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In an article called What’s wrong with human extinction? Elizabeth Finneron-Burns addresses the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to cause or allow (by doing nothing to prevent it) human extinction to occur. Put it another way: “under what (if any) conditions would people causing or allowing the extinction of the human race be wrong?”

To answer this question Finneron-Burns examines the four reasons that could be given according to her, against the moral permissibility of human extinction. She considers them from a contractualist perspective, meaning basically that: “We wrong others when we fail to consider their interests in our moral deliberations and do not give them the respect they deserve by virtue of being rational people. This happens when we cannot justify our actions to them using acceptable reasons or when we act according to a principle that they could reject for similarly acceptable reasons.” This perspective is a type of person-affecting theory, meaning that what is important is the effect of principles/actions on persons, rather than ‘the world’. Acceptable reasons for either justifying a principle or rejecting one, must be personal – it must have an impact on a person or persons.

1. It would prevent the existence of very many happy people

 Many people find it intuitive that we should want more generations to have the opportunity to exist. They claim against human extinction since it deprives more people of something good which is to exist and enjoy happy lives.
However, Finneron-Burns rightly rejects this claim arguing that we can only wrong someone who did, does or will actually exist.

A possible person is not disadvantaged by not being created. In order to be disadvantaged, there must be some detrimental effect on a person’s interests. However, without existence, a person does not have any interests so they cannot be disadvantaged by being kept out of existence, “a principle that results in some possible people never becoming actual does not impose any costs on those ‘people’ because nobody is disadvantaged by not coming into existence.” (p.6)

No one acts wrongly when they don’t create another person, and hence if everybody decides not to create new people – which would eventually lead to human extinction – it is also not wrong.
Some might disagree, arguing that human extinction is a loss of positive value. However, under the contractualist perspective that Finneron-Burns uses in this article, something cannot be wrong unless there is an impact on a person. Therefore she concludes that “neither the impersonal value of creating a particular person nor the impersonal value of human life writ large could on its own provide a reason for rejecting a principle permitting human extinction.” (p.7)

2. It would mean the loss of the only known form of intelligent life and all civilization and intellectual progress would be lost

Many people claim that human extinction would be a terrible loss since humans are the only known intelligent, rational and civilized life.

As in the case of the first argument, Finneron-Burns also rejects this one for being impersonal.

Since the loss of intelligent, rational and civilized life would impact no one’s well-being or interests, it is not wrong.
She also quotes Henry Sidgwick who claimed that these things are only important insofar as they are important to humans. “If there is no form of intelligent life in the future, who would there be to lament its loss since intelligent life is the only form of life capable of appreciating intelligence? Similarly, if there is no one with the rational capacity to appreciate historic monuments and civil progress, who would there be to be negatively affected or even notice the loss?” (p.8)

Although I agree with the counter argument she presents, I think it’s unnecessary as the premises of the argument it counters are false. Humans are far from being the only intelligent and rational beings in the universe, and I am not basing this claim on encounters I’ve had with extra-terrestrials but with nonhuman animals here on earth. I don’t think that the loss of intelligent and rational life is by itself a valid reason against extinction, but even if it was, since humanity has no exclusiveness on either, to claim against extinction because of the loss of intelligence and rationality is definitely not valid.

On the other hand, human intelligence and rationality is definitely a valid and sufficient argument for human extinction. All along history humans have used their intelligence and rationality to use, abuse, exploit, manipulate, and control each other, and other animals.

All along history humans have consistently brought havoc everywhere they have reached.

Wars, pollution, torture facilities, concertation camps, factory farms and many many more examples, are the products of human civilization and intelligence.

Human civilization is an ongoing memorial of exploitation, domination and destruction.

Human extinction is not a loss but a benefit. A benefit to probably tens of millions of humans whose lives are extremely miserable, and surely to everyone who isn’t human.

3. Existing people would endure physical pain and/or painful and/or premature deaths

Basically this claim is that since it seems uncontroversial that the infliction of physical pain could be a reason to reject a principle, and since the ways in which human extinction might come about might involve significant physical and/or non-physical harms to existing people and their interests, extinction is wrong.

