This doesn’t seem to be what’s happening. For whatever reason, when people hear longtermists say “we should try and influence the long-term future”, they hear the “we” as just the longtermists.[2]
Hmm. I want to distinguish between two potential concerns folks who disagree with longtermism could have:
Longtermists are using this weird ideology to gain a bunch of power and influence in the present day, this is bad because we have ideological problems with longtermism (e.g. strong person affecting intuitions) or because we think this is distracting from more important problems.
Longtermists are correct to point out that the far future is big and has untapped power. The problems is that we have value differences from longtermists / think they are an insular group of elites, and ‘ceding control’ over the future to this group is bad.
FWIW I am very sympathetic to this, as are probably a bunch of people with longtermist intuitions?
I think (1) is definitely a vein of concern that I’ve heard expressed a lot by critics of longtermists.
But it sounds like you are claiming that (2) is also a strong undercurrent of concern? If so, can you point to evidence of this?
I’m claiming they’re intertwined. I think the problem that people have with longtermism that makes them feel concern 1 is that longtermists seem to be an insular group of elites with views they disagree with (maybe consequentialism). I’m not sure there are two veins of concern here, so I’m using the same evidence, and maybe just picking up on some other vibes (i.e. critics aren’t mad because they have person-affecting views, they’re mad because they think no small, insular group of people should have a lot of influence).
Hmm. I want to distinguish between two potential concerns folks who disagree with longtermism could have:
Longtermists are using this weird ideology to gain a bunch of power and influence in the present day, this is bad because we have ideological problems with longtermism (e.g. strong person affecting intuitions) or because we think this is distracting from more important problems.
Longtermists are correct to point out that the far future is big and has untapped power. The problems is that we have value differences from longtermists / think they are an insular group of elites, and ‘ceding control’ over the future to this group is bad.
FWIW I am very sympathetic to this, as are probably a bunch of people with longtermist intuitions?
I think (1) is definitely a vein of concern that I’ve heard expressed a lot by critics of longtermists.
But it sounds like you are claiming that (2) is also a strong undercurrent of concern? If so, can you point to evidence of this?
I’m claiming they’re intertwined. I think the problem that people have with longtermism that makes them feel concern 1 is that longtermists seem to be an insular group of elites with views they disagree with (maybe consequentialism). I’m not sure there are two veins of concern here, so I’m using the same evidence, and maybe just picking up on some other vibes (i.e. critics aren’t mad because they have person-affecting views, they’re mad because they think no small, insular group of people should have a lot of influence).
Hmm, interesting take! Thanks for clarifying your thesis :)