There are a few topics I don’t remember the paper directly addressing, and that I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on (including but not limited to the authors’ thoughts). (Though it’s also possible that I just forgot the bits of the paper where they were covered.)
How sensitive is strong longtermism (or the authors’ specific arguments) to an increasing number of people acting in line with strong longtermism?
I haven’t tried thinking it through carefully myself yet
I only thought of this partway through the paper, when I saw the authors use the rarity of a strong longtermist perspective as an argument in favour of such a perspective
Specifically, they write “A complementary reason for suspecting that axiological strong longtermism is true concerns the behaviour of other actors. In general, there are diminishing marginal returns to the expenditure of resources towards a given aim, because the lower-hanging fruit are usually picked first. [...] the vast majority of other actors [...] exhibit a significant amounts of preference for near-term positive effects over long-term positive effects (Frederick, Loewenstein and O’Donoghue 2002). Shivani should therefore expect that most other actors have been selectively funding projects that deliver high short-run benefits, and leaving unfunded projects that are better by Shivani’s lights, but whose most significant benefits occur over the course of the very long run. This means that Shivani should expect to find axiological strong longtermism true at the current margin — provided (which we have not yet argued) that there were any projects with significantly beneficial ex ante effects on the very long-run future to begin with.”
I don’t think I remember the paper directly addressing concerns about “fanaticism” or “Pascal’s muggings”
And that seems to me like one of the best reasons to doubt strong longtermism
Though I’m currently inclined to act according to longtermism regardless
(Partly because it seems pretty plausible that strong longtermism does not depend on minuscule probabilities, and partly because it seems pretty plausible to me that fanaticism is actually fine; see discussion in the posts with the fanaticism tag)
Though the paper did address things like risk aversion, so maybe that effectively covered this issue?
I can’t remember whether the paper addressed demandingness, and where to draw the line? Maybe one could argue that the authors’ arguments “prove too much” and reach absurdly demanding conclusions?
Perhaps the authors felt that the existing debate about the demandingness of utilitarianism in general was sufficient, and they didn’t need to tackle that head-on here?
I guess that seems reasonable to me?
I think the authors essentially just claim that it seems fairly clear that we should do at least somewhat more than we do now, and that concerns about demandingness don’t counter that point, without addressing precisely how much we should do.
They write: “Third, one might hold that some prerogatives are absolute: they cannot be overridden, no matter what the consequences. Absolutist views tend not to be very plausible, and have few adherents. (In the case of constraints as opposed to prerogatives, for instance, few people share Kant’s view that even when an innocent life depends on it, one should not tell a lie even to an intending murderer.) However, for our purposes, even if the non-consequentialist is absolutist with respect to some prerogatives, our argument will most likely still go through for most decision situations. This is because, for most decision-makers, the case for strong longtermism does not involve or at least does not rely on the existence of extraordinarily demanding options. Perhaps, no matter how great the stakes, one is never required to give up one’s own life, or that of one’s own child, and perhaps one is never required to reduce oneself from a Western standard of living to an allowance of $2 per day. But, for the vast majority of decision-makers, in the vast majority of decision-situations, these will not be the choices at hand. Instead, the choice will be whether to switch career paths, or live somewhat more frugally, or where to donate a specified amount of non-necessary income, in order to try to positively influence the long-run future. Even if one is sympathetic to absolutism about some sacrifices, it’s very implausible to be absolutist about these comparatively minor sorts of sacrifices (MacAskill, Mogensen, and Ord 2018).”
But I think the case for strong longtermism might be somewhat more satisfying or convincing if we also knew “where the line was”, even if the line is far ahead of where most people presently are
There are a few topics I don’t remember the paper directly addressing, and that I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on (including but not limited to the authors’ thoughts). (Though it’s also possible that I just forgot the bits of the paper where they were covered.)
How sensitive is strong longtermism (or the authors’ specific arguments) to an increasing number of people acting in line with strong longtermism?
I haven’t tried thinking it through carefully myself yet
I only thought of this partway through the paper, when I saw the authors use the rarity of a strong longtermist perspective as an argument in favour of such a perspective
Specifically, they write “A complementary reason for suspecting that axiological strong longtermism is true concerns the behaviour of other actors. In general, there are diminishing marginal returns to the expenditure of resources towards a given aim, because the lower-hanging fruit are usually picked first. [...] the vast majority of other actors [...] exhibit a significant amounts of preference for near-term positive effects over long-term positive effects (Frederick, Loewenstein and O’Donoghue 2002). Shivani should therefore expect that most other actors have been selectively funding projects that deliver high short-run benefits, and leaving unfunded projects that are better by Shivani’s lights, but whose most significant benefits occur over the course of the very long run. This means that Shivani should expect to find axiological strong longtermism true at the current margin — provided (which we have not yet argued) that there were any projects with significantly beneficial ex ante effects on the very long-run future to begin with.”
I don’t think I remember the paper directly addressing concerns about “fanaticism” or “Pascal’s muggings”
And that seems to me like one of the best reasons to doubt strong longtermism
Though I’m currently inclined to act according to longtermism regardless
(Partly because it seems pretty plausible that strong longtermism does not depend on minuscule probabilities, and partly because it seems pretty plausible to me that fanaticism is actually fine; see discussion in the posts with the fanaticism tag)
Though the paper did address things like risk aversion, so maybe that effectively covered this issue?
I can’t remember whether the paper addressed demandingness, and where to draw the line? Maybe one could argue that the authors’ arguments “prove too much” and reach absurdly demanding conclusions?
Perhaps the authors felt that the existing debate about the demandingness of utilitarianism in general was sufficient, and they didn’t need to tackle that head-on here?
I guess that seems reasonable to me?
I think the authors essentially just claim that it seems fairly clear that we should do at least somewhat more than we do now, and that concerns about demandingness don’t counter that point, without addressing precisely how much we should do.
They write: “Third, one might hold that some prerogatives are absolute: they cannot be overridden, no matter what the consequences. Absolutist views tend not to be very plausible, and have few adherents. (In the case of constraints as opposed to prerogatives, for instance, few people share Kant’s view that even when an innocent life depends on it, one should not tell a lie even to an intending murderer.) However, for our purposes, even if the non-consequentialist is absolutist with respect to some prerogatives, our argument will most likely still go through for most decision situations. This is because, for most decision-makers, the case for strong longtermism does not involve or at least does not rely on the existence of extraordinarily demanding options. Perhaps, no matter how great the stakes, one is never required to give up one’s own life, or that of one’s own child, and perhaps one is never required to reduce oneself from a Western standard of living to an allowance of $2 per day. But, for the vast majority of decision-makers, in the vast majority of decision-situations, these will not be the choices at hand. Instead, the choice will be whether to switch career paths, or live somewhat more frugally, or where to donate a specified amount of non-necessary income, in order to try to positively influence the long-run future. Even if one is sympathetic to absolutism about some sacrifices, it’s very implausible to be absolutist about these comparatively minor sorts of sacrifices (MacAskill, Mogensen, and Ord 2018).”
But I think the case for strong longtermism might be somewhat more satisfying or convincing if we also knew “where the line was”, even if the line is far ahead of where most people presently are