The Human Extinction series continues. Briefly, the threats to our very survival which we face over the next century or so are, according to those who have studied them and much to my horror, not very unlikely. This series is dedicated to helping us understand and hopefully avoid these threats.
The most basic reason why this is most important is that the fate of Earth-originating life is probably at stake here, as may be the fate of all life in existence.
This simply dwarfs other considerations from many- but not all- perspectives. Here, we'll get a little (well, a lot) philosophical to explore some of these perspectives so we can strengthen our arguments and evaluate how we should respond. There are two sections. In the first, we look at a variety of political ideologies; in the second, more formal philosophical ethics. Note that the views presented here are my own and that while I think they're good and you're welcome to them, there are others out there. (Hence "One View".) Just don't take any that recommend facilitating our extinction, OK?
HE Meta
The Human Extinction series so far. Don't hesitate to drop comments on these too.
For now, the DK tags for the series are humanity and extinction, although we may want a distinct human extinction tag at some point, which would include this series plus those discussed in HE3. (I got a crash course in DK tag politics last time.)
search for both humanity & extinction tags - Find other related diaries (Currently also returning some unrelated diaries. Suggestions, anyone?)
A Personal Note
Over a year ago, I wanted to get more active in online activism again. However, I wasn't sure what to advocate for. If I'm going to be contributing, what should I be contributing? That question sent me down a long path studying ethics (i.e., what we should or shouldn't do) as it applies to our present circumstances. Now, many months, a career change, and a new online community (Felicifia, discussing the "utilitarianism" ethics system; come join, we need more voices!) later, I've got what I should be contributing figured out pretty darn well.
Here, I'll take you through some of the highlights of this philosophical journey, so you can piggy-back off it. Enjoy!
The Ethics Of Human Extinction - Why This Is The Most Important Thing To Work On (One View)
First, the big picture. We've got hundreds of millions of years left on Earth if nothing very bad happens first. If we can keep our civilization going, we've got much, much more time ahead of us in space colonization. But humanity may be Earth-originating life's only shot at colonization. Given the apparent lack of other intelligent life out there (the Fermi paradox), the fate of life in the universe may well be in our hands. I'd say everything else we could concern ourselves with simply pales in comparison to the fate of life in the universe! Given the many non-trivial threats to our survival we currently face, I recommend focusing on protecting our survival until we drive the risk of our extinction down to right around zero.
Political Ideologies
Political ideology is not my expertise, so the writing may be a bit off the mark. In the comments, correct me if you can. I include this section because I hope that human survival can be something we unite behind and not a partisan issue.
- For progressives
Assuming that "progress" here is largely a human phenomenon, and thus, without humans, no more progress. All other progressives' efforts, such as reducing poverty or corruption or improving education or the environment are for nothing if something else comes along and takes us out. (The idea that human extinction might be good for the environment is addressed below.) Meanwhile, progressives already lead extinction-prevention measures such as climate change mitigation (see HE 3: Critical Review of DK Diaries or the Al Gore quote below for more).
- For conservatives
If we are to "conserve" how things have been, then conserving our existence is an important first step, similar to "progress" above. Also, where conservatives are concerned with national security, seeing as our nation is part of humanity, if humanity's gone, then so is the nation. So calling an extinction risk a national security threat is if anything an understatement.
I apologize here for perhaps supporting the frame that progressives are better on the environment and conservatives are better on national security. Both can be quite good on either, i.e. by "conserving" the environment or making "progress" on national security.
- For libertarians
As the saying goes, "Your rights end where my nose begins". Well, if humanity goes extinct, then that's a lot of noses gone. For more, see the discussions of rights and potential people below.
- For the religious
See discussion of eschatology below.
Philosophical Ethics
Here, in a "Socratic method-meets-isolated blogger" fashion, I'll ask myself a series of questions and then answer them. This is perhaps more thorough than it needs to be, but it can't hurt for us to brush up a bit on our philosophy, right? :)
- Does the term "Most Important Thing To Work On" have any meaning in the first place?
