> no special responsibility to the people around you
Musing on the different failure-directions: Pretty much any terrible present thing against people can be rationalized by arguing that one gadzillion distant/future people are more important. That includes religious versions, where the stakes of the holy war may presented as all of future humanity being doomed to infinite torment. There are even some cults that pitch it retroactively: Offer to the priesthood to save all your ancestors who are in hell because of original sin.
The opposite would be to prioritize the near and immediate, culminating in a despotic god-king. This is somewhat more-familiar, we may have more cultural experience and moral tools for detection and prevention.
A check on either process would be that the denigrated real/nearby humans revolt. :p
Musing on the different failure-directions: Pretty much any terrible present thing against people can be rationalized by arguing that one gadzillion distant/future people are more important. That includes religious versions, where the stakes of the holy war may presented as all of future humanity being doomed to infinite torment. There are even some cults that pitch it retroactively: Offer to the priesthood to save all your ancestors who are in hell because of original sin.
The opposite would be to prioritize the near and immediate, culminating in a despotic god-king. This is somewhat more-familiar, we may have more cultural experience and moral tools for detection and prevention.
A check on either process would be that the denigrated real/nearby humans revolt. :p