The value of a human life stems from two components: 1) the value of their consciousness (how overall good or bad it feels to be them) 2) their expected instru

The value of a human life stems from two components: 1) the value of their consciousness (how overall good or bad it feels to be them) 2) their expected instrumental effects on the nature of all expected future people's consciousness. Because of the vast numbers of future people which could exist, and the uncertainty of this due to the landscape of existential threats humanity faces, the magnitude of the value of most people's expected instrumental effects vastly outsizes the value of their qualia. This either makes the typical person's life overwhelmingly valuable, or overwhelmingly deleterious. It's either one, but it's not easy to confidently say which, as it's not perfectly clear whether your average person net adds or substracts to humanity's net risk of extinction. Unfortunately, most people display rather abysmal epistemology and are adding more to technological progress then they are philosophical/epistemic/coordination progress. This makes it plausible to me that their lives are net-harmful.