4 ms·

That's the Sunk Cost Fallacy. As a rationalist who seeks to maximize my utility, why should I care about future generations?

mattnewton 9y ago
Because you likely weight the survival of similar genes highly, being decendant from genes that did
- speakeron 9y ago
  I'm not sure why I would do that, although there are instincts which rely on that (e.g. sex). My immediate concerns are of my somatic existence rather than my genes. If my personal survival depended on the survival of the species (as an example: cryogenics), that would certainly be a factor.
  - bendbro 9y ago
    Because if your genes didn't historically result in an organism with a drive to propagate itself, your genes would have a significantly higher likelihood of dying out in an ancestor generation. If you do not have that drive, then it is natural to cull yourself.
contras1970 9y ago
you shouldn't, it's not healthy. you'll contribute more to future generations if you're happy, and individuals who are concerned about whole generations tend to despair. despair leads to loss of sexual appetite, which leads to selection against said trait. ;) you don't need to care about future generations in general, but you probably deeply care about the future of your children. if you do not have any (yet): i'd said similar things before i became a father. since i've had kids... my urge to preserve the well-being of my children specifically is absolutely visceral, and i can only assume (it does seem so) that other parents feel similarly. no parent needs to care about their children's whole generation, the urge to care is decentralized and spread over the whole generation of parents. the next question might be: why would you care about your offspring? because parental care is a trait that helps carry the DNA which encodes it farther than DNA without this trait will get (all other things equal). in general, we care about (a few particular members of) future generations (our offspring) because people who didn't give a fuck about their own children died out.
- lisper 9y ago
  This reasoning ignores the tragedy of the commons: Earth is finite, so exponential growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. Even if we go into space, at best we can expand at O(n^2). So the urge to preserve your children has to be tempered by the self-discipline not to have more than two per couple (on average). And that has to somehow be extended to everyone, because even a single breeding pair whose genes allow them to ignore this fundamental fact puts us back on the path to eventual calamity. Sooner or later exponential growth must stop. If we don't do it ourselves, the laws of physics will do it for us.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    The population is predicted to max out at 10-11 billion people this century, as birth rates lower when countries become more developed. These are demographic trends that have been unfolding for many decades now, as I recall.
    - lisper 9y ago
      Yes, let's hope those predictions play out. But there's another problem: for several hundred years our economic institutions have been structured on the assumption of exponential economic growth. That has been fueled by both population growth and innovation, but that can't go on forever either. It's an open question whether we'll be able to restructure society to adjust.

mattnewton 9y ago

Because you likely weight the survival of similar genes highly, being decendant from genes that did

speakeron 9y ago
I'm not sure why I would do that, although there are instincts which rely on that (e.g. sex). My immediate concerns are of my somatic existence rather than my genes. If my personal survival depended on the survival of the species (as an example: cryogenics), that would certainly be a factor.
- bendbro 9y ago
  Because if your genes didn't historically result in an organism with a drive to propagate itself, your genes would have a significantly higher likelihood of dying out in an ancestor generation. If you do not have that drive, then it is natural to cull yourself.

contras1970 9y ago

you shouldn't, it's not healthy. you'll contribute more to future generations if you're happy, and individuals who are concerned about whole generations tend to despair. despair leads to loss of sexual appetite, which leads to selection against said trait. ;) you don't need to care about future generations in general, but you probably deeply care about the future of your children. if you do not have any (yet): i'd said similar things before i became a father. since i've had kids... my urge to preserve the well-being of my children specifically is absolutely visceral, and i can only assume (it does seem so) that other parents feel similarly. no parent needs to care about their children's whole generation, the urge to care is decentralized and spread over the whole generation of parents. the next question might be: why would you care about your offspring? because parental care is a trait that helps carry the DNA which encodes it farther than DNA without this trait will get (all other things equal). in general, we care about (a few particular members of) future generations (our offspring) because people who didn't give a fuck about their own children died out.

lisper 9y ago
This reasoning ignores the tragedy of the commons: Earth is finite, so exponential growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. Even if we go into space, at best we can expand at O(n^2). So the urge to preserve your children has to be tempered by the self-discipline not to have more than two per couple (on average). And that has to somehow be extended to everyone, because even a single breeding pair whose genes allow them to ignore this fundamental fact puts us back on the path to eventual calamity. Sooner or later exponential growth must stop. If we don't do it ourselves, the laws of physics will do it for us.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  The population is predicted to max out at 10-11 billion people this century, as birth rates lower when countries become more developed. These are demographic trends that have been unfolding for many decades now, as I recall.
  - lisper 9y ago
    Yes, let's hope those predictions play out. But there's another problem: for several hundred years our economic institutions have been structured on the assumption of exponential economic growth. That has been fueled by both population growth and innovation, but that can't go on forever either. It's an open question whether we'll be able to restructure society to adjust.