People, in short, say that life is good. Benatar believes that they are
mistaken. “The quality of human life is, contrary to what many people
think, actually quite appalling,” he writes, in “The Human Predicament.”
He provides an escalating list of woes, designed to prove that even the
lives of happy people are worse than they think. We’re almost always
hungry or thirsty, he writes; when we’re not, we must go to the
bathroom. We often experience “thermal discomfort”—we are too hot or too
cold—or are tired and unable to nap. We suffer from itches, allergies,
and colds, menstrual pains or hot flashes. Life is a procession of
“frustrations and irritations”—waiting in traffic, standing in line,
filling out forms. Forced to work, we often find our jobs exhausting;
even “those who enjoy their work may have professional aspirations that
remain unfulfilled.” Many lonely people remain single, while those who
marry fight and divorce. “People want to be, look, and feel younger, and
yet they age relentlessly”...
--The Case for Not Being Born, by Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker
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