I haven’t spent long enough thinking about it to draw any conclusions with confidence, but prima facie we should expect that if you’re optimising for different things you’re likely to choose different actions.
One example which at least looks plausible to me is that if you take a long term view one of the major obstacles to shifting values is cognitive dissonance over the fact that many people enjoy eating meat. Rather than trying to shift values today it might be better to get excellent meat substitutes or vat-meat and then shift values after, when it will be easier. There’s a chain of steps here, and it could involve investing at the start, or saving until you can implement one of the later steps, depending on which you think will need pushing the most:
(i) Develop technologies and production
(ii) Normalise use of meat substitutes in society
(iii) When these are widespread, build support for ending animal cruelty in farms.
It’s also possible that building the effective altruism movement is a better route, if it encourages reflection on values in a way which we think will tend to lead to improvements, or lead to good values more likely to spread further.
I haven’t spent long enough thinking about it to draw any conclusions with confidence, but prima facie we should expect that if you’re optimising for different things you’re likely to choose different actions.
One example which at least looks plausible to me is that if you take a long term view one of the major obstacles to shifting values is cognitive dissonance over the fact that many people enjoy eating meat. Rather than trying to shift values today it might be better to get excellent meat substitutes or vat-meat and then shift values after, when it will be easier. There’s a chain of steps here, and it could involve investing at the start, or saving until you can implement one of the later steps, depending on which you think will need pushing the most: (i) Develop technologies and production (ii) Normalise use of meat substitutes in society (iii) When these are widespread, build support for ending animal cruelty in farms.
It’s also possible that building the effective altruism movement is a better route, if it encourages reflection on values in a way which we think will tend to lead to improvements, or lead to good values more likely to spread further.