But instilling the urgency to do so may require another type of writing-that of science fiction, of more creative visionaries who are willing to paint in vivid detail a picture of what a flourishing human future could be.
If it’s emotive force you’re after, you may be interested in this—Toby Ord just released a collection of quotations on Existential risk and the future of humanity, everyone from Kepler to Winston Churchill (in fact, a surprisingly large number are from Churchill) to Seneca to Mill to the Aztecs—it’s one of the most inspirational things I have ever read, and makes it clear that there have always been people who cared about humanity as a whole. My all-time favourite is probably this by the philosopher Derek Parfit:
Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche’s words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.
If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would have given us all, including those who suffered most, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists.
If it’s emotive force you’re after, you may be interested in this—Toby Ord just released a collection of quotations on Existential risk and the future of humanity, everyone from Kepler to Winston Churchill (in fact, a surprisingly large number are from Churchill) to Seneca to Mill to the Aztecs—it’s one of the most inspirational things I have ever read, and makes it clear that there have always been people who cared about humanity as a whole. My all-time favourite is probably this by the philosopher Derek Parfit: