Fun fact: when Rutger shares that a good friend told him about the “paving down nature to save insects” story….
I have a strong suspicion who that good friend is. That good friend got this argument from me a couple of weeks ago, and I got it from you. Round circle. ^^
Even if he got it from a different friend, chances are high it originally comes from you.
The most important macro-ethical impactful information ever to share and to find out about, but especially now:
1. Macro-Ethical Scale of Evolution of Life: Certainly, if evolution of life happens somewhere or not is a very big deal in (macro) ethical terms since easily millions of species can be subjected to it, be involved in it, for several hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of years.
2. Macro-Ethical Importance of Evolution of Life: Now, what also is surely very agreeable is that evolution can play out in extremely many different ways and with extremely large variety in its short- and long-term dynamic, with that depending on all kinds of events (of various qualitatively different types) happening during it at all or not, or later or sooner. And so the window, or (in terms of all in the process aggregated joy and suffering) distance between the worst kinds of an instance of evolution of life and the best kinds of it surely is astronomically huge, providing the subject matter with monumental relevance, importance due to its scale. And this is independent of where (i.e. wholly on the negative side or between the negative and the positive side, or entirely on the positive side) such an interval or window consisting of the whole range or spectrum of cases of evolution of life between the worst and the best cases lies on any continuous axis (from - infinity to + infinity) meant to account for the ethical evaluation of the whole, once everything of ethical relevance related to it has finished happening.
3. Nearly guaranteed expectable decision-making- or design-improvement, rapidly in short time: Also, certainly any randomly intentionally or accidentally, maybe even unnoticed, kind of initiated instance of evolution elsewhere would not with any sufficiently high likelihood result in a form of evolution of life that is anywhere close among whatever the better actually plausible possible cases of it may be. And at the same time, science and technologies progress rapidly and surely can keep progressing speedily for millennia, if not hundreds of thousands of years, putting humanity then into a position with far greater holistic overview and comprehension of the matter. And given how gargantuan of a macro-ethically important matter this is, even if in the future we only could turn it into e.g. a 5% (relative to the window width) better version than any now possibly as such then irreversible version of evolution of life, the absolute difference would be unimaginably titanic.
4. Humanity's historical, contextually as empirical reference frame relevant, abysmal track record: As our history repeatedly shows, humanity does not have a track record of managing complex large-scale matters anywhere near perfectly right, the 1st time around, in part due to unaccounted for side-effects. Huge problems tied in with them are more the norm than an exception. And on top of this, unfortunately there is several factors that likely make it harder for contemporary people to care about this topic, such as all the crises we had and still have here on earth, but also that it's about a huge risk for others, not ourselves, and it'd not be humans (though it could also eventually lead to species with human level intelligence being subjected to it) but wildlife animals (which generally are by people judged to have a lower priority of care compared to other humans), and the disaster would unfold far in the future (long past the lifetime of anyone that lives currently) and far away, and the means by which it'd happen would be in a very subtle manner of which the comprehension, understanding of all that is made less accessible by the interdisciplinary complexity of the subject and that it has to be explained in rather little time, as it doesn't take long anymore for future space missions and activities in general carrying these grave risks with them. And so it seems that just about all odds stand in opposition rather than in favor of people taking it seriously with the right mindset about it.
5. It holds true that there is lack of any urgency or need for near-future final decision-making, by which to lock humanity out of otherwise currently still available, significant alternatives.
Conclusion: Unchallengeably, unquestionably it makes sense and is entirely far safer for humanity to have discipline, patience, and hold itself back from all its outer space activities that carry at least the slightest forward contamination risks. Humanity at any costs, possibly even including even MAD, must prevent/avoid so-called interplanetary/interstellar microbial forward contamination for centuries, or it loses its moral justification for its own continued existence based on utilitarianism, the fundamental ethical principle, together with the rational, unbiased-compassion-requiring but non-negotiable trolley problem solution logic. Morality is scientific, not made up. We must not let this happen!
The internationally binding Outer Space Treaty's Article IX strictly prohibits harmful forward contamination, but space agencies' contamination prevention measures have been proven beyond reasonable doubt to be absolutely unsustainably inadequate. After all, when the risked amount of suffering in the worst case is astronomically large, then according to rational risk management, the chance of such cases must be pushed down to truly microscopic levels.
