Thanks! I think you’re right that we may be broadly in agreement methodologically/conceptually. I think remaining disagreements are most likely empirical. In particular, I think that:
Exponential growth of welfare-relevant quantities (such as population size) must slow down qualitatively on time scales that are short compared to the plausible life span of Earth-originating civilization. This is because we’re going to hit physical limits, after which such growth will be bounded by the at most polynomially growing amount of usable energy (because we can’t travel in any direction faster than the speed of light).
Therefore, setting in motion processes of compounding growth earlier or with larger initial stocks “only” has the effect of us reaching the polynomial-growth plateau sooner. Compared to that, it tends to be more valuable to increase the probability the we reach the polynomial-growth plateau at all, or that once we reach it we use the available resources well by impartially altruistic standards. (Unless the effects of the latter type that we can feasibly achieve are tiny, which I don’t think they are empirically – it does seem that existential risk this century is on the order of at least 1%, and that we can reduce it by nontrivial quantities.)
(I think this is the most robust argument, so I’m omitting several others. – E.g., I’m skeptical that we can ever come to a stable assessment of the net indirect long-term effects of, e.g., saving a life by donating to AMF.)
Thanks! I think you’re right that we may be broadly in agreement methodologically/conceptually. I think remaining disagreements are most likely empirical. In particular, I think that:
Exponential growth of welfare-relevant quantities (such as population size) must slow down qualitatively on time scales that are short compared to the plausible life span of Earth-originating civilization. This is because we’re going to hit physical limits, after which such growth will be bounded by the at most polynomially growing amount of usable energy (because we can’t travel in any direction faster than the speed of light).
Therefore, setting in motion processes of compounding growth earlier or with larger initial stocks “only” has the effect of us reaching the polynomial-growth plateau sooner. Compared to that, it tends to be more valuable to increase the probability the we reach the polynomial-growth plateau at all, or that once we reach it we use the available resources well by impartially altruistic standards. (Unless the effects of the latter type that we can feasibly achieve are tiny, which I don’t think they are empirically – it does seem that existential risk this century is on the order of at least 1%, and that we can reduce it by nontrivial quantities.)
(I think this is the most robust argument, so I’m omitting several others. – E.g., I’m skeptical that we can ever come to a stable assessment of the net indirect long-term effects of, e.g., saving a life by donating to AMF.)
This argument is explained better in several other places, such as Nick Bostrom’s Astronomical Waste, Paul Christiano’s On Progress and Prosperity, and other comments here and here.
The general topic does come up from time to time, e.g. here.