Surur t1_iu3cz0e wrote
Reply to comment by Southern-Trip-1102 in The Heavy Price of Longtermism | Longtermists focus on ensuring humanity’s existence into the far future. But not without sacrifices in the present. by thenewrepublic
Like I said, it's not justified to make the lives of living people worse to improve the lives of unborn people. We don't owe anything to the future, particularly if, as increasingly is the case, people chose not to have children or have children at below the replacement rate.
Southern-Trip-1102 t1_iu3hxtq wrote
Yes we do have a responsibility to the future, survival/existence is the prerequisite for anything you could possibly want for humanity besides the death of humanity, thus it should be the priority. Our function as a species is to survive.
Surur t1_iu3isoa wrote
Why should I or anyone else care about the survival of "humanity"? It's just a concept.
Southern-Trip-1102 t1_iu3ja7e wrote
Why should you care for the suffering or pleasure of a living human, its just a group of cells or neurons, just a concept.
Look in the end there is no objective reason to care about suffering collective survival or whatever. All morality is made up. The reason I advocate for long term collective survival being maximized is because its the closest thing there is to an objective function for a species.
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