“[If] our actions have even the slightest effect on the probability of eventual colonization, this will outweigh their effect on when colonization takes place. For standard utilitarians, priority number one, two, three and four should consequently be to reduce existential risk. The utilitarian imperative “Maximize expected aggregate utility!””

— Nick Bostrom

can be simplified to the maxim “Minimize existential risk!”
Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development https://nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html (2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Swedish philosopher 1973

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“The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. … An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility”

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James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

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