Ahh! Meta-ethics! Is there such a thing as right and wrong? Does objective morality exist? This is ye ole is-ought problem: Can we discover or deduce what we ought do from how the world/universe is? The scientist in me says, quite emphatically, No. If we want any sort of morality, we're just going to have to make some stuff up. I'm OK with that. However, it does mean on some deep level, I technically can't disagree with anyone on moral matters (again, hence "One View"). Whatever your views, hopefully you still reach the same conclusion on the priority of preventing human extinction.
Related: Can science take stands on issues?
- Should we make any sacrifices for anyone else?
The view that says no, we shouldn't is called ethical egoism. Unless we reject it, we can't recommend anyone do anything they don't want to help anyone else, whether it's donating to charity or saving the world (or donating to a charity that saves the world...). While I expect (and hope) everyone here rejects this view, it does play a role in the hyper-individualistic, free market, anti-sacrifice side of our culture. See for example Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) on climate change:
We must be careful not to enact policies that will unnecessarily impose a financial burden on American families.
Take out the word "unnecessarily" and you basically have ethical egoism. I'm not sure what constitutes necessity here, but if anything does, protecting our survival does.
For ethical egoists, perhaps the only thing we can do is work on life extension- if they're not going to die from aging, then they'll become more concerned about dying from some extinction event. But for the rest of us, some sacrifice is not unreasonable. Al Gore said it well (discussing climate change in Rolling Stone):
There's a philosophical question embedded in what you're asking: Is this important enough for us to make sacrifices? The answer is yes, of course - we're talking about the survival of human civilization.
Related: Pareto Optimality (on Felicifia), a similar concept that's popular in mainstream economics- unfortunately, because it also fails to ever call for any sacrifices. As Nobel Laureate and champion of the poor Amartya Sen says, "a society can be Pareto optimal and still be perfectly disgusting".
- Can we go extinct?
I include this as a philosophic question (in addition to a scientific one) as a nod to eschatology, i.e. the study of the end of the world. If our religious or other beliefs include the idea that something will pull a deus ex machina and save us from extinction at the last minute, then we don't need to try protecting our existence ourselves. While I do generally get along with religion well, where it would threaten our very existence, I must object. From asking around a bit, I know of no religious groups that would actively try to cause human extinction. My sense is that most would also support trying to prevent human extinction, but my knowledge here is less thorough. (What would John Hagee do?) Anyone here know better?
Related: Has The Rapture Already Begun? by Vyan.
- Should we go extinct?
I include this as a nod to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. In their words, "the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us." (link) That humanity is causing many species extinctions is quite true- see the Holocene/Anthropocene extinction event. If our goal is to maximize the number of species that survive this event, then VHEMT is maybe onto something. However, over the long term, if Earth-originating life is going to survive, we're probably going to be the ones to make it happen. Earth almost definitely won't be hospitable forever unless some advanced technology makes it happen, and if it doesn't, some space colonization will be necessary. So, humanity's extinction would probably actually doom the rest of life on Earth. Thus, when we talk of preventing humanity's extinction, we're effectively talking about ensuring the continued existence of Earth-originating life, which, for all we know, is the only life in existence.
Related: Future of the Universe (on Felicifia) gives an introduction to how long we can expect to stay on Earth, in the universe, and possibly beyond- should we survive so long.
- How much should we care about the future?
In economics, this is the controversial discounting topic. I'm baffled by how many economists appear to botch this. The fundamental question here is, Is wellbeing worth less just because it happens to occur at a later point in time? For example, is a day of your life worth less than a day of your parent's or grandparent's lives when they were your age? Those who favor discounting would say yes. I'm amazed by this. We've rejected racism and sexism. Why is temporalism so much more difficult? In the context of human extinction, discounting could justify letting it happen if it required sacrifice on our part and occurred far enough into the future. Bad, bad, bad.
