I believe longtermism is prioritised, that it should be prioritised and in some ways I would even prioritise it more [1], however, I also think that there are limits. For example, if there were really just two sessions on Global Health and Development, then I would feel that things had gone too far, but Ben Kunh has explained that this is factually incorrect.
I don’t think the conclusion that long-termism is being increasingly prioritised should surprise anyone with the publication of Toby Ord’s The Precipe and Will MacAskill’s upcoming What We Owe The Future. They founded the movement, so it shouldn’t be surprising that those two updating has significantly shifted the direction of the movement. I expect Holden’s Most Important Century has influential as well as he has a lot of credibility among global poverty people due to Co-Founding Givewell.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that it seems that people who are more involved in EA tend to have shifted more towards longtermism than those less involved or those who are new to EA[2]. I think Australia has also shifted less towards longtermism, which is unsurprising since it’s more at the periphery and so ideas take time to propagate.
If you want evidence, you can look at 80,000 Hours top career paths, observe that the FTX Future Fund[3] focuses on long-termism with the FTX Foundation making smaller contributions to global health/climate change[4]. Also, notice how OpenPhilanthropy has launched a new $10 million grantmaking program: supporting the effective altruism community around Global Health and Wellbeing. While this marks a substantial increase in the amount of money dedicated towards growing this arm of the community, not that the reason why they are starting this arm is because “the existing program evaluates grants through the lens of longtermism”. Further, while Open Philanthropy appointing a Co-CEO focusing on near-termism represented an increase in the prominence of near-termism, it should be remembered that this took place because Holden was increasingly focusing on Long-Termism.
I think we should be open about these changes and I should be clear I support all of these choices. Long-termism has been increasing in prominence in EA and it feels like this should obviously be reflected in terms of how the movement operates. At the same time, the movement seems to have been taking sensible actions to ensure that the ball isn’t being dropped on short-termism. Obviously, there’s more that could be done here and I’d be keen to hear any ideas that people have.
I’ll acknowledge that actions may seem surprising to some in the base as they are slightly ahead of where the base is at, but as far as I can tell, the base seems to be mostly coming along[5]. I also acknowledge that some of these changes may be disconcerting to some people, but I believe EA would have lost its soul if we were unwilling to update because we didn’t want our members to feel sad.
I want to finish by saying that many people are probably unaware of how much of a shift has taken place recently. You might wonder how this is considering how many of the links above effectively state this outright, but I suppose many EAs are very busy and don’t have time to read all of this.
In a functional movement, the leadership leads. It should obviously pay close attention to the views of the base and try to figure out if they might actually be correct, but the leadership should also be willing to diverge from their views, especially when they can bring the base along with them.
I believe longtermism is prioritised, that it should be prioritised and in some ways I would even prioritise it more [1], however, I also think that there are limits. For example, if there were really just two sessions on Global Health and Development, then I would feel that things had gone too far, but Ben Kunh has explained that this is factually incorrect.
I don’t think the conclusion that long-termism is being increasingly prioritised should surprise anyone with the publication of Toby Ord’s The Precipe and Will MacAskill’s upcoming What We Owe The Future. They founded the movement, so it shouldn’t be surprising that those two updating has significantly shifted the direction of the movement. I expect Holden’s Most Important Century has influential as well as he has a lot of credibility among global poverty people due to Co-Founding Givewell.
Anecdotally, I can tell you that it seems that people who are more involved in EA tend to have shifted more towards longtermism than those less involved or those who are new to EA[2]. I think Australia has also shifted less towards longtermism, which is unsurprising since it’s more at the periphery and so ideas take time to propagate.
If you want evidence, you can look at 80,000 Hours top career paths, observe that the FTX Future Fund[3] focuses on long-termism with the FTX Foundation making smaller contributions to global health/climate change[4]. Also, notice how OpenPhilanthropy has launched a new $10 million grantmaking program: supporting the effective altruism community around Global Health and Wellbeing. While this marks a substantial increase in the amount of money dedicated towards growing this arm of the community, not that the reason why they are starting this arm is because “the existing program evaluates grants through the lens of longtermism”. Further, while Open Philanthropy appointing a Co-CEO focusing on near-termism represented an increase in the prominence of near-termism, it should be remembered that this took place because Holden was increasingly focusing on Long-Termism.
I think we should be open about these changes and I should be clear I support all of these choices. Long-termism has been increasing in prominence in EA and it feels like this should obviously be reflected in terms of how the movement operates. At the same time, the movement seems to have been taking sensible actions to ensure that the ball isn’t being dropped on short-termism. Obviously, there’s more that could be done here and I’d be keen to hear any ideas that people have.
I’ll acknowledge that actions may seem surprising to some in the base as they are slightly ahead of where the base is at, but as far as I can tell, the base seems to be mostly coming along[5]. I also acknowledge that some of these changes may be disconcerting to some people, but I believe EA would have lost its soul if we were unwilling to update because we didn’t want our members to feel sad.
I want to finish by saying that many people are probably unaware of how much of a shift has taken place recently. You might wonder how this is considering how many of the links above effectively state this outright, but I suppose many EAs are very busy and don’t have time to read all of this.
I know this is controversial.
Many might not even know of long-termism yet.
Now the biggest EA funder.
The Future Fund is looking to spend $100 million - $1 billion this year, while the FTX Foundation has earmarked about $20 million for charity.
In a functional movement, the leadership leads. It should obviously pay close attention to the views of the base and try to figure out if they might actually be correct, but the leadership should also be willing to diverge from their views, especially when they can bring the base along with them.