I think the fact that the term didnât add anything new is very bad because it came with a great cost. When you create a new set of jargon for an old idea you look naive and self-important. The EA community could have simply used framing that people already agreed with, instead they created a new term and field that we had to sell people on.
I agree with your first paragraph (and I think we probably agree on a lot!), but in your second paragraph, you link to a Nick Bostrom paper from 2003, which is 14 years before the term âlongtermismâ was coined.
I think, independently from anything to do with the term âlongtermismâ, there is plenty you could criticize in Bostromâs work, such as being overly complicated or outlandish, despite there being a core of truth in there somewhere.
But thatâs a point about Bostromâs work that long predates the term âlongtermismâ, not a point about whether coining and promoting that term was a good idea or not.
I think the fact that the term didnât add anything new is very bad because it came with a great cost. When you create a new set of jargon for an old idea you look naive and self-important. The EA community could have simply used framing that people already agreed with, instead they created a new term and field that we had to sell people on.
Discussions of âthe loss of potential human lives in our own galactic supercluster is at least ~1046 per century of delayed colonizationâ were elaborate and off-putting, when their only conclusions were the same old obvious idea that we should prevent pandemics, nuclear war and SkyNet (The idea of humans not becoming extinct goes back at least to discussions of nuclear apocalypse in the 40s, Terminator came out in 1984).
I agree with your first paragraph (and I think we probably agree on a lot!), but in your second paragraph, you link to a Nick Bostrom paper from 2003, which is 14 years before the term âlongtermismâ was coined.
I think, independently from anything to do with the term âlongtermismâ, there is plenty you could criticize in Bostromâs work, such as being overly complicated or outlandish, despite there being a core of truth in there somewhere.
But thatâs a point about Bostromâs work that long predates the term âlongtermismâ, not a point about whether coining and promoting that term was a good idea or not.