What a belief implies about what someone does depends on many other things, like other beliefs and their options in the world. If, e.g., there are more opportunities to work on x-risk reduction than s-risk reduction, then it might be true that optimistic longtermists are less likely than pessimsitic longtermists to form families (because they’re more focused on work) than pessimistic longtermists.
Having clarified that, do you really not find optimistic longtermism more evolutionarily adaptive than pessimistic longtermism?
As my answer made clear, the point I really want to emphasise is that this feels like an absurd exercise — there’s no reason to believe that longtermist beliefs are heritable or selected for in our ancestral environment.
Oh ok so our disagreement is on whether concern for the long-term future needs to be selected for for evolution to “directly” (in the same sense you used it earlier) influence longtermists’ beliefs on the value of X-risk reduction and making the future bigger, right?
What a belief implies about what someone does depends on many other things, like other beliefs and their options in the world. If, e.g., there are more opportunities to work on x-risk reduction than s-risk reduction, then it might be true that optimistic longtermists are less likely than pessimsitic longtermists to form families (because they’re more focused on work) than pessimistic longtermists.
As my answer made clear, the point I really want to emphasise is that this feels like an absurd exercise — there’s no reason to believe that longtermist beliefs are heritable or selected for in our ancestral environment.
Oh ok so our disagreement is on whether concern for the long-term future needs to be selected for for evolution to “directly” (in the same sense you used it earlier) influence longtermists’ beliefs on the value of X-risk reduction and making the future bigger, right?