I agree with you that ‘good now’ gives us in general no reason to think it increases P(Utopia), and I’m hoping someone who disagrees with you replies.
As a possible example, that may or may not have reduced P(Utopia), I have a pet theory, that may be totally wrong, that the Black Death, by making capital far more valuable in Europe for a century and a half was an important part of triggering the shifts that caused Europe to be clearly ahead of the rest fo the world in the tech tree leading to industrialization by 1500 (claiming that Europe was clearly ahead by 1500 is also a disputed claim).
Assuming we think an earlier industrialization is a bigger good thing than the badness of the black death, then the black death was a good thing under this model.
Which line of thinking is how I learned to be highly skeptical of ‘good now’ = ‘good in the distant future’.
I think the case for the Black Death is reasonable but I don’t think counterexamples are very strong evidence here, since I doubt anybody has a 99-1 prior here. I imagine even the extremes of the debate is between 52-48 or maybe 50-50 vs 95-5 or 90-10 priors.
I agree with you that ‘good now’ gives us in general no reason to think it increases P(Utopia), and I’m hoping someone who disagrees with you replies.
As a possible example, that may or may not have reduced P(Utopia), I have a pet theory, that may be totally wrong, that the Black Death, by making capital far more valuable in Europe for a century and a half was an important part of triggering the shifts that caused Europe to be clearly ahead of the rest fo the world in the tech tree leading to industrialization by 1500 (claiming that Europe was clearly ahead by 1500 is also a disputed claim).
Assuming we think an earlier industrialization is a bigger good thing than the badness of the black death, then the black death was a good thing under this model.
Which line of thinking is how I learned to be highly skeptical of ‘good now’ = ‘good in the distant future’.
I think the case for the Black Death is reasonable but I don’t think counterexamples are very strong evidence here, since I doubt anybody has a 99-1 prior here. I imagine even the extremes of the debate is between 52-48 or maybe 50-50 vs 95-5 or 90-10 priors.