The universe without us: a history of the science and ethics of human extinction

This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I is an intellectual history of thinking about human extinction (mostly) within the Western tradition. When did our forebears first imagine humanity ceasing to exist? Have people always believed that human extinction is a real possibility, or were some convinced that this could never happen? How has our thinking about extinction evolved over time? Why do so many notable figures today believe that the probability of extinction this century is higher than ever before in our 300,000-year history on Earth? Exploring these questions takes readers from the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, through the 18th-century Enlightenment, past scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century like thermodynamics and evolutionary theory, up to the Atomic Age, the rise of modern environmentalism in the 1970s, and contemporary fears about climate change, global pandemics, and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Part II is a history of Western thinking about the ethical and evaluative implications of human extinction. Would causing or allowing our extinction be morally right or wrong? Would our extinction be good or bad, better or worse compared to continuing to exist? For what reasons? Under which conditions? Do we have a moral obligation to create future people? Would past “progress” be rendered meaningless if humanity were to die out? Does the fact that we might be unique in the universe—the only “rational” and “moral” creatures—give us extra reason to ensure our survival? I place these questions under the umbrella of Existential Ethics, tracing the development of this field from the early 1700s through Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, the gloomy German pessimists of the latter 19th century, and post-World War II reflections on nuclear “omnicide,” up to current-day thinkers associated with “longtermism” and “antinatalism.” In the dissertation, I call the first history “History #1” and the second “History #2.” A main thesis of Part I is that Western thinking about human extinction can be segmented into five distinction periods, each of which corresponds to a unique “existential mood.” An existential mood arises from a particular set of answers to fundamental questions about the possibility, probability, etiology, and so on, of human extinction. I claim that the idea of human extinction first appeared among the ancient Greeks, but was eclipsed for roughly 1,500 years with the rise of Christianity. A central contention of Part II is that philosophers have thus far conflated six distinct types of “human extinction,” each of which has its own unique ethical and evaluative implications. I further contend that it is crucial to distinguish between the process or event of Going Extinct and the state or condition of Being Extinct, which one should see as orthogonal to the six types of extinction that I delineate. My aim with the second part of the book is to not only trace the history of Western thinking about the ethics of annihilation, but lay the theoretical groundwork for future research on the topic. I then outline my own views within “Existential Ethics,” which combine ideas and positions to yield a novel account of the conditions under which our extinction would be bad, and why there is a sense in which Being Extinct might be better than Being Extant, or continuing to exist

State of the Latino Non-Profit Sector in Massachusetts

Latinos are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in Massachusetts. Between 1980 and 2017, the Massachusetts Latino population increased by 475%, with many new arrivals coming from Central and South America. In Massachusetts, the top ten Latino subgroups by population size are: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Brazilians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Colombians, Cubans, Ecuadorans, and Hondurans. These varied national origins reflect the diversity of the state’s Latino community and its breadth of strengths and needs. The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy (Gastón Institute) estimates that by 2035, the Latino population will represent nearly 15.3% of the state’s population, compared to 12.4% in 2019.2 This growth will be due more to future Massachusetts births than to international migration. In partnership with Amplify Latinx, Gastón Institute researchers gathered data about the current Latino non-profit organizations in Massachusetts. Our goal was to establish a benchmark that would allow us to assess the strengths of the specific services provided by these non-profits to Latino communities across the state. The data collection and analysis for this report occurred between June 2019 and February 2020 and therefore predates the effect of the 2020 COVID-19 crisis on the work and stability of Latino organizations. Yet, the COVID-19 crisis highlights the great urgency for policies and practices that can strengthen the ability of Latino organizations to respond to community needs

Puerto Rican Mother-Child Communication about Sexuality and Sexual Health: Results from an Ethnographic Community Survey in Springfield, MA

