<i>> I care to what happens about all living humans today. I simply don't care about the long term survival of our species.</i>
<i>> why should I care whether all of our eggs are in one basket, or two baskets, or a million baskets? The survival of the human race as a whole is not a concern of mine.</i>
In short, because others care.
You cannot reach your goals alone. You need a cooperation from others. But if you didn't care what they care, there would be no cooperation, or cooperation would be not so good as it might be.
Cooperation needs shared values, and the more values are shared, the more effective cooperation would be. If you care only about your goals and not about goals of others, than others would not play with you. If you share some goals (I believe that those who care about long term benefits value short term also) then they accept your cooperation when working on short term goals, but you will not have any influence over them, when they work on long term goals. The only lever on them you would have is a force. Military, political, financial or any other. They would not cooperate willingly.
You can choose war and force those who have other values to work on your values. Or you can respect their values and cooperate with others on them. It is your choice.
<i>> why should I care whether all of our eggs are in one basket, or two baskets, or a million baskets? The survival of the human race as a whole is not a concern of mine.</i>
In short, because others care.
You cannot reach your goals alone. You need a cooperation from others. But if you didn't care what they care, there would be no cooperation, or cooperation would be not so good as it might be.
Cooperation needs shared values, and the more values are shared, the more effective cooperation would be. If you care only about your goals and not about goals of others, than others would not play with you. If you share some goals (I believe that those who care about long term benefits value short term also) then they accept your cooperation when working on short term goals, but you will not have any influence over them, when they work on long term goals. The only lever on them you would have is a force. Military, political, financial or any other. They would not cooperate willingly.
You can choose war and force those who have other values to work on your values. Or you can respect their values and cooperate with others on them. It is your choice.