We (most humans in most of the world) lived or are living in a golden age, with more material prosperity and better physical health* than ever before. 2020 was shitty, and the second derivative might be negative, but the first derivative still looks clearly positive on the timescale of decades, as well as a (measured from history, not counterfactual) really high baseline. On a personal level, my consumption is maybe 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of my grandparents at my age(might become closer to 3 if I was less EA). So I’d be interested in adding a few sentences like:
For the first time in recorded history, the vast majority of humans are much richer than their ancestors.
Even in the midst of a raging pandemic, human deaths from infectious disease still account for less than 1⁄3 of all deaths.
People have access to more and better information than ever before.
I think as EAs, it’s easy to have a pretty negative view of the world (because we want to fix on what we can fix, and also pay attention to a lot of things we currently can’t fix in the hopes that one day we can figure out what to fix later), but obviously there is still a lot of good in the world (and there might be much more to come), and it might be valuable to have concrete reminders of what we ought to cherish and protect.
* I think it’s plausible/likely that we’re emotionally and intellectually healthier as well, but this case is more tenuous.
Related to wealth: I recently heard Tyler Cowen describing himself as an “information billionaire” and hoping to become an information trillionaire. I wonder how one would quantify it, but it seems true that our ability to understand the world is also growing rapidly.
On this, I really like this brief post from Our World in Data: The world is much better; The world is awful; The world can be much better. (Now that I have longtermist priorities, I feel like another useful slogan in a similar spirit could be something like “The world could become so much better; The world could end or become so much worse; We could help influence which of those things happens.”)
>my consumption is maybe 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of my grandparents at my age
That might be precisely part of the problem. We are just starting to be seriously concerned about the externalities of this increase in consumption, and a good deal of it is conspicuous or with things people often regret (over)consuming (like soft drinks, addictive stuff, or just time spent in social media) - while a lot of people still starve.
I think I don’t follow your point. If I understand correctly, the linked paper (at least from the abstract, I have not read it) talks about population-size variation, which has an intuitive/near-tautological relationship with increased risk of extinction, rather than variation overall.
That might be precisely part of the problem.
Sorry can you specify more what the problem is? If you mean that the problem is an inefficient distribution of limited resources, I agree that it’s morally bad that I have access to a number of luxuries while others starve, and the former is casually upstream of the latter. However, in the long run we can only get maybe 1-2 orders of magnitude gains from a more equitable distribution of resources globally (though some rich individuals/gov’ts can create more good than that by redistributing their own resources), but we can get much more through other ways to create more stuff/better experiences.
We are just starting to be seriously concerned about the externalities of this increase in
We (most humans in most of the world) lived or are living in a golden age, with more material prosperity and better physical health* than ever before. 2020 was shitty, and the second derivative might be negative, but the first derivative still looks clearly positive on the timescale of decades, as well as a (measured from history, not counterfactual) really high baseline. On a personal level, my consumption is maybe 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of my grandparents at my age(might become closer to 3 if I was less EA). So I’d be interested in adding a few sentences like:
For the first time in recorded history, the vast majority of humans are much richer than their ancestors.
Even in the midst of a raging pandemic, human deaths from infectious disease still account for less than 1⁄3 of all deaths.
People have access to more and better information than ever before.
I think as EAs, it’s easy to have a pretty negative view of the world (because we want to fix on what we can fix, and also pay attention to a lot of things we currently can’t fix in the hopes that one day we can figure out what to fix later), but obviously there is still a lot of good in the world (and there might be much more to come), and it might be valuable to have concrete reminders of what we ought to cherish and protect.
* I think it’s plausible/likely that we’re emotionally and intellectually healthier as well, but this case is more tenuous.
Related to wealth: I recently heard Tyler Cowen describing himself as an “information billionaire” and hoping to become an information trillionaire. I wonder how one would quantify it, but it seems true that our ability to understand the world is also growing rapidly.
Yeah, I agree with that.
On this, I really like this brief post from Our World in Data: The world is much better; The world is awful; The world can be much better. (Now that I have longtermist priorities, I feel like another useful slogan in a similar spirit could be something like “The world could become so much better; The world could end or become so much worse; We could help influence which of those things happens.”)
>with more material prosperity and better physical health* than ever before
I agree. But you see, in some population dynamics, variation is correlated with increased risk of extinction.
>my consumption is maybe 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of my grandparents at my age
That might be precisely part of the problem. We are just starting to be seriously concerned about the externalities of this increase in consumption, and a good deal of it is conspicuous or with things people often regret (over)consuming (like soft drinks, addictive stuff, or just time spent in social media) - while a lot of people still starve.
Thanks for your comment!
I think I don’t follow your point. If I understand correctly, the linked paper (at least from the abstract, I have not read it) talks about population-size variation, which has an intuitive/near-tautological relationship with increased risk of extinction, rather than variation overall.
Sorry can you specify more what the problem is? If you mean that the problem is an inefficient distribution of limited resources, I agree that it’s morally bad that I have access to a number of luxuries while others starve, and the former is casually upstream of the latter. However, in the long run we can only get maybe 1-2 orders of magnitude gains from a more equitable distribution of resources globally (though some rich individuals/gov’ts can create more good than that by redistributing their own resources), but we can get much more through other ways to create more stuff/better experiences.
Who’s this “we?” :P