With this argument Finneron-Burns agrees. She also presents a counter argument to this claim, and then explains why it is wrong:

“Of course the mere fact that a principle causes involuntary physical harm or premature death is not sufficient to declare that the principle is rejectable – there might be countervailing reasons. In the case of extinction, what countervailing reasons might be offered in favour of the involuntary physical pain/death-inducing harm? One such reason that might be offered is that humans are a harm to the natural environment and that the world might be a better place if there were no humans in it. It could be that humans might rightfully be considered an all-things-considered hindrance to the world rather than a benefit to it given the fact that we have been largely responsible for the extinction of many species, pollution and, most recently, climate change which have all negatively affected the natural environment in ways we are only just beginning to understand. Thus, the fact that human extinction would improve the natural environment (or at least prevent it from degrading further), is a countervailing reason in favour of extinction to be weighed against the reasons held by humans who would experience physical pain or premature death. However, the good of the environment as described above is by definition not a personal reason. Just like the loss of rational life and civilization, therefore, it cannot be a reason on its own when determining what is wrong and countervail the strong personal reasons to avoid pain/death that is held by the people who would suffer from it. Every person existing at the time of the extinction would have a reason to reject that principle on the grounds of the physical pain they are being forced to endure against their will that could not be countervailed by impersonal considerations such as the negative impact humans may have on the earth.” (p.11)

Finneron-Burns’s rejection to the counter argument she presents is utterly wrong because it falsely switches the personal interests of trillions of sentient creatures with a non-entity abstract concept such as ‘the natural environment’.
But the case is not of humans being a harm to ‘the natural environment’ but of humans being a harm to trillions of individual sentient creatures. It is not a case of the impersonal environment which is weighted against existing persons, but trillions of existing sentient individuals weighted against existing people.
She is making such a false presentation of the situation in her premises so she could later conclude that the counter argument is impersonal, but it is not that “the world might be a better place if there were no humans in it”, but that the lives of trillions of persons would be better if there were no humans in it. It is not the fact that human extinction “would improve the natural environment”, but that it would improve the lives of other sentient creatures. Her rejection to the counter argument speciesistly nulls the interests of trillions of sentient creatures treating them as if they are an abstract concept and not individuals entitled with moral consideration.

Only because she falsely describes the harms to trillions of sentient creatures as a harm to the environment, Finneron-Burns can claim that this argument fails since it is impersonal. Obviously ‘the environment’ is not a moral entity as it has no interests. But the sentient creatures who live in the environment are moral entities, it is them who have interests we all must consider. When using a correct description, this argument is valid, firm and unequivocal. Human extinction would probably be consensually decided upon by all sentient creatures had their interests been considered.

But they are not. Trillions of existing sentient individuals matter so little to humans that even when they are allegedly being given as reason for human extinction, they are diminished to an impersonal reason. Instead of being trillions of strong independent reasons for human extinction, they are presented as one weak impersonal reason. That is human chauvinism. It is speciesism.

For humans to live, nonhumans suffer and die by the billions all the time. Human life has no value of its own outside of human life, and human life is not more important to humans than the lives of nonhumans are important to nonhumans. Thinking otherwise is speciesism.
Moreover, the harm humans inflict on other sentient creatures is so vast that practically there is no human action in modern society that doesn’t harm an individual, an animal person, somewhere in the world. Humans don’t harm the environment as there is no such option. The environment is not a moral entity. It is not sentient and it has no interests. The harm is inflicted on sentient creatures. The fact that these creatures are totally meaningless in humanity’s view, doesn’t serve as a justification to null each of these animal persons and turn them into an impersonal reason. They are all persons. They view themselves as persons just as the humans who harm them view themselves as persons. Only that no one considers their personal interests. To keep considering humans’ procreation interests means to keep ignoring all the interests of all the other creatures. And that’s why we should stop considering the personal interests of humans to procreate.

