Longtermism includes the claim that improving the future is tractable. I think that was probably a mistake, and it should just be a claim about values.
Daaaang yeah that seems wrong to me too unfortunately. I can imagine we have passed the threshold on coordination and technology that changing the long-run future somewhat predictably is a tractable cause now (and I can also imagine we haven’t), but I’m pretty sure there were many years in history where it would have been impossible to predict past 5 years ahead. It seems to me that a philosophical position (which longtermism claims to be) should be able to have existed then too. But if it included tractability, that position was likely impossible to hold (correctly) at some moments in history, or in many single-actor thought experiments. But I’m no philosopher
Longtermism includes the claim that improving the future is tractable. I think that was probably a mistake, and it should just be a claim about values.
Daaaang yeah that seems wrong to me too unfortunately. I can imagine we have passed the threshold on coordination and technology that changing the long-run future somewhat predictably is a tractable cause now (and I can also imagine we haven’t), but I’m pretty sure there were many years in history where it would have been impossible to predict past 5 years ahead. It seems to me that a philosophical position (which longtermism claims to be) should be able to have existed then too. But if it included tractability, that position was likely impossible to hold (correctly) at some moments in history, or in many single-actor thought experiments. But I’m no philosopher