Not to mention there are, shall we say, longtermism adjacent rich people like Musk and Thiel who seem pretty plausibly power-seeking, even if they are not really proper longtermists (or at least, they are not EAs).
These people both seem like clear longtermists to me—they have orientated their lives around trying to positively influence the long term future of humanity. I struggle to see any reasonable criteria by which they do not count as longtermists which doesn’t also exclude almost everyone else that we would normally think of as a longtermist. Even under a super parochial definition like ‘people Will supports’ it seems like Elon would still count!
In practice I think people’s exclusionist instincts here are more tribal / political than philosophically grounded.
Meaning he tried to put him in touch with someone else who was interested in buying Twitter in case they wanted to buy it together?
(If that’s what you’re referring to, I think we understand “people Will supports” differently. And I can’t see how it’s relevant to whether or not Elon is a longtermist.)
These people both seem like clear longtermists to me—they have orientated their lives around trying to positively influence the long term future of humanity. I struggle to see any reasonable criteria by which they do not count as longtermists which doesn’t also exclude almost everyone else that we would normally think of as a longtermist. Even under a super parochial definition like ‘people Will supports’ it seems like Elon would still count!
In practice I think people’s exclusionist instincts here are more tribal / political than philosophically grounded.
When has Will supported Elon?
Will attempted to support Elon’s purchase of Twitter.
Meaning he tried to put him in touch with someone else who was interested in buying Twitter in case they wanted to buy it together?
(If that’s what you’re referring to, I think we understand “people Will supports” differently. And I can’t see how it’s relevant to whether or not Elon is a longtermist.)
I agree it’s not relevant—I think the real test is whether someone cares a lot about future people and tries to help them, which Elon satisfies.
Musk basically endorsed longtermism recently, too: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1554335028313718784?lang=en