I would just say as a normie, that these extensive thought experiments of factory humans mostly don’t concern themselves to me - though I could see a lot of justification of suffering to allow humanity to exist for say, another 200 billion years. People have always suffered in some extent to do anything; and certainly having children entails some trade-offs, but existence itself is worth it.
But mostly the idea of a future without humanity, or even one without our biology, just strikes me with such abject horror that it can’t be countenanced.
I have children myself and I do wonder if this is a major difference. To imagine a world where they have no purpose drives me quite aghast and I feel this would reflect the thinking of the majority of humans.
And as such, hopefully drive policy which will, in my best futures, drive humanity forward. I see a good end as humanity spreading out into the stars and becoming inexhaustible, perhaps turning into multiple different species but ultimately, still with the struggles, suffering and triumphs of who we are.
I’ve seen arguments here and there about how the values drift from say, a hunter gatherer to us would horrify us, but I don’t see that. I see a hunter-gatherer and relate to him on a basic level. He wants food, he will compete for a mate and one day, die and his family will seek comfort from each other. My work will be different from his but I comprehend him, and as writings like Still A Pygmy show, they comprehend us.
The descriptions of things like mind uploading of accepting the extinction of humanity strike me with such wildness that it’s akin to a vast, terrifying revulsion. It’s Lovecraftian horror and I think, very far from any moral goodness to inflict upon the majority of humanity.
My point isn’t that extinction is a-ok, but rather that you could “price it” as the total sum of all human deaths (which is the lower bound, really) and there would still be a case for that. It still remains very much to avoid! I think it’s worse than that but I also don’t think it’s worse than anything. If the choice was between going extinct now or condemning future generations to lives of torture, I’d pick extinction as the lesser evil. And conversely I am also very sceptical of extremely long term reasoning, especially if used to justify present suffering. You bring up children but those are still very much real and present. You wouldn’t want them to suffer for the sake of hypothetical 40th century humans, I assume.
Depends on the degree of suffering to be totally honest- obviously I’m fine with them suffering to some extent, which is why we drive then to behave, etc so they can have better futures and sometimes conjoin them to have children so that we can continue the family line.
I think my answer actually is yes, if hypothetically their suffering allows the existence of 40th century humans, it’s pretty noble and yes, I’d be fine with it.
if hypothetically their suffering allows the existence of 40th century humans, it’s pretty noble and yes, I’d be fine with it
So supposing everything goes all right, for every more human born today there might be millions of descendants in the far future. Does that mean we have a moral duty to procreate as much as possible? I mean, the increased stress or financial toll surely don’t hold a candle to the increased future utility experienced by so many more humans!
To me it seems this sort of reasoning is bunk. Extinction is an extreme of course but every generation must look first and foremost after the people under its own direct care, and their values and interests. Potential future humans are for now just that, potential. They make no sense as moral subjects of any kind. I think this extends to extinction, which is only worse than the cumulative death of all humans insofar as current humans wish for there to be a future. Not because of the opportunity cost of how non-existing humans will not get to experience non-existing pleasures.
I apologize for being a normie but I can’t accept anything that involves non-existence of humanity and would indeed accept an enormous amount of suffering if those were the options.
I would just say as a normie, that these extensive thought experiments of factory humans mostly don’t concern themselves to me - though I could see a lot of justification of suffering to allow humanity to exist for say, another 200 billion years. People have always suffered in some extent to do anything; and certainly having children entails some trade-offs, but existence itself is worth it.
But mostly the idea of a future without humanity, or even one without our biology, just strikes me with such abject horror that it can’t be countenanced.
I have children myself and I do wonder if this is a major difference. To imagine a world where they have no purpose drives me quite aghast and I feel this would reflect the thinking of the majority of humans.
And as such, hopefully drive policy which will, in my best futures, drive humanity forward. I see a good end as humanity spreading out into the stars and becoming inexhaustible, perhaps turning into multiple different species but ultimately, still with the struggles, suffering and triumphs of who we are.
I’ve seen arguments here and there about how the values drift from say, a hunter gatherer to us would horrify us, but I don’t see that. I see a hunter-gatherer and relate to him on a basic level. He wants food, he will compete for a mate and one day, die and his family will seek comfort from each other. My work will be different from his but I comprehend him, and as writings like Still A Pygmy show, they comprehend us.
The descriptions of things like mind uploading of accepting the extinction of humanity strike me with such wildness that it’s akin to a vast, terrifying revulsion. It’s Lovecraftian horror and I think, very far from any moral goodness to inflict upon the majority of humanity.
My point isn’t that extinction is a-ok, but rather that you could “price it” as the total sum of all human deaths (which is the lower bound, really) and there would still be a case for that. It still remains very much to avoid! I think it’s worse than that but I also don’t think it’s worse than anything. If the choice was between going extinct now or condemning future generations to lives of torture, I’d pick extinction as the lesser evil. And conversely I am also very sceptical of extremely long term reasoning, especially if used to justify present suffering. You bring up children but those are still very much real and present. You wouldn’t want them to suffer for the sake of hypothetical 40th century humans, I assume.
Depends on the degree of suffering to be totally honest- obviously I’m fine with them suffering to some extent, which is why we drive then to behave, etc so they can have better futures and sometimes conjoin them to have children so that we can continue the family line.
I think my answer actually is yes, if hypothetically their suffering allows the existence of 40th century humans, it’s pretty noble and yes, I’d be fine with it.
So supposing everything goes all right, for every more human born today there might be millions of descendants in the far future. Does that mean we have a moral duty to procreate as much as possible? I mean, the increased stress or financial toll surely don’t hold a candle to the increased future utility experienced by so many more humans!
To me it seems this sort of reasoning is bunk. Extinction is an extreme of course but every generation must look first and foremost after the people under its own direct care, and their values and interests. Potential future humans are for now just that, potential. They make no sense as moral subjects of any kind. I think this extends to extinction, which is only worse than the cumulative death of all humans insofar as current humans wish for there to be a future. Not because of the opportunity cost of how non-existing humans will not get to experience non-existing pleasures.
I apologize for being a normie but I can’t accept anything that involves non-existence of humanity and would indeed accept an enormous amount of suffering if those were the options.