I was somewhat surprised by the lack of distinction between the cases where we go extinct and the universe is barren (value 0) and big negative futures filled with suffering. The difference between these cases seem large to me and seems like they will substantially affect the value of x-risk and s-risk mitigation. This is even more the case if you don’t subscribe to symmetric welfare ranges and think our capacity to suffer is vastly greater than our capacity to feel pleasure, which would make the worst possible futures way worse than the best possible futures are good. I suspect this is related to the popularity of the term ‘existential catastrophe’ which collapses any difference between these cases (as well as cases where we bumble along and produce some small positive value but far from our best possible future).
I was somewhat surprised by the lack of distinction between the cases where we go extinct and the universe is barren (value 0) and big negative futures filled with suffering. The difference between these cases seem large to me and seems like they will substantially affect the value of x-risk and s-risk mitigation. This is even more the case if you don’t subscribe to symmetric welfare ranges and think our capacity to suffer is vastly greater than our capacity to feel pleasure, which would make the worst possible futures way worse than the best possible futures are good. I suspect this is related to the popularity of the term ‘existential catastrophe’ which collapses any difference between these cases (as well as cases where we bumble along and produce some small positive value but far from our best possible future).