From a longtermist point of view, it is especially important to avoid outcomes that could have persistent and significant effects. These include events like human extinction, societal collapse, a permanent negative change in human values, or prolonged economic stagnation.
Over the long term, it seems reasonable to think in terms of cycles. You know, the pattern over the long term is that civilizations live, and then they fall, and then something else rises to take their place.
The Roman Empire must have seemed permanent to those living at that time, but the empire fell, a period of darkness (in Europe) followed, and then a new even more impressive civilization rose from the ashes.
Over the long term, it seems likely that eventually this life/death cycle of human civilizations will cease, for everything in nature that has a beginning also has an end.
This is maybe getting too philosophically off topic, but it is perhaps interesting to question whether our personal mortality, civilization mortality, or species mortality is automatically a bad thing. These events are all inevitable, so there’s a logic in making peace with them by whatever means one can find.
Maturity may involve the ability to hold conflicting inclinations together within one’s mind. On the one hand it is our job as individuals and a species to struggle mightily to survive, while at the same time joyfully embracing the reality that we won’t.
Over the long term, it seems reasonable to think in terms of cycles. You know, the pattern over the long term is that civilizations live, and then they fall, and then something else rises to take their place.
The Roman Empire must have seemed permanent to those living at that time, but the empire fell, a period of darkness (in Europe) followed, and then a new even more impressive civilization rose from the ashes.
Over the long term, it seems likely that eventually this life/death cycle of human civilizations will cease, for everything in nature that has a beginning also has an end.
This is maybe getting too philosophically off topic, but it is perhaps interesting to question whether our personal mortality, civilization mortality, or species mortality is automatically a bad thing. These events are all inevitable, so there’s a logic in making peace with them by whatever means one can find.
Maturity may involve the ability to hold conflicting inclinations together within one’s mind. On the one hand it is our job as individuals and a species to struggle mightily to survive, while at the same time joyfully embracing the reality that we won’t.