I only partly value maximizing human life, but I’ll comment anyway.
Where the harm done seems comparatively low, it makes sense to increase the capacity for human lives. Whether that capacity actually goes into increasing population or improving the lives of those that already exist is a decision that others can make. Interfering with individual decisions about whether or not new humans should be born seems much more fraught with likelihoods of excess harms. Division of the created capacity seems more of a fiddly social and political problem than a wide-view one in the scope of this question.
The main problem is that on this planet there is a partial trade off between capacity for humans to live and the capacity for other species to live. I unapologetically favour sapient species there. Not to exclusion of all else, and particularly not to the point of endangerment or extinction, but definitely value a population of a million kangaroos and two million humans (or friendly AGIs or aliens) more than ten million kangaroos and one million humans. There is no exact ratio here, and I could hypothetically support some people who are better than human (and not inimical to humans) having greater population capacity, though I would hope that humans would be able to improve over time just as I hope that they do in the real world.
In the long term, I do think we should spread out from our planet, and be “grabby” in that weak sense. The cost in terms of harm to other beings seems very much lower than on our planet, since as far as we can tell, the universe is otherwise very empty of life.
If we ever encounter other sapient species, I would hope that we could coexist instead of anything that results in the extinction or subjugation of either. If that’s not to be then it may help to already have the resources of a few galactic superclusters for the inevitable conflict. but I don’t see that as a primary reason to value spreading out.
I only partly value maximizing human life, but I’ll comment anyway.
Where the harm done seems comparatively low, it makes sense to increase the capacity for human lives. Whether that capacity actually goes into increasing population or improving the lives of those that already exist is a decision that others can make. Interfering with individual decisions about whether or not new humans should be born seems much more fraught with likelihoods of excess harms. Division of the created capacity seems more of a fiddly social and political problem than a wide-view one in the scope of this question.
The main problem is that on this planet there is a partial trade off between capacity for humans to live and the capacity for other species to live. I unapologetically favour sapient species there. Not to exclusion of all else, and particularly not to the point of endangerment or extinction, but definitely value a population of a million kangaroos and two million humans (or friendly AGIs or aliens) more than ten million kangaroos and one million humans. There is no exact ratio here, and I could hypothetically support some people who are better than human (and not inimical to humans) having greater population capacity, though I would hope that humans would be able to improve over time just as I hope that they do in the real world.
In the long term, I do think we should spread out from our planet, and be “grabby” in that weak sense. The cost in terms of harm to other beings seems very much lower than on our planet, since as far as we can tell, the universe is otherwise very empty of life.
If we ever encounter other sapient species, I would hope that we could coexist instead of anything that results in the extinction or subjugation of either. If that’s not to be then it may help to already have the resources of a few galactic superclusters for the inevitable conflict. but I don’t see that as a primary reason to value spreading out.