‘The good of the environment’ may not be a personal reason, but the good of each of its inhabitants, is. Unlike the loss of rational life and civilization, it can be a reason on its own when determining what is wrong with human extinction, and if we ask all of the inhabitants it would probably be that the only thing wrong with human extinction is that it didn’t already happen.

4. Existing people could endure non-physical harms

 The final reason against human extinction Finneron-Burns discusses is the psychological effects that might be endured by existing people who are aware that there would be no future generations.

One psychological effect she mentions is the negative effect on well-being that would be experienced by those who would have wanted to have children. “Reproducing is a widely held desire and the joys of parenthood are ones that many people wish to experience. For these people knowing that they would not have descendants could create a sense of despair and pointlessness of life.”

And she adds that “the inability to reproduce and have your own children because of a principle/policy that prevents you would be a significant infringement of what we consider to be a basic right to control what happens to your body.” (p.11)

As in the case of the third argument, Finneron-Burns agrees with this claim, and as in that case I think her agreement is wrong. In fact, in a way, supporting this argument is even worse, since it implies that because people would never voluntarily do the right thing and not procreate, it is morally permissible for them to procreate, and it is morally impermissible to force them not to.

fcoSince antinatalism necessarily entails human extinction, as obviously if everyone apply its ethical rule eventually the human race would go extinct, when arguing against human extinction, one must also counter antinatalism, as obviously the practical opposition to human extinction is procreation.
So among other things, to counter claims for human extinction, Finneron-Burns should argue that procreation is not a crime, not that people would be hurt if they are not allowed to commit that crime. Antinatalists know that people want to create new people, that’s why they are arguing against it. Had people not wanted to procreate there would have been no need for no arguments.

Lets’ take for example one of the most popular antinatalist arguments – the consent argument – which goes more or less like this: Causing harm to another person is morally justified only if that person had provided an informed consent, or in the case an informed consent cannot be provided but causing harm is in the best interest of that person since otherwise a greater harm would be caused to that person. Some also add the case of causing harm as a punishment for a crime. Since forcing people into existence is subjecting them to harms without their consent, and without it being in their best interest (for the obvious reason that before its existence a person has no interests, as there is no person), and it is also definitely not the case of punishment for a crime, procreation is morally impermissible.
Arguing that ‘reproducing is a widely held desire and the joys of parenthood are ones that many people wish to experience’ is not an admissible reply to the consent argument. It can’t serve as a counter argument to the consent based argument for antinatalism which obviously, as all antinatalist arguments, entails human extinction.

So for that matter, Finneron-Burns should have argued against the consent argument, not explain that people would be hurt if they can’t procreate because they want to, or at least try to explain how is it that the interests of the prospective parents subdue the interests of the potential child.

The question in point is ‘is it morally permissible to stop people from doing what they want’. And so the answer can’t be ‘no’ because they don’t want to stop.
If it is a valid reply then it should be valid in other cases of causing harms to others just as much. And then, all that any offender should claim is that by stopping him from committing a crime we are making him the victim. And that would be to nullify criminalness. Every offender would be hurt if they couldn’t continue with their offences, is it a justified reason to let them go on with their offences?
What is often called crimes of passion are not permissible since the offender would be hurt had s/he not committed the crime.
Rapists might feel hurt if they are not allowed to rape, or if they are caught, is that a reason not to do everything we can to stop them? Can the desire to rape be an argument in favor of raping?

Obviously people want to procreate, that’s why they refuse to stop, but that is a description of our dire reality, not an ethical justification of it.

Can people’s desire to eat animals be a justification for the torture which is factory farming?

Arguing that all factory farms must be closed down today for the pain and misery they cause can’t be seriously counter argued by claiming that people have a desire to eat meat, eggs and milk. Some might argue that eating meat is not like creating new people, but I fail to see the fundamental difference in this context as in both cases people do as they please at the expense of others without their consent.

The argument that since humans would suffer from fixing the dire situation they themselves have created (and refuse to fix by themselves), we are not allowed to fix it without their consent, is wrong. They keep intensifying the problem by creating more and more of them, with no consent from the ones they are creating, nor from the ones who are hurt by the ones they are creating, so why is it that the solution to the problem must be with their consent?
And don’t get this wrong, I am not suggesting it as a punishment or anything of this sort, but only to stop the crime, and the suffering caused by each procreation.

