The reason we don’t realize it is because we simply take the “collective afterlife” for granted. In fact, many of the things that we dedicate our lives to now, in the present, only make sense under the assumption that humanity will continue to exist in the future. Most of our goals and purposes in life would lose their meaning if we were to find out that we were the last generation of human beings. Scheffler believes this means that we have a deep concern for humanity, something we might even call love, which coexists with our baser impulses.
We see these conflicting motives time and again in The Expanse. Greed, selfishness, and blatant disregard for other people’s suffering are exhibited by Dresden and the Protogen corporation (in Leviathan Wakes), by Adolphus Murtry (in Cibola Burn), by Marco Inaros (in Nemesis Games), and by Admiral Winston Duarte, later High Consul of Laconia (in Persepolis Rising and Tiamat’s Wrath). Meanwhile we witness the fundamental goodness of common people, such as the crew of the Rocinante, who repeatedly risk their lives for the future of humanity.
The Value of Humanity
We might ask ourselves whether the existence of humankind is valuable in itself. Perhaps surprisingly, some people believe that our extinction would be no great loss.8 We hear echoes of this profoundly pessimistic worldview in Miller’s comment “Stars are better off without us,” after the Nauvoo is repurposed from a generation ship into a missile to drive Eros into the Sun.9
People who hold this pessimistic view seem to think that most human lives are not worth living.
In contrast, Parfit argues that this view might have been plausible in earlier centuries when many people lived lives filled with suffering and with little hope of improvement, but it is certainly wrong today. Notwithstanding the amount of poverty, suffering, and inequality that still exists today, we have come a long way toward reducing human suffering. Consider medical advancements, such as the discovery of anesthetics and painkillers; and consider improvements in living conditions and gains in freedom for all, and not just for a privileged few. It seems likely that in the future we would be able to prevent most human suffering.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we will. Many people in The Expanse live miserable and wretched lives. For sick Belters with no access to medicine to forestall the effects of living in low‐gravity, high‐radiation environments, trafficked women and children forced into prostitution on Ceres, and the victims of organized crime and corrupt biotech corporations, life might not be worth living. But all this suffering is not a necessary part of human life. Rather, it is a consequence of poverty, poor living conditions, lack of freedom, inequality, social injustice, and political ineffectiveness. Human life can be wonderful. The existence of human beings is definitely a good thing provided we as a species make every possible effort to ensure that most people live lives worth living, and that we strive to achieve the “wholly just world‐wide community” Parfit talks about. It certainly seems worth trying, rather than throwing our hands in the air and complaining about how terrible human life is.
Philosopher James Lenman points out that, since all species will eventually become extinct, the question is not whether our extinction is a bad thing, but whether it matters how soon that moment comes.10
One way to answer this question is to appeal to the intrinsic value of biodiversity. Suppose it is intrinsically good that many different species exist. This idea is highly plausible and generally accepted. However, the problem is that human beings are not having a particularly good effect on biodiversity; quite the opposite, in fact. We are in the process of causing the Earth’s sixth mass extinction, which is definitely a bad thing. In The Expanse, things are only getting worse, with overpopulation, pollution, and habitat destruction on Earth decreasing biodiversity to pitiful remnants. Even Amos, in Nemesis Games, is somewhat surprised that despite humanity’s pressure on ecosystems, wildlife on Earth still exists. Human beings might still, in the future, go on to have a positive effect on biodiversity overall (more on this below).
To be clear, biodiversity is not just the number of species that exist. It includes functional diversity, an ecological concept that is related to the particular niche an organism occupies in an ecosystem. For example, we could say the rhinoceros occupies a relatively similar ecological niche that the triceratops once occupied. From the perspective of functional biodiversity, the extinction of all flying animals is far worse than the extinction of any particular flying species, because it means the complete loss of this particular way of life. Looking at humans from the perspective of functional biodiversity, no other species has ever occupied the particular ecological niche that humans occupy. Although other species have culture (for example chimpanzees and whales), no other species on Earth has civilization.
In The Expanse vestiges of an ancient alien civilization with incredibly advanced technology have been found—which eventually permits human interstellar expansion through the gates. But in our reality, we have no evidence for the existence of any civilization other than human. Considering the sheer size of the universe and the number of stars and galaxies, though, it is likely that other intelligent life exists somewhere. Nevertheless, we might never find out for sure.11 What we know for sure is that we, Homo sapiens, are, in the words of Parfit, “a part of the Universe that is starting to understand itself.”12 By doing the best we can to guarantee a future for our species, we can also make the universe a better and more meaningful place. We should therefore take the possibility of our extinction seriously indeed.
Life and Biodiversity
Lenman argues that, even if we agree that biodiversity is a good thing, it only means that it’s good that there should be natural diversity while life exists on Earth. It doesn’t mean, however, that it’s worse if life on Earth goes extinct sooner rather than later.13 Just because biodiversity is good does not mean that life is good.
I don’t find this view plausible; actually, it seems rather parochial. Why should biodiversity matter only on Earth? If we are trying to view things from an objective perspective, biodiversity in the universe is what should matter. While we have no way of finding out how much biodiversity the universe contains, Earth is the only inhabited planet in the solar system, as far as we know. As things stand, if all life on Earth were to go extinct, then the biodiversity in the whole solar system would drop to zero. In the future depicted in The Expanse, with self‐sustaining habitats established in various locations, extinction of life on Earth would not end biodiversity in the universe—although it’s true that no other habitat comes even close to Earth in terms of biodiversity.
Comparing existence in time with existence in space, Lenman argues that it makes sense to lament the extinction of the white rhino, but it makes no sense to lament its nonexistence in northern Scotland. Nor does it make sense to argue that it would be better if white rhinos lasted for 1 billion years rather than, say, 1 million. But that is because other living beings exist in Scotland and, we hope, other living beings will be around 1 billion years from now. On the contrary, since Earth is, as far as we know, the only planet in the solar system with a biosphere, if life on Earth were to disappear, no other life would exist anywhere in the solar system, possibly ever again. That would be an incredible loss. If we could prevent this extinction by spreading life to currently lifeless planets, that would be a good outcome.
Suppose humans were to colonize Mars (at first). Not only would humans be on Mars, but we would also need to take plants and microbes along with us,
