I think we separate causes and interventions into “neartermist” and “longtermist” causes too much.
Just as some members of the EA community have complained that AI safety is pigeonholed as a “long-term” risk when it’s actually imminent within our lifetimes[1], I think we’ve been too quick to dismiss conventionally “neartermist” EA causes and interventions as not valuable from a longtermist perspective. This is the opposite failure mode of surprising and suspicious convergence—instead of assuming (or rationalizing) that the spaces of interventions that are promising from neartermist and longtermist perspectives overlap a lot, we tend to assume they don’t overlap at all, because it’s more surprising if the top longtermist causes are all different from the top neartermist ones. If the cost-effectiveness of different causes according to neartermism and longtermism are independent from one another (or at least somewhat positively correlated), I’d expect at least some causes to be valuable according to both ethical frameworks.
I’ve noticed this in my own thinking, and I suspect that this is a common pattern among EA decision makers; for example, Open Phil’s “Longtermism” and “Global Health and Wellbeing” grantmaking portfolios don’t seem to overlap.
Consider global health and poverty. These are usually considered “neartermist” causes, but we can also tell a just-so story about how global development interventions such as cash transfers might also be valuable from the perspective of longtermism:
People in extreme poverty who receive cash transfers often spend the money on investments as well as consumption. For example, a study by GiveDirectly found that people who received cash transfers owned 40% more durable goods (assets) than the control group. Also, anecdotes show that cash transfer recipients often spend their funds on education for their kids (a type of human capital investment), starting new businesses, building infrastructure for their communities, and healthcare (another type of human capital).
According to most models of economic growth, labor and capital are the main determinants of an economy’s output. Increasing a community’s capital stock tends to increase its economic output, some of which is reinvested in more capital, which leads to more output, and so on. The virtuous cycle of capital accumulation and increasing economic output is a key driver of long-term economic growth.
Economic growth is valuable from a longtermist perspective because it raises the living standards and well-being of present and future generations. Furthermore, economic growth in poor countries is more valuable in the near term because the marginal utility of consumption in poor countries is higher.[2]
Therefore, cash transfers to the global poor are highly valuable by longtermist lights because they promote economic growth in poor countries.
Note that I’m not claiming that cash transfers are the most valuable interventions for longtermists. They’re probably not, since any trend of sustained economic growth would likely run up against physical limits of the universe within the next few thousand years,[3] and AGI is likely to render all other interventions to promote economic growth moot in the next few decades anyway. Interventions to reduce existential risk would probably have more impact over the long term (although I’m sympathetic to the argument in “Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils”).
Notwithstanding growth rates. Rich countries like the United States probably sustain higher rates of economic growth and capital accumulation than poor countries because of stronger institutions that encourage investment. I’d like to see an economic model that could tell us which type of growth is more valuable in the long term, but I don’t have the training in economics that one would need to create one.
See “This Can’t Go On” by Holden Karnofsky for an argument against indefinite sustained growth, and “This Can Go On” by Dwarkesh Patel for a counterargument.
I think we separate causes and interventions into “neartermist” and “longtermist” causes too much.
Just as some members of the EA community have complained that AI safety is pigeonholed as a “long-term” risk when it’s actually imminent within our lifetimes[1], I think we’ve been too quick to dismiss conventionally “neartermist” EA causes and interventions as not valuable from a longtermist perspective. This is the opposite failure mode of surprising and suspicious convergence—instead of assuming (or rationalizing) that the spaces of interventions that are promising from neartermist and longtermist perspectives overlap a lot, we tend to assume they don’t overlap at all, because it’s more surprising if the top longtermist causes are all different from the top neartermist ones. If the cost-effectiveness of different causes according to neartermism and longtermism are independent from one another (or at least somewhat positively correlated), I’d expect at least some causes to be valuable according to both ethical frameworks.
I’ve noticed this in my own thinking, and I suspect that this is a common pattern among EA decision makers; for example, Open Phil’s “Longtermism” and “Global Health and Wellbeing” grantmaking portfolios don’t seem to overlap.
Consider global health and poverty. These are usually considered “neartermist” causes, but we can also tell a just-so story about how global development interventions such as cash transfers might also be valuable from the perspective of longtermism:
People in extreme poverty who receive cash transfers often spend the money on investments as well as consumption. For example, a study by GiveDirectly found that people who received cash transfers owned 40% more durable goods (assets) than the control group. Also, anecdotes show that cash transfer recipients often spend their funds on education for their kids (a type of human capital investment), starting new businesses, building infrastructure for their communities, and healthcare (another type of human capital).
According to most models of economic growth, labor and capital are the main determinants of an economy’s output. Increasing a community’s capital stock tends to increase its economic output, some of which is reinvested in more capital, which leads to more output, and so on. The virtuous cycle of capital accumulation and increasing economic output is a key driver of long-term economic growth.
Economic growth is valuable from a longtermist perspective because it raises the living standards and well-being of present and future generations. Furthermore, economic growth in poor countries is more valuable in the near term because the marginal utility of consumption in poor countries is higher.[2]
Therefore, cash transfers to the global poor are highly valuable by longtermist lights because they promote economic growth in poor countries.
Note that I’m not claiming that cash transfers are the most valuable interventions for longtermists. They’re probably not, since any trend of sustained economic growth would likely run up against physical limits of the universe within the next few thousand years,[3] and AGI is likely to render all other interventions to promote economic growth moot in the next few decades anyway. Interventions to reduce existential risk would probably have more impact over the long term (although I’m sympathetic to the argument in “Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils”).
At least those of us who are 40 and under.
Notwithstanding growth rates. Rich countries like the United States probably sustain higher rates of economic growth and capital accumulation than poor countries because of stronger institutions that encourage investment. I’d like to see an economic model that could tell us which type of growth is more valuable in the long term, but I don’t have the training in economics that one would need to create one.
See “This Can’t Go On” by Holden Karnofsky for an argument against indefinite sustained growth, and “This Can Go On” by Dwarkesh Patel for a counterargument.