ColdButtonIssues makes some good points about religion as a major traditional focus of longtermist imagination and morality in most human societies. I agree that EA should pay closer attention to the intellectual/moral history of religious conceptions of the afterlife & reincarnation—at least as cautionary tales about how runaway consequentialist reasoning can go astray. (eg ‘it’s worth burning this person at the stake if there’s even a 1% chance that the excruciation will make them recant their apostasy to save their immortal soul, which could enjoy heaven for >10 quadrillion times as long as they’re being burned....’).
I would add that political conservatism has also been more longtermist, traditionally, than most revolutionary movements such as communism (which may give lip service to future generations, but is often more interested in immediate vengeance against the local bourgeoisie). This seems especially true of the more family-values, pronatalist versions of conservatism that focus on multi-generational/dynastic thinking.
This also seems true of conservative political philosophers who tend to ask questions like:
’How will this new policy really affect our grand-kids and great-grand-kids?
‘Is it really worth giving up this tradition that’s worked for dozens of generations (that’s ‘Lindy’), to try something new and untested?′
‘Will this new social/technical/governance innovation really prove stable for multiple generations against perturbation, exploitation, propaganda, mission drift, regulatory capture, security exploits, savvy adversaries, and future folly?’
‘Is this proposed strategy even a Nash equilibrium in the game of life, given all the easily-anticipated counter-strategies?’
Implicit in a lot of conservative/traditionalist political philosophy is a concern for how stable certain social arrangements will be, in the long term, against future adversaries, activists, virtue-signalers, foreign powers, misguided do-gooders, government powers, self-interested elites, etc.
In other words, there’s a focus on which strategies are evolutionarily stable equilibria in long-term iterated games. In that regard, I see a strong overlap between conservative political philosophy and some current EA longtermist concerns such as the game theory involved in AI alignment, or the geopolitical governance issues around nuclear war and bioweapons development.
ColdButtonIssues makes some good points about religion as a major traditional focus of longtermist imagination and morality in most human societies. I agree that EA should pay closer attention to the intellectual/moral history of religious conceptions of the afterlife & reincarnation—at least as cautionary tales about how runaway consequentialist reasoning can go astray. (eg ‘it’s worth burning this person at the stake if there’s even a 1% chance that the excruciation will make them recant their apostasy to save their immortal soul, which could enjoy heaven for >10 quadrillion times as long as they’re being burned....’).
I would add that political conservatism has also been more longtermist, traditionally, than most revolutionary movements such as communism (which may give lip service to future generations, but is often more interested in immediate vengeance against the local bourgeoisie). This seems especially true of the more family-values, pronatalist versions of conservatism that focus on multi-generational/dynastic thinking.
This also seems true of conservative political philosophers who tend to ask questions like:
’How will this new policy really affect our grand-kids and great-grand-kids?
‘Is it really worth giving up this tradition that’s worked for dozens of generations (that’s ‘Lindy’), to try something new and untested?′
‘Will this new social/technical/governance innovation really prove stable for multiple generations against perturbation, exploitation, propaganda, mission drift, regulatory capture, security exploits, savvy adversaries, and future folly?’
‘Is this proposed strategy even a Nash equilibrium in the game of life, given all the easily-anticipated counter-strategies?’
Implicit in a lot of conservative/traditionalist political philosophy is a concern for how stable certain social arrangements will be, in the long term, against future adversaries, activists, virtue-signalers, foreign powers, misguided do-gooders, government powers, self-interested elites, etc.
In other words, there’s a focus on which strategies are evolutionarily stable equilibria in long-term iterated games. In that regard, I see a strong overlap between conservative political philosophy and some current EA longtermist concerns such as the game theory involved in AI alignment, or the geopolitical governance issues around nuclear war and bioweapons development.