Beliefs about the end of humanity: How bad, likely, and important is human extinction?

Matthew Coleman (Northeastern University), Lucius Caviola (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford), Joshua Lewis (New York University) and Geoffrey Goodwin (University of Pennsylvania)

GPI Working Paper No. 1-2024

PsyArXiv preprint

Human extinction would mean the end of humanity’s achievements, culture, and future potential. According to some ethical views, this would be a terrible outcome. But how do people think about human extinction? And how much do they prioritize preventing extinction over other societal issues? Across five empirical studies (N = 2,147; U.S. and China) we find that people consider extinction prevention a societal priority and deserving of greatly increased societal resources. However, despite estimating the likelihood of human extinction to be 5% this century (U.S. median), people believe that the chances would need to be around 30% for it to be the very highest priority. In line with this, people consider extinction prevention to be only one among several important societal issues. People’s judgments about the relative importance of extinction prevention appear relatively fixed and hard to change by reason-based interventions.

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