The longtermist claim is that because humans could in theory live for hundreds of millions or billions of years, and we have potential to get the risk of extinction very almost to 0, the biggest effects of our actions are almost all in how they affect the far future. Therefore, if we can find a way to predictably improve the far future this is likely to be, certainly from a utilitarian perspective, the best thing we can do.
I don’t find this framing very useful. The importance-tractability-crowdedness framework gives us a sophisticated method for evaluating causes (allocate resources according to marginal utility per dollar), which is flexible enough to account for diminishing returns as funding increases.
But the longtermist framework collapses this down to a binary: is this the best intervention or not?
I don’t find this framing very useful. The importance-tractability-crowdedness framework gives us a sophisticated method for evaluating causes (allocate resources according to marginal utility per dollar), which is flexible enough to account for diminishing returns as funding increases.
But the longtermist framework collapses this down to a binary: is this the best intervention or not?