I’ve often said that I feel (or want to feel) more aligned with humanity and conscious beings than with a particular tribe of humans. Recently, my friend told me that he feels (or wants to feel) more aligned with Earth’s biosphere than with humanity on the whole, that even if humans vanished, a large part of the value in the world would remain and maybe another high-potentia species would rise in our place. I don’t think I feel the same.

I think my deeper alignment is to my sense of a “worthy telos of the universe”; i.e., what I imagine nearly arbitrary societies of conscious, social beings to be striving towards. I feel deep kinship with other people and my sense is that this is connected to something more universal than humans, where we are the (local) universe’s best chance of actualizing this virtue.

While humans are dependent on many interlinked elements of the biosphere, I think the Shapley value of humanity’s contribution to the most flourishing future dwarfs other species. Also, I feel a sense of fragility; not only are humans important and cherished, but there’s no guarantee that a successor would rise in our place if we fell to infighting/accident. Some existential catastrophes don’t leave much left to evolve, such as AI paperclipper, supernova, or gray goo scenarios.

In summary, I love humans not just because I am one, but because I think we might be the (local) universe’s best chance at bootstrapping a more beautiful, flourishing, and cosmopolitan future for a myriad of life. This may include beings unrecognizable to us or future children who regard us as moral monsters; so it goes! But I don’t think the good future occurs by default; it will require deep striving, contemplation, and embodying virtue throughout the journey. Eudaimonia will not be built on trampled values.