However, if I don’t put a high value on ‘creating happy lives’ (or ‘creating happy digital beings’ if we are going full avant garde) I might find it more effective to work to improve the lives of people and animals today (or those likely to exist in the near future).
Do you see preventing extinction as equivalent to ‘creating happy lives’? I guess if you hold the person-affecting-view, then extinction is bad because it kills the current population, but the fact that it prevents the existence of future generations is not seen as bad.
I see ‘extinction’ as doing a few things people might value, with different ethics and beliefs:
Killing the current generation and maybe causing them to suffer/lose something. All ethics probably see this as bad.
Preventing the creation of more lives, possibly many more. So, preventing extinction is ‘creating more lives’.
Happy lives? We can’t be sure, but maybe the issue of happiness vs suffering should be put in a different discussion?
Assuming the lives not-extincted ergo created are happy, the total utilitarian would value this part, and that’s where they see most of the value, dominating all other concerns.
A person-affecting-views-er would not see any value to this part, I guess.
Someone else who has a convex function of happy lives and the number of lives might also value this, but perhaps not so much that it dominates all other concerns (e.g., about present humanity).
Wiping out “humanity and our culture”; people may also see this as a bad for non-utilitarian reasons
Do you see preventing extinction as equivalent to ‘creating happy lives’? I guess if you hold the person-affecting-view, then extinction is bad because it kills the current population, but the fact that it prevents the existence of future generations is not seen as bad.
I see ‘extinction’ as doing a few things people might value, with different ethics and beliefs:
Killing the current generation and maybe causing them to suffer/lose something. All ethics probably see this as bad.
Preventing the creation of more lives, possibly many more. So, preventing extinction is ‘creating more lives’.
Happy lives? We can’t be sure, but maybe the issue of happiness vs suffering should be put in a different discussion?
Assuming the lives not-extincted ergo created are happy, the total utilitarian would value this part, and that’s where they see most of the value, dominating all other concerns.
A person-affecting-views-er would not see any value to this part, I guess.
Someone else who has a convex function of happy lives and the number of lives might also value this, but perhaps not so much that it dominates all other concerns (e.g., about present humanity).
Wiping out “humanity and our culture”; people may also see this as a bad for non-utilitarian reasons