Summary: Why many different worldviews should prioritise reducing existential risk. Also an exhaustive list of people who can ignore this argument. (Writeup of an old argument I can't find a source for.)

Confidence: 70%.

Crossposted from gleech.org.

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Imagine someone who thought that art was the only thing that made life worth living. [1] What should they do? Binge on galleries?

Work to increase the amount of art and artistic experience, by going into finance to fund artists? Or by becoming an activist for government funding for the arts? Maybe. But there’s a case that they should pay attention to ways the world might end: after all, you can’t enjoy art if we’re all dead.

1. Aesthetic experience is good in itself: it’s a terminal goal.
2. The extinction of life would destroy all aesthetic experience & prevent future experiences.
3. So reducing existential risk is good, if only to protect the conditions for aesthetic experience.

And this generalises to a huge range of values:

1. [good] is good in itself: it’s a terminal goal.
2. The extinction of life would destroy [good], and prevent future [good].
3. So reducing existential risk is good, if only to protect the conditions for [good].

Caspar Oesterheld gives a few examples of what people can plug into those brackets:

Abundance, achievement, adventure, affiliation, altruism, apatheia, art, asceticism, austerity, autarky, authority, autonomy, beauty, benevolence, bodily integrity, challenge, collective property, commemoration, communism, community, compassion, competence, competition, competitiveness, complexity, comradery, conscientiousness, consciousness, contentment, cooperation, courage, [crab-mentality], creativity, crime, critical thinking, curiosity, democracy, determination, dignity, diligence, discipline, diversity, duties, education, emotion, envy, equality, equanimity, excellence, excitement, experience, fairness, faithfulness, family, fortitude, frankness, free will, freedom, friendship, frugality, fulfillment, fun, good intentions, greed, happiness, harmony, health, honesty, honor, humility, idealism, idolatry, imagination, improvement, incorruptibility, individuality, industriousness, intelligence, justice, knowledge, law abidance, life, love, loyalty, modesty, monogamy, mutual affection, nature, novelty, obedience, openness, optimism, order, organization, pain, parsimony, peace, peace of mind, pity

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