The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

by Toby Ord

Instead of dozens of humans in cooperation, we had tens of thousands, cooperating across the generations, preserving and improving ideas through deep time. Little by little, our knowledge and our culture grew.

Civilization has many problems, but I'm going to go out on a tenuous limb and say it is far better than no civilization

Even if humanity is very small in your picture of the world, if most of the intrinsic value of the world lies in the rest of our ecosystem, humanity’s instrumental value may yet be profound. For if we can last long enough, we will have a chance to literally save our world.

This is in reference to the fact that our sun will eventually grow bright enough to kill all life. Humanity could build shields and/or move Earth's life elsewhere