Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence is a 2006 book by South African philosopher David Benatar.

[2] Better Never to Have Been directly concerns Benatar's antinatalist philosophy: sentient beings are harmed when they are brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate.

[3] He derives this conclusion from two arguments: an asymmetry between good and bad things, such as pleasure and pain, and the view that human beings have an unreliable assessment of life's quality.

[6] On the subject of childlessness, he further writes that "the reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad.

[10] The creator of True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto, has cited Better Never to Have Been as an influence on the creation of the character Rust Cohle.