I enjoyed skimming your post, and appreciate many of your points.
One concept particularly struck me, “It’s worth noting that if longer human durations are unlikely, this also means larger human population sizes per century are also vanishingly unlikely. ”
I often hear the classic argument that “there is a possibility human populations are really really big in the future, and the future is so long that their wellbeing matters really quite a lot.” I’ve never played around with the idea that the is a lot of doubt over large populations for long times. Which must be accounted for and would lessen their importance for me taking action now.
Arguing “this is all the more reason to work harder to make their lives come to pass” strikes me as slightly dishonest, since the opposite is equally true: maybe we do our best make that giant future possible, and for some unforeseen reason people still don’t (want to?) proliferate.
Thank you for provoking some reflection on my assumptions, and thanks for such a comprehensive post with accessible bolded topic sentences.
I enjoyed skimming your post, and appreciate many of your points.
One concept particularly struck me, “It’s worth noting that if longer human durations are unlikely, this also means larger human population sizes per century are also vanishingly unlikely. ”
I often hear the classic argument that “there is a possibility human populations are really really big in the future, and the future is so long that their wellbeing matters really quite a lot.” I’ve never played around with the idea that the is a lot of doubt over large populations for long times. Which must be accounted for and would lessen their importance for me taking action now.
Arguing “this is all the more reason to work harder to make their lives come to pass” strikes me as slightly dishonest, since the opposite is equally true: maybe we do our best make that giant future possible, and for some unforeseen reason people still don’t (want to?) proliferate.
Thank you for provoking some reflection on my assumptions, and thanks for such a comprehensive post with accessible bolded topic sentences.