The second psychological effect Finneron-Burns mentions is a sense of hopelessness or despair that people would feel knowing that there will be no more humans and that their projects will end with them:

“Many of the projects and goals we work towards during our lifetime are also at least partly future-oriented. Why bother continuing the search for a cure for cancer if either it will not be found within humans’ lifetime, and/or there will be no future people to benefit from it once it is found?” (p.12)

First of all, despite that her specific example is obviously not the main issue, it is hard not to comment on the “Why bother continuing the search for a cure for cancer”, since it is so manipulative. There are currently about 8 billion people on earth, probably only a couple of thousands of them are searching for a cure for cancer, while many more are busy causing it, to themselves, to their children, to other people, and to other animals. Most people are not searching for any cure to any disease or any solution to any other problem, but live their selfish pointless little lives. They were born for no reason other than the desire of their parents, and certainly not so they can search for a cure for cancer, and they are forcing new people into life for no reason other than their desire, and certainly not so that their children would search for a cure for cancer or anything even remotely close.

What happened to Henry Sidgwick’s claim that things are only important insofar as they are important to humans? If there is no one who suffers from cancer, who would there be to lament the loss of searching for a cure? This example is awful since it is supposed to be good that there would be no longer a need to search for a cure for cancer. With no cancer patients there is no need to cure it. How can the existence of such a horrible disease serve as the basis for an example against human extinction? Searching for a cure for cancer is good only if there are existing people, and if some of them suffer from it. If there are no cancer patients then the problem is solved, not created.
And by the way, there would be cancer patients in the case of human extinction – nonhuman animals. Why not searching for a cure for them? Or at least ways to prevent some of the cases from affecting them, for example by searching for the least harmful ways to dismantle all the nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations before humans go extinct and animals suffer the consequences? Why? Because humans don’t care.

But much more important than her specific example, is her claim. Arguing that human extinction is wrong since existing humans would lose interest and meaning in their lives, is in my view like suggesting that people should force new people into existence to bestow their own lives with interest and meaning. Of course most procreations already are a result of people bestowing their own lives with interest and meaning, but this real reason is usually concealed by the fallacious proclaimed reason which is to bestow interest and meaning to the future child. Finneron-Burns on the other hand, suggests this claim as a moral justification for doing so. It’s using someone as a mean to others’ end, and it is wrong. Imposing lifelong vulnerability on someone, without consent, and with a certainty of harming others, so that the creators of that person would have interest and meaning in their lives, is not only wrong, it is cruel.

Conclusion

Examining the four reasons she suggests that could be the basis for reasonably rejecting principles permitting human extinction, Finneron-Burns rejects the first two which are:

(a) It would prevent many billions of happy people from being born.

(b) It would mean the loss of the only form of intelligent life and all civilization and intellectual progress would be lost.

And accepts the other two which are:

(c) Existing people would endure physical pain and/or painful and premature deaths.

(d) Existing people would endure psychological traumas such as depression and the loss of meaning in their pursuits and projects.

Probably the saddest thing about this article is that despite all its flaws, most claims regrading human extinction are even worse. Most people are against human extinction for all four reasons, and especially the first two. These claims are not only extremely speciesist as the latter two are, but are also entirely human chauvinist, as they see a value only in the human race’s existence, and no value in the world (inhabited with other sentient creatures) without it.
I agree with the claim that the human race has a tremendous value, only that it is a negative one.

The human race is with no proportion the greatest wrongdoer in history. And things are not getting better. And even if they were, they are currently so horrible that the harms to existing humans is marginal compared with the harms to existing nonhumans, which quantitatively speaking already by far exceeds the number of existing humans, not to mention when considering the harms to every nonhuman who would ever be born. There are more nonhuman animals in factory farms at any given moment than there are humans on this planet. For their sake alone human extinction is utterly justified. The harm to existing people by preventing them from procreating, can’t seriously countervail the harms to generations upon generations of sentient creatures whose suffering would be prevented in the case of human extinction.

