Anthony cites Greaves and MacAskill giving an example similar to your gunpowder one:
Consider, for example, would-be longtermists in the Middle Ages. It is plausible that the considerations most relevant to their decision – such as the benefits of science, and therefore the enormous value of efforts to help make the scientific and industrial revolutions happen sooner – would not have been on their radar. Rather, they might instead have backed attempts to spread Christianity, perhaps by violence: a putative route to value that, by our more enlightened lights today, looks wildly off the mark. The suggestion, then, is that our current predicament is relevantly similar to that of our medieval would-be longtermists.
I personally think these examples are less compelling than they first appear (e.g. the persistence literature generally finds weaker effects than what you might imagine), but I agree that a failure of EAs to find examples of sign flips doesn’t mean that future ones won’t exist.
Anthony cites Greaves and MacAskill giving an example similar to your gunpowder one:
I personally think these examples are less compelling than they first appear (e.g. the persistence literature generally finds weaker effects than what you might imagine), but I agree that a failure of EAs to find examples of sign flips doesn’t mean that future ones won’t exist.