Is It Immoral to Say That There Are People Who Exist?

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"It's incredibly like immoral right like to say that, you know, there are people who exist to day. And because i believe that there are going to be all of these digit beings, like, a million years in the future or something, that we shouldn't actually take the actions that would help people to day," he says. "I mean, this perspective on ethics, it shares mental similarities with certain approaches in economics, in some sense."

Paris Marx is joined by Émile P. Torres to discuss why longtermism isn’t just about long-term thinking, but provides a framework for Silicon Valley billionaires to justify ignoring the crises facing humanity so they can accumulate wealth and go after space colonization.

Émile P. Torres is a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A History of Thinking About the End of Humanity. Follow Phil on Twitter at @xriskology.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Émile wrote about the dangers presented by longtermism and its relationship to Elon Musk.
Paris wrote about Jeff Bezos’ vision of life in space and why Elon Musk is planning for climate catastrophe.
Elon Musk was tweeting about birth rates again (he has some odd views on who should be having kids) and retweeted someone praising a paper by longtermist Nick Bostrom.
After moving to Texas, its governor said Elon Musk liked the state’s “social policies” (in reference to abortion limitations) to little pushback, then Musk forced California employees to move to Texas.