The question in point shouldn’t be what’s wrong with human extinction but what’s right with human extinction. And the answer is that it depends on who we ask. If we keep asking humans only, then the answer of most would be there is nothing right about human extinction, and only a tiny minority would argue differently. But if we ask anyone who would be affected by human extinction, anyone whom this question is relevant for but is never asked, an absolute majority would unhesitatingly say that what is right with human extinction is everything.

References

Elizabeth Finneron-Burns: What’s wrong with human extinction? (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2016.1278150

The philosopher Julio Cabrera, which I have previously addressed, has another book translated into English. It is called Because I Love You, You Will Not Be Born! and it is a joint reflection about procreation, written with Thiago Lenharo di Santis. The book is half philosophical essay and half novel, aiming to examine what its authors view as the coldness and detachment with which thousands of humans are dumped daily on planet Earth, just for the distraction of their parents or as a mere involuntary product.

The first part is mainly dedicated to Cabrera’s structural mortality claim which I’ve addressed in the post about the book A Critique of Affirmative Morality.
The second part is dedicated to considerations about the decision to generate a new being from the point of view of the ones who are about to be born. This part is written by Thiago di Santis.
The third and last part is called Letters of Abstention and is a fictional correspondence between a young negative philosopher and an austere teacher.

Unfortunately there are relatively few antinatalist books so there is no reason to choose between them, yet if you have to choose just one of Cabrera’s books translated into English, I highly recommend reading Discomfort and Moral Impediment which is undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve ever read.
However there is an unmissable part in Because I Love You, You Will Not Be Born!, surprisingly in the exchange of letters part of the book, where one of the writers decides to synthesize the many questions and discussions detailed along the text, in a table. That is done in hope that after seeing everything together, it becomes clear how sadistic and unscrupulous the procreative attitude is.

Here is the moral mapping of procreation:

*If the concern for the son or daughter’s well-being is maintained
X1: This moment is considered to be “existential” in relation to the parents and “pre-existential” in relation to the child (therefore, prior to his existence).
Mother and father already exist and therefore have a physical apparatus developed (brain) and are able to consider the issue of birth consciously, to reason about the aspects involved and to make a decision. Observe that one can make the decision without consciously considering the issue and without reasoning about all the aspects involved (which, in fact, seems to be very common), but at least there is the possibility of making these types of consideration, since the physical apparatus is available for this.
The child, however, does not exist in X1. They have therefore no (cerebral) physical apparatus or any other to consider the issue, there is no consciousness, there is no reasoning, there is no decision-making. If such a tool is not available, it is absolutely impossible that there be any awareness or choice about the issue on the part of the new being.
X2: This moment is considered as the beginning of the existence of the child. From this will occur a series of processes of development of the new individual generated.
X3: This moment is considered as one in which the individual who was before in development is already developed.

The fact that the vast majority of people would still procreate even after reading this list is one of the most unequivocal proofs that us radical antinatalists shouldn’t focus on making lists of arguments aiming at convincing people not to procreate, but focus on lists of technological options aiming at making people unable to procreate.

Some antinatalists argue that the only way to justify creating a person is if the parents are willing to “fix what they broke”. Meaning, that people are permitted to create a person if they are ready and are committed to compensate their child for harms, including assisting suicide to their child if the child asks for it, regardless of it being illegal; and they are certainly not allowed to try to prevent their children from carrying out suicide if they choose to.

I sympathize with the logic behind the argument that given that parents risk their children’s well-being, let alone in an attempt to improve their own, then if their children’s well-being ends up being poor and undesirable in their own view, the parents are obligated to return their children to their previous state, but since this option is even theoretically impossible simply because there is no pre-existing state someone was in before being created or can somehow go back to, procreation is impermissible under this condition just as much.

