[ExI] FW: How fun could doom intelligent life to a blissful extinction

[spike at rainier66.com]

I posted this right before the ExI list barfed.  Posting again.

spike



-----Original Message-----
From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Sent: Saturday, 15 July, 2023 4:14 PM
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: 'BillK' <pharos at gmail.com>; spike at rainier66.com
Subject: RE: [ExI] How fun could doom intelligent life to a blissful extinction



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat


>...If the pursuit of happiness is the primary explanation for our decreasing fertility rate, this tendency might be true not just for humans but for all intelligent life — providing a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

<https://bigthink.com/the-future/pursuit-happiness-doom-intelligent-life-blissful-extinction/>
-------------------
...

BillK

_______________________________________________



BillK, this is really as plausible an explanation for the Fermi Paradox as any I have heard, and perhaps the most pleasant one.  Having children is a way to experience happiness, but it is a risky bet indeed.  If we find sufficient alternative routes to happiness, the notion of having children becomes ever less compelling.  If we find alternative routes to the pleasures of copulation and all those cool endorphins we get from love, that whole risky activity isn't worth the effort either.  Result: not enough young people to run the world we already built for them.

But of course nuclear war could wipe out most of what we have done, creating the need for rebuilders and family people, so we might save our species in that horrifying way: radiation therapy.  Or the singularity could kill us, but I don't think it would kill people who have never seen a computer.  They might survive to build it all back.

spike