’that the level of suffering in the future could be much greater than the level of suffering at present’
When you say “level” here, did you mean “amount”? If you think that people will suffer the same amount per person, or even less per person in the future, but also that there will be far more future people than current people, and you can improve things for a large fraction of the future people, you can still get the result that you will reduce suffering more by working on long-termist stuff than by working on present stuff.
’that the level of suffering in the future could be much greater than the level of suffering at present’
When you say “level” here, did you mean “amount”? If you think that people will suffer the same amount per person, or even less per person in the future, but also that there will be far more future people than current people, and you can improve things for a large fraction of the future people, you can still get the result that you will reduce suffering more by working on long-termist stuff than by working on present stuff.
Yes, I meant amount.