“Regarding your aside, I think that illustrates an interesting potential solution to the dilemma (?) The purpose is not to save lives (because in your case, the world where 100% of people die is less or equally bad than 50% of people dying). This is an interesting case, and perhaps there’s a way to rephrase the original claim to accommodate it, though I’m not certain how.”
I must have inadequately written my parenthetical aside; perhaps I inadequately wrote everything.
The purpose is entirely to save lives. We have a world with seven billion people. If all of them died, it amount of disutility in my view would be X times seven billion, where X is the disutility from someone dying. If the world instead had fourteen billion people and seven billion of them died, the disutility would still be X times seven billion. The human race existing doesn’t matter to me, only the humans. If no one had any kids and this generation was the last one, I don’t think that would be a bad thing.
This isn’t something which all EAs think (some of them value “humanity” as well as the humans), though it does seem to be a view over represented by people who responded to this thread.
“The way I see it, the people of the future ‘existing’ is a knob that we have the power to control (in a broad sense). It’s not something that would happen ‘either way.’”
I know a man who plans to have a child the traditional way. We’ve spoken about the topic and I’ve told him my views; there’s not terribly much more I could do. I have very little power over whether or not that child will exist—none whatsoever, in any practical way.
That child doesn’t exist yet—there’s some chance they never will. I want that child to have a happy life, and to not die unless they want to. When that entity becomes existent, the odds are very good I’ll be personally involved in said entity’s happiness; I’ll be a friend of the family. Certainly, if twelve years in the child fell in a river and started to drown, I’d muddy my jacket to save them.
But I wouldn’t lift a finger to create them. Do I explain myself?
Something analogous could be said about all the humans who do not exist, but will. We have control over the “existence knob” in such a broad sense that there’s little point bringing it up at all. So, living in a world where people exist, and will continue to do so, it seems like the most important thing is to keep them alive.
Valuing the people who exist is a very different thing from valuing people existing. EA is not just about population growth—it isn’t about population growth at all.
“Regarding your aside, I think that illustrates an interesting potential solution to the dilemma (?) The purpose is not to save lives (because in your case, the world where 100% of people die is less or equally bad than 50% of people dying). This is an interesting case, and perhaps there’s a way to rephrase the original claim to accommodate it, though I’m not certain how.”
I must have inadequately written my parenthetical aside; perhaps I inadequately wrote everything.
The purpose is entirely to save lives. We have a world with seven billion people. If all of them died, it amount of disutility in my view would be X times seven billion, where X is the disutility from someone dying. If the world instead had fourteen billion people and seven billion of them died, the disutility would still be X times seven billion. The human race existing doesn’t matter to me, only the humans. If no one had any kids and this generation was the last one, I don’t think that would be a bad thing.
This isn’t something which all EAs think (some of them value “humanity” as well as the humans), though it does seem to be a view over represented by people who responded to this thread.
“The way I see it, the people of the future ‘existing’ is a knob that we have the power to control (in a broad sense). It’s not something that would happen ‘either way.’”
I know a man who plans to have a child the traditional way. We’ve spoken about the topic and I’ve told him my views; there’s not terribly much more I could do. I have very little power over whether or not that child will exist—none whatsoever, in any practical way.
That child doesn’t exist yet—there’s some chance they never will. I want that child to have a happy life, and to not die unless they want to. When that entity becomes existent, the odds are very good I’ll be personally involved in said entity’s happiness; I’ll be a friend of the family. Certainly, if twelve years in the child fell in a river and started to drown, I’d muddy my jacket to save them.
But I wouldn’t lift a finger to create them. Do I explain myself?
Something analogous could be said about all the humans who do not exist, but will. We have control over the “existence knob” in such a broad sense that there’s little point bringing it up at all. So, living in a world where people exist, and will continue to do so, it seems like the most important thing is to keep them alive.
Valuing the people who exist is a very different thing from valuing people existing. EA is not just about population growth—it isn’t about population growth at all.