I have the sense that rationalists think there’s a a very important distinction between “literally everyone will die” and, say, “the majority of people will suffer and/or die.” I do not share that sense, and to me, the burden of proof set by the title is unreasonably high.
I would say that there is a distinction, but I agree that at those level of badness it sort of blurs out in a single blob of awfulness. But generally speaking I see it as, if someone was told “your whole family will be killed except your youngest son” or “your whole family will be killed, no one survives”… obviously both scenarios are horrifying but still you’d marginally prefer the first one. I think if people fall in the trap of being so taken by the extinction risk that they brush off a scenario in which, say, 95% of all people die, then they’re obviously losing perspective, but I also think it’s fair to say that the loss of all of humanity is worse than just the sum total of the loss of each individual in it (same reason why we consider genocide bad in and of its own—it’s not just the loss of people, it’s the loss of culture, knowledge, memory, on top of the people).
I would say that there is a distinction, but I agree that at those level of badness it sort of blurs out in a single blob of awfulness. But generally speaking I see it as, if someone was told “your whole family will be killed except your youngest son” or “your whole family will be killed, no one survives”… obviously both scenarios are horrifying but still you’d marginally prefer the first one. I think if people fall in the trap of being so taken by the extinction risk that they brush off a scenario in which, say, 95% of all people die, then they’re obviously losing perspective, but I also think it’s fair to say that the loss of all of humanity is worse than just the sum total of the loss of each individual in it (same reason why we consider genocide bad in and of its own—it’s not just the loss of people, it’s the loss of culture, knowledge, memory, on top of the people).