Nick Bostrom – Sensitivity to Subtler Values

In his new book Deep Utopia, Nick Bostrom invites us to imagine a world where the big problems are solved—no hunger, no war, just a quiet hum of existential security and near infinite bliss. But then what? In a recent interview, he offers a poetic twist: “It might be completely appropriate to place more weight on the remaining subtler, quieter values.” He likens it to nightfall, when your pupils dilate to catch faint starlight drowned out by the day’s glare.

These aren’t new values we’d need to conjure up—they’re already there, like a starry sky waiting to be noticed. Think honouring your ancestors like they do in Japan or savouring small joys—things that might feel trivial amid life’s chaos but gain depth in a “solved” world. Bostrom’s point? Once the urgent noise fades, these subtle constellations can shine, guiding us toward meaning and purpose in a future we’ve only begun to glimpse.

Transcript

“I make the point of the dilation of our evaluative pupils. So it might be that a lot of these natural purposes that would survive might, some of them might now strike us as kind of almost frivolous or sentimental or like, yeah, it’s nice to value your ancestors, but like, you know, right now we have so many more important things to do, perhaps you think. But in this scenario, I point out where there, where all of these other things are already taken care of, it might be completely appropriate to place more weight on the remaining subtler, quieter values, just like when you walk outside at night, it makes sense for your pupils to dilate, to take in more of the light. And then you can see that actually it’s this whole canopy, this starry sky that was there all along. It’s just that during the day you couldn’t see it because the sort of immediate pressing intensity of the sun and blotted it out. But it’s not like you have to invent new stars, like they are there all along. And once the urgent screaming moral imperatives and needs are taken care of, these more subtle constellations can come into view and give us reasons for doing things.” – Nick Bostrom, in interview with Adam Ford, 2025