This bilingual report presents data from an ethnographic survey on the experiences of Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican mothers communicating with children ages 10 to 19 regarding sexuality and sexual health. Results of this survey will be used as baseline data to evaluate a media campaign promoting Puerto Rican mother-child communication. This Spanish media campaign was implemented from March to May, 2015 using public service announcements in television, radio, and newspapers and on public transportation. In this report, we use three main concepts with specific definitions: mother, sexuality, and sexual health protection, defined as follows. Mother is defined as the female adult in the household who identified herself as having the primary mothering role for the children and adolescents at the time of the interview. This report includes data from 174 mothers, 21 grandmothers, 1 sister, 1 aunt, 1 foster-mother, and 7 in unspecified relationships. We refer to all these primary caretakers as “mothers.” Sexuality is defined by the Pan American Health Organization as the “core dimension of being human which includes sex, gender, sexual and gender identity, sexual orientation, eroticism, emotional attachment/love, and reproduction.” In our study, we define sexuality as a manifestation of a person’s whole being, including thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, activities, practices, roles, and relationships. This definition included feelings such as love, emotions, and pleasure as well as communication about individual preferences such as one’s relationship with one’s own body and expressions of emotions to other people. Sexual health protection entails knowledge of the functioning of organs related to sexuality and access to necessary skills and resources for protection against unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and other negative health outcomes. The first section of this report includes descriptive data from a random sample of 205 interviews with Puerto Rican mothers with children 10 to 19 years old. This represents a response rate of 77 percent out of the 266 mothers identified as eligible for the study. The second section makes recommendations to public health educators, practitioners, and policy makers in Springfield, MA on improving communication about sexuality and sexual health protection

Latinx Population Hit Hard in the COVID-19 Recession: Mounting Hardships and One Big Idea for an Inclusive Recovery

Back before the COVID-19 crisis hit and the economy was relatively strong in the aggregate, Massachusetts’ Latinx population—a diverse and growing community that makes valuable economic and cultural contributions—had the lowest incomes and lowest homeownership rate among racial/ethnic groups in Massachusetts. Latinx working-age adults tended to have lower levels of educational attainment and were more likely to have limited English language proficiency. These, in part, contributed to higher levels of unemployment and food insecurity before the pandemic. Then the COVID crisis hit in March of 2020, serving to compound many of these pre-existing challenges, as Latinx workers were more likely to work in restaurant and hospitality jobs that faced severe layoffs and greater exposure to the virus. To make matters worse, cities with large Latinx populations also experienced higher rates of COVID-19 transmission. While both state and federal lawmakers took wide-ranging action to aid struggling families early in the pandemic, policy interventions did not offer a panacea. Latinx families with undocumented workers, for example, were most likely to be ineligible for government supports. In what follows, we explore the disproportionate social and economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the Latinx population and model one specific policy approach to help foster a more equitable economic recovery—a guaranteed income for Massachusetts. As many struggle to buy groceries, pay rent, or afford other necessities, there is no perfect policy solution. But one promising strategy to bolster economic security in tough times is to give families direct cash assistance. This approach is well suited to the COVID crisis, where other social supports haven’t been enough, and to meeting the needs of the Latinx population, which has been hit especially hard. Cash assistance also treats recipients with dignity and offers flexibility by empowering them to choose for themselves how to allocate their resources

The Effect of Proposed Changes in Federal Public Charge Policy on Latino U.S. Citizen Children in Massachusetts

We estimate the number of U.S.-born Latino children that could be potentially affected by proposed Trump Administration changes greatly expanding the scope of the “public charge” test as a basis for denying noncitizens admission to the U.S. or adjustment to lawful permanent resident status. In addition to reducing family-based immigration, the proposed rule’s association of public benefits with adverse immigration consequences is widely expected to cause a drop in public benefit participation not just by noncitizens but by their U.S. citizen children as well. If this proposed change is implemented, Latino families – which include both noncitizen families and “mixed status” families composed of U.S. citizens and noncitizens – will be disproportionately affected. Our estimates show that between 7,000 and 17,000 U.S.-born Latino children could be expected to drop MassHealth coverage in Massachusetts were this proposed policy to take effect. A drop in coverage of this magnitude could increase the percentage of uninsured U.S.-born Latino children in Massachusetts from 2.6% to a figure between 16% and 35%

