Ban on single-use plastic cutlery comes into force in England

If it’s desirable to save the lives of people who are at risk of never existing in the first place, I think that leads us to some pretty absurd ideas.

It would be a bit like saying “using contraception is wrong because you’re preventing the life of someone who could have otherwise existed and had a great life”. Yes, you are, but until they actually exist they’re unable to care whether they end up being born or not. They’re not losing anything if they never had, nor expected to have it.

It is desireable to make the lives of future people easier if they are to exist at all, which they will. You and I are not the last generation of humans. People will continue to be born over the next 100-200 years, as they already are. If we do not fix climate change then they will suffer because of our inaction.

Your philosophy is that we shouldn't work to prevent suffering if suffering is eventually inevitable, even if it takes 1 billion years to happen. It's an absurd line of reasoning and I can only assume it is because you simply don't care about people born after you. To anyone else this would seem obvious.

Not that I have children, let alone grandchildren, but I wouldn't future offspring of mine to suffer on a dying planet just because the heat death of the universe might kill off humans in billions of years. Would you? If the answer is "no" then you should care about climate change. If the answer is "yes" or "I don't care either way" then you lack empathy.

I think it’s a contradiction in terms to say “we’re working to prevent suffering even though said suffering is inevitable”. Then you’re not preventing at all, you’re just delaying it and shifting it from one group of people to another.

Of course I care about the next generation. But I also equally care about the one after that, and the one after that… ad infinitum. So I don’t see why it is a better scenario that a later generation suffers instead of an earlier one. They’re just as bad as each other.

It's about preventing suffering that is within our control. Climate change can be fixed, the heat death of the universe can't.

They aren't as bad as each other because one generation's suffering would be preventable whereas the other wouldn't be. If you care about all generations then it should matter to you that more generations survive potential extinction-level events.

This doesn’t make sense to me. You say the heat death of the universe isn't preventable, but in fact the suffering associated with it is. Because if we were to have an extinction-level event now, then nobody would be around to suffer the heat death of the universe or any later extinction events for that matter. Whereas if we don't have one now, then a later one is certain to get us.

So it's an either / or situation. It's just a choice between going extinct now or going extinct later. I care about minimising suffering, but this choice doesn't make a difference to the total amount of suffering experienced either way.

But, again, the benefit is that humanity can live for a longer period of time without suffering. Do you simply not care about that? To you, does humanity living 200 years have as much value as humanity living billions of years?

I simply cannot understand how you claim to care about future generations. It's saying you don't care about the future your children or grandchildren will live in because 'well, humans will die out at some point anyway'. This is either a contradiction in your claims or you simply lack the ethics to care about people besides you. I, for one, certainly would not want my children to live in a world like that.

I haven't mentioned it until now but your fundamental premise, which I have assumed for arguments sake, is wrong. Avoiding extinction due to climate change may mean that extinction will happen eventually but that does not mean the extinction will involve suffering. Humanity may eventually die out due to low birth rates, for example.

It depends on exactly what you mean. If our efforts are to ensure that fewer individuals suffer and / or get their lives cut short, then I think that is worthwhile and valuable. But if our efforts are for "humanity" as a collective species to exist for longer just for its own sake, that's not really something I value in and of itself. As I said, I don't think people who never get to exist actually mind if they never get to exist. I don't mourn the loss of people who never existed in the first place.

Because I don't only care about the next two generations, I care about every generation after that as well. So simply removing the suffering from one generation and letting the other suffer instead (without no reduction in the total amount of suffering experienced) isn't an improvement, in my opinion.


Sure, but then there's similarly the possibility that if we avoid climate change now, the next extinction event could be something that causes even more suffering than climate change. Without an assessment of how much suffering the next extinction event is likely to involve, it's hard to say whether it's preferable to avoid this one and wait for the next one, or accept this one and avoid the next one.

They're the same thing. Preventing climate change will allow humanity to live longer, which in turn will mean that more individuals will be able to live full lives and not suffer. If you care about every generation then it should matter that more of those generations survive.

By enabling climate change we are guaranteeing that extinction will take place through suffering. By preventing climate change we allow the possibility that it won't.

What? “More individuals living full lives without suffering” isn’t the same as “fewer individuals suffering and having their lives cut short.”

Example:
- 7 billion people suffer and die now, and humanity goes extinct; or
- A trillion extra people get to be born and live ordinary lives over the next few generations, and then 7 billion people suffer and die and humanity goes extinct

The same number of individuals suffered and died early in both scenarios. So in my opinion they’re just as bad as each other.


But by preventing imminent climate change, we’re also allowing the possibility that extinction will take place later via even worse suffering than if we allowed it to happen. So we can’t necessarily infer from what you’ve said that preventing it is preferable.

You're missing the point. In the second scenario trillions of more people get to be born and live full lives, tgat's the benefit. I don't understand how you can't see that?

It is preferable because the option is still there. By enabling climate change we guarantee extinction by suffering. If you care about suffering, which you claim to do, then you should care about giving humanity a future where suffering from a extinction may be avoidable.

My point is, I don’t particularly see that as a benefit. My priority is to minimise suffering and the number of people’s lives getting cut short once they’ve started already; not maximising the number of people to ever exist.

Yes but that simply ignores the fact that by preventing climate change, the generation that experiences extinction might end up suffering more rather than less.

Your position is contradictory. If your goal is to minimise suffering then you should aim to stop the things that will be guaranteed to cause suffering, i.e. climate change. There is no guarantee that humanity will go extinct through suffering otherwise so by choosing to allow climate change you are taking that possibility away. It's neither here nor there whether more suffering could be caused by something other than climate change. Neither of us know what might happen, but we know what some of the possibilities might be.

But there’s no guarantee either, that stopping climate change will lead to the scenario of minimal suffering in the long term. Doing this could result in less suffering but it could also result in more, depending on how the eventual extinction happens. We don’t know which it will be.

We can’t just say “it’s neither here nor there” when it’s the crucial point. In isolation it may be great to remove X amount of suffering, but if we have no idea how much suffering we’re replacing it with, then we can’t necessarily say it’s a good idea.

The fact that there is no guarantee is irrelevant. Your goal is to minimise suffering, is it not? Just because we don't know how human extinction will eventually play out doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make a suffering-less situation to happen. By enabling climate change we guarantee that won't happen.

It’s completely relevant! Minimising suffering often involves accepting a certain level of it in order to avoid the risk of even worse suffering later on. Not just going for the option of zero suffering in the short term and ignoring any risk of greater suffering that might bring in the long term.

That's nonsense, that's like saying 'I want to minimise suffering, but I don't care if there is a nuclear holocaust that kills everyone. After all, something even worse could happen instead if we work towards world peace'.

It’s not at all like that. I’m simply saying that we have to consider the relative likelihood and severity of the suffering in each scenario before we can know which is the preferable option.

A course of action isn’t conducive to minimising suffering just because it might result in zero suffering in the short term. We also have to consider the risk of it resulting in more suffering later on, and weigh up the two possibilities.

If we followed your logic, we’d conclude that “we shouldn’t vaccinate kids; doing so guarantees they will suffer the pain of the jab, whereas if we avoid vaccinating them they might not suffer at all”. One is simply ignoring the fact that aiming for the “suffering-less” situation now may result in a situation of far, far worse suffering later on.

As I said, I don't think people who never get to exist actually mind if they never get to exist. I don't mourn the loss of people who never existed in the first place.