This is a good analysis but I think it simplifies between short vs long term, when people often aren’t 100% one or the other. As well as whether particular cause areas are short vs long term when some existential risk work could be seen as highly valuable even if an individual didn’t value lives tomorrow and some interventions that are seen as near term could have a much bigger impact on the future.
I agree, I don’t like the near-termism vs. longtermism terms, since I think it makes it sound like a moral issue whereas it’s normally more about epistemology or strategy, and like you say for most people it’s a matter of degree. I hope we can come up with better terms.
I also agree people should be clear about ‘causes’ vs. ‘worldviews’. You could be longtermist in your worldview but want to work on economic empowerment, and you could be near termist but want to work on AI GCRs.
I did my analysis in terms of causes, though my impression is that results are similar when we ask about worldviews instead (because in practice causes and worldviews are reasonable correlated).
This is a good analysis but I think it simplifies between short vs long term, when people often aren’t 100% one or the other. As well as whether particular cause areas are short vs long term when some existential risk work could be seen as highly valuable even if an individual didn’t value lives tomorrow and some interventions that are seen as near term could have a much bigger impact on the future.
I agree, I don’t like the near-termism vs. longtermism terms, since I think it makes it sound like a moral issue whereas it’s normally more about epistemology or strategy, and like you say for most people it’s a matter of degree. I hope we can come up with better terms.
I also agree people should be clear about ‘causes’ vs. ‘worldviews’. You could be longtermist in your worldview but want to work on economic empowerment, and you could be near termist but want to work on AI GCRs.
I did my analysis in terms of causes, though my impression is that results are similar when we ask about worldviews instead (because in practice causes and worldviews are reasonable correlated).