it is better to have never been/exist

Again I shall rebuttal and after present my final arguments. "the main purpose of this debate, is whether people who exist would rather not exist" and " it is about whether people who exist care about if they didn't" ...umm. No. This may be a misunderstanding rather than a straw man argument but none the less ill refute. The debate is about "It is better to have never been" the key word in this instance is "never" which we agreed upon in the beginning means "at no time in the past or future; not ever", it should be known there is a difference between continuing life and creating life, also at no point in this debate have I suggested that those who already exist should kill themselves thus ceasing to exist (obviously this would cause immense suffering which is what I am trying to avoid) instead I have suggested those who already exist stop creating 'existers' thus eventually ending suffering. We have another misunderstanding with " he was also saying that it would be better if the entire universe didn't exist" this is not at all what I meant the universe still exists but conscious beings do not exist which is also a condition we agreed upon before we begun the debate with "been= existence/ have objective reality or being" and "I think for arguments sake we should agree that existence occurs when one develops a consciousness". Now my point being that whilst comets and rabies may be a problem they are only a problem to the someone who exist but to a non 'exister' they are not a problem, thus it is better to have never been. "I feel that my opponent obscured the picture by saying human consumption causes animal to be maltreated". Oh no make no mistake this is still maltreatment and Ill show why. It is creating life/ conscious beings that to can suffer and the animals have no other purpose but to die, it is creating life to take life. Billions upon billions each year. Now let me put this into perspective, imagine instead of sheep farms there were people farms, people were breed raised to about 20 and then slaughtered and their meat and other parts sold; also some children would be created and then killed at age 1 or 2 (like lambs) so the child is brought into the world just to have its throat slit. It is painfully obvious in this case that it is better to have never been. " The entirety of the horrible things that my opponent has mention, end up only to be less than a percent of people who existed during the same time." This is definitely a straw man argument. If we look at my opponents reference we see that all up 100 billion people have ever existed on earth my statistics of suffering (excluding death as obviously death affects everyone therefore the number would be equal to 100 billion) is indeed only in the hundreds of millions, however the earliest records I used (excluding the natural disaster statistic) only began at the start of the 20th century. Now consider that my opponents reference said that the human species have been around for 200 thousand years. I have shown the terrible suffering only in the 20th century and the star of the 21st century, that's only 215 years out of 200 thousand years. In the totality of human existence the amount of suffering would be unthinkable. " I would like to say that there are many people, myself included, that do not believe that they or their children will be spared from horrendous misery." If this is the case I hope you don't have children, but then again as I have argued I hope all procreation stops. Now to my final arguments My opponent has at several times made claim that people overall have good lives, this is an illusion and self assessment of ones own life is usually wrong. Also my opponent claimed "I and many others would be willing to live through such an ordeal [immense suffering] for this small probability [of life getting better]". This is a very easy thing to say until one is thrown in such a situation, talk is cheap. Take for example Donald Cowat who suffered from a gas explosion that burnt two thirds of his body. He refused extremely painful but life saving treatment, but the doctors ignored his wishes and treated him nonetheless. His life was saved and he then went on to achieve considerable success. My opponent has claimed that it was well worth going through that suffering as his life got better, his life did in fact get better. However Donald the actual sufferer in this instance says that the post burn goods were not worth the cost of enduring the treatment which he had been subjected to (1). I previously said self assessment of one's own life is usually wrong I shall now explain why. There are a number of well known features of human psychology that can account for peoples favorable self assessments of their own life. It is these psychological phenomena that explain why my opponent and other 'Pollyannas' are living in illusion. The first is called the 'Pollyanna principle' people usually tend to recall when asked about their lives positive memories over negative one's (2) this means people actually tend to remember past experiences as more rosy than they actually occurred. This selective recall distorts how well we think our I lives are it is a self assessed bias. Also adaption (the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment) and habituation (make or become accustomed or used to something) could be biological reasons for this illusion. The above psychological phenomenon are unsurprising from an evolutionary perspective. they militate against suicide and favour reproduction. If our lives are quite as bad as I have argued they are and If people were prone to see this true quality of their lives for what it is, then they might be much more inclined to kill themselves or at least stop reproducing. My view whilst still true tends not to be naturally selected. reference: 1. http://articles.baltimoresun.com... 2. http://kirstenuhler.com...