Regulation of the anaphase-promoting complex by phosphorylation

Regulation of the eukaryotic cell cycle is accomplished in large part by well-timed and targeted destruction of proteins that inhibit or activate passage through cell cycle transitions. Ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis is well established as the primary mechanism through which this occurs, and the anaphase-promoting complex (APC), an E3 ubiquitin ligase, is a vital regulatory component of this system. The APC is a multi-subunit complex required for cell cycle transitions that include progression through anaphase, exit from mitosis, as well as many events throughout meiosis. Two APC subunits, Apc2 and Apc11, are necessary for catalytic transfer of ubiquitin to target substrates, while the remaining subunits participate in a variety of regulatory mechanisms that coordinate APC activity with other cell cycle events. The primary mechanisms of APC regulation include co-activator protein association and phosphorylation of specific subunits in the complex. In budding yeast, two proteins, Mnd2 and Swm1, were identified by mass spectrometry after co-purification with the APC subunit, Cdc27. Here, I show that the APC co-purifies with epitope-tagged Mnd2 or Swm1 and that both proteins are present on the APC at stoichiometric levels throughout the mitotic cell cycle. Mnd2 that co-purifies with the APC is phosphorylated in a cell cycle dependent manner. Using a variety of mass spectrometry techniques, I found that phosphorylation occurs on a least 8 serine or threonine residues within the Mnd2 primary structure. Yeast strains that harbor alanine phosphorylation site mutations in Mnd2 progress normally through pre-meiotic S phase, but are unable to progress efficiently through the first nuclear division of meiosis. In contrast, yeast harboring aspartic acid phosphorylation site mutations display a partial recovery of the wild type meiosis phenotype. Alanine phosphorylation site mutants also displayed low levels of the APCAma1 meiotic substrate, Clb5. Taken together, these results demonstrate that Mnd2 is a stoichiometric component of the APC during mitosis and that Mnd2 phosphorylation is necessary for APC-mediated progression beyond the first meiotic nuclear division

A Portrait of Latino Children: The Gap with Non-Latinos in Massachusetts

Latino children are one of Massachusetts\u27 fastest-growing segments of the population. However, evidence suggests that the social and economic context in which Latino children live does not adequately support their development and overall wellbeing. Nearly a third of Latino children in the United States live in very low-opportunity neighborhoods as defined by a scale of educational, health, environmental, and socioeconomic outcomes. Compared to non-Latino children, Latinos are more likely to grow up in households below the federal poverty threshold and less likely to have a mother with at least a Bachelor\u27s degree. The research included in this report aims to highlight the challenges that Latino children faced before COVID-19 and provide a baseline for future research on this vital segment of Massachusetts\u27 population

Gaia-DR2 confirms VLBA parallaxes in Ophiuchus, Serpens and Aquila

We present Gaia-DR2 astrometry of a sample of YSO candidates in Ophiuchus, Serpens Main and Serpens South/W40 in the Aquila Rift, which had been mainly identified by their infrared excess with Spitzer. We compare the Gaia-DR2 parallaxes against published and new parallaxes obtained from our Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) program GOBELINS. We obtain consistent results between Gaia and the VLBA for the mean parallaxes in each of the regions analyzed here. We see small offsets, when comparing mean values, of a few tens of micro-arcseconds in the parallaxes, which are either introduced by the Gaia zero-point error or due to a selection effect by Gaia toward the brightest, less obscured stars. Gaia-DR2 data alone conclusively places Serpens Main and Serpens South at the same distance, as we first inferred from VLBA data alone in a previous publication. Thus, Serpens Main, Serpens South and W40 are all part of the same complex of molecular clouds, located at a mean distance of 436+/-9 pc. In Ophiuchus, both Gaia and VLBA suggest a small parallax gradient across the cloud, and the distance changes from 144.2+/-1.3 pc to 138.4+/-2.6 pc when going from L1689 to L1688.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