References:
Prof. Gary David O'Brien, "Directed Panspermia, Wild Animal Suffering, and the Ethics of World-Creation": https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3
Oskari Sivula, "The Cosmic Significance of Directed Panspermia: Should Humanity Spread Life to Other Solar Systems?": https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS
Subject: Irrefutable Proof that Interplanetary Space Probes constitute Weapons of Mass Destruction & Immediate Legal Consequences are Necessary
RETURN, CEASE & DESIST ALL CURRENT AND FUTURE INTERPLANETARY MISSIONS IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS A MORAL & LEGAL ULTIMATUM AS PER ARTICLES IV & IX OF THE OUTER SPACE TREATY!
We demand an immediate moratorium on activities and technologies that risk microbial interplanetary forward contamination!
Proof of the applicability of Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty, based on the definition of WMDs in 1977 by the General Assembly of the UN through its resolution referred to as "A/RES/32/84-B":
"Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) constitute a class of weaponry with the potential to:
[...]
* Disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants;"
Interplanetary space probes carrying microbes are a means by which those microbes can be disseminated, and microbes are a form of organisms capable of causing disease, and therefore they are disease-causing organisms, as specified in the above official declaration in the defining context of WMDs. Microbes can kick-start evolution causing animal suffering for eons.
Drink every time British abolitionists get brought up lol. Really enjoyed the talk and want to get around to reading that book.
I liked your point that British abolitionists weren’t out to end all racism, though many likely supported broader ideals (racial equality, voting rights, etc). They focused on slavery as the particularly harmful, yet addressable injustice. Much like how factory farming is the clear, more easily digestible instantiation of the broader view that animal suffering matters — and it’s where change is most achievable. We slightly forgo wild animal suffering, kick that can down the road to focus on the winnable issue now, only to give more resources towards fighting the latter another day.
Fun fact: when Rutger shares that a good friend told him about the “paving down nature to save insects” story….
I have a strong suspicion who that good friend is. That good friend got this argument from me a couple of weeks ago, and I got it from you. Round circle. ^^
Even if he got it from a different friend, chances are high it originally comes from you.
Thanks for sharing, Matthew! I would agree decreasing the consumption of animal-based foods is harmful due to effects on wild animals. I estimated School Plates in 2023, and Veganuary in 2024 harmed soil nematodes, mites, and springtails 5.75 k and 3.85 k times as much as they benefited farmed animals (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Rjutj7Jd2v2KHvDyA/cost-effectiveness-accounting-for-soil-nematodes-mites-and).
The most important macro-ethical impactful information ever to share and to find out about, but especially now:
1. Macro-Ethical Scale of Evolution of Life: Certainly, if evolution of life happens somewhere or not is a very big deal in (macro) ethical terms since easily millions of species can be subjected to it, be involved in it, for several hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of years.
2. Macro-Ethical Importance of Evolution of Life: Now, what also is surely very agreeable is that evolution can play out in extremely many different ways and with extremely large variety in its short- and long-term dynamic, with that depending on all kinds of events (of various qualitatively different types) happening during it at all or not, or later or sooner. And so the window, or (in terms of all in the process aggregated joy and suffering) distance between the worst kinds of an instance of evolution of life and the best kinds of it surely is astronomically huge, providing the subject matter with monumental relevance, importance due to its scale. And this is independent of where (i.e. wholly on the negative side or between the negative and the positive side, or entirely on the positive side) such an interval or window consisting of the whole range or spectrum of cases of evolution of life between the worst and the best cases lies on any continuous axis (from - infinity to + infinity) meant to account for the ethical evaluation of the whole, once everything of ethical relevance related to it has finished happening.
3. Nearly guaranteed expectable decision-making- or design-improvement, rapidly in short time: Also, certainly any randomly intentionally or accidentally, maybe even unnoticed, kind of initiated instance of evolution elsewhere would not with any sufficiently high likelihood result in a form of evolution of life that is anywhere close among whatever the better actually plausible possible cases of it may be. And at the same time, science and technologies progress rapidly and surely can keep progressing speedily for millennia, if not hundreds of thousands of years, putting humanity then into a position with far greater holistic overview and comprehension of the matter. And given how gargantuan of a macro-ethically important matter this is, even if in the future we only could turn it into e.g. a 5% (relative to the window width) better version than any now possibly as such then irreversible version of evolution of life, the absolute difference would be unimaginably titanic.
