It’s difficult to process something like this, we humans aren’t meant to understand death at scales of this magnitude. It reminds me of the old saying about the death of millions being merely a statistic. If so, what would the death of billions now (plus the end of all future possible humans) mean in that case? Morally inconceivable, like trying to intuitively understand the vast distances of the cosmos.
Actually, this author’s views are so unbelievably evil that one can only imagine her as some kind of comic book villain, not a real life academic.
But even Thanos only wanted to obliterate half of humanity…
Well done, and I fully agree with your negative assessment of Patricia MacCormack. At the same time, this deranged individual has found an audience only in modernity. I don't know of anything like the Human Extinction Movement in the rest of human history. Celibate groups like the Shakers and the Skoptsy, sure, an outgrowth in those cases of Christian notions of sexual sin, but nothing like a will to extinction. I'd say that, along with most every other sign of cultural decline, is something the techno-optimists will have to face.
"MacCormack shows little interest in engaging in rational argumentation for her views. “I have sought to no longer argue like a human, with other humans.” "
Isn't she literally asking to be caged up like an animal? These insane leftist views never hold up when applied to their speaker.
If she were treated like we treat our dogs she would have a great life! If she were treated like flesh-eating bacteria, not so good. Yes, these inconsistencies are handy in avoiding rational discourse. She uses words and reason (or at least rhetoric) to convince other humans to let themselves go extinct but retreats to non-human, non-rational modes when convenient.
Max More, this is a classic case of someone espousing values, claiming to take a higher moral ground, but then refusing to actually live by those values.
If she truly hated humans, truly believed that we serve no purpose and should self-exterminate, she would not be writing books about it.
I was just watching Dwarkesh Patel's interview with David Reich so I have human evolution on my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6skZIxPuI Your article now has me thinking about what would happen if humans were to go extinct. It seems that a similarly cognitively advanced animal would probably evolve fairly rapidly (perhaps within a few or a few tens or hundreds of millions of years) from our most recent living ancestors. So the question with human extinction but animal survival, from a longtermist perspective (not one I advocate!), might be whether those animals would be more moral than humans, and why. This depends on how much of our moral behavior is influenced by our evolutionary history and the probability that a randomly sampled evolutionary path still leading to similarly powerful cognitive adaptations might lead to different moral intuitions with different consequences. Another factor is how those alternative animals might affect the potential for existential risks and expansion beyond earth. Human extinctionists who do not address this question never seemed to be addressing the key question to me.
Andy, that is a fascinating line of thought. I've read quite a lot of SF over the last 50 years or so but I cannot immediately recall anything that seriously grappled with this, let alone any non-fictional investigation.
My recent reading has been from those who think intelligent life is incredibly rare so that we may be the only such life in the universe or at least the galaxy. Obviously those folks would not expect humans to be replaced by a different species of comparable intelligence. (I lack the basis for a confident view on this.)
Good to know that you don't advocate longtermism! I need to write in detail on that soon.
It’s difficult to process something like this, we humans aren’t meant to understand death at scales of this magnitude. It reminds me of the old saying about the death of millions being merely a statistic. If so, what would the death of billions now (plus the end of all future possible humans) mean in that case? Morally inconceivable, like trying to intuitively understand the vast distances of the cosmos.
Actually, this author’s views are so unbelievably evil that one can only imagine her as some kind of comic book villain, not a real life academic.
But even Thanos only wanted to obliterate half of humanity…
Yes, but to be fair Thanos wanted to murder half the lives actually living. She *only* wants us to go extinct voluntarily.
Well done, and I fully agree with your negative assessment of Patricia MacCormack. At the same time, this deranged individual has found an audience only in modernity. I don't know of anything like the Human Extinction Movement in the rest of human history. Celibate groups like the Shakers and the Skoptsy, sure, an outgrowth in those cases of Christian notions of sexual sin, but nothing like a will to extinction. I'd say that, along with most every other sign of cultural decline, is something the techno-optimists will have to face.
"MacCormack shows little interest in engaging in rational argumentation for her views. “I have sought to no longer argue like a human, with other humans.” "
Isn't she literally asking to be caged up like an animal? These insane leftist views never hold up when applied to their speaker.
"Haha I am no longer human"
"Ok I'll be inhumane to you"
"nonono not like that!"
If she were treated like we treat our dogs she would have a great life! If she were treated like flesh-eating bacteria, not so good. Yes, these inconsistencies are handy in avoiding rational discourse. She uses words and reason (or at least rhetoric) to convince other humans to let themselves go extinct but retreats to non-human, non-rational modes when convenient.
Max More, this is a classic case of someone espousing values, claiming to take a higher moral ground, but then refusing to actually live by those values.
If she truly hated humans, truly believed that we serve no purpose and should self-exterminate, she would not be writing books about it.
https://www.mattball.org/2022/11/dont-share-this-please.html
I was just watching Dwarkesh Patel's interview with David Reich so I have human evolution on my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6skZIxPuI Your article now has me thinking about what would happen if humans were to go extinct. It seems that a similarly cognitively advanced animal would probably evolve fairly rapidly (perhaps within a few or a few tens or hundreds of millions of years) from our most recent living ancestors. So the question with human extinction but animal survival, from a longtermist perspective (not one I advocate!), might be whether those animals would be more moral than humans, and why. This depends on how much of our moral behavior is influenced by our evolutionary history and the probability that a randomly sampled evolutionary path still leading to similarly powerful cognitive adaptations might lead to different moral intuitions with different consequences. Another factor is how those alternative animals might affect the potential for existential risks and expansion beyond earth. Human extinctionists who do not address this question never seemed to be addressing the key question to me.
Andy, that is a fascinating line of thought. I've read quite a lot of SF over the last 50 years or so but I cannot immediately recall anything that seriously grappled with this, let alone any non-fictional investigation.
My recent reading has been from those who think intelligent life is incredibly rare so that we may be the only such life in the universe or at least the galaxy. Obviously those folks would not expect humans to be replaced by a different species of comparable intelligence. (I lack the basis for a confident view on this.)
Good to know that you don't advocate longtermism! I need to write in detail on that soon.