Let me reframe it. Among these trillions of people, there will be many who are 99% similar to you. Wouldn't you want that version of yourself to live a great life?
Sure! It's just not actually reasonably possible to predict what will lead to that outcome, whereas I can sorta (badly) predict what will make me happy tomorrow, my wife happy next week, and what will best improve conditions for my current fellow citizens of the world.
You can certainly rationalize anything, but I fail to see what help that is to us.
"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism [radical skepticism] is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. [...] I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther."
BobaFloutist|7 months ago
munchler|7 months ago
Elextric|7 months ago
"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism [radical skepticism] is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. [...] I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour's amusement, I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther."
Hume
andsoitis|7 months ago
The biggest positive change you can make, even for future generations, is to uplevel the people who are alive today.