Well, if the future doesn’t take care of itself, then I definitely won’t be around to see it. ;)
And I don’t know if my being around to see it would be a good thing. I can’t imagine the distant future needing me any more than the present needs men like Nathan Bedford Forrest or any random ancient Roman gladiator.
What would the average educated person from 1800 think about today? How many things would they be horrified by? Let’s see...
Interracial marriages? Divorce being commonplace and accepted? The Bible not being taught in schools? Children talking back to their parents? Pornography? Women in the workforce? Gay rights?
I’m sure that the list could go on and on, and I’d also expect that I’d be as horrified by our future as our ancestors would be by our present.
Yes, the Romans wouldn’t be very disturbed by most of the above. Except the things about children and women, perhaps. They’d probably consider us too soft in a lot of ways...
Well, if the future doesn’t take care of itself, then I definitely won’t be around to see it. ;)
My point is that it might or might not “take care of itself”, we shouldn’t be so sure either way, which is why we should do what we can to nudge it in the right direction (by, f.ex., working on existential risks and FAI, among other things).
What would the average educated person from 1800 think about today? How many things would they be horrified by?
And how many things would they find amazing and worth living for (many of which we take for granted and don’t even notice anymore)?
I’m sure that the list could go on and on, and I’d also expect that I’d be as horrified by our future as our ancestors would be by our present.
As Kutta says, this isn’t a time machine scenario (unless cryonics are involved, I suppose). The future would come one day at a time, as it has always done throughout your life.
And I don’t know if my being around to see it would be a good thing. I can’t imagine the distant future needing me any more than the present needs men like Nathan Bedford Forrest or any random ancient Roman gladiator.
There is no time machine utilized here; you just live into the future normally. Aside from that, you should be able to explain most of those horrifying things to Roman Gladiators as good things given there’s enough time and effort. If I’m teleported to the future and see all kind of horrifying things around me, this evidence that the future is a bad future is somewhat discounted because first I have to rule out the possibility that the “horrors” I see are manifestations or side effects of moral progress.
There is no time machine utilized here; you just live into the future normally.
Well, I think the most plausible way for me to live to see more than 120 years after my date of birth involves cryonics—and that might as well be time travel into the future.
If I’m teleported to the future and see all kind of horrifying things around me, this evidence that the future is a bad future is somewhat discounted because first I have to rule out the possibility that the “horrors” I see are manifestations or side effects of moral progress.
I would think so too; if all goes reasonably well, the future would be better for those that live in it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be disturbed by it. And people in the future would probably judge me guilty of either contributing to or failing to prevent horrible crimes, much the same as we consider the ancient Romans to have been responsible for many horrible things. I don’t want to be put on trial for eating factory farmed meat, for example.
I don’t want to be put on trial for eating factory farmed meat, for example.
Behold the radiant beauty that is nullum crimen sine lege (specifically forbidding ex post facto laws as many modern legal systems do). Of course while this is pretty widely embraced by most decent places to live, it in practice isn’t really robust since we’ve seen violations of this principle on a massive scale in recent history.
But a future that upheld it consistently would be pretty neat. Or so it seems to me when naively looking at it.
Well, if the future doesn’t take care of itself, then I definitely won’t be around to see it. ;)
And I don’t know if my being around to see it would be a good thing. I can’t imagine the distant future needing me any more than the present needs men like Nathan Bedford Forrest or any random ancient Roman gladiator.
What would the average educated person from 1800 think about today? How many things would they be horrified by? Let’s see...
Interracial marriages?
Divorce being commonplace and accepted?
The Bible not being taught in schools?
Children talking back to their parents?
Pornography?
Women in the workforce?
Gay rights?
I’m sure that the list could go on and on, and I’d also expect that I’d be as horrified by our future as our ancestors would be by our present.
Incidentally an ancient Roman, gladiator or otherwise, would not be very surprised by any of the things you listed.
Yes, the Romans wouldn’t be very disturbed by most of the above. Except the things about children and women, perhaps. They’d probably consider us too soft in a lot of ways...
My point is that it might or might not “take care of itself”, we shouldn’t be so sure either way, which is why we should do what we can to nudge it in the right direction (by, f.ex., working on existential risks and FAI, among other things).
And how many things would they find amazing and worth living for (many of which we take for granted and don’t even notice anymore)?
As Kutta says, this isn’t a time machine scenario (unless cryonics are involved, I suppose). The future would come one day at a time, as it has always done throughout your life.
But the whole point of trying to reduce existential risk is that this may not be true.
There is no time machine utilized here; you just live into the future normally. Aside from that, you should be able to explain most of those horrifying things to Roman Gladiators as good things given there’s enough time and effort. If I’m teleported to the future and see all kind of horrifying things around me, this evidence that the future is a bad future is somewhat discounted because first I have to rule out the possibility that the “horrors” I see are manifestations or side effects of moral progress.
Well, I think the most plausible way for me to live to see more than 120 years after my date of birth involves cryonics—and that might as well be time travel into the future.
I would think so too; if all goes reasonably well, the future would be better for those that live in it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be disturbed by it. And people in the future would probably judge me guilty of either contributing to or failing to prevent horrible crimes, much the same as we consider the ancient Romans to have been responsible for many horrible things. I don’t want to be put on trial for eating factory farmed meat, for example.
Behold the radiant beauty that is nullum crimen sine lege (specifically forbidding ex post facto laws as many modern legal systems do). Of course while this is pretty widely embraced by most decent places to live, it in practice isn’t really robust since we’ve seen violations of this principle on a massive scale in recent history.
But a future that upheld it consistently would be pretty neat. Or so it seems to me when naively looking at it.