Beyond the lawfulness issue and beyond the unlikeliness that parents would not try to prevent their children from carrying out suicide if they choose to, let alone provide them with assistance, carrying out suicide doesn’t compensate anyone for anything. Harms done are not retroactively being undone once a person doesn’t exist anymore. Existence can’t be undone. Things can happen but can never “unhappen”. There are no, and there could be no compensations for the harms endured in existence when it ends. Ending one’s existence can only stop the current harms and prevent the future ones, but it can’t compensate for past harms.

Suicide cannot compensate anyone for the suffering of existence, but can only stop the continuance of the suffering of existence. It can’t retroactively justify the existence of someone who doesn’t want to live, or wish s/he had never existed. The harm can never be compensated for nor justified, even if the parents provide assistance, and even if suicide was fast, fearless, absolutely sure, plain, painless and harmless to others, which it is definitely none of the above. Carrying out suicide is always difficult, scary, unsure, dangerous, potentially painful, and rarely unharmful to people who knew the person carrying it out, including the parents, and despite them (under the conditions of this argument) making a prior agreement to assist or at least not hold back their children if that’s what they wish for.

Even people who have decided to end their life, and even people whom their life was a continuance misery, are naturally and biologically built to fear death, and they are obviously afraid of pain, of permanently disabling themselves if they don’t succeed in carrying out suicide. Some fear that they are committing a sin, some fear of what they view as the unknown, some of breaking the law, of being socially shamed, of being blamed for selfishness, of the option of isolation ward in a psychiatric hospital, and etc. All that as well as the fact that people are biologically built to survive, make many people prisoners of their biological mechanisms and social norms. They are trapped in horrible lives without a truly viable option to end it, even if their parents would agree, and even if they would provide them with assistance.

People must overcome too many obstacles with each being too difficult, for suicide to really be an option. And even if it wasn’t the case, carrying out suicide, even if was absolutely safe, easy and free of any collateral damage, as aforementioned, doesn’t by any means compensate for a miserable existence.

No one should take the risk that their children would suffer so much that they would not only want to die, but that they would overcome all these obstacles and try to do something about it, or won’t because they are too afraid or because they care too much about the people who care about them. No one should put anyone in such a horrible position where they don’t want to live but are trapped in life.

Compensation to Others

Even if parents’ preacceptance that they might have to assist their children with ending their own lives if they want to, was a relevant “fix” and compensation for their children’s miserable existence, given that creating a person is not only gambling on that person’s life, but also, if not first and foremost, ensuring that more sentient beings, probably tens of thousands of them, would be forced to endure miserable lives so to support and pleasure the created person, and given that compensation is even less relevant in their cases, procreation is a unidirectional thing for tens of thousands, and is unfixable for each and every one of them.

Before discussing the relevancy and feasibility of compensating and fixing a potential problem of a person who doesn’t yet exist so to justify its creation, people must ensure compensation and that they can fix the certain problems of everyone who would be harmed due to that person’s creation. And obviously that is impossible. How can people compensate everyone who would be sacrificed and otherwise harmed by the people they will create? How can they compensate everyone who would be genetically modified so to provide the maximum meat possible for the to-be born persons? How can they compensate everyone who would be imprisoned for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would be forced to live without their family for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would suffer chronic pain and maladies for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would never breathe clean air, walk on grass, bath in water, and eat natural food?

Procreation is not only taking a risk of causing harm to the person created, it is indifferently deciding to cause harms to everyone who would be harmed by the person created.
None of them can be compensated for any of it. Not the created person and not any of its victims.

The first broken thing that people must fix before creating more people is the enormous harm each of them is causing. And that is not likely to happen. Ever.
Given that no person is harmed by the life that s/he had never lived, but tens of thousands are harmed by the life that each person does live, not only that when it comes to procreation there is no way to fix what is broken, it keeps breaking and breaking more and more things all the time. And that requires a real fix.

Some pro-natalists are claiming that humanity is evolving all the time and things are getting better all the time. Medicine had been extremely improved, people are less sick, they are eating better than they used to in the past, they are richer than ever, there is much higher awareness to hygiene and pollution, and the world is less violent. Humanity is constantly improving, so we just need to grit our teeth for a little longer, and life in the future would be much better.

