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lukeprog comments on Quotes on Existential Risk - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: lukeprog 28 April 2012 02:01AM

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Comment author: lukeprog 28 April 2012 02:14:31AM 13 points [-]

I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most people think. Compare three outcomes:

(1) Peace. (2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of the world’s existing population. (3) A nuclear war that kills 100%.

(2) would be worse than (1), and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between (2) and (3) is very much greater. … The Earth will remain habitable for at least another billion years. Civilization began only a few thousand years ago. If we do not destroy mankind, these few thousand years may be only a tiny fraction of the whole of civilized human history. The difference between (2) and (3) may thus be the difference between this tiny fraction and all of the rest of this history. If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a second.

Derek Parfit, 1984, Reasons and Persons

Comment author: gjm 28 April 2012 08:28:46AM 2 points [-]

I don't at all disagree with Parfit's assessment that 2>3 by much more than 1>2 (and, incidentally, Reasons and Persons is an excellent book, though rather dense) but I wonder whether he's right that "most people" -- by which I think he probably really means something like "most people who would ever consider such a question in the first place" -- think otherwise.

Comment author: Alejandro1 28 April 2012 08:32:13AM *  2 points [-]

Maybe he means that most people (out of everyone, including those who never have considered the question) would give that answer if asked out of the blue.

Comment author: gjm 28 April 2012 08:03:28PM 0 points [-]

Yes, perhaps he does, but if so I don't know why he's paying any attention -- in a quite technical work of philosophy aimed at professional philosophers -- to the question of what "most people" would unreflectively say to a question of that sort.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 April 2012 08:55:36AM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure I'd agree. “Civilization began only a few thousand years ago” alright, but during these years the Earth wasn't full of radioactive waste.

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