I should also point out that, if I’ve understood your position correctly Carl, I agree with you. Given my second argument, that a prior we have something like 1 in a trillion odds of being the most influential, I don’t think we should end up concluding much about this.
Most importantly, this is because whether or not I am the most influential person is not actually relevant decision making question.
But even aside from this I have a lot more information about the world than just a prior odds. For instance, any long-termist has information about their wealth and education which would make them fairly exceptional compared to the average human that has ever lived. They also have reasonable evidence about existential risk this century and plausible (for some loose definition of plausible) ways to influence this. At the end of the day each of us still has low odds of being the most influential person ever, but perhaps with odds more in the 1 in 10 million range, rather than 1 in a trillion.
I should also point out that, if I’ve understood your position correctly Carl, I agree with you. Given my second argument, that a prior we have something like 1 in a trillion odds of being the most influential, I don’t think we should end up concluding much about this.
Most importantly, this is because whether or not I am the most influential person is not actually relevant decision making question.
But even aside from this I have a lot more information about the world than just a prior odds. For instance, any long-termist has information about their wealth and education which would make them fairly exceptional compared to the average human that has ever lived. They also have reasonable evidence about existential risk this century and plausible (for some loose definition of plausible) ways to influence this. At the end of the day each of us still has low odds of being the most influential person ever, but perhaps with odds more in the 1 in 10 million range, rather than 1 in a trillion.