This claim is simply wrong if we consider every aspect of living and of every sentient creature, and if we remember that what matters ethically is harms to actual living sentient creatures and not statistical probabilities of harms.

So first we need to ask, life is better for whom? The lives of most people have not been significantly improved due to the increase of wealth and technology. The gaps between rich and poor people, within and between nations, have only become wider. Billions of people are suffering daily from malnutrition if not hunger in the most literal and harsh sense of not having anything to eat. And that is despite the soaring technological advances in food production along the past century. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from lack of water or from using contaminated water, despite technological advances in water pumping, desalination and water purification. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from various curable diseases despite the soaring technological advances in medicine. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from pollution, filth, pain, violence, frustration and hopelessness. This is the reality of the majority of the human race. Advances and improvements in the fields of medicine, hygiene, food production, and technology, don’t reach most people.

And since the good aspects of technology didn’t benefit most people, clearly the major problems in this world are not technical but social and political. And these issues have not been solved and there is no reason to believe they will ever be solved.

The fact that it is much easier to produce food, to develop medicines, that there is much more awareness of clean water, clean air, green areas, hygiene and etc., yet all the problems are still here, is not an indication of improvement but the other way around. The technological potential didn’t prove itself for being able to solve these basic issues and in fact it made a lot of things a lot worse. The air, water and soil are much more polluted. People are eating food which is less nutritious, less natural, more chemically infected, and is produced using various harmful methods. Despite technological advancements people are forced to work longer hours. Despite the advancements in the entertainment business and platforms, with so many people having a smartphone connected to the internet in their pockets, they are much more bored. Instead of making people more connected and knowledgeable they are more ignorant, more divisive, more cynical, more alienated and less compassionate.

Some problems have gotten much worse, and some have only been created in modern time such as mass surveillance, cyberbullying, loss of privacy, algorithmic discrimination (amplification of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination by AI systems), shaming – online and otherwise, impulsive consumerism, drug abuse, anxiety, neuroticism, systematical dissatisfaction, lack of meaning, existential detachment, depression, loneliness and etc.

And last but definitely not least in this brief list of technology’s effects, is factory farming and everything involved in it , most probably the worst effect technology has ever had on sentient creatures. Yet.

Secondly, we need to remember that even if the claim that life is getting better was true, it is so in terms of ratio, not in absolute numbers. Meaning, maybe it is true that the chances of a person nowadays to be severely harmed by something (for example an infection caused by not much more than a flesh wound), compared with a few centuries ago, are lower; but since there are many more people in the world today there are many more people who are harmed by all kinds of things (even becoming severely ill from an infection caused by not much more than a flesh wound) than there were a few centuries ago.
It might be true that the chances of a person to fall victim to a violent attack are lower than they were in the past, but there are many more people who are victims of violent attacks because there are many more people today. And since it is absolute numbers that count, real actual people, not probabilities which are not morally relevant entities, the world is not getting better. It is less important ethically that statistically there is a lesser chance of someone to be harmed, and it is not an indication of the world becoming better as long as these odds don’t reflect a decrease in the total number of harmed people. There are more victims today of most of the harms, including ones that should have been eradicated long ago such as various easily treatable diseases, lack of food, and lack of clean water.
Victims of harms are what we must count and there are more of these than there were in the past.

Thinking that things have gotten better because they have gotten better statistically is thinking about humanity as an ethical entity instead of thinking about humans as ethical entities. It is thinking in relative terms and in patterns of the human race as a species instead of thinking about individuals of the human species which are the truly ethically relevant entities for that matter.

Also, this is a very Western thinking, as in many places the chances to be severely harmed, if to follow the previous examples, by an infection caused by not much more than flesh wound or by a violent attack, have not been significantly improved.

And most importantly for that matter, this is a very speciesist thinking as the chances of a nonhuman animal to be harmed by a violent attack nowadays is immensely higher than it was in the past. There are many more animals who are created specifically and especially to be harmed and then consumed by humans, than ever before. There are many more victims, and each is suffering much more than ever, since factory farms are way worse than hunting. So when considering every aspect of living and of every sentient creature, even if we’ll ignore the fact that this claim is falsely formulated, it is wrong on every aspect.

