I think mainstream longtermist EA is already on a path to try and help create the hedonium shockwave if and only if itâs the right thing to do. The âonly ifâ part seems really importantâturning 99.999% of the accessible universe into hedonium seems like a quite bad idea unless youâre extraordinarily confident in your ethical views. But it does seem like one theoretically possible outcome of the type of long reflection MacAskill advocates in WWOTF:
As an ideal, we could aim for what we can call the long reflection: a stable state of the world in which we are safe from calamity and we can reflect on and debate the nature of the good life, working out what the most flourishing society would be. I call this the âlongâ reflection not because of how long this period would last but because of how long it would be worth spending on it. Itâs worth spending five minutes to decide where to spend two hours at dinner; itâs worth spending months to choose a profession for the rest of oneâs life. But civilisation might last millions, billions, or even trillions of years. It would therefore be worth spending many centuries to ensure that weâve really figured things out before we take irreversible actions like locking in values or spreading across the stars.
Itâs really not clear to me that thereâs a better path to the hedonium shockwave than what longtermsists are already doingâtrying to ensure humanity survives and prospers and makes it to a place where we have more hope of reaching a consensus about whether or not itâs the right course of action. Of course, if the shockwave really is the right thing to do, waiting to start it would lead to a great deal of astronomical waste. But this is a small price to pay relative to the risks of destroying ourselves or causing great harm if our moral views are wrong.
I think mainstream longtermist EA is already on a path to try and help create the hedonium shockwave if and only if itâs the right thing to do. The âonly ifâ part seems really importantâturning 99.999% of the accessible universe into hedonium seems like a quite bad idea unless youâre extraordinarily confident in your ethical views. But it does seem like one theoretically possible outcome of the type of long reflection MacAskill advocates in WWOTF:
Itâs really not clear to me that thereâs a better path to the hedonium shockwave than what longtermsists are already doingâtrying to ensure humanity survives and prospers and makes it to a place where we have more hope of reaching a consensus about whether or not itâs the right course of action. Of course, if the shockwave really is the right thing to do, waiting to start it would lead to a great deal of astronomical waste. But this is a small price to pay relative to the risks of destroying ourselves or causing great harm if our moral views are wrong.