A better understanding of how positive the future might be or is likely to be is relevant to the question of how much to prioritise reducing existential risks.
A better understanding of how good and likely various flourishing futures are, and what would make them more or less likely, could aid in generating, prioritising among, and implementing longtermistinterventionsinterventions.
Having clearer pictures of how the future might go extremely well could aid in building support for work to reduce existential risksrisks.
A better understanding of what futures should be steered towards might aid in working out which scenarios might constitute unrecoverable dystopias or unrecoverable collapses (i.e., existential catastrophes other than extinction).
LessWrong (2009) Fun theory, LessWrong Wiki, June 25.
Fun Theory,LessWrongPearce, David
(1995/2007)(1995) The Hedonistic Imperative, BLTCResearch.Research (updated 2007).