Thirdly, although it is true that when it comes to some aspects of life, the chances of a human individual to be harmed are lower than they used to be, the chances of a human individual to harm numerous others by numerous ways are higher than they used to be.
That is, first and foremost, because most people still choose to feed themselves in the most harmful ways. But even the ones who don’t, are forced to participate in various harmful methods bound with modern agriculture and with modern food production. But it is not just food, it is everything people are doing. Humans’ daily use of technology means harming others on a daily basis. It starts with mining relevant components for technology which is often done by human bondage, exploitation of poor areas, logging, land clearing, and heavy metal pollution; and continues with more use of energy, more CO2 emission, more oil leaks, more use of water, more pollution of water, more pollution of air and etc.
The amount of chemicals each person is using is enormous and surely is greater than ever before.
The amount of plastic each person is using is enormous and surely is greater than ever before.
There is no doubt that it is better for a person to have the option of changing clothes every day, and taking a shower every day, but like many other things, this is an advantage only in the human column, and a great disadvantage in the animals column. For animals, humans’ frequent washing and use of detergents, means less water in general, and less clean water in particular.
Life may be more convenient for many more people than they were in the past, but this is not the case for other creatures. There weren’t so many disposable products in the past. Not so many roads. Not so much artificial lighting. Not so much noise. Not so many fences and obstacles. Not so many poisons.

And the fact that humans live much longer nowadays, means each has a much longer period of harming others simply by living one’s life.
Each person, even if not directly or intentionally (for example by choosing a vegan diet and a minimalistic lifestyle), causes much more suffering and to many more sentient creatures nowadays. Even if it was true that life has gotten better for people, life with people has gotten significantly worse. People’s lives may have improved in terms of their own private welfare, but they have dramatically deteriorated in terms of their harm to others.

Fourthly, even if it was true that it is better in the present than it was in the past, better doesn’t necessarily mean good. Something can be better than something else yet be terrible in itself. The fact that things could have been worse, or if it is true that they have been worse, doesn’t mean that now they are good. If at all true, all this claim can stand for is that it is better in the present than it was, and that it is better in the present than it could have been, but not by any means that it is good in the present.

Fifthly, even if it was true that it is better in the present than it was in the past, there is absolutely no guarantee that it would be better in the future. It also might be a lot worse. And it already is a living hell.

At this moment, there is a war going on somewhere, a nation is crying out for independence in another place, somewhere else there is a political repression, not far from there an ethnical repression, right next to it religious repression, and riots against corruption are being violently hushed by the authorities everywhere. Human history is an endless battle over things that should have been absolutely basic a long time ago and they are absolutely far from being so in the present, so why would they be in the future? If the present is not significantly better than the past why assume that the future will be?

If humanity has yet to succeed solving basic issues among itself, and when many of them become even worse, and new ones have emerged, what is the basis for the assumption that the future is going to be bright? On what grounds do they assume that present violent conflicts would be solved in the future, and more importantly that new ones won’t constantly emerge?
Was there any reduction in the scope of weapon manufacture in recent years? In arms trade? In developing more lethal and destructive weapons? Did people stop fighting over territories? Over resources? Over religious differences? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and realized that it is totally insane to fight over the “right way” to worship a fictional entity? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and realized that profits are way less important than welfare? Did humanity become wiser and more educated regarding how to raise happy people? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and figured out the purpose of the whole thing? Can it provide a reasonable answer to the so fundamental self-evident and primary question – what is the meaning of life?

And lastly, even if it was true that the present is better than the past and that the future would be better than the present, what for? To what purpose? There is no aim to achieve in the future, there is no important goal to accomplish, and no one who is waiting to exist in the future, so what logical explanation let alone ethical justification is there to sacrifice generations upon generations of humans, and many more of nonhumans, so maybe a tiny fraction of all the sentient creatures who would be forced to be created theretofore would live in a supposedly better world? That is morally reprehensible in every possible respect.