How will YOU impact the world?

So I found a very interesting article called "The Importance of the Afterlife. Seriously". Right off the bat it tells us it’s got nothing to do with the conventional use of the word “afterlife”, but is rather referring to the people that are still living after you die. The author argues that how our life's work impacts other people, in the future, is a very important motivator for most people.

Because we take this belief for granted, we don’t think much about its significance. Yet I think that this belief plays an extremely important role in our lives, quietly but critically shaping our values, commitments and sense of what is worth doing. Astonishing though it may seem, there are ways in which the continuing existence of other people after our deaths — even that of complete strangers — matters more to us than does our own survival and that of our loved ones.

Following that, an interesting scenario is presented:

Consider a hypothetical scenario. Suppose you knew that although you yourself would live a long life and die peacefully in your sleep, the earth and all its inhabitants would be destroyed 30 days after your death in a collision with a giant asteroid. How would this knowledge affect you?
If you are like me, and like most people with whom I have discussed the question, you would find this doomsday knowledge profoundly disturbing. And it might greatly affect your decisions about how to live. If you were a cancer researcher, you might be less motivated to continue your work. (It would be unlikely, after all, that a cure would be found in your lifetime, and even it were, how much good would it do in the time remaining?) Likewise if you were an engineer working to improve the seismic safety of bridges, or an activist trying to reform our political or social institutions or a carpenter who cared about building things to last. What difference would these endeavors make, if the destruction of the human race was imminent?

The author then proceeds to deduce that this scenario would completely change the way they would think, and proceeds to use many hypothetical examples of exactly that being the case for anyone ranging from a medical researcher to a composer. The article goes on a bit longer, and makes some very interesting points using other (hypothetical) scenarios, ultimately concluding that what is necessary to underwrite the perceived significance of what we do is that humanity will survive for a good long time.

I thought this was an interesting perspective, but I would assume there are many people who couldn’t be terribly bothered with what happens post-mortem. To them, whether the world ends, or becomes utopia, would be irrelevant. Surely it’s far more important to maximize this life, without concern to what happens after. Yes, the trend so far does indicate life will go on… but does everyone care? Or maybe there is nobody like that and there is something to all this? Could this be a contributing factor to the reason why many recent graduates are shunning Wall Street, and moving towards tech (I don't see them working for charities instead, that's for sure)? How important is the afterlife? Seriously...

What do you guys think? Do any of you care in the slightest how you’re impacting the world in the “grand scheme of things”? If you do, how important is it in your career decisions, how much of an influence does it have on how you live your life, and what industry do you think is your calling?

As an aside: any of you VC guys in the game to help the environment? Here’s a proposed (and rather novel) solution to our environmental issues:

 
Best Response

I believe this to be rather moving, but only to a certain degree. The world's end does make you question your legacy, but most importantly it's the "what's next?" question. Our significance to this world wont matter, because we simply won't be there to experience it, and as one sided and cold as that sounds, it's quite true when you think about it in terms of the consciousness simply not being there to experience, and thus benefit from it. If the realization that the world ending would make you want to do something different with your life than what you are doing right now; that's a pretty good implication that you should simply not do what your doing right now.

Philanthropy is great, but doing it for the exact purpose such as leaving a legacy is useless, nobody gives a fuck period. Historical figures were, and will always be either glorified (Washington, Jefferson) or turned into a symbol of evil by society, what does impact this world is your happiness. You doing what you think to be best for you (in a moral non-sociopathic way) will impact the world in a much better way, because your happiness will thus get translated into your work, your friends, your family, who will end up remembering YOU, and really they will only be the true people that will matter.

I think- therefore I fuck
 

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