Sure, want to change the numbers by a factor of, say, 10^12 to account for simulation? The long-term effects still dominate. (Maybe taking actions to influence our simulators is more effective than trying to cause improvements in the long-term of our universe, but that isn’t an argument for doing naive short-term interventions.)
10^12 might be too low. Making up some numbers: If future civilizations can create 10^50 lives, and we think there’s an 0.1% chance that 0.01% of that will be spent on ancestor simulations, then that’s 10^43 expected lives in ancestor simulations. If each such simulation uses 10^12 lives worth of compute, that’s a 10^31 multiplier on short-term helping.
Sure, want to change the numbers by a factor of, say, 10^12 to account for simulation? The long-term effects still dominate. (Maybe taking actions to influence our simulators is more effective than trying to cause improvements in the long-term of our universe, but that isn’t an argument for doing naive short-term interventions.)
10^12 might be too low. Making up some numbers: If future civilizations can create 10^50 lives, and we think there’s an 0.1% chance that 0.01% of that will be spent on ancestor simulations, then that’s 10^43 expected lives in ancestor simulations. If each such simulation uses 10^12 lives worth of compute, that’s a 10^31 multiplier on short-term helping.