My thanks to Will and Buck for such an interesting thoughtful debate. However to me there seems to be one key difference that I think it is worth drawing out:
Will’s updated article (here, p14) asks the action relevant question (rephrased by me) of:
Are we [today] among the very most influential people, out of the very large number of people who will live that we could reasonably pass resources to [over the coming thousand years].
Buck’s post (this post) seems to focus on the not action relevant question (my phrasing) of:
Are we [in this century] at the very most influential time, out of the very large span of all time into the distant future [over the coming trillion years].
It seems plausible to me that Buck’s criticisms are valid when considering Will’s older work, however I do not think the criticisms that Buck raises here about Will’s original HoH still applies to the action relevant restricted HoH in Will’s new paper. (And I see little value in debating the non-action relevant HoH hypothesis.)
My thanks to Will and Buck for such an interesting thoughtful debate. However to me there seems to be one key difference that I think it is worth drawing out:
Will’s updated article (here, p14) asks the action relevant question (rephrased by me) of:
Buck’s post (this post) seems to focus on the not action relevant question (my phrasing) of:
It seems plausible to me that Buck’s criticisms are valid when considering Will’s older work, however I do not think the criticisms that Buck raises here about Will’s original HoH still applies to the action relevant restricted HoH in Will’s new paper. (And I see little value in debating the non-action relevant HoH hypothesis.)