I’m relatively new to the area of existential risk, and come more from the development economics/ global health side of things. I find this argument really interesting, and have a few questions and comments.
(1) Economic development in emerging economies generally leads to a demographic transition where birth rates eventually stabilize at or below the replacement rate. It seems to me that if this transition were hastened, it could lead to a smaller steady state population in the long term and lower long term resource consumption (even if consumption is accelerated in the near term). I’m not sure about the moral implications of eliminating people from a theoretical future, but it seems to me it would be preferable to have a smaller population with a better quality of life, than a large population with a poor quality of life.
(2) You write:
“With the possible exceptions of anthropogenic climate change and a particularly bad nuclear war, we barely even have the ability to really mess things up today: it appears that almost all of the risk of things going terribly and irrevocably awry lies in our future. Hastening technological progress improves our ability to cope with problems, but it also hastens the arrival of the problems at almost the same rate.”
-Do know of any research that has tried to quantify the relative rates/magnitudes of problems generated vs. problems solved?
-Large quality of life increases in developing economies could come from application of existing technologies where the risks, as you note, are relatively small/pretty well understood. Would you support the use of existing technology for development?
(3) Has anyone made an argument for existential risk mitigation based on recent history? For example, trying to look forward with the limited perspective of someone in 1900. Obviously this would be very speculative, but I think it could help make the concepts you are discussing more concrete to outsiders. Also, doing historical research into warnings about, say, the dangers of nuclear physics could help us understand the challenges of practically implementing policies that are theoretically correct.
I generally agree that more resources need to be devoted to existential risk mitigation, but I don’t have a very good idea of where the bottlenecks are—philosophy, theory, or practical implementation?
I’m relatively new to the area of existential risk, and come more from the development economics/ global health side of things. I find this argument really interesting, and have a few questions and comments.
(1) Economic development in emerging economies generally leads to a demographic transition where birth rates eventually stabilize at or below the replacement rate. It seems to me that if this transition were hastened, it could lead to a smaller steady state population in the long term and lower long term resource consumption (even if consumption is accelerated in the near term). I’m not sure about the moral implications of eliminating people from a theoretical future, but it seems to me it would be preferable to have a smaller population with a better quality of life, than a large population with a poor quality of life.
(2) You write: “With the possible exceptions of anthropogenic climate change and a particularly bad nuclear war, we barely even have the ability to really mess things up today: it appears that almost all of the risk of things going terribly and irrevocably awry lies in our future. Hastening technological progress improves our ability to cope with problems, but it also hastens the arrival of the problems at almost the same rate.” -Do know of any research that has tried to quantify the relative rates/magnitudes of problems generated vs. problems solved? -Large quality of life increases in developing economies could come from application of existing technologies where the risks, as you note, are relatively small/pretty well understood. Would you support the use of existing technology for development?
(3) Has anyone made an argument for existential risk mitigation based on recent history? For example, trying to look forward with the limited perspective of someone in 1900. Obviously this would be very speculative, but I think it could help make the concepts you are discussing more concrete to outsiders. Also, doing historical research into warnings about, say, the dangers of nuclear physics could help us understand the challenges of practically implementing policies that are theoretically correct.
I generally agree that more resources need to be devoted to existential risk mitigation, but I don’t have a very good idea of where the bottlenecks are—philosophy, theory, or practical implementation?