The trauma perspective (both institutional and personal) is really interesting, thanks!
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I agree that partial extinction is real, and that existential risk is uniquely, uh, "fun" to talk about, and therefore requires extra hygiene. I think reasonable people can disagree about the worth of living after losing e.g., most of a family.
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I don't have the hubris to say that *I* would be that resilient, but I am very grateful that some of my ancestors (some of whom did lose ~their entire family and possibly, like, almost their entire village?) found a way to keep going.
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I've never thought about the possibility that we might just... lose the will/resilience/desire to keep going, rather than gallantly rebuilding. That's some serious stuff, and as you say probably much more likely than total extinction.
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I dunno how I would rate it personally. I think I'd hope that I could keep future humans in mind, who would only suffer in the shadow of that horror rather than experience it directly. And that seems better than not existing, at least.
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strong endorse the intergenerational trauma perspective, btw. seems very real and extremely bad.
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actually I think just reading/pondering this is updating my overall felt badness ratings 🤔 specifically that I think I hadn't priced in the trauma properly. thanks!
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also fwiw if you believe that undergoing a partial-extinction trauma would "permanently and drastically curtail humanity's potential" then in fact, by Bostrom's definition (which is somewhat confusing for this reason), you believe that partial-extinction is an "existential risk"
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My expectation is that it wouldn't be permanent, but that doesn't seem impossible, either. 😬
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