If youāre saying that longtermism is not a novel idea, then I think we might agree.
Everything is relative to expectations. I tried to make that clear in the post, but let me try again. I think if something is pitched as a new idea, then it should be a new idea. If itās not a new idea, that should be made more clear. The kind of talk and activity Iāve observed around ālongtermismā is incongruent with the notion that itās an idea thatās at least decades and quite possibly many centuries old, about which much, if not most, if not all, the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked ā if not in practice, than at least in research.
For instance, if you held that notion, you would probably not think the amount of resources ā time, attention, money, etc. ā that was reallocated around ālongtermismā roughly in the 2017-2025 period would be justified, nor would the rhetoric around ālongtermismā be justified.
You can find places where Will MacAskill says that longtermism is not a new idea, and references things like Nick Bostromās previous work, the Long Now Foundation, and the Seventh Generation philosophy. Thatās all fine and good. But What We Owe The Future and MacAskillās discussions of it, like on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, donāt come across to me as a recapitulation of a decades-old or centuries-old idea. I also donāt think the effective altruism communityās energy around ālongtermismā would have been what itās been if they genuinely saw longtermism as non-novel.
For example, MacAskill defines longtermism as āthe idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.ā Why our time? Why not also the time of the founders of Oxford University 929 years ago or whenever it was? Sure, thereās the time of perils argument, but, objections to the time of perils argument aside, why would a time of perils-esque argument also apply to all the non-existential risk-related things like economic growth, making moral progress, and so on?
Iām not especially familiar with the historyāI came to EA after the term ālongtermismā was coined so thatās just always been the vocabulary for me. But you seem to be equating an idea being chronologically old with it already being well studied and explored and the low hanging fruit having been picked. You seem to think that old ā not neglected. And that does not follow. I donāt know how old the idea of longtermism is. I donāt particularly care. It is certainly older than the word. But it does seem to be pretty much completely neglected outside EA, as well as important and, at least with regard to x-risks, tractable. That makes it an important EA cause area.
Wow, this makes me feel old, haha! (Feeling old feels much better than I thought it would. Itās good to be alive.)
There was a lot of scholarship on existential risks and global catastrophic risks going back to the 2000s. There was Nick Bostrom and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, the Global Catastrophic Risks Conference (e.g. I love this talk from the 2008 conference), the Global Catastrophic Risks anthology published in 2008, and so on. So, existential risk/āglobal catastrophic risk was an idea about which there had already been a lot of study even going back about a decade before the coining of ālongtermismā. Imagine my disappointment when I hear about this hot new idea called longtermism ā I love hot new ideas! ā and it just turns out to be rewarmed existential risk.
I agree that it might be perfectly fine to re-brand old, good ideas, and give them a fresh coat of paint. Sure, go for it. But Iām just asking for a little truth in advertising here.
If youāre saying that longtermism is not a novel idea, then I think we might agree.
Everything is relative to expectations. I tried to make that clear in the post, but let me try again. I think if something is pitched as a new idea, then it should be a new idea. If itās not a new idea, that should be made more clear. The kind of talk and activity Iāve observed around ālongtermismā is incongruent with the notion that itās an idea thatās at least decades and quite possibly many centuries old, about which much, if not most, if not all, the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked ā if not in practice, than at least in research.
For instance, if you held that notion, you would probably not think the amount of resources ā time, attention, money, etc. ā that was reallocated around ālongtermismā roughly in the 2017-2025 period would be justified, nor would the rhetoric around ālongtermismā be justified.
You can find places where Will MacAskill says that longtermism is not a new idea, and references things like Nick Bostromās previous work, the Long Now Foundation, and the Seventh Generation philosophy. Thatās all fine and good. But What We Owe The Future and MacAskillās discussions of it, like on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, donāt come across to me as a recapitulation of a decades-old or centuries-old idea. I also donāt think the effective altruism communityās energy around ālongtermismā would have been what itās been if they genuinely saw longtermism as non-novel.
For example, MacAskill defines longtermism as āthe idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.ā Why our time? Why not also the time of the founders of Oxford University 929 years ago or whenever it was? Sure, thereās the time of perils argument, but, objections to the time of perils argument aside, why would a time of perils-esque argument also apply to all the non-existential risk-related things like economic growth, making moral progress, and so on?
Iām not especially familiar with the historyāI came to EA after the term ālongtermismā was coined so thatās just always been the vocabulary for me. But you seem to be equating an idea being chronologically old with it already being well studied and explored and the low hanging fruit having been picked. You seem to think that old ā not neglected. And that does not follow. I donāt know how old the idea of longtermism is. I donāt particularly care. It is certainly older than the word. But it does seem to be pretty much completely neglected outside EA, as well as important and, at least with regard to x-risks, tractable. That makes it an important EA cause area.
Wow, this makes me feel old, haha! (Feeling old feels much better than I thought it would. Itās good to be alive.)
There was a lot of scholarship on existential risks and global catastrophic risks going back to the 2000s. There was Nick Bostrom and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, the Global Catastrophic Risks Conference (e.g. I love this talk from the 2008 conference), the Global Catastrophic Risks anthology published in 2008, and so on. So, existential risk/āglobal catastrophic risk was an idea about which there had already been a lot of study even going back about a decade before the coining of ālongtermismā. Imagine my disappointment when I hear about this hot new idea called longtermism ā I love hot new ideas! ā and it just turns out to be rewarmed existential risk.
I agree that it might be perfectly fine to re-brand old, good ideas, and give them a fresh coat of paint. Sure, go for it. But Iām just asking for a little truth in advertising here.