Now as for the “existential risk” rhetoric… The difference between 9.9 billions dying out of 10 billions, and 9.9 billions dying out of 9.9 billions, is primarily aesthetic in nature. It’s promoted as the supreme moral difference primarily by people with other agendas, such as “making a living from futurist speculation”.
Not if you care about future generations. If everybody dies, there are no future generations. If 100 million people survive, you can possibly rebuild civilization.
(If the 100 million eventually die out too, without finding any way to sustain the species, and it just takes longer, that’s still an existential catastrophe.)
Not if you care about future generations. If everybody dies, there are no future generations. If 100 million people survive, you can possibly rebuild civilization.
I care about the well being of the future people, but not their mere existence. As do most people who don’t disapprove of birth control but do disapprove of, for example, drinking while pregnant.
Let’s postulate a hypothetical tiny universe, where you have Adam and Eve except they are sort of like horse and donkey—any children they’ll have are certain to be sterile. The food is plentiful etc etc. Is it supremely important that they have a large number of (certainly sterile) children?
Not if you care about future generations. If everybody dies, there are no future generations. If 100 million people survive, you can possibly rebuild civilization.
(If the 100 million eventually die out too, without finding any way to sustain the species, and it just takes longer, that’s still an existential catastrophe.)
I care about the well being of the future people, but not their mere existence. As do most people who don’t disapprove of birth control but do disapprove of, for example, drinking while pregnant.
Let’s postulate a hypothetical tiny universe, where you have Adam and Eve except they are sort of like horse and donkey—any children they’ll have are certain to be sterile. The food is plentiful etc etc. Is it supremely important that they have a large number of (certainly sterile) children?