Great! I also want to reduce x-risk to keep my family safe. But do you also strongly endorse the claims listed in the article that are attributed to pronatalism, and do you consider yourself an EA / a longtermist?
i.e. ”fear that falling birth rates in certain developed countries like the United States and most of Europe will lead to the extinction of cultures, the breakdown of economies, and, ultimately, the collapse of civilization.”
″worry that the overlap between the types of people deciding not to have children with the part of the population that values things like gay rights, education for women, and climate activism — traits they believe are genetically coded — is so great that these values could ultimately disappear.”
Do you think focusing on birth rates in “Western Civilization” is a good way of creating ‘intergenerationally, durable cultures that will lead to our species being a diverse, thriving, innovative interplanetary empire one day that isn’t at risk from, you know, a single asteroid strike or a single huge disease?’, and do you think it’s something that longtermists should focus on?
I think the crux here might be differences around the definition of what pronatalism is. I’m clearly not advocating for antinatalism, and you can argue that the article is misrepresenting pronatalism.
But call it whatever you prefer-it doesn’t change the concern of this group of people holding this set of views, the explicit claim around their “faction becoming a real, dominant faction in the EA space” and their well-funded nature. It should be seen as a clear potential risk for the EA movement going forwards, if it does not similarly endorse their ideology. If you’re a pronatalist and don’t think these views represent your movement, this concern applies to you too (perhaps even more so).
Re: “fear that falling birth rates [...] collapse of civilization.”
No, this is not one of the things that scares me. Also, birth rates decline predictably once a nation is developed, so if this were a significant concern, it would end up hitting China and India just as hard as it is currently hitting the US and Europe.
Re: “worry that the overlap [...] could ultimately disappear.”
No. Adoption of Progressive ideology is a memetic phenomenon, with mild to no genetic influence. (Update, 2023-04-03: I don’t endorse this claim, actually. I also don’t endorse the quoted “worry”.)
Do you think focusing on birth rates in “Western Civilization” is a good way of creating ‘intergenerationally, durable cultures that will lead to our species being a diverse, thriving, innovative interplanetary empire one day that isn’t at risk from, you know, a single asteroid strike or a single huge disease?’, and do you think it’s something that longtermists should focus on?
I guess this intervention would be better than nothing, strictly speaking. The mechanism of action here is “people have kids” → {”people feel like they have a stake in the future”, “people want to protect their descendants”} → “people become more aligned with longtermism”. I don’t think this is a particularly effective intervention.
Then it sounds like your idea of pronatalism and the Collinses idea of pronatalism looks quite different-if the article was written about the set of views you’ve expressed, I probably wouldn’t be sharing it.
I disagree—like I said, I personally want nothing to do with a faction of people focused on genetic improvement and low birth rates in “Western Civilization”, who fear that low birth rates might “lead to the extinction of cultures...and, ultimately, the collapse of civilization”. I’m not against genetic improvement like IVF babies for medical reasons or GMO food, but I’m against it as a way of “setting the future of our species”, or “creating durable cultures that will lead to our species being a diverse, thriving, innovative interplanetary empire”.
The longtermism I subscribe to maximises the likelihood of a flourishing future for all of humanity, not just those who can afford genetic modification and surrogacy.
Reviving this old thread to discuss the animal welfare objection to pro-natalism that I think is changing my mind on pro-natalism. I’m a regular listener to Simone and Malcolm Collins’s podcast. Since maybe 2021 I’ve gone on an arc of first fairly neutral to then being strongly pro-natalist, third being pro-natalist but not rating it as an effective cause area, and now entering a fourth phase where I might reject pro-natalism altogether.
I value animal welfare and at least on an intellectual level I care equally about their welfare and humanity’s. For every additional human we bring into existence at a time in history where humans have never eaten more meat per capita, on expectation, you will get years or—depending on their diet—perhaps even hundreds of years of animal suffering induced by the additional consumer demand for more meat. This is known as the meat-eater problem, but I haven’t seen anyone explicitly connect it to pro-natalism yet. It seems like an obvious connection to make.
There are significant caveats to add:
this is not an argument against the value of having your own kids, who you then raise with appropriate respect for the welfare of other sentient creatures. While you can’t control their choices as adults, if you raise them right, your expectation they will cause large amounts of suffering will be substantially reduced, potentially enough to make it a net positive choice. However, pro-natalism as a political movement aimed at raising birthrates at large will likely cause more animal suffering outweighing the value of human happiness it will create.
In the long term, we will hopefully invent forms of delicious meat like cultured meat that do not involve sentient animal suffering. The average person might still eat some farmed meat at the time, but hopefully, with delicious cultured meat options available, public opinion may allow for appropriate animal welfare for farmed animals, such that those farmed animals’ lives are at least net positive. When that happens, pro-natalism might make more sense. But we don’t know when cultured meat will appear. It is possible that widespread adoption is several decades away, in a slower AGI timeline world or where some form of cultural or legal turn prevents the widespread adoption of cultured meat even if it is technically possible.
I anticipate some people will argue that more humans will make the long term future go well because in expectation this will create more people going into the long term. I think this is a reasonable position to take but I don’t find it convincing because of the problem of moral cluelessness: there is far too much random chaos (in the butterfly effect sense of the term) for us to have any idea what the effect of more people now will be on the next few generations.
