free from it.

Escaping the cycle of reincarnation is part of the Buddhist concept of enlightenment, which is a condition in which pain is nonexistent. The ultimate liberation from suffering, nirvana, signifies that we are not reborn into this torturous existence (also known as "samsara"). Buddhism thus adheres to antinatalist logic, which holds that since nonexistence (or the cessation of the cycle of reincarnation) is painless, it is better to exist, which is unpleasant by nature. For many people, never existing once more can sound more tragic than liberating. We wouldn't be able to enjoy things like falling in love or enjoying beautiful scenery if we didn't exist. Why would we choose emptiness over the chance to enjoy the beauty and pleasure of life? In our consumerist culture, we applaud the never-ending pursuit of satisfying our demands because it enriches life and makes it worthwhile. Isn't it wonderful that we experience life to the fullest by traveling, partying, dining out, appreciating art, and having a good time in bed? In actuality, the majority (if not all) of the things consumerism encourages are coping mechanisms for life's unhappiness. In Schopenhauer's opinion, the things we like aren't the things we seek in themselves. Pleasure is not a pleasant feeling in and of itself but rather a negative sensation.

On the other hand, experiencing pain is not bad; rather, it is good. We're less interested in pleasure because, to paraphrase Schopenhauer, "It is good which is evil; in other words, joy and fulfillment always imply a need fulfilled, some state of pain placed to an end." Our goal is to eliminate discomfort. Then, we could assert that obtaining pleasure is a way to end the pain. Surprisingly, Buddhist scholars share a similar perspective. Ajahn Sona, a Buddhist monk, describes a metaphor that contrasts having desire with owing money. It feels good to pay off our bills. But if we don't, we feel uncomfortable or dissatisfied. It needs to be relieved because it hurts. For instance, the desire for beer necessitates the clenching of alcohol. A specific amount of money is needed to satisfy the desire to be a millionaire. Let's say we have a lot of desires but lack the satisfactions that go along with them. In that event, life becomes intolerable because we are trapped in a never-ending cycle of excruciating suffering with no way to put out the flames. But if we don't have desires, pleasure is no longer relevant. According to an antinatalist argument, the most effective approach to avoid feeling the unhappiness, discomfort, and anguish of all these needs that come with existing is to not exist in the first place. We don't have to put out a fire if we don't start one. Buddhists refer to the continual pain (or, more accurately, "dissatisfaction") of existence as "dukkha." Once more, achieving nirvana frees one from dukkha and the cycle of reincarnation. It's reassuring for an antinatalist to learn that the highest goal possible in one of the biggest global faiths is to never experience conception again.

Both misanthropic and altruistic antinatalism exist. The ideas made by David Benatar are motivated by both compassion and contempt for humanity. We can see from human history that we can do immense harm to one another and the environment. We only need to consider the atrocities committed during the Second World War, how we treat creatures in slaughterhouses or the way we cause ocean pollution. Wouldn't it be better if our species didn't exist despite all these flaws? David Benatar's philanthropic antinatalism acknowledges the suffering of humanity and all other sentient beings while proposing a solution to end our group's suffering. It is quite compassionate toward them. As the Buddhists may concur, there is always a risk of injury. Even though the severity differs for each person, every child born into the universe will feel pain and cause it to others. There is always some suffering, whether physical pain, the anguish of loss, or the sorrow of dissatisfaction. Even Buddhist monks who acquired the non-suffering condition of 'enlightenment' had endured suffering and maybe killed a few bugs. An antinatalist who claims that being born is always a major harm adopts a strong position based on logic. We won't experience hurt or cause it if we never come into being in the first place.

Additionally, we won't feel its absence since we are not deprived of pleasure. However, the general public will ignore these valid points and maintain that welcoming additional people into the globe is morally right. However, assuming parents genuinely love their children, how could that be from an antinatalist perspective? The best thing we can do for our unborn children, if it prevents them from suffering a severe injury, is to never give birth to them in the first place. Most sentient beings have a biological need to reproduce. We have children simply because it's what we do, frequently without much thinking.

Additionally, individuals reproduce to give their lives purpose. Still, they don't care about the negative effects that having children has on them, let alone consider whether it would be better for the child not to be born. Then, as these kids become older, they have children of their own to reap the same rewards as their parents, as do their kids' kids, and so on. This is a procreational Ponzi scheme, according to Benatar. It's a Ponzi scheme in that it will eventually fail. In an interview, he said, "And the last ones are going to have to pay an expense and will pay a price. Our kids will be hurt. They will experience physical pain, grief, heartbreak, various forms of abuse, and calamities, including poverty, addiction, war, disease, the death of loved ones, and death in the end. And even if they are generally spared from suffering in life, they will nevertheless feel perpetually unhappy with their state of being. However, given how flawed we are as a species, it seems likely that our offspring would hurt our surroundings and other sentient beings. Therefore, from an antinatalist perspective, being born is always wrong.

Assume we accept Schopenhauer's and Benatar's pessimistic claims that our existence would be considerably better off if it had never occurred. Now that we've arrived, what should we do? Should we lament our misfortune for the rest of our lives? Should we try to extinguish conscious life to lessen suffering? Should we also commit suicide for the same reason? The antinatalist claim that it would be ideal to not even exist does not suggest that if we are unlucky enough to be alive, we should hurt others or commit acts of self-destruction. Such recommendations go beyond what is intended and increase the suffering we are trying to lessen.

Additionally, there is a crucial distinction between eliminating life after it has been produced and stopping life from being generated. There is a distinction between a life unworthy of beginning and one unworthy of continuing. Although not having been born at all could be ideal, a life worth living might be second best. For instance, helping others find purpose in their lives could also assist us. Nobody asked to be here, after all. Thus, we are all suffering together, which has the potential to be a great source of compassion.