To talk about what they would have been one needs to consider a counterfactual in which we anachronistically introduce at least some minimal version of longtermist altruism, and what one includes in that intervention will affect the result one extracts from the exercise.
I agree there’s a tricky issue of how exactly one constructs the counterfactual. The definition I’m using is trying to get it as close as possible to a counterfactual we really face: how much to spend now vs how much to pass resources onto future altruists. I’d be interested if others thought of very different approaches. It’s possible that I’m trying to pack too much into the concept of ‘most influential’, or that this concept should be kept separate from the idea of moving resources around to different times.
I feel that involving the anachronistic insertion of a longtermist altruist into the past, if anything, makes my argument harder to make, though. If I can’t guarantee that the past person I’m giving resources to would even be a longtermist, that makes me less inclined to give them resources. And if I include the possibility that longtermism might be wrong and that the future-person that I pass resources onto will recognise this, that’s (at least some) argument to me in favour of passing on resources. (Caveat subjectivist meta-ethics, possibility of future people’s morality going wayward, etc.)
I’d be interested if others thought of very different approaches. It’s possible that I’m trying to pack too much into the concept of ‘most influential’, or that this concept should be kept separate from the idea of moving resources around to different times.
I tried engaging with the post for 2-3 hours and was working on a response, but ended up kind of bouncing off at least in part because the definition of hingyness didn’t seem particularly action-relevant to me, mostly for the reasons that Gregory Lewis and Kit outlined in their comments.
I also think a major issue with the current definition is that I don’t know of any technology or ability to reliably pass on resources to future centuries, which introduces a natural strong discount factor into the system, but which seems like a major consideration in favor of spending resources now instead of trying to pass them on (and likely fail, as illustrated in Robin Hanson’s original “giving later” post).
I agree there’s a tricky issue of how exactly one constructs the counterfactual. The definition I’m using is trying to get it as close as possible to a counterfactual we really face: how much to spend now vs how much to pass resources onto future altruists. I’d be interested if others thought of very different approaches. It’s possible that I’m trying to pack too much into the concept of ‘most influential’, or that this concept should be kept separate from the idea of moving resources around to different times.
I feel that involving the anachronistic insertion of a longtermist altruist into the past, if anything, makes my argument harder to make, though. If I can’t guarantee that the past person I’m giving resources to would even be a longtermist, that makes me less inclined to give them resources. And if I include the possibility that longtermism might be wrong and that the future-person that I pass resources onto will recognise this, that’s (at least some) argument to me in favour of passing on resources. (Caveat subjectivist meta-ethics, possibility of future people’s morality going wayward, etc.)
I tried engaging with the post for 2-3 hours and was working on a response, but ended up kind of bouncing off at least in part because the definition of hingyness didn’t seem particularly action-relevant to me, mostly for the reasons that Gregory Lewis and Kit outlined in their comments.
I also think a major issue with the current definition is that I don’t know of any technology or ability to reliably pass on resources to future centuries, which introduces a natural strong discount factor into the system, but which seems like a major consideration in favor of spending resources now instead of trying to pass them on (and likely fail, as illustrated in Robin Hanson’s original “giving later” post).