Positive futures (or Utopias, or Ideal futures, or something like that)
Proposed description:
The positive futures tag is for posts that discuss things like what a particularly good long-term future might look like and what sorts of ideal long-term futures we might want to aim towards. Reasons to care about this topic include that:
How positive the future might be influences how important reducing existential risk is
Positive visions for the future could motivate work to reduce existential risks
Thinking about what we want the future to look like might help us work out what scenarios might constitute (non-extinction) existential catastrophes
Or maybe the āreasons to care about this topicā part is too long/āmy-own-opinion-y to include in a tag description?
Hereās an example of a post that would warrant this tag: Characterising utopia. I think many/āmost posts tagged Fun Theory on LessWrong would also fit this tag.
There are two people I wouldāve sent this tag page to this week, if it existed and was populated with a few posts, and I think their upcoming work may warrant this tag. This is what prompts me to suggest this.
Efforts to benefit the long-term future would likely gain from better understanding what we should steer towards, not merely what we should steer away from. This could allow more targeted actions with better chances of securing highly positive futures (not just avoiding existential catastrophes). It could also help us avoid negative futures that may not appear negative when superficially considered in advance. Finally, such positive visions of the future could facilitate cooperation and mitigate potential risks from competition (Dafoe, 2018 [section on āAI Ideal Governanceā]). Researchers have begun outlining particular possible futures, arguing for or against them, and surveying peopleās preferences for them.
Update: Iāve now made this entry
Positive futures (or Utopias, or Ideal futures, or something like that)
Proposed description:
Or maybe the āreasons to care about this topicā part is too long/āmy-own-opinion-y to include in a tag description?
Hereās an example of a post that would warrant this tag: Characterising utopia. I think many/āmost posts tagged Fun Theory on LessWrong would also fit this tag.
There are two people I wouldāve sent this tag page to this week, if it existed and was populated with a few posts, and I think their upcoming work may warrant this tag. This is what prompts me to suggest this.
A bit more on my thinking on this, from a shortform post of mine: