"ssuming that the observable universe is void of extraterrestrial civilizations, then what hangs in the balance is at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 human lives . If we represent all the happiness experienced during one entire such life with a single teardrop of joy, then the happiness of these souls could fill and refill the Earth’s oceans every second, and keep doing so for a hundred billion billion millennia. It is really important that we make sure these truly are tears of joy."
React to this quote
More by Nick Bostrom
See allResonant Thoughts
"My schoolmates could not understand why anyone would want to write a story; and, above all, they could not understand why I had called it The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre. The mood out of which a story …"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we …"
— Wallace Stegner"Nature is never finished."
— Robert Smithson"In Poland, many doctors would not undertake euthanasia due to religious beliefs. The Dutch are more pragmat…"
— Tomasz Vetulani"By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are turned to the earth more than to Heaven…"
— Alexis de Tocqueville"Yes, Wordsworth often personified objects in nature and gave them the human aspect, and personally I have d…"
— Henry Moore"Woman is degraded and made to believe that nature destined her exclusively to menial domestic labors, which…"
— Charles Fourier
