Thanks, this is a good question. I don’t think it has specific bearing on future actions, but does have some broader relevance. For example, longtermists have sometimes discussed the total value of the long-term future: in this context, we may be interested in whether things have been getting better or worse in order to extrapolate this trend forward.
(Though this is not why I wrote this post. - That was more because I happened to find it interesting personally.)
Of course, this trend extrapolation would only be one among many considerations. In addition, ideally we’d want a trend on the world’s total value, not a trend on just poverty. So e.g. the anthropocentrism would be a problem here.
Thanks, this is a good question. I don’t think it has specific bearing on future actions, but does have some broader relevance. For example, longtermists have sometimes discussed the total value of the long-term future: in this context, we may be interested in whether things have been getting better or worse in order to extrapolate this trend forward.
(Though this is not why I wrote this post. - That was more because I happened to find it interesting personally.)
Of course, this trend extrapolation would only be one among many considerations. In addition, ideally we’d want a trend on the world’s total value, not a trend on just poverty. So e.g. the anthropocentrism would be a problem here.