Should humanity delay utopia to cut extinction risk? A person-affecting view argument
UploadedMind · reddit · 2026-10-20
Reddit user UploadedMind makes an existential-risk argument based on the person-affecting view: people who never exist are not harmed by nonexistence, and we have no obligation to create people so they can be happy.
Core thought experiment: choose between utopia in 50 years with 49% extinction risk, or waiting 1,000 years to cut risk to 10%. The author argues we should weigh actual risks and benefits to real people — extinction is bad because it kills existing people, not because nonexistent people "miss out."
He adds this doesn't endorse big-tech oligarchs gambling with humanity: an independent organization should have power to inspect frontier labs and stop unnecessarily reckless behavior. An infographic lays out the framework.
Related event: Reddit debate: Should we delay utopia for hypothetical future people?(2 posts)→
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