I think I agree with this (at least intuitively agree, not given it deep though). I raised 1. as it as I think it is a useful example of where the Case for Strong Longtermism paper focuses on AL rather than CL. See section 3 p9 – the authors say if short-term actions are also the best long-term actions then AL is trivially true and then move on. The point you raise here is just not raised by the authors as it is not relevant to the truth of AL.
I just don’t really see a meaningful / important distinction between AL and CL to be honest. Let’s consider that AL is true, and also that cultivated meat happens to be the best intervention from both a shortermist and longtermist perspective.
A shortermist might say:I want cultivated meat so that people stop eating animals reducing animal suffering now
A longtermist might say:I want cultivated meat so that people stop eating animals and therefore develop moral concern for all animals. This will reduce risks of us locking in persistent animal suffering in the future
In this case, if AL is true, I think we should also be colloquial longtermists and justify cultivated meat in the way the longtermist does, as that would be the main reason cultivated meat is good. If evidence were to come out that stopping eating meat doesn’t improve moral concern for animals, cultivated meat may no longer be great from a longtermist point of view—and it would be important to reorient based on this fact. In other words, I think AL should push us to strive to be colloquial longtermists.
Otherwise, thanks for the reading, I will have a look at some point!
I just don’t really see a meaningful / important distinction between AL and CL to be honest. Let’s consider that AL is true, and also that cultivated meat happens to be the best intervention from both a shortermist and longtermist perspective.
A shortermist might say: I want cultivated meat so that people stop eating animals reducing animal suffering now
A longtermist might say: I want cultivated meat so that people stop eating animals and therefore develop moral concern for all animals. This will reduce risks of us locking in persistent animal suffering in the future
In this case, if AL is true, I think we should also be colloquial longtermists and justify cultivated meat in the way the longtermist does, as that would be the main reason cultivated meat is good. If evidence were to come out that stopping eating meat doesn’t improve moral concern for animals, cultivated meat may no longer be great from a longtermist point of view—and it would be important to reorient based on this fact. In other words, I think AL should push us to strive to be colloquial longtermists.
Otherwise, thanks for the reading, I will have a look at some point!