<div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 3:50 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On 27/01/2026 18:30, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 10:46 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> On 27/01/2026 14:51, Jason Resch wrote:<br>
> > We see the aliens from the movie independence day as evil for trying to wipe out life on Earth. Is it not an equivalent evil to build a Dyson swarm around an alien star and preclude any chance of life from emerging on any planet in that system?<br>
><br>
><br>
> No it is not.<br>
> Doing harm to something which exists is totally different to doing hypothetical harm to something which doesn't exist.<br>
><br>
><br>
> If you consider life in earth a net good, then any action that precluded life on earth is actually more of a wrong than stamping out life after it had some period of time to exist.<br>
<br>
Are you serious?<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Absolutely.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
An action that precludes X is not the same thing as an action that destroys X. </blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I know. The one that precludes X is worse in my example.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">In one case, X exists, then doesn't exist because it is destroyed. In the other, X never came to be, so there is no way to even tell what it might have been.</blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">What ever good comes from there being life on earth boils down to the experience-years for all the beings that are conscious and alive on this planet.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">One day life on earth will end. But that future state doesn't cancel out all the good that can be done and experienced a all the lives, meaning, enjoyment, pleasure, joy, that are had.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Let's say that in the end, there were a quintillion experience-years had by all the conscious beings in earth. Any net positive good that life on earth has, exists within those experience-years.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Agree so far?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Now to my argument: </div><div dir="auto">"0 (overall good) experience-years" is *more favorable* than any positive number of (overall bad) experience-years)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That is to say, it is better that a hell world never exist at all, than exist for any positive number amount of time.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">And further "0 (overall good) experience-years" is *less favorable* than any positive number of (overall good) experience-years.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That is, "it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It is on this basis that I make my claim: precluding life from ever existing on earth is less favorable than life existing for some period of time and then being wiped out, so long as the experiences are overall good.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It is simply a matter of counting and weighing the experience-years for the two scenarios.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Doing something that results in someone not being born is different to killing them. You have to exist for your existence to be taken away.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This is a very different example and the analogy to planetary sterilization fails for any number of reasons that should be obvious.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
An action that precluded life on earth has no moral content whatever.</blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A lifeless planet that has no potential to ever have life has no moral value, I agree. But that's not the example I am considering.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Here I am considering a planet that will develop life, but through some intentional action, is rendered to a state where it never will have life.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">My claim is that such an action is a moral wrong (absent other some mitigating factor).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Every time I brush my teeth, I'm preventing countless lives that theoretically could have been created from the cells that I destroy. Does that make me a mass murderer? This is basically what you are claiming.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">No that's a very different example. Please stick to my original example and explain why it is morally acceptable to sterilize a planet that will one day harbor conscious life (whose net experiences we stipulate to be an overall good).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
If you want to talk about the potential lives that never came about if a Dyson swarm is built, you have to also talk about the potential lives that never came about if it wasn't built (which would be far more), </blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Right this is a potential mitigating factor.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">as well as the consequences of not doing a dozen other different things, like maybe using the planetary masses to create habitats for biological life, using the whole system to make a gigantic transmitter for mind patterns, to send them somewhere else, and a whole bunch of other things that we can think of, not to mention the many more things that we can't think of.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Right. I agree all such consequences to the galactic ecosystem should be considered by any moral civilization, in the same way we make sure we aren't extincting some species by draining a swamp to build a highway.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
><br>
><br>
> You're talking about the kind of thinking which leads people to conclude that contraception is evil and similar bonkers ideas.<br>
><br>
><br>
> There are too many differences between contraception and the preclusion of life on earth, to that make the situations incomparable.<br>
<br>
I think you'll have to explain that. Preventing something from happening on a small scale is exactly equivalent to preventing something happening on a larger scale. The end result is the same: Nothing.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The difference is earth has a finite carrying capacity and one person not being born at one time makes room for someone else to be born.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I the case of the planet being made to never just life, that doesn't make some other planet become hospitable. It's just all downside.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The analogy doesn't hold for this reason.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Bear in mind that we're not talking about thwarting someone's wishes, which is a different issue.<br>
<br>
Do you think that the Big Bang was the greatest evil ever, because it precluded who-knows-how-many-or-what different other universes from coming into being instead of the one we're in?<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">According to inflation, the big bang did not preclude anything. New big bangs are occurring constantly throughout the eternally inflating space. As Alan Guth said, it is the ultimate free lunch.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
><br>
> Try to explain from first principles why it is morally acceptable to prevent life from ever forming on earth. (Assuming we agree life on earth is a net good)<br>
<br>
Morality doesn't even enter into it. You might as well ask whether it's morally acceptable for me to drink a cup of coffee before bed, thus potentially changing the number and type of dreams I might have.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It's more like whether it's morally acceptable for someone to poison that coffee and thereby preclude you from ever dreaming again.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Remember we were talking about sterilizing a planet, not tweaking the genetics early on to get one form of life instead of another.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
The point here, I think, is that stuff that doesn't happen, doesn't happen. I can only agree that life on earth is a net good if life on earth actually exists.</blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That doesn't follow. All moral philosophy involves consideration of potential futures which are not presently real.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> If it doesn't, there's nothing to talk about. </blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This thinking leads to nihilism.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">If the theorised supernova that precipitated the collapse of a nebula into our sun and solar system never happened, can we meaningfully talk about the moral value of life on earth? An earth that never formed around a star that never existed? Could we blame some aliens that somehow averted the supernova because it was threatening their existence, for the 'loss' of all life on earth?<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">You are introducing mitigating factors. Of course the conclusion may change if you change the situation.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Can we meaningfully assign a moral value to the loss caused by a specific person wearing a condom on the night of the 31st December 2010?</blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Possibly. More information is needed. Would that person have invented a cure for cancer, or started WW3? But since we can't anticipate such things, we must hold harmless those who act under such ignorance.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I.e., "forgive them, for they know not what they do" </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> To what might have happened if that lady in the supermarket had turned her head to the left instead of the right when she sneezed? Or if she had got her handkerchief out in time?<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">〃</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Far, far, far (to the power of a stupidly huge number, to the power of an even huger number) more things never happened than did. If you ascribe moral significance to this, you're headed down a rabbit hole there's no coming back from.<br></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This is needless complication for my simple example:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Sterilizing a planet that would otherwise have been a net good, absent any mitigating factors, is a moral wrong? Y/N</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">You can add mitigating factors, add multiverses, and what not, and that may make the question more or less difficult to answer, but I am trying to keep it as simple as possible.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason</div></div>