4. Humanity's historical, contextually as empirical reference frame relevant, abysmal track record: As our history repeatedly shows, humanity does not have a track record of managing complex large-scale matters anywhere near perfectly right, the 1st time around, in part due to unaccounted for side-effects. Huge problems tied in with them are more the norm than an exception. And on top of this, unfortunately there is several factors that likely make it harder for contemporary people to care about this topic, such as all the crises we had and still have here on earth, but also that it's about a huge risk for others, not ourselves, and it'd not be humans (though it could also eventually lead to species with human level intelligence being subjected to it) but wildlife animals (which generally are by people judged to have a lower priority of care compared to other humans), and the disaster would unfold far in the future (long past the lifetime of anyone that lives currently) and far away, and the means by which it'd happen would be in a very subtle manner of which the comprehension, understanding of all that is made less accessible by the interdisciplinary complexity of the subject and that it has to be explained in rather little time, as it doesn't take long anymore for future space missions and activities in general carrying these grave risks with them. And so it seems that just about all odds stand in opposition rather than in favor of people taking it seriously with the right mindset about it.
5. It holds true that there is lack of any urgency or need for near-future final decision-making, by which to lock humanity out of otherwise currently still available, significant alternatives.
Conclusion: Unchallengeably, unquestionably it makes sense and is entirely far safer for humanity to have discipline, patience, and hold itself back from all its outer space activities that carry at least the slightest forward contamination risks. Humanity at any costs, possibly even including even MAD, must prevent/avoid so-called interplanetary/interstellar microbial forward contamination for centuries, or it loses its moral justification for its own continued existence based on utilitarianism, the fundamental ethical principle, together with the rational, unbiased-compassion-requiring but non-negotiable trolley problem solution logic. Morality is scientific, not made up. We must not let this happen!
The internationally binding Outer Space Treaty's Article IX strictly prohibits harmful forward contamination, but space agencies' contamination prevention measures have been proven beyond reasonable doubt to be absolutely unsustainably inadequate. After all, when the risked amount of suffering in the worst case is astronomically large, then according to rational risk management, the chance of such cases must be pushed down to truly microscopic levels.
References:
Prof. Gary David O'Brien, "Directed Panspermia, Wild Animal Suffering, and the Ethics of World-Creation": https://philpapers.org/rec/OBRDPW-3
Oskari Sivula, "The Cosmic Significance of Directed Panspermia: Should Humanity Spread Life to Other Solar Systems?": https://philpapers.org/rec/SIVTCS
Asher Soryl and Dr. Anders Sandberg "To seed or not to seed: Estimating the ethical value of directed panspermia": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652500181X
Subject: Irrefutable Proof that Interplanetary Space Probes constitute Weapons of Mass Destruction & Immediate Legal Consequences are Necessary
RETURN, CEASE & DESIST ALL CURRENT AND FUTURE INTERPLANETARY MISSIONS IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS A MORAL & LEGAL ULTIMATUM AS PER ARTICLES IV & IX OF THE OUTER SPACE TREATY!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652500181X
We demand an immediate moratorium on activities and technologies that risk microbial interplanetary forward contamination!
Proof of the applicability of Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty, based on the definition of WMDs in 1977 by the General Assembly of the UN through its resolution referred to as "A/RES/32/84-B":
https://www.unrcpd.org/wmd/
"Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) constitute a class of weaponry with the potential to:
[...]
* Disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants;"
Interplanetary space probes carrying microbes are a means by which those microbes can be disseminated, and microbes are a form of organisms capable of causing disease, and therefore they are disease-causing organisms, as specified in the above official declaration in the defining context of WMDs. Microbes can kick-start evolution causing animal suffering for eons.
Drink every time British abolitionists get brought up lol. Really enjoyed the talk and want to get around to reading that book.
I liked your point that British abolitionists weren’t out to end all racism, though many likely supported broader ideals (racial equality, voting rights, etc). They focused on slavery as the particularly harmful, yet addressable injustice. Much like how factory farming is the clear, more easily digestible instantiation of the broader view that animal suffering matters — and it’s where change is most achievable. We slightly forgo wild animal suffering, kick that can down the road to focus on the winnable issue now, only to give more resources towards fighting the latter another day.
(Not to say there isn’t anything we can do today)