Or three, none of the above. Those philosophers are arguing from analogy based on one case - which the smarter ones know is philosophically faulty and really just speculation. The probability of calculating the extermination similarly can't be realistically assumed because this time it's based on zero cases, empirically.
But thinking like that doesn't get the likes of Toby Ord and Nick Bostrom millions in funding...
Excellent point, Ill never forget taking a history of armageddon narratives course in 2012 when the Mayan calendar was ending and how simple the social / economic function of end-of-the-world narratives seemed in historical context. Specifically in the context that they have been present for at least as long as weve had writing, which is to say as long as we've had class-stratified societies.
Domesday narratives put us in high-arousal states. We listen to authorities more unquestioningly, we think less critically, we buy more stuff.
Of course that's a slippery slope that can lead to climate denial and conspiracy theories but I like remembering to question who's getting research grants or selling zombie apocalypse gear...
Yeah so much of the philosophy of the future appears to me as science-fiction LARPing as philosophy. The annoying part is that they deny or overlook that, seemingly so enamoured with their own brilliance as they often are. And as you say, doom-mongering in the form of presenting what look like reasonable existential risks is just more amenable to funding. I could sit here imagining up existential risks all day long when all that can be said for the human race and its progress is “ seems to be going ok so far!”
It would be hard to get funding for an existential philosophy that said “everything is fine, and will just roll along and whatever will be will be”.
But thinking like that doesn't get the likes of Toby Ord and Nick Bostrom millions in funding...