Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad—and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that existence is inherently harmful, and while we cannot change our own birth, we can influence the future of potential lives.
David Benatar’s quote reflects a philosophical stance known as anti-natalism, arguing that being brought into existence causes harm and that even the best lives have significant suffering. He emphasizes that recognition of this harm is crucial and implies a moral responsibility to prevent the birth of future individuals to mitigate further suffering, thus highlighting the burdens of existence versus the absence of life.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the morality of bringing children into the world.
It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.
Being-alone is a deficient mode of being-with; its possibility is a proof for the latter.
There is one story left, one road: that it is. And on this road there are very many signs that, being, is uncreated and imperishable, whole, unique, unwavering, and complete.
I thought I might find the real me in Oxford. Civil rights made me accept being a black intellectual. There was no such thing before, but then it was something. So I became one.
Isn't it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.
If the human race develops an electronic nervous system, outside the bodies of individual people, thus giving us all one mind and one global body, this is almost precisely what has happened in the organization of cells which compose our own bodies. We have already done it. [...] If all this ends with the human race leaving no more trace of itself in the universe than a system of electronic patterns, why should that trouble us? For that is exactly what we are now!
These practices - non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity, and non-receiving - are to be practised by every man, woman, and child; by every soul, irrespective of nation, country, or position.
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