Humans are about as good and virtuous as we could reasonably expect from a social primate that has evolved through natural selection, sexual selection, and social selection (I’ve written extensively on this in my 5 books).
Human life has been getting better, consistently, for hundreds of years. See, e.g. Steven Pinker (2018) ‘Enlightenment Now’.
Factory farming would be ludicrously inefficient for the first several decades, at least, of any Moon or Mars colonies, so would simply not happen.
My more general worry is that this kind of narrative that ‘humans are horrible, we mustn’t colonize space and spread our horribleness elsewhere’ is that it feeds the ‘effective accelerationist’ (e/acc) cult that thinks we’d be better replaced by AIs.
I don’t think this is a compelling argument. Being less immoral than the worst doesn’t lead me to conclude we should increase the immorality further. I do think it should lead us to have compassion in so far as humanity makes it very difficult not to be immoral — it’s an evolutionary problem.
That’s true! But still very bad for many. And of course, I’m concerned about all sentient beings, not just humans — the math looks truly horrible when non-humans are in concluded. I do credit humans for unintentionally reducing wild animal suffering by being so drawn to destroying the planet, but I expect the opposite will happen in space colonization situations (i.e. we will see wildlife or create more digital minds, etc.)
I’m a longtermist in this sense. I’m concerned about us torturing non-humans not just in the next several decades, but eons after. This could look like factory farming animals, seeding wild animals, creating digital minds, bringing pets with us, and so on.
Is that transhumanism to the max? I need to learn more about those who endorse this philosophy—I imagine there is some diversity. Would the immorality in us be eradicated under the ideal circumstances, in their minds (s-risks and x-risks aside from AI acceleration)? Sounds like they are a different kind of utopian.
Counterpoints:
Humans are about as good and virtuous as we could reasonably expect from a social primate that has evolved through natural selection, sexual selection, and social selection (I’ve written extensively on this in my 5 books).
Human life has been getting better, consistently, for hundreds of years. See, e.g. Steven Pinker (2018) ‘Enlightenment Now’.
Factory farming would be ludicrously inefficient for the first several decades, at least, of any Moon or Mars colonies, so would simply not happen.
My more general worry is that this kind of narrative that ‘humans are horrible, we mustn’t colonize space and spread our horribleness elsewhere’ is that it feeds the ‘effective accelerationist’ (e/acc) cult that thinks we’d be better replaced by AIs.
Thanks for your comment.
I don’t think this is a compelling argument. Being less immoral than the worst doesn’t lead me to conclude we should increase the immorality further. I do think it should lead us to have compassion in so far as humanity makes it very difficult not to be immoral — it’s an evolutionary problem.
That’s true! But still very bad for many. And of course, I’m concerned about all sentient beings, not just humans — the math looks truly horrible when non-humans are in concluded. I do credit humans for unintentionally reducing wild animal suffering by being so drawn to destroying the planet, but I expect the opposite will happen in space colonization situations (i.e. we will see wildlife or create more digital minds, etc.)
I’m a longtermist in this sense. I’m concerned about us torturing non-humans not just in the next several decades, but eons after. This could look like factory farming animals, seeding wild animals, creating digital minds, bringing pets with us, and so on.
Is that transhumanism to the max? I need to learn more about those who endorse this philosophy—I imagine there is some diversity. Would the immorality in us be eradicated under the ideal circumstances, in their minds (s-risks and x-risks aside from AI acceleration)? Sounds like they are a different kind of utopian.