We have two categories (âMoral Philosophyâ, âLong-Term Risks and Flourishingâ) 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, Iâd put it under âGlobal Catastrophic Risksâ and that would be that.
The âGlobal Catastrophic Risks (other)â cluster feels well-defined to me in a way that a âlongtermistâ cluster wouldnât. When I look at the âOtherâ cluster, most of the seemingly âlongtermistâ causes are still things that many people work on hoping to achieve substantial change within their lifetimes, for the sake of present-day people â 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 wouldnât be able to say whether or not it counted as âlongtermistâ. (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 Iâm open to counterpoints I might not be considering.)
We have two categories (âMoral Philosophyâ, âLong-Term Risks and Flourishingâ) 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, Iâd put it under âGlobal Catastrophic Risksâ and that would be that.
The âGlobal Catastrophic Risks (other)â cluster feels well-defined to me in a way that a âlongtermistâ cluster wouldnât. When I look at the âOtherâ cluster, most of the seemingly âlongtermistâ causes are still things that many people work on hoping to achieve substantial change within their lifetimes, for the sake of present-day people â 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 wouldnât be able to say whether or not it counted as âlongtermistâ. (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 Iâm open to counterpoints I might not be considering.)