If it does not serve any useful purpose, then why focus on longtermism?
I think you’re right that we can make a good case for increased spending on nuclear safety, pandemic preparedness, and AI safety without appeal to longtermism. But here’s one useful purpose of longtermism: only the longtermist arguments suggest that those causes are overwhelmingly important; and because of the longtermist arguments, we have many talented people are working zealously to solve those issues—people who would otherwise be working on other things.
Obviously this doesn’t address your concern that longtermism is incorrect; it’s merely a reason why, if longtermism is correct, it’s a useful thing to talk about.
I think you’re right that we can make a good case for increased spending on nuclear safety, pandemic preparedness, and AI safety without appeal to longtermism. But here’s one useful purpose of longtermism: only the longtermist arguments suggest that those causes are overwhelmingly important; and because of the longtermist arguments, we have many talented people are working zealously to solve those issues—people who would otherwise be working on other things.
Obviously this doesn’t address your concern that longtermism is incorrect; it’s merely a reason why, if longtermism is correct, it’s a useful thing to talk about.