Related: Against the Social Discount Rate (pdf) by Tyler Cowen & Derek Parfit and Valuing future life and future lives: A framework for understanding discounting (pdf) by Shane Frederick. Also, Discounting Future Utility & Climate Change on Felicifia. If you'd like even more on this, email me and I'll hook you up. This is a core expertise of mine.
- How much should we care about individuals who don't exist yet?
After all, it's not like they'll know the difference, right? Wrong, I say, wrong. Put it this way: In World A, you exist; in World B, you don't exist. All else between A and B are equal. Which world do you like better? Personally, I'm glad I exist, and I'm guessing you do to, and that all those who don't yet exist would be glad to have the opportunity to experience this here thing called life. So even if some extinction event doesn't affect anyone wouldn't affect anyone currently alive (telomere erosion?), I say we should still try preventing it.
Related: Total Vs. Prior Existence (on Felicifia) discusses two views which give opposite answers to a slight variant of this question. (Guess which side I support!)
One could similarly ask, Do we have the right to cause (or fail to prevent) our own extinction? On that note:
- What about rights?
I know less about rights, but I'll give them a try. Perhaps we could say that future individuals have a right to exist, or that we don't have a right to cause our extinction, or even that we have a duty to prevent our extinction. I'm just making these up though. If following rights can help prevent our extinction, great, but if doing so would cause our extinction, I say let’s not follow them.
Related: Rights-based ethics systems are called deontological.
Last but not least,
- How hard should we try to prevent our extinction?
At one extreme, we can not try at all; at the other, we can try as hard as we possibly can. We've already rejected not trying up above in the discussion of egoism. Can we reject trying as hard as we possibly can? I can't, especially not in the context of present circumstances. My preferred way of looking at this matter ("utilitarianism") is to ask if the benefit to others would be greater than the sacrifice we make. This leads to a cost-benefit analysis, in units of "utility" (wellbeing/quality of life/etc) instead of in dollars/yen/etc. But, as we saw above, the potential benefit (all future wellbeing for an extremely long, possibly infinite future) is so large that this would swamp out all other considerations, including our personal wellbeing and other causes, even my personal favorites like global poverty and livestock animal treatment (i.e. the main sites of current suffering).
Related: Infinite Utility (on Felicifia) for an overview of the bizarre mathematics of infinity as it applies to utilitarianism/benefiting everyone.
Also, this describes Richard Posner's money-based cost-benefit analysis where he makes the curious statement that humanity's existence is worth about 600 trillion dollars. That makes no sense to me: Would we sell our existence for that sum of money? I don't think we'd sell our existence for any sum of money. What would we do with the money?
So should we plummet ourselves into misery for humanity's survival?
While this may be justifiable in theory, in practice, two things probably save us from doing so. First, we're still going to need to eat, sleep, de-stress, socialize, etc. If we wear ourselves thin, we'll burn out, so we're better off keeping at least somewhat comfortable. Second, as Gore suggested above, we might not need to. I hope we don't, but, given the stakes, I also think we should be prepared to do what it takes.
Ultimately, what we should do at any given moment is as much an art as a science. How do we know this blogging is the best use of our time? We don't. But spending all our time figuring out what to do with our time is a waste of our time. I dedicated a solid year to figuring out what to blog about. While in the end, I think the time was well spent, you shouldn't have to repeat this.
Related: Decision Procedures (on Felicifia) for a further discussion on our efforts being 'as much an art as a science'.
Conclusion
So, from a whole bunch of different perspectives (but not all), reducing the chance of human extinction very quickly becomes by far the most important thing to work on. And that's why I'm blogging on it and not on anything else. However, that does not necessarily mean we should drop everything we do. I suggested a few ways we can help prevent our extinction in HE1 and HE2. These are good places to start, and perhaps you'll have your own ideas.