Good point, some of these arguments do contradict one another. I suppose if human extinction really were a good thing, it would be because of one or a few of these arguments, not all of them.
Anthony Fleming
Karma: 183
Arguments for Why Preventing Human Extinction is Wrong
What’s a Tomasikian suffering empathy exercise? I’m not familiar with that term.
Thanks for these resources!
Great points. If you assume a negative utilitarian worldview, you can make strong arguments both for and against human extinction.
I would agree. Still, some of the other commenters have pointed out that alien civilizations can have interesting consequences for the Anti-natalist, Negative Utilitarian, and S-Risk arguments.
Interesting, I’ll have to look into that. Thanks for the clarification.
Thank you for that clarification, I apologize if I misrepresented the movement as a whole. The main reason I listed anti-natalism was because you could argue from that perspective that stopping human extinction is bad, not that anti-natalism necessarily implies that. The same goes for virtually all of these arguments.
Interesting, thank you for sharing. A lot of this debate centers around our interpretations of consequentialism.
Side note: I love that “paperclipping” is a verb now.
Thank you for that reminder. As with many things in philosophy, this discussion can wander into some pretty dark territory, and it’s important to take care of our mental health.
That’s a really good point, it’s similar to but distinct from the argument from Deep Ecology. I may add it to the article.
New Podcast: X-Risk Upskill
Summary: the Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act of 2022
From what I can tell, support is bipartisan but small. It was sponsored by a Republican, Senator Rob Portman from Ohio, and is cosponsored by two Democrats and one other Republican.
Scout Mindset Poster
Thanks for the recommendations! I think it looks better now, less busy.
Sure thing, I changed the settings to anyone with a link can edit.
Thank you! Hope you enjoy.
Excellent point. Playing devil’s advocate, one might be skeptical that humanity is good enough to perform these “cosmic rescue missions”, either out of cruelty/indifference or simply because we will never be advanced enough. Still, it’s a good concept to keep in mind.