For me, the strongest arguments against strong longtermism are simulation theory and the youngness paradox (as well as yet-to-be-discovered crucial considerations).[1]
(Also, nitpickily, I’d personally reword this poll from ‘Consequentialists should be strong longtermists’ to ‘I am a strong longtermist,’ because I’m not convinced that anyone ‘should’ be anything, normatively speaking.)
I’m a pretty strong anti-realist but this is one of the strongest types of shoulds for me. I.e. ‘If you want to achieve the best consequences, then you should expect the majority of affectable consequences to be in the far future’ Seems like the kind of thing that could be true or false on non-normative grounds, and would normatively ground a ‘should’ if you are already committed to consequentialism. In the sense that believing “I should get to Rome as fast as possible” and “The fastest way to get to Rome is to take a flight” grounds a ‘should’ for “I should take a flight to Rome”.
For me, the strongest arguments against strong longtermism are simulation theory and the youngness paradox (as well as yet-to-be-discovered crucial considerations).[1]
(Also, nitpickily, I’d personally reword this poll from ‘Consequentialistsshouldbe strong longtermists’ to ‘I am a strong longtermist,’ because I’mnot convincedthat anyone ‘should’ be anything, normatively speaking.)I also worry about cluelessness, though cluelessness seems just as threatening to neartermist interventions as it does to longtermist ones.
I’m a pretty strong anti-realist but this is one of the strongest types of shoulds for me.
I.e. ‘If you want to achieve the best consequences, then you should expect the majority of affectable consequences to be in the far future’ Seems like the kind of thing that could be true or false on non-normative grounds, and would normatively ground a ‘should’ if you are already committed to consequentialism. In the sense that believing “I should get to Rome as fast as possible” and “The fastest way to get to Rome is to take a flight” grounds a ‘should’ for “I should take a flight to Rome”.