[shallowwater]

That moral weight to the future hypothetical people is something that I have just now put a name to (thanks!) and the more I think about it, the more places I see it, and the creepier it gets.

But on a purely biological note, natural selection favors just that: those who make more babies than anyone else, who then go on to make more babies than any of their contemporaries, etc etc etc.

[philwelch]

Natural selection is a shitty basis for ethics.

[alexro]

History has proved that any ethic is ineffective by itself and needs to be supported with brute, unethical to others, force

[shallowwater]

pretty much. that's why I find this valuation system that so grossly over-emphasizes future people at the expense of current ones so creeeeeepy.