Even if you don’t think life extension technologies are a good thing, it’s only a matter of time before almost everyone thinks they are. Whatever part of “humanity” you value more than life will be gone forever.
Doesn’t this argument imply that we should self-modify to become monomaniacal fitness-maximizers, devoting every quantum of effort towards the goal of tiling the universe with copies of ourselves? Hey, if you don’t, someone else will! Natural selection marches on; it’s only a matter of time.
I find the likelihood of someone eventually doing this successfully to be very scary. And more generally, the likelihood of natural selection continuing post-AGI, leading to more Hansonian/Malthusian futures.
Doesn’t this argument imply that we should self-modify to become monomaniacal fitness-maximizers, devoting every quantum of effort towards the goal of tiling the universe with copies of ourselves? Hey, if you don’t, someone else will! Natural selection marches on; it’s only a matter of time.
I find the likelihood of someone eventually doing this successfully to be very scary. And more generally, the likelihood of natural selection continuing post-AGI, leading to more Hansonian/Malthusian futures.