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Life Bias: Better to Live a Slave Than to Have Never Been Born?

There must be a term of this.  Please educate me.  In the meantime, I'll call it the "life bias."Most of us would rather be alive than dead.  We'll go to great lengths to remain alive, even if our lives suck.  Even most sex slaves don't kill themselves, though most drink and drug themselves to death as they seek to dope away the pain.We don't want to die because our selfish genes won't let us.  By virtue of being born, our selfish genes take over.We thus conclude that of course it is better to have been born into any situation at all, than to ever have been born.Is that really a justifiable conclusion?  Robin Hanson's post at Overcoming Bias reminded me of that "bias."  In response to a "pro-slavery" post, a commenter writes: Imagine a woman is considering having an abortion...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).