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The Paradox of Doom: Acknowledging Extinction Risk Reduces the Incentive to Prevent It
Jakub Growiec, Klaus Prettner
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04855 https://

The Paradox of Doom: Acknowledging Extinction Risk Reduces the Incentive to Prevent It
We investigate the salience of extinction risk as a source of impatience. Our framework distinguishes between human extinction risk and individual mortality risk while allowing for various degrees of intergenerational altruism. Additionally, we consider the evolutionarily motivated "selfish gene" perspective. We find that the risk of human extinction is an indispensable component of the discount rate, whereas individual mortality risk can be hedged against - partially or fully, depending on the…