‘Longtermism’ is a new term, which may well become quite common and influential. The aim in giving the term a precise meaning while we still have the chance is to prevent confusions beforethey arise. This is particularly important if you’re hoping that a research field will develop around the idea. I think that this is really crucial.
I don’t have an issue with EAs using ‘longtermism’, but it’s decidedly not a “new term” and already has an existing academic literature in non-EA disciplines. So any attempts at disambiguation (which I applaud) should address how the term is currently being used. If you search for it on Google Scholar, you’ll find lots of results on “long-termism” from a business perspective (typically related to investments or corporate governance). I looked through a few pages of search results without seeing anything related to EA.
Google also provides an interesting perspective on hyphenation. I was originally in the “who cares?” camp, until I noticed that google returns different results for “longtermism” and “long-termism” (I used an incognito window and would advise the same for anyone trying to replicate this). “Long-termism” returns results associated with the business use cases (including various definitions); I don’t see anything EA related until halfway through the 2nd page of search results. This makes sense since the existing literature generally uses a hyphen.
Googling “Longtermism” returns some business/definition results, but has a lot of EA content on the first page including the first result (ForeThought Foundation). That said, Google asks if you meant “long termism” (which gives the same search results as the hyphenated version), suggesting there’s not a ton of people searching for the unhyphenated term. I don’t think EA should adopt a hyphenating convention based on short-term search engine optimization, but this does seem like a relevant consideration.
While the word long-termism itself isn’t new, it’s a relatively new way of describing the school of thought in moral philosophy being discussed here — if only because that school of thought itself has been quite small until recently.
I think that is what Will meant by it being a ‘new term’.
There are plans to use longtermism (both the term and the idea) in disciplines beyond moral philosophy (e.g. the Global Priorities Institute’s longtermist research agenda which includes economics in addition to philosophy). So to “prevent confusion”, it’s important to understand whether other fields are using the term, and what other people are likely to think when they hear it.
FWIW, I think for most people something like “ultralongtermist” would do a better job of communicating the time frames Will is talking about.
I don’t have an issue with EAs using ‘longtermism’, but it’s decidedly not a “new term” and already has an existing academic literature in non-EA disciplines. So any attempts at disambiguation (which I applaud) should address how the term is currently being used. If you search for it on Google Scholar, you’ll find lots of results on “long-termism” from a business perspective (typically related to investments or corporate governance). I looked through a few pages of search results without seeing anything related to EA.
Google also provides an interesting perspective on hyphenation. I was originally in the “who cares?” camp, until I noticed that google returns different results for “longtermism” and “long-termism” (I used an incognito window and would advise the same for anyone trying to replicate this). “Long-termism” returns results associated with the business use cases (including various definitions); I don’t see anything EA related until halfway through the 2nd page of search results. This makes sense since the existing literature generally uses a hyphen.
Googling “Longtermism” returns some business/definition results, but has a lot of EA content on the first page including the first result (ForeThought Foundation). That said, Google asks if you meant “long termism” (which gives the same search results as the hyphenated version), suggesting there’s not a ton of people searching for the unhyphenated term. I don’t think EA should adopt a hyphenating convention based on short-term search engine optimization, but this does seem like a relevant consideration.
While the word long-termism itself isn’t new, it’s a relatively new way of describing the school of thought in moral philosophy being discussed here — if only because that school of thought itself has been quite small until recently.
I think that is what Will meant by it being a ‘new term’.
There are plans to use longtermism (both the term and the idea) in disciplines beyond moral philosophy (e.g. the Global Priorities Institute’s longtermist research agenda which includes economics in addition to philosophy). So to “prevent confusion”, it’s important to understand whether other fields are using the term, and what other people are likely to think when they hear it.
FWIW, I think for most people something like “ultralongtermist” would do a better job of communicating the time frames Will is talking about.