Thanks for the comment. It is true the positive ENEs are part of the Tarsney model but there is no value assigned to the counterfactual scenario there (implicitly the value is 0). In fact, ENEs are relevant to the model insofar as they represent events that that nullify the extinction risk mitigation effort. There is no consideration of the future possibility of such scenarios and how that might diverge from the one where humanity’s existence continues.
It is quite possible that human survival “improves the odds” of better outcomes as you say, but I am curious if there has been a more comprehensive exploration of this question. Has there been an analysis examining the likelihood of post-extinction life forms and consideration of the various evolution scenarios? In the absence of that, this seems rather hand-wavy claim and while that is not in and of itself a reason to reject something, the case for longtermism needs either (a) a less rigorous argument that the overall probability distribution for intervention is favorable and not just expected value or (b) a fairly robust argument that at least the expected value is higher.
Thanks for the comment. It is true the positive ENEs are part of the Tarsney model but there is no value assigned to the counterfactual scenario there (implicitly the value is 0). In fact, ENEs are relevant to the model insofar as they represent events that that nullify the extinction risk mitigation effort. There is no consideration of the future possibility of such scenarios and how that might diverge from the one where humanity’s existence continues.
It is quite possible that human survival “improves the odds” of better outcomes as you say, but I am curious if there has been a more comprehensive exploration of this question. Has there been an analysis examining the likelihood of post-extinction life forms and consideration of the various evolution scenarios? In the absence of that, this seems rather hand-wavy claim and while that is not in and of itself a reason to reject something, the case for longtermism needs either (a) a less rigorous argument that the overall probability distribution for intervention is favorable and not just expected value or (b) a fairly robust argument that at least the expected value is higher.