I think this is an overly glorified twist on a very simple and very possible "great filter" : pleasure. Sustenance of a species requires a major sex/procreativ

I think this is an overly glorified twist on a very simple and very possible "great filter" : pleasure. Sustenance of a species requires a major sex/procreative drive. If we stop having at least two children per couple, on average, our population begins to decline. If couples only have let's say 1.5 children on average, we'd start on a path to an asymptotic extinction. And it's an oddly extremely fast thing. If people just have 1.5 children that means your population is declining by 25% per generation. At the current world population, that'd be a population decline of just under 2 billion people - in a single generation. To merely sustain our species we need each and every couple to produce an average of more than 2 children on average to account for the fact that some people are infertile, others will die before maturity, etc. It's easy to see a million and one ways a species could accidentally drive itself extinct without in any way ever intending or "consenting" to such. Mass devices of pleasure that supplant sex and procreation as primary drives, worldwide perfect birth control and a species that does not choose to procreate sufficiently, social views that result in unsustainable procreative rates, etc. ---- The one thing I'd add is that I think the above is extremely unlikely because of natural selection. Evolution will simply select for those that choose not to utilize said entertainment devices, or those that choose not to utilize birth control, or those that have differing social views, etc. The problem here is dysgenics, but that's a whole heck of a lot better than a population going lights out not with a bang, or even a whimper, but a moan.