Full Idea
It is simply inappropriate of human most concerns, always and everywhere, that 'it just won't matter in a hundred years hence'. For one must not confuse value with permanency, importance with endurance. What matters is the overall scheme of things.
Gist of Idea
What has value for humans is quite separate from any ideas of endurance and permanency
Source
Nicholas Rescher (Process Metaphysics [1996], 6.5)
A Reaction
Even Platonic ideals would cease to matter, by that reckoning, if there were no longer any creatures, such as humans, to take an interest in them. It is total nihilism to reject key values now on the grounds that some key moment will pass. Saving a life.
Book Reference
Rescher,Nicholas: 'Process Metaphysics' [SUNY 1996], p.121