Currently the Cause Areas part of the tags portal has two sections for GCRs but none for longtermism. I think itās probably now more common to think about the main EA cause areas as including longtermism than to think about them as including x-risks or GCRs; i.e., the framing often primarily focuses on the long-term future, with x-risks and GCRs as big examples of what one might focus on within longtermism. And this seems like a useful way to frame it, given that longtermism can include both stuff to do with x-risks/āGCRs and other stuff (e.g., non-existential trajectory changes, or speeding up progress). (Though this is complicated by the fact that one could prioritise x-risks or GCRs for non-longtermist reasons.)
So I think it might be better to have a category for longtermism and then have the GCR stuff all as part of that.
Alternatively, there could be an additional category for āLongtermism (other than GCRs)ā, or something like that.
We have two categories (āMoral Philosophyā, āLong-Term Risks and Flourishingā) which capture lots of material relevant to longtermism.
As for the cause area section specifically:
AI is its own cluster because we currently have an enormous number of articles about it. If we only had one article about AI risk, Iād put it under āGlobal Catastrophic Risksā and that would be that.
The āGlobal Catastrophic Risks (other)ā cluster feels well-defined to me in a way that a ālongtermistā cluster wouldnāt. When I look at the āOtherā cluster, most of the seemingly ālongtermistā causes are still things that many people work on hoping to achieve substantial change within their lifetimes, for the sake of present-day people ā anti-aging research, land use reform, climate change...
If you ask me about a cause area in that section, I can fairly confidently say whether or not it counts as a GCR. In many cases, I wouldnāt be able to say whether or not it counted as ālongtermistā. (And as you mention, many of the areas could be prioritized for longtermist or non-longtermist reasons.)
I think of longtermism as a common value system in EA. Many causes seem especially valuable to work on given a longtermist value system, but few such causes require a longtermist value system to make sense. (But I spend less time thinking about this kind of thing than you do, so Iām open to counterpoints I might not be considering.)
Currently the Cause Areas part of the tags portal has two sections for GCRs but none for longtermism. I think itās probably now more common to think about the main EA cause areas as including longtermism than to think about them as including x-risks or GCRs; i.e., the framing often primarily focuses on the long-term future, with x-risks and GCRs as big examples of what one might focus on within longtermism. And this seems like a useful way to frame it, given that longtermism can include both stuff to do with x-risks/āGCRs and other stuff (e.g., non-existential trajectory changes, or speeding up progress). (Though this is complicated by the fact that one could prioritise x-risks or GCRs for non-longtermist reasons.)
So I think it might be better to have a category for longtermism and then have the GCR stuff all as part of that.
Alternatively, there could be an additional category for āLongtermism (other than GCRs)ā, or something like that.
We have two categories (āMoral Philosophyā, āLong-Term Risks and Flourishingā) which capture lots of material relevant to longtermism.
As for the cause area section specifically:
AI is its own cluster because we currently have an enormous number of articles about it. If we only had one article about AI risk, Iād put it under āGlobal Catastrophic Risksā and that would be that.
The āGlobal Catastrophic Risks (other)ā cluster feels well-defined to me in a way that a ālongtermistā cluster wouldnāt. When I look at the āOtherā cluster, most of the seemingly ālongtermistā causes are still things that many people work on hoping to achieve substantial change within their lifetimes, for the sake of present-day people ā anti-aging research, land use reform, climate change...
If you ask me about a cause area in that section, I can fairly confidently say whether or not it counts as a GCR. In many cases, I wouldnāt be able to say whether or not it counted as ālongtermistā. (And as you mention, many of the areas could be prioritized for longtermist or non-longtermist reasons.)
I think of longtermism as a common value system in EA. Many causes seem especially valuable to work on given a longtermist value system, but few such causes require a longtermist value system to make sense. (But I spend less time thinking about this kind of thing than you do, so Iām open to counterpoints I might not be considering.)