I’m not fully bought into strong longtermism (nor, I suspect, are Greaves or MacAskill), but on my inside view it seems probably-correct.
When I said “likely”, that was covering the fact that I’m not fully bought in.
I’m taking “strong longtermism” to be a concept in the vicinity of what they said (and meaningfully distinct from “weak longtermism”, for which I would not have said “by far”), that I think is a natural category they are imperfectly gesturing at. I don’t agree with with a literal reading of their quote, because it’s missing two qualifiers: (i) it’s overwhelmingly what matters rather than the only thing; & (ii) of course we need to think about shorter term consequences in order to make the best decisions for the long term.
Both (i) and (ii) are arguably technicalities (and I guess that the authors would cede the points to me), but (ii) in particular feels very important.
I think it’s a combination of a couple of things.
I’m not fully bought into strong longtermism (nor, I suspect, are Greaves or MacAskill), but on my inside view it seems probably-correct.
When I said “likely”, that was covering the fact that I’m not fully bought in.
I’m taking “strong longtermism” to be a concept in the vicinity of what they said (and meaningfully distinct from “weak longtermism”, for which I would not have said “by far”), that I think is a natural category they are imperfectly gesturing at. I don’t agree with with a literal reading of their quote, because it’s missing two qualifiers: (i) it’s overwhelmingly what matters rather than the only thing; & (ii) of course we need to think about shorter term consequences in order to make the best decisions for the long term.
Both (i) and (ii) are arguably technicalities (and I guess that the authors would cede the points to me), but (ii) in particular feels very important.