Never in the history of our planet – or, as far as we know, the universe – has there been a species that invests so much time in making things better for others. However, we can also focus on all the good that we do. There’s no need to write a long and depressing list here. We screw up our environment and use a lot of finite natural resources. We all know the horrors that we cause in the world: to other people and annually to 65 billion farmed animals (excluding fish). Humans may do a lot of damage, but they’re also wonderful. These are the reasons why I would not press the button.ġ. I won’t go into this minefield here, because I do not have strong opinions about these issues, because I can’t seem to wrap my head around them, and mainly because here I want to touch on some other factors. They will obviously not be born if we let humanity go extinct. But if there’s more misery than happiness, this could be good. We could also think about the value of future people being born. If there is, on average, more value than disvalue in humans’ lives, it might seem that the net result is negative. Apart from the consequences for other species and the environment, we could talk about whether the universe in general is a worse or a better place with humans gone. Now, from the viewpoint of the notoriously tricky field of population ethics, there’s a lot of stuff to say here. It is tempting to think that the planet would be a better place without Homo sapiens, and given that in our thought experiment, no humans would really suffer (it’s just a matter of an instant, and no humans are left to deplore the new situation), we might say: where’s the harm? People become animal rights activists and/or vegans because they have learned about the horrible suffering humans inflict on animals, for food, clothing, research or entertainment. In the animal rights/vegan movement, more people seem to be in favor of human extinction than among the general population (just my anecdotal experience).

I am fish stuck on press any button