“While the idea of a gain is simple — a permanent improvement in instantaneous value of a fixed size — it is not so clear how common they are.”
I agree that gains aren’t where the action is, when it comes to longterm impact. Nonetheless, here are some potential examples:
Species loss / preservation of species
Preservation of historical information
Preservation of Earth’s ecosystem
Preservation of areas of natural importance, like Olympus Mons
These plausibly have two sources of longterm value. The first is that future agents might have slightly better lives as a result: perhaps one in a billion future people are willing to pay the equivalent of $1 in order to be able to see a real-life panda, or to learn about the life and times of a historically interesting figure. This scales in future population size, so is probably an “enhancement” rather than a “gain” (though it depends a little on one’s population ethics).
The second is if these things have intrinsic value. If so, then perhaps they provide a fixed amount over value at any time. That really would be a gain.
Another possible gain is preventing future wars that destroy resources. Suppose that, for example, there’s a war between two factions of future interstellar civilisation, and a solar system is destroyed as a result. That would be a loss.
As you say, there is an issue that some of these things might really be enhancements because they aren’t of a fixed size. This is especially true for those that have instrumental effects on the wellbeing of individuals, as if those effects increase with total population or with the wellbeing level of those individuals, then they can be enhancements. So cases where there is a clearly fixed effect per person and a clearly fixed number of people who benefit would be good candidates.
As are cases where the thing is of intrinsic non-welfarist value. Though there is also an issue that I don’t know how intrinsic value of art, environmental preservation, species types existing, or knowledge is supposed to interact with time. Is it twice as good to have a masterpiece or landscape or species or piece of knowledge for twice as long? It plausibly is. So at least on accounts of value where things scale like that, there is the possibility of acting like a gain.
Another issue is if the effects don’t truly scale with the duration of our future. For example, on the longest futures that seem possible (lasting far beyond the lifetime of the Sun), even a well preserved site may have faded long before our end point. So many candidates might act like gains on some durations of our future, but not others.
Gains
“While the idea of a gain is simple — a permanent improvement in instantaneous value of a fixed size — it is not so clear how common they are.”
I agree that gains aren’t where the action is, when it comes to longterm impact. Nonetheless, here are some potential examples:
Species loss / preservation of species
Preservation of historical information
Preservation of Earth’s ecosystem
Preservation of areas of natural importance, like Olympus Mons
These plausibly have two sources of longterm value. The first is that future agents might have slightly better lives as a result: perhaps one in a billion future people are willing to pay the equivalent of $1 in order to be able to see a real-life panda, or to learn about the life and times of a historically interesting figure. This scales in future population size, so is probably an “enhancement” rather than a “gain” (though it depends a little on one’s population ethics).
The second is if these things have intrinsic value. If so, then perhaps they provide a fixed amount over value at any time. That really would be a gain.
Another possible gain is preventing future wars that destroy resources. Suppose that, for example, there’s a war between two factions of future interstellar civilisation, and a solar system is destroyed as a result. That would be a loss.
As you say, there is an issue that some of these things might really be enhancements because they aren’t of a fixed size. This is especially true for those that have instrumental effects on the wellbeing of individuals, as if those effects increase with total population or with the wellbeing level of those individuals, then they can be enhancements. So cases where there is a clearly fixed effect per person and a clearly fixed number of people who benefit would be good candidates.
As are cases where the thing is of intrinsic non-welfarist value. Though there is also an issue that I don’t know how intrinsic value of art, environmental preservation, species types existing, or knowledge is supposed to interact with time. Is it twice as good to have a masterpiece or landscape or species or piece of knowledge for twice as long? It plausibly is. So at least on accounts of value where things scale like that, there is the possibility of acting like a gain.
Another issue is if the effects don’t truly scale with the duration of our future. For example, on the longest futures that seem possible (lasting far beyond the lifetime of the Sun), even a well preserved site may have faded long before our end point. So many candidates might act like gains on some durations of our future, but not others.