Notes on Existential Catastrophe, Long Termism, and the Love of Humanity

Existential Catastrophe & Long Termism

• Existential catastrophe refers to events like human extinction or irreversible civilizational collapse.
• Long termism prioritizes reducing existential risks to maximize future human well-being.

Utilitarianism & Long Termism

• Utilitarianism aims to maximize total human happiness; long termists apply this to future populations.
• A vast future population would outweigh current population interests in utilitarian calculations.
• Population ethics considers choices among populations with different numbers of people in the future.

Historic Sensibility

• Many people value participation in an ongoing chain of generations, known as historic sensibility.
• This sensibility influences how they view their activities and relationships to ancestors/descendants.
• It involves situating activities within historical traditions and transmitting culture across generations.

Interest in Future

• Many individuals are concerned about the future of their families and communities.
• Some also exhibit concern for the future of humanity as a whole.

Thought Experiment

• A thought experiment explores the reaction to humanity's imminent extinction due to universal infertility.
• Even without premature deaths, many would perceive it as catastrophic.

Declining Fertility Rates

• Global fertility rates are declining, with some countries already below replacement levels.
• This raises concerns about potential population decline in the coming centuries.

Love of Humanity

• Many people have a concern for the survival of humanity, which can be described as a form of love.
• This love consists of desiring the continuation of generations under conditions of human flourishing.
• It involves grief and sorrow at the prospect of humanity's destruction.

Skepticism

• Skeptics argue that reactions to the thought experiment reflect attachments to particular communities.
• Communal allegiances are stronger than humanitarian sentiments.

Distinctive Reaction

• Our response to human extinction involves recognizing that the realm of value itself has been compromised.
• Many activities would lose their value.

Grief

• Grief over humanity's disappearance would be unique.
• There would be no postmortem future to move on to.

Values

• We love kindness, humor, imagination, and creativity inherent in humanity.
• We are appalled by cruelty and destructiveness.

Historicist Sensibility

• Humanity is self-conscious of its history, and this is part of what we love.
• We participate in this form of life.

Three Lessons from Historicist View

• We are participants in an ongoing chain of generations.
• Our self-understanding includes our place in history.
• We should take a multigenerational view, securing the chain of generations.

Ensuring Flourishing

• Parents should ensure children have opportunities to flourish.
• We should aim to ensure humanity survives in conditions conducive to human flourishing.

Preventing Extinction

• If humanity is at stake, so are all particular nations and communities.
• We have reason to dread extinction and prevent it.

Conclusion

• Our aim should be to ensure humanity survives under conditions conducive to human flourishing.