But overall all these definitions are pretty up in the air. It would be great if someone would like to take a more rigorous look.
Agreed. When writing my post on these matters, I found it surprisingly hard to even just describe what I was talking about and what claims I was making/summarising. It’d be handy to have settled, consistent, clearly defined terms.
I don’t think it should be defined in terms of not having a pure rate of time preference, since the urgent longtermists don’t have a pure rate of time preference either.
Yeah, I agree with this too. I was just pointing out that, when introducing the term that “patient longtermism” seems to deliberately mirror, Trammell defined it as being about having no pure time preference. So if a term deliberately mirrors that one but then uses a different meaning, I think that can create confusion.
That said, I think how people have interpreted Trammell’s term—as about having the bottom-line belief that one should invest for future altruistic projects rather than spending now—is arguably more intuitive than how he defined it.[1] I say this because it seems to me more intuitive that “patient” should be a matter of waiting and doing something later (so a low overall discount rate, not just a low pure time discount rate). But someone with zero pure time preference could, under certain conditions, still want to spend on direct work now rather than waiting. (Not sure if I’ve explained that well.)
And it does seem good to have a term for the bottom-line belief that one should invest for future altruistic projects rather than spending now. So maybe we should just accept that “patient altruism” has evolved to mean that. (Though there is the issue that it implies the opposite is “impatient”, which sounds rude/dismissive.)
But then believing hinginess will be higher in future is a separate (though related) matter again. And I don’t think it’s as intuitive to call that “patience”, for the same reason I don’t think it’s super intuitive to call zero pure time preference “patience”; someone who believes hinginess will be higher in future could still want to spend on direct work now. I might want to say that believing hinginess will be higher in future will tend to push towards more “patience”, but that it isn’t itself “patience”.
It could perhaps be good to have a separate shorthand term for believing hinginess will be higher in future. (And btw, I do think it’s valuable that you/80k have highlighted the matter of how hinginess will change over time as a key uncertainty, and highlighted that not all longtermists believe the hingiest period is now/soon.)
[1] Maybe “patience” is an established term with a meaning similar to Trammell’s in philosophy/econ? I’m not sure.
Agreed. When writing my post on these matters, I found it surprisingly hard to even just describe what I was talking about and what claims I was making/summarising. It’d be handy to have settled, consistent, clearly defined terms.
Yeah, I agree with this too. I was just pointing out that, when introducing the term that “patient longtermism” seems to deliberately mirror, Trammell defined it as being about having no pure time preference. So if a term deliberately mirrors that one but then uses a different meaning, I think that can create confusion.
That said, I think how people have interpreted Trammell’s term—as about having the bottom-line belief that one should invest for future altruistic projects rather than spending now—is arguably more intuitive than how he defined it.[1] I say this because it seems to me more intuitive that “patient” should be a matter of waiting and doing something later (so a low overall discount rate, not just a low pure time discount rate). But someone with zero pure time preference could, under certain conditions, still want to spend on direct work now rather than waiting. (Not sure if I’ve explained that well.)
And it does seem good to have a term for the bottom-line belief that one should invest for future altruistic projects rather than spending now. So maybe we should just accept that “patient altruism” has evolved to mean that. (Though there is the issue that it implies the opposite is “impatient”, which sounds rude/dismissive.)
But then believing hinginess will be higher in future is a separate (though related) matter again. And I don’t think it’s as intuitive to call that “patience”, for the same reason I don’t think it’s super intuitive to call zero pure time preference “patience”; someone who believes hinginess will be higher in future could still want to spend on direct work now. I might want to say that believing hinginess will be higher in future will tend to push towards more “patience”, but that it isn’t itself “patience”.
It could perhaps be good to have a separate shorthand term for believing hinginess will be higher in future. (And btw, I do think it’s valuable that you/80k have highlighted the matter of how hinginess will change over time as a key uncertainty, and highlighted that not all longtermists believe the hingiest period is now/soon.)
[1] Maybe “patience” is an established term with a meaning similar to Trammell’s in philosophy/econ? I’m not sure.