The future’s ability to affect the past is truly a crucial consideration for those with high discount rates. You may doubt whether such acausal effects are possible, but in expectation, on e.g. an ultra-neartermist view, even a 10^-100 probability that it works is enough, since anything that happened 100 years ago is >>10^1000 times as important as today is, with an 80%/day discount rate.
Indeed, if we take the MEC approach to moral uncertainty, we can see that this possibility of ultra-neartermism + past influence will dominate our actions for any reasonable credences. Perhaps the future can contain 10^40 lives, but that pales in comparison to the >>10^1000 multiplier we can get by potentially influencing the past.
The future’s ability to affect the past is truly a crucial consideration for those with high discount rates. You may doubt whether such acausal effects are possible, but in expectation, on e.g. an ultra-neartermist view, even a 10^-100 probability that it works is enough, since anything that happened 100 years ago is >>10^1000 times as important as today is, with an 80%/day discount rate.
Indeed, if we take the MEC approach to moral uncertainty, we can see that this possibility of ultra-neartermism + past influence will dominate our actions for any reasonable credences. Perhaps the future can contain 10^40 lives, but that pales in comparison to the >>10^1000 multiplier we can get by potentially influencing the past.