I have two points regarding point 2. Firstly, what matters is the relationship between the expected happiness and the expected suffering, not the best happiness and the worst suffering. There is no particular reason that these relationships should be the same. It may be that the worst suffering outweighs the best happiness, and also that the expected happiness outweighs the expected suffering.
Secondly, why do you think people would skew towards the suffering dominating? My intuition is that the expected happiness will generally dominate. I’ve noticed there are a subset of EAs who seem to have an obsession with suffering, and the related position of anti-natalism, but I do not think EAs are representative of the broader population in this regard, and I do not think this subset of EAs are epistemically justified.
Yes, you’re totally right that I was just speaking about the range and not the expectation! That’s part of the reason why I said none of the points I made are decisive for working on s-risk. I was only providing arguments against the position that the range is symmetric, which I often see people take.
I have two points regarding point 2. Firstly, what matters is the relationship between the expected happiness and the expected suffering, not the best happiness and the worst suffering. There is no particular reason that these relationships should be the same. It may be that the worst suffering outweighs the best happiness, and also that the expected happiness outweighs the expected suffering.
Secondly, why do you think people would skew towards the suffering dominating? My intuition is that the expected happiness will generally dominate. I’ve noticed there are a subset of EAs who seem to have an obsession with suffering, and the related position of anti-natalism, but I do not think EAs are representative of the broader population in this regard, and I do not think this subset of EAs are epistemically justified.
Yes, you’re totally right that I was just speaking about the range and not the expectation! That’s part of the reason why I said none of the points I made are decisive for working on s-risk. I was only providing arguments against the position that the range is symmetric, which I often see people take.