One Saturday morning in 2016, Steven Scholz decided to go on a shooting spree inside his own home. “I figured I’d just shoot at random because I had all these guns,” explained Scholz arrested at his newly perforated house in suburban Oregon City. The 67 year old later lamented from jail how carelessly he had put his neighbors in danger when bullets started whizzing through their walls. “Hurting my neighbors is the last thing I want to do. I love them guys. I would lay down my life for them. They have families, I have nothing.” Admittedly Scholz likely had some mental health issues but this is what they call in early childhood education a “teachable moment”
It is also a good place to introduce a term I coined as "Net Mirth". Having fun is great but it is the totality of enjoyment that seems important when cyphering from first principles. Looking elsewhere in the universe the sentience we enjoy seems exceeding rare, highly unlikely but also strangely possible given the unique and arbitrary physical constants of this universe.
Stranger still is the well documented weirdness of quantum mechanics, where observation itself seems to snap etherial clouds of probability into definite existence, or hive off new and alternate realities. The value of anything increases with significance and scarcity. By that yardstick sentience seems a cosmically precious commodity. To quote the great philosopher Douglas Adams, the ability to experience existence may be the entire point of "life, the universe and everything", and of course the number 42.
Given the amount of time and fine tuning involved in us being aware of this moment, let's stroll even farther out on a limb and assume that sentience is a state that should properly be enjoyed to the maximum. The cosmos put a lot of work into us being able to experience creation, so let's be gracious and grateful for this incredible gift.
Does that mean we should indulge in impulsive hedonism? Mr. Scholz may have enjoyed shooting up his house but his moment of mirth may have impacted others - literally. It is tempting to believe that we are all somehow special and I am trying to make the empirical case that we are. Our ecstatic enjoyment of existence is not merely something we are occasionally allowed to do, it is our solemn cosmic duty. That said, from the vista of creation all mirth is collective. Individual joy needs to be weighed against how it affects others - now and in the future. To honor the gift we have been given, we should therefore strive to maximize net mirth.
Which brings us the cigarette boats. Consumer culture is rife with expensive and extravagant toys, and perhaps none more ludicrous than these specialty status speedboats. A typical 2,000 horsepower dick extender can cost close to $1 million and burn through a gallon of gas every 20 seconds. But if you really need that much equipment to have a good time maybe you're doing it wrong.
Anyone who has had to share a lake with a cigarette boat will enthusiastically kvetch about their obnoxious racket. And if you care about an inhabitable planet, there is that as well. Atmospheric CO2 hasn't been this high in 400,000 years and future inhabitants of our planet who inherit our consequences might be mightily pissed off at such self indulgent wankers. No matter how much fun a go fast boat is, they are almost certainly a mirth negative.
Shouldn't we then try to minimize any impacts we have of the world? Given that there are 7.5 billion people on the planet, this laudable sentiment is both a good idea and a little late. Our hypothesis about precious sentience might indicate that more is better, however too much on one small planet inevitably leads to human misery and grinding poverty. Our massive collective footprint also destroys natural habitat home to our many sentient planetary roommates, equally deserving of mirth. Any short sighted and selfish choices today impact the enjoyment or existence of future generations - human and otherwise.
But isn't our enjoyment much more important than a bunch of dumb animals? While it seems true that our experience might be much more rich and pleasing to creation than a nematode, beware what you wish for. An emergent AI with vastly more cognitive abilities could say the same about us. Our future survival might depend on making the case for net mirth, and unearthing the mathematics of morality.