From the perspective of total utilitarianism and longtermism, two things will plausibly dominate the direct value of additional near-term people:
The impact of additional near-term people on animal suffering. This seems very likely to be net negative.
The impact of additional near-term people on the risk of extinction/longtermist issues. I’m very uncertain about this. A larger population could result in faster economic growth—which would likely be net positive. But intuitively a population that is growing too quickly—particularly in countries where women would prefer to have fewer children—could also face social issues that contribute to social and political instability (think mass unemployment/poverty of young people, mass migration into other countries), which could have consequences that increase the risk of longterm harm.
I agree with you that those concerns will dominate the value of adding near-term future people. However, I think that even when those concerns are accounted for, adding near-term future people remains a good thing, as argued here.
Is there a specific part of that article you’re referring to? It mostly seems to be saying there isn’t a particularly strong case for near-term population growth.
In terms of animals, they state:
The negative effects of animal consumption alone may arguably make the net effect of additional human lives negative. However, animal consumption most likely will only continue for a couple of centuries, while the benefits of population growth that we consider would purportedly last much longer.
But this doesn’t seem to be addressing the marginal impact of additional near-term future people on animals. I don’t think they’ve tried to estimate that. They simply seem to be dismissing it as relatively unimportant beyond the next few centuries.
That’s right, and after reading about the impact of marginal people on animal suffering some more, I’m now much more unsure that adding near-term people is a good thing, purely because of the domination of animal suffering concerns. I retract my previous comment. Thanks for the update!
From the perspective of total utilitarianism and longtermism, two things will plausibly dominate the direct value of additional near-term people:
The impact of additional near-term people on animal suffering. This seems very likely to be net negative.
The impact of additional near-term people on the risk of extinction/longtermist issues. I’m very uncertain about this. A larger population could result in faster economic growth—which would likely be net positive. But intuitively a population that is growing too quickly—particularly in countries where women would prefer to have fewer children—could also face social issues that contribute to social and political instability (think mass unemployment/poverty of young people, mass migration into other countries), which could have consequences that increase the risk of longterm harm.
I agree with you that those concerns will dominate the value of adding near-term future people. However, I think that even when those concerns are accounted for, adding near-term future people remains a good thing, as argued here.
Is there a specific part of that article you’re referring to? It mostly seems to be saying there isn’t a particularly strong case for near-term population growth.
In terms of animals, they state:
But this doesn’t seem to be addressing the marginal impact of additional near-term future people on animals. I don’t think they’ve tried to estimate that. They simply seem to be dismissing it as relatively unimportant beyond the next few centuries.
That’s right, and after reading about the impact of marginal people on animal suffering some more, I’m now much more unsure that adding near-term people is a good thing, purely because of the domination of animal suffering concerns. I retract my previous comment. Thanks for the update!