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"Wasting resources" is a value judgement with no logical evidence. Every living thing consumes part of its environment and excretes toxins. You might as well accuse trees of "wasting" carbon dioxide and poisoning the environment with oxygen - which is exactly what happened before animals evolved to complete the cycle.
Waste or not depends on the judgment of conscious entities.
Imagine if our ancestors didn't care if their descendants would live or die.
Like it or not, they will die eventually, as will every living thing.
I really mean everything, not just the ones that are alive now. The whole of life is a transient phenomenon. ΔS > 0.
I have a goal to launch and protect my descendants as well as I can. What they do with the knowledge and resources I bequeath them is up to them, not me. The graveyards are full of men who considered themselves indispensable.
Not immediately, but life will eventually extinguish without my help.
How long do you expect for it to last?
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 10/08/2023 10:32:17How long do you expect for it to last?Good question. Bayes' theorem gives a best estimate of 4 billion years.
The Track Record Argument for Utilitarianism
Is it possible to make it longer?Why or why not?Should we, or should we not?
The sun is predicted to die in about 5 billion years, which places an upper limit on the sustainability of terrestrial life, and we know of no other.Bayes' postulate is that "in the absence of conflicting information, today is like any other day" , so as life seems to have been around for 4.5 bn years, one's best guess at how long it will last is another 4.5 bn.I tink the convergence of these figures is sufficient for the present purpose.