Your question provokes a methodological question for me about existential risk vs. helping people who are alive today. Has anyone incorporated a measure of risk—in the sense of uncertainty -- into comparing current and future good?
In the language of investment, investors are typically willing to receive lower returns in exchange for less risk. As an investor, I’d rather get a very high probability of a low return than a chancier probability of a high return. You pay for uncertainty.
It seems to me that the more speculative our causes, the higher a benefit-cost ratio we would want to demand. Put another way, it’s hard to believe that my actions, unless I’m very lucky, will really have an impact on humans 200 years from now, but a virtual certainty that my actions can have impact on someone now.
I’m interested in whether this thinking has been incorporated into analyses of existential risk.
Your question provokes a methodological question for me about existential risk vs. helping people who are alive today. Has anyone incorporated a measure of risk—in the sense of uncertainty -- into comparing current and future good?
In the language of investment, investors are typically willing to receive lower returns in exchange for less risk. As an investor, I’d rather get a very high probability of a low return than a chancier probability of a high return. You pay for uncertainty.
It seems to me that the more speculative our causes, the higher a benefit-cost ratio we would want to demand. Put another way, it’s hard to believe that my actions, unless I’m very lucky, will really have an impact on humans 200 years from now, but a virtual certainty that my actions can have impact on someone now.
I’m interested in whether this thinking has been incorporated into analyses of existential risk.