Why are we as humans obsessed with mass-extinction of our species?

I was having a conversation with my friend about this. We were discussing AI and she believes AI will destroy all of humanity just like so many others. I personally don’t believe that. I’m aware of all the theories and the multitude of ways that it could happen and I understand that with AI, in theory we wouldn’t understand its goals so we wouldn’t know how it would destroy us but again, that’s just a theory.

There’s also the constant fear of massive nuclear holocaust with WWIII but I also don’t believe that we’d realistically get to a point where we’d use Nukes on each other knowing the implications of what would happen. But it made me realize that we’re constantly fearful of mass extinction. To the point where some people fight tooth and nail and will not try to look at things from a more positive or optimistic perspective. It’s all death or you’re wrong.

Please help me understand this. I’m here with open ears.

fubo,

The “pretending to be wise” answer is that it’s easier to deal with mass extinction than with individual mortality; that the thought of your own death is weakened by the thought of gigadeaths.

More seriously, though:

Major disasters have always been a large part of human cultural experience. Cities have been destroyed by earthquakes, volcanoes, or hurricanes. Within recorded history, plagues and famines have reduced prosperous civilizations to desperate stragglers living in ruins.

Preventing or surviving disasters is, therefore, one of the most important things humans can work on. Disasters loom large in our cultural consciousness because they really are large and because we can actually do stuff to make these problems less bad.

Disaster preparedness is, in fact, no-kidding, really important for you, your family, your city, your country, and the world as a whole.

Preventing avoidable disasters, including manmade ones such as nuclear war, is a major part of what makes world politics morally significant. Avoiding the devastation of war is a really good reason to get good at politics, diplomacy, peacemaking, mutually beneficial relations among peoples; and the high stakes of “shit, we could actually kill off humanity if we fuck up politics too badly” is a pretty good motivator.

So … we think a lot about bad shit that could happen, because bad shit really can happen, and we can do something about quite a lot of it.

Pons_Aelius, (edited )

One possibility: It is a weird case of "this moment in time is special because I am alive".

Humans have been around for thousands of years but I am alive now. I cannot think of what the world could be like without me so therefore the human race must end in my lifetime.

This in not a new occurrence either, there have been "end of the world" groups in almost every generation in history.

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

It is worth noting that people always think the apocalyptic event will happen within their lifetime.

The only real difference now is that the end of the world is now caused by humans via nukes or destruction of the environment rather than supernatural forces.

GONADS125, (edited )

I agree that the spotlight effect (or main character syndrome in slang) plays in. We tend to expect our life to be extra special somehow.

It’s also just fun to imagine exhilarating things. We’re still dumb animals who have fun riding endorphins, whether it’s skydiving or horror movies. Makes sense that myths about paranormal entities, natural disasters, end times, etc. are recurring in so many cultures. Same reason the Walking Dead is popular. It’s exciting to imagine!

The most alive I’ve ever felt has been being shot at, running from cops/security, and throwing myself into a dog fight to save my dog who was attacked. Even when being driven to the ER, I was riding such a high. I got messed up, but I won, and damn did that feel good and powerful. He was a big dog. In a sorta twisted way, I kinda eagerly await life’s unexpected events because of the adrenaline high and sustained retrospective excitement for a while.

What’s more exciting than imaging the end of the word as our species knows it? That’s the biggest factor in the answer to the question imo.

Cryophilia,

Well that’s weird. When I was younger I almost died so many times I lost count, and it wasn’t exhilarating. Just a broad sense of, “man, what a fucked up situation”.

Drusas,

My guess would be that it's simply because we are aware of the concept of extinction and have watched as other species have gone extinct. This causes some existential dread, like learning about death might.

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