Reading "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:11:36 +0000

Hello! Inspired by the neolab, I decided to read “The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect” by Roger WIlliams. Two things to start: there are SPOILERS AHEAD, and I would also like to repeat the author’s disclaimer from the book:

This online novel contains strong language and extreme depictions of acts of sex and violence. Readers who are sensitive to such things should exercise discretion.

This post will be family-friendly, but if you decide to read the original source, you should keep that in mind. In addition, I found some good suggestions on what parts to skip here (spoilers there), though I did not find this until after reading because I wanted to go in clean, and I’m not traumatized.

Reflections on the Preface and Introduction to "Better Never to Have Been" by David Benatar

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 02:17:40 +0000

Preface

Relatively unremarkable, the only notable thing is that he seemed quite pessimistic about the expected impact of his work, though I suppose pessimism is what I would expect. The preceding sentence was not intended to be derogatory.

Introduction

Ibid means that the same source cited. He refutes the idea that this conclusion that it is good to not exist is absurd. That conclusion is absurd, because one can do no good for one that does not exist, because definitionally nothing can be done to them. He refutes this by inverting this, and arguing that existing is bad for those existing. I think that this is an as-of-yet unproven assertion that existence is bad for those existing, but I do accept the idea that existencecan be bad for those existing. He asserts that life is ultimately pointless. He argues that pro-natal views are inherently advantaged, which I accept given that I accept that a child is inherently more likely to choose views agreeing with their parents than against them. He speaks a little of social pressures, but that’s mostly uninteresting to me, apart from this quote:

Reading on Amitav Krishna

Reading "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"

Reflections on the Preface and Introduction to "Better Never to Have Been" by David Benatar

Preface

Introduction