I think people already do some of it. I guess the rhetorical shift from x-risk reasoning (“hey, we’re all gonna die!”) to lontermist arguments (“imagine how wonderful the future can be after the Precipice...”) is based on that.
However, I think that, besides cultural challenges, the greatest obstacles for longtermist reasoning, in our societies (particularly in LMIC), is that we have an “intergenerational Tragedy of the Commons” aggravated by short-term bias (and hyperbolic discount) and representativeness heuristic (we’ve never observed human extinction). People don’t usually think about the longterm future—but, even when they do it, they don’t want to trade their individual-present-certain welfare for a collective (and non-identifiable), future and uncertain welfare.
Hi Ramiro, thanks for your comment. Based off this post, we can think of 2 techniques to promote longtermism. The first is what I mentioned—which is exploiting biases to get people inclined to longtermism. And the second is what you [might have] mentioned—a more rationality-driven approach where people are made aware of their biases with respect to longtermism. I think your idea is better since it is a more permanent-ish solution (there is security against future events that may attempt to bias an individual towards neartermism), has spillover effects into other aspects of rationality, and has lower risk with respect to moral uncertainity (correct me if I’m wrong).
I agree with the several biases/decision-making flaws that you mentioned! Perhaps, sufficient levels of rationality is a pre-requisite to one’s acceptance of longtermism. Maybe a promising EA cause area could be promoting rationality (such a cause area probably exists I guess).
I think people already do some of it. I guess the rhetorical shift from x-risk reasoning (“hey, we’re all gonna die!”) to lontermist arguments (“imagine how wonderful the future can be after the Precipice...”) is based on that.
However, I think that, besides cultural challenges, the greatest obstacles for longtermist reasoning, in our societies (particularly in LMIC), is that we have an “intergenerational Tragedy of the Commons” aggravated by short-term bias (and hyperbolic discount) and representativeness heuristic (we’ve never observed human extinction). People don’t usually think about the longterm future—but, even when they do it, they don’t want to trade their individual-present-certain welfare for a collective (and non-identifiable), future and uncertain welfare.
Hi Ramiro, thanks for your comment. Based off this post, we can think of 2 techniques to promote longtermism. The first is what I mentioned—which is exploiting biases to get people inclined to longtermism. And the second is what you [might have] mentioned—a more rationality-driven approach where people are made aware of their biases with respect to longtermism. I think your idea is better since it is a more permanent-ish solution (there is security against future events that may attempt to bias an individual towards neartermism), has spillover effects into other aspects of rationality, and has lower risk with respect to moral uncertainity (correct me if I’m wrong).
I agree with the several biases/decision-making flaws that you mentioned! Perhaps, sufficient levels of rationality is a pre-requisite to one’s acceptance of longtermism. Maybe a promising EA cause area could be promoting rationality (such a cause area probably exists I guess).