I might make a top level post soon to discuss this, but in the meantime I’m curious if you have any clear response to the animal welfare objection to pro-natalism.
Hi! I strongly endorse pronatalism, and I will readily admit to wanting to reduce x-risk in order to keep my family safe.
Great! I also want to reduce x-risk to keep my family safe. But do you also strongly endorse the claims listed in the article that are attributed to pronatalism, and do you consider yourself an EA / a longtermist?
i.e.
”fear that falling birth rates in certain developed countries like the United States and most of Europe will lead to the extinction of cultures, the breakdown of economies, and, ultimately, the collapse of civilization.”
″worry that the overlap between the types of people deciding not to have children with the part of the population that values things like gay rights, education for women, and climate activism — traits they believe are genetically coded — is so great that these values could ultimately disappear.”
Do you think focusing on birth rates in “Western Civilization” is a good way of creating ‘intergenerationally, durable cultures that will lead to our species being a diverse, thriving, innovative interplanetary empire one day that isn’t at risk from, you know, a single asteroid strike or a single huge disease?’, and do you think it’s something that longtermists should focus on?
I think the crux here might be differences around the definition of what pronatalism is. I’m clearly not advocating for antinatalism, and you can argue that the article is misrepresenting pronatalism.
But call it whatever you prefer-it doesn’t change the concern of this group of people holding this set of views, the explicit claim around their “faction becoming a real, dominant faction in the EA space” and their well-funded nature. It should be seen as a clear potential risk for the EA movement going forwards, if it does not similarly endorse their ideology. If you’re a pronatalist and don’t think these views represent your movement, this concern applies to you too (perhaps even more so).
No, this is not one of the things that scares me. Also, birth rates decline predictably once a nation is developed, so if this were a significant concern, it would end up hitting China and India just as hard as it is currently hitting the US and Europe.
No. Adoption of Progressive ideology is a memetic phenomenon, with mild to no genetic influence. (Update, 2023-04-03: I don’t endorse this claim, actually. I also don’t endorse the quoted “worry”.)
I guess this intervention would be better than nothing, strictly speaking. The mechanism of action here is “people have kids” → {”people feel like they have a stake in the future”, “people want to protect their descendants”} → “people become more aligned with longtermism”. I don’t think this is a particularly effective intervention.
Yes.
Eh, maybe.
Then it sounds like your idea of pronatalism and the Collinses idea of pronatalism looks quite different-if the article was written about the set of views you’ve expressed, I probably wouldn’t be sharing it.
Your claim that political ideology is not heritable is false
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038932/#:~:text=Almost forty years ago%2C evidence,be explained by genetic influences.
I disagree—like I said, I personally want nothing to do with a faction of people focused on genetic improvement and low birth rates in “Western Civilization”, who fear that low birth rates might “lead to the extinction of cultures...and, ultimately, the collapse of civilization”. I’m not against genetic improvement like IVF babies for medical reasons or GMO food, but I’m against it as a way of “setting the future of our species”, or “creating durable cultures that will lead to our species being a diverse, thriving, innovative interplanetary empire”.
The longtermism I subscribe to maximises the likelihood of a flourishing future for all of humanity, not just those who can afford genetic modification and surrogacy.
Reviving this old thread to discuss the animal welfare objection to pro-natalism that I think is changing my mind on pro-natalism. I’m a regular listener to Simone and Malcolm Collins’s podcast. Since maybe 2021 I’ve gone on an arc of first fairly neutral to then being strongly pro-natalist, third being pro-natalist but not rating it as an effective cause area, and now entering a fourth phase where I might reject pro-natalism altogether.
I value animal welfare and at least on an intellectual level I care equally about their welfare and humanity’s. For every additional human we bring into existence at a time in history where humans have never eaten more meat per capita, on expectation, you will get years or—depending on their diet—perhaps even hundreds of years of animal suffering induced by the additional consumer demand for more meat. This is known as the meat-eater problem, but I haven’t seen anyone explicitly connect it to pro-natalism yet. It seems like an obvious connection to make.
There are significant caveats to add:
this is not an argument against the value of having your own kids, who you then raise with appropriate respect for the welfare of other sentient creatures. While you can’t control their choices as adults, if you raise them right, your expectation they will cause large amounts of suffering will be substantially reduced, potentially enough to make it a net positive choice. However, pro-natalism as a political movement aimed at raising birthrates at large will likely cause more animal suffering outweighing the value of human happiness it will create.
In the long term, we will hopefully invent forms of delicious meat like cultured meat that do not involve sentient animal suffering. The average person might still eat some farmed meat at the time, but hopefully, with delicious cultured meat options available, public opinion may allow for appropriate animal welfare for farmed animals, such that those farmed animals’ lives are at least net positive. When that happens, pro-natalism might make more sense. But we don’t know when cultured meat will appear. It is possible that widespread adoption is several decades away, in a slower AGI timeline world or where some form of cultural or legal turn prevents the widespread adoption of cultured meat even if it is technically possible.
I anticipate some people will argue that more humans will make the long term future go well because in expectation this will create more people going into the long term. I think this is a reasonable position to take but I don’t find it convincing because of the problem of moral cluelessness: there is far too much random chaos (in the butterfly effect sense of the term) for us to have any idea what the effect of more people now will be on the next few generations.
I might make a top level post soon to discuss this, but in the meantime I’m curious if you have any clear response to the animal welfare objection to pro-natalism.