Epistemic status: elaborating on a topic by using math on it; making the implicit explicit
From an collective standpoint, the utility function over #humans looks like this: it starts at 0 when there are 0 humans, slowly rises until it reaches “recolonization potential”, then rapidly shoots up, eventually slowing down but still linear. However, from an individual standpoint, the utility function is just 0 for death, 1 for life. Because of the shape of the collective utility function, you want to “disentangle” deaths, but the individual doesn’t have the same incentive.
#humans has a decreasing marginal returns, since really the main concern for #humanity is the ability to recover, and that while increases with #humans it is not linear.
I do think individuals have “some” concerns about whether humanity in general will survive, since all humans still share *some* genes with each individual, the survival and propagation of strangers can still have some utility for a human individual (I’m not sure where am I going here...)
I agree that #humans has decreasing marginal returns at these scales—I meant linear in the asymptotic sense. (This is important because large numbers of possible future humans depend on humanity surviving today; if the world was going to end in a year then (a) would be better than (b). In other words, the point of recovering is to have lots of utility in the future.)
I don’t think most people care about their genes surviving into the far future. (If your reasoning is evolutionary, then read this if you haven’t already.) I agree that many people care about the far future, though.
Epistemic status: elaborating on a topic by using math on it; making the implicit explicit
From an collective standpoint, the utility function over #humans looks like this: it starts at 0 when there are 0 humans, slowly rises until it reaches “recolonization potential”, then rapidly shoots up, eventually slowing down but still linear. However, from an individual standpoint, the utility function is just 0 for death, 1 for life. Because of the shape of the collective utility function, you want to “disentangle” deaths, but the individual doesn’t have the same incentive.
Oh yes! This can make more sense now.
#humans has a decreasing marginal returns, since really the main concern for #humanity is the ability to recover, and that while increases with #humans it is not linear.
I do think individuals have “some” concerns about whether humanity in general will survive, since all humans still share *some* genes with each individual, the survival and propagation of strangers can still have some utility for a human individual (I’m not sure where am I going here...)
I agree that #humans has decreasing marginal returns at these scales—I meant linear in the asymptotic sense. (This is important because large numbers of possible future humans depend on humanity surviving today; if the world was going to end in a year then (a) would be better than (b). In other words, the point of recovering is to have lots of utility in the future.)
I don’t think most people care about their genes surviving into the far future. (If your reasoning is evolutionary, then read this if you haven’t already.) I agree that many people care about the far future, though.