[ExI] ?Risks: Global Catastrophic, Extinction, Existential and ...

[Stefano Vaj]

2012/3/8 <natasha at natasha.cc>

> (Extinction risk is obvious, but I'm wondering if extinction risk is more
> relevant to a species rather than a person.)


I think that by now the "interest of the species" is an ideological
construct who does not really bear closer inspection either in descriptive
or normative terms.

Defining OTOH in a more rigorous fashion "existential risk" as the opposite
of "Darwinian success", I think that no final argument exists as to what
the best strategy may be in terms of specific lifespans.

What can be said is that we are programmed like everybody else for a
"survival instinct", as a consequence of the fact that not exhibiting it is
in most circumstances hardly an adaptive behaviour. So, seeking immortality
is a normal trait of our ethology, and one I personally see no compelling
reasons to change...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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