Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

chiefmors t1_iwuw44t wrote

It's bizarre (but telling) that so many philosophers are claiming non-philosophical questions as the answer to the query.

A lot of this seems to be around political philosophy as well, which while conveniently dramatic and clickbaity really needs us to resolve more fundamental problems of philosophy and ethics to advance on.

Still, with technology spreading information far and wide while lowering dramatically the barrier for entry into philosophical discussions, it's going to be a fascinating next few years for the discipline, both as it exists professionally and organically.

25

glass_superman t1_iwvpkdd wrote

Probably it's hard to focus on theories of mind and the like when you're concerned if your great-grandchildren could ever possibly exist.

It should concern us that we have to pause our moral and ethical progress to deal with this matter of everyone dying pretty soon.

Is this phenomenon of being worried about human extinction a new thing or did people commonly feel this way 500+ years ago?

8

chiefmors t1_iwvvmj4 wrote

Certainly religious traditions all have some sort of eschatological collapse in their narratives (with many hoping in a renewal the other side as well).

I think on the scientific / humanist side we've seen the following all come and go as apocalyptic concerns that never played out as they were originally prophesied:

  • Fear of overpopulation / food scarcity
  • Fossil fuel scarcity
  • Nuclear war
  • Ice age
  • The original round of global warming concerns in the 80s and 90 (after the ice age scare ended). Most of it in the 80s and 90s said we'd be hosed by now)

That doesn't mean that existential threats to humanity can't exist just because we seem to be horrible at actually identifying them and rarely factor in continued scientific development and improvements.

4

glass_superman t1_iwvz4i8 wrote

That list is all quite modern. Those things have concerned us, some continue to, some don't. But they are concerns and distractions.

Did similar concerns exist hundreds of years ago? Did people take breaks from moral philosophy because they're like, "Ah, who cares, no one will be alive in 100 years anyway."?

I'm wondering if this feeling that humanity might end is new.

3

chiefmors t1_iwvzq6u wrote

I grew up devoutly Christian, and there's a strong, storied strand of their beliefs that everything ends and gets wrapped up in the next generation or two. Augustine to Edwards, plenty of people thought they were living in the end times and thinking super longterm was less relevant.

5

glass_superman t1_iww1kip wrote

That's true. And there are probably even more instances than we know because if some Rabbi declared that the world would end in seventy years and then it didn't happen they probably adjusted it while passing down the text generation to generation.

The book of Daniel is maybe the most famous of the apocalyptic one.

So we've always had a fairly popular belief that humanity is on the way out?

2

GETitOFFmeNOW t1_iwxono5 wrote

Everyone wants to get to the end of the story since their unchosen favorite fantasy has promised such a wonderful epilogue.

It's not those poor wretches who are to blame for having paid 10% of their lifetime incomes in exchange for a return they don't receive before death.

2

ScaleneWangPole t1_iwxnhvz wrote

I believe there was a guy in the mid to late 1800s who started some apocalyptic cult in upstate NY, that obviously didn't happen. I'm not sure the cult made it after the prediction didn't pan out.

I'd say the thought of groups living in end times is a common theme for all of human history. I mean, just in modern times alone there was the Jonestown cult, Heaven's Gate cult, the Branch Davidians.

I think this thought stems from arrogance; both exuded by the leader and embodied in the follower seeking greater meaning to their lives than just being the product of sex by their parents. Not that their is anything wrong with being merely the product of sex, but expecting or demanding more for yourself seems futile.

1

newcaravan t1_iwwichd wrote

I would assume political questions are more practical, and therefore more accessible. How do we stop gerrymandering? How do we restore faith in election outcomes? How do we keep money out of politics? These problems are more solvable than larger scale problems that are ultimately the source of these problems, like how do we curb human greed? How do we make politics a noble pursuit rather than a pursuit for power? The real problem with politics is you can’t change human nature, and the systems in America put forth to curb human nature like checks and balances were not sufficiently prepared to handle the modern world.

2

drCocktor420 t1_iwwtdnv wrote

Whether or not the political is dependent on how much we understand philosophy (idealism) is itself a philosophically debatable question.

2

Southern_Winter t1_iwxak51 wrote

I think it's a debatable question in a descriptive sense. It's an open question whether people vote primarily in their material self-interest vs ideology etc.

But I think in a normative sense, it would be impossible to avoid questions of ethics or other "ideological" constructs. Even the most materialist analysis contains agents that act in a self-interested manner, and behind that self-interest are ethical or normative preferences that are worthy of examination on an individual basis, as opposed to strictly a collective sociological analysis.

3