Homunculi and Moral Demandingness
All sensible people care non-instrumentally about things that happen in the world outside of themselves. Would you prefer that there be more or less extreme poverty? How about war? Cancer? Even if these things don’t affect you directly, you probably care about them. Everyone also cares non-instrumentally about his own well-being. Most everyone also cares … Continue reading “Homunculi and Moral Demandingness”
Why Oligarchy is better than Dictatorship
In a dictatorship, the leader can do whatever he wants. Any dictator, simply because he is a dictator, is liable to engage in illicit self-dealing and to kill people who threaten his power. However, if the leader has reasonable wants, and reasonable ideas about how to accomplish what he wants, then there is a limit … Continue reading “Why Oligarchy is better than Dictatorship”
Why Worry?
Nobody wants to die. Natural risks are known to be pretty low, because we can estimate their frequencies in the future with their frequencies in the past. As it happens, supervolcanic explosions and planet killing asteroids don’t come around very often. So if very few people are trying to wipe humanity out and natural risk … Continue reading “Why Worry?”
Past and Future Trajectory Changes
It is reasonable to expect that, if all goes well, astronomically more people will be alive in the future than are alive today. So, the argument goes, ‘the utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!” can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”’. But, it was later objected, the fact that the number of future … Continue reading “Past and Future Trajectory Changes”
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