If you were honestly this worried… you need a therapist. And maybe read some history and rejoice that people didn’t stop having kids during famines, wars, plagues, genocides, economic collapses, revolutions, barbarian invasions, Viking raids… otherwise you might not have existed to worry about a theoretical long-term threat.
Being literate in history is very useful for putting these social panics into context:
“I returned to civilization shortly after that and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can't understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth... How far from here was 34th street?... All those buildings, all smashed — and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they'd be making a new road, and I thought, they're crazy, they just don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless.
But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.”
People still had kids because they needed them to tend farms. That isn't the case today.
Many of us have therapists, I'm not sure what your point is about that. When you are locking eyes with a hungry leopard it is reasonable to be afraid.
I really wonder what your social circle is, because among mine it's nearly universally realized that subjecting a new consciousness to the multiple looming hells would be an act of cruelty.
> People still had kids because they needed them to tend farms. That isn't the case today.
Not necessarily. There were plenty of urbanites back then, and they often suffered more from the wars, sieges, plagues, famines, and so forth than their rural neighbors.
> nearly universally realized that subjecting a new consciousness to the multiple looming hells would be an act of cruelty
I actually that this is just self-justification for a selfish lifestyle, because hear me out: There have always been looming hells in history. Thank goodness people didn’t stop having kids during the Cold War, because we believed nuclear war was basically inevitable. Furthermore, this attitude hides that this is still among the most physically safe times to ever have children. Your kid isn’t likely to be attacked by a bear, or by a criminal before DNA testing was invented, and if they get a disease, expensive healthcare is still preferable to certain death.
Also, most of these looming hells… didn’t really come to pass. Look to the plenty of past panics. Right now, don’t be blind to the fact that the replacement rate worldwide is so low, the government may be physically unable to pay you social security, or house you in your old age. It’s already awfully close in countries like Japan and China. Population collapse is actually a great self-manufactured threat approaching.
I say this in all seriousness, though it may sound kind of snarky: You could start a farm, move somewhere with fewer "leopards", and build a new social circle. Also, can't you let a new consciousness have their own say on the matter? They can choose their reaction to the multiple looming hells when they get here, no?
I am unsure if you directed a bot to write this or not, but it incredibly shallow in its understanding. Much more so than it is snarky even though only the snarkiness is acknowledged.
>I say this in all seriousness, though it may sound kind of snarky: You could start a farm, move somewhere with fewer "leopards"
I'm not aware of anywhere I could travel that would be outside the sphere of influence of AI. Perhaps I should use the example of "50km asteroid on a collision course" instead of leopards. Putting our heads in the sand in the face of a global threat is not a rational course of action.
>and build a new social circle.
I'm not sure why I would do this or why you even think it is a good suggestion. A circle of people who you love and trust and who love and trust you back, thanks to many years of friend- and companion-ship, is the most valuable asset a person can have in life. Burning my house down would be a much lesser waste.
>Also, can't you let a new consciousness have their own say on the matter? They can choose their reaction to the multiple looming hells when they get here, no?
The new consciousness doesn't exist unless we create it in the first place. There is no rule that compels us to continue bringing new consciousnesses into existence. People who do not and are unlikely to ever exist are imaginary, and we don't give imaginary people a "say on the matter."
You said that, "People still had kids because they needed them to tend farms." If you started a farm, then you too could have the same excuse! Is this an act of cruelty? I don't think you can know unless you have the kid and then ask them.
On the leopards/asteroid, just imagine, I realize you don't believe this, but just imagine that you realized that AI wasn't going to hurt people. Imagine the weight that would just lift right off your shoulders. This is how most people feel because they aren't convinced that AI is going to do anything that horrible. Deepfakes, misinformation, etc, those will all be problems we pretty much all realize we'll have to face, but imagine letting go of all the more apocalyptic visions.
> You said that, "People still had kids because they needed them to tend farms." If you started a farm, then you too could have the same excuse! Is this an act of cruelty? I don't think you can know unless you have the kid and then ask them.
This doesn't even make sense. If I was to start a farm I would need large combines and other equipment modern farms use, not kids. If you mean as if I had lived centuries ago, having kids was necessary simply to produce food and keep the species alive, and unlike today did not mean parents were subjecting them to a worse life than they had experienced themselves. Often times it was the opposite. Today kids are not necessary to run farms, and above a very low level will not assist in sustaining the species since most will just be extra casualties in mass die-offs.
> On the leopards/asteroid, just imagine, I realize you don't believe this, but just imagine that you realized that AI wasn't going to hurt people. Imagine the weight that would just lift right off your shoulders. This is how most people feel because they aren't convinced that AI is going to do anything that horrible. Deepfakes, misinformation, etc, those will all be problems we pretty much all realize we'll have to face, but imagine letting go of all the more apocalyptic visions.
I'm not sure what you want me to do with this. "Imagine as if your problems weren't real" is mindless false hope at best, and insulting one's intelligence at worst. Sticking our head in the sand and pretending everything is okay is not an effective way to manage emotions or disasters.
If you were honestly this worried… you need a therapist. And maybe read some history and rejoice that people didn’t stop having kids during famines, wars, plagues, genocides, economic collapses, revolutions, barbarian invasions, Viking raids… otherwise you might not have existed to worry about a theoretical long-term threat.