For, in my opinion, more reasonable shapes of future value then this will probably start mattering.
Did you read the link I sent? I don’t see how it is reasonable to discount very much. I would discount distant future people as much as I would discount distant geographic people (people who are alive today but are not near me). That is to say, not very much.
Interesting claim. I would be very interested in a cost-effectiveness analysis (even at BOTEC level) to support this. I don’t think we can resolve this without being quantative.
That is fair, and something I think would be worthwhile. It might be something I try to do at some point. However I would also note the problem of cluelessness which I think is a particular issue for neartermist interventions (see here for my short description of the issue and here for a bit longer). In short—I don’t think we actually have a clear sense of the cost-effectiveness of neartermist interventions. I could do a BOTEC and compare to GiveWell’s estimates, but I also think GiveWell’s estimates miss out far too many effects to be very meaningful.
I’m pretty sceptical of the tractability of non-x-risk work and our ability to shape the future in broad terms.
Feels weird to dismiss a whole class of interventions without justification. Certainly mitigating climate change is tractable. Boosting technological progress / economic growth also seems tractable. I can also think of ways to improve values.
Yes, we should certainly take them seriously. But “seriously” is rather imprecise to suggest how many resources we should be willing to throw at it.
I do personally think that, on the margin, all resources should be going to longtermist work.
Did you read the link I sent? I don’t see how it is reasonable to discount very much. I would discount distant future people as much as I would discount distant geographic people (people who are alive today but are not near me). That is to say, not very much.
That is fair, and something I think would be worthwhile. It might be something I try to do at some point. However I would also note the problem of cluelessness which I think is a particular issue for neartermist interventions (see here for my short description of the issue and here for a bit longer). In short—I don’t think we actually have a clear sense of the cost-effectiveness of neartermist interventions. I could do a BOTEC and compare to GiveWell’s estimates, but I also think GiveWell’s estimates miss out far too many effects to be very meaningful.
Feels weird to dismiss a whole class of interventions without justification. Certainly mitigating climate change is tractable. Boosting technological progress / economic growth also seems tractable. I can also think of ways to improve values.
I do personally think that, on the margin, all resources should be going to longtermist work.