I think it’s worth pointing out that “longtermism” as minimally defined here is not pointing to the same concept that “people interested in x-risk reduction” was probably pointing at. I think the word which most accurately captureswhat it was pointing at is generally called “futurism” (examples [1],[2]).
This could be a feature or a bug, depending on use case.
It could be a feature if you want a word to capture a moral underpinning common to many futurist’s intuitions while being, as you said, remaining “compatible with any empirical view about the best way of improving the long-run future”, or to form a coalition among people with diverse views about the best ways to improve the long-run future.
It could be a bug if people started informally using “longtermism” interchangably with “far futurism”, especially if it created a motte-bailey style of argument in which to an easily defensible minimal definition claim that “future people matter equally” was used to response to skepticism regarding claims that any specific category of efforts aiming to influence the far future is necessarily more impactful.
If you want to retain the feature of being “compatible with any empirical view about the best way of improving the long-run future” you might prefer the no-definition approach, because criteria ii is not philosophical, but an empirical view about what society currently wrongly privileges.
From the perspective of addressing the “bug” aspect however, I think criteria ii and iii are good calls. They make some progress in narrowing who is a “longtermist”, and they specify that it is ultimately a call to a specific action (so e.g someone who thinks influencing the future would be awesome in theory but is intractable in practice can fairly be said to not meet criteria iii). In general, I think that in practice people are going to use “longtermist” and “far futurist” interchangeably regardless of what definition is laid out at this point. I therefore favor the second approach, with a minimal definition, as it gives a nod to the fact that it’s not just a moral stance and but advocates some sort of practical response.
I think it’s worth pointing out that “longtermism” as minimally defined here is not pointing to the same concept that “people interested in x-risk reduction” was probably pointing at. I think the word which most accurately captures what it was pointing at is generally called “futurism” (examples [1],[2]).
This could be a feature or a bug, depending on use case.
It could be a feature if you want a word to capture a moral underpinning common to many futurist’s intuitions while being, as you said, remaining “compatible with any empirical view about the best way of improving the long-run future”, or to form a coalition among people with diverse views about the best ways to improve the long-run future.
It could be a bug if people started informally using “longtermism” interchangably with “far futurism”, especially if it created a motte-bailey style of argument in which to an easily defensible minimal definition claim that “future people matter equally” was used to response to skepticism regarding claims that any specific category of efforts aiming to influence the far future is necessarily more impactful.
If you want to retain the feature of being “compatible with any empirical view about the best way of improving the long-run future” you might prefer the no-definition approach, because criteria ii is not philosophical, but an empirical view about what society currently wrongly privileges.
From the perspective of addressing the “bug” aspect however, I think criteria ii and iii are good calls. They make some progress in narrowing who is a “longtermist”, and they specify that it is ultimately a call to a specific action (so e.g someone who thinks influencing the future would be awesome in theory but is intractable in practice can fairly be said to not meet criteria iii). In general, I think that in practice people are going to use “longtermist” and “far futurist” interchangeably regardless of what definition is laid out at this point. I therefore favor the second approach, with a minimal definition, as it gives a nod to the fact that it’s not just a moral stance and but advocates some sort of practical response.