Importantly, when longtermists say “we should try and influence the long-term future”, I think they/we really mean everyone.
Someone privately gave me the feedback that it should probably be “on behalf of everyone” and not “everyone should try and influence the long-term future” and I think I agree. This would also mean I wouldn’t need the footnote.
I’m not super compelled by this shift in framing. If you have a social choice oracle that steamrolls over barriers to sufficient or satisfying aggregation, and you have excessively good UX that provides really high resolution elicitation, you can still expect to screw over voiceless moral patients. Maybe you can correct for this by just giving St Francis (or some MCE extremist) a heavier vote than he deserves under classical distributions of voice, but this causes a hundred massive problems (e.g. ordinary voters resenting the imposition of veganism, questioning the legitimacy of St Francis, how was St Francis even appointed anyway).
I.e. I think once you try to define “behalf” or “everyone” you find that distinguishing “we should try to influence the future on behalf of everyone” from “everyone should try and influence the future” is not helpful.
Someone privately gave me the feedback that it should probably be “on behalf of everyone” and not “everyone should try and influence the long-term future” and I think I agree. This would also mean I wouldn’t need the footnote.
I’m not super compelled by this shift in framing. If you have a social choice oracle that steamrolls over barriers to sufficient or satisfying aggregation, and you have excessively good UX that provides really high resolution elicitation, you can still expect to screw over voiceless moral patients. Maybe you can correct for this by just giving St Francis (or some MCE extremist) a heavier vote than he deserves under classical distributions of voice, but this causes a hundred massive problems (e.g. ordinary voters resenting the imposition of veganism, questioning the legitimacy of St Francis, how was St Francis even appointed anyway).
I.e. I think once you try to define “behalf” or “everyone” you find that distinguishing “we should try to influence the future on behalf of everyone” from “everyone should try and influence the future” is not helpful.