Another possible story, which could underpin some efforts along the lines of patient altruism / punting to the future: “There will probably be key actions that need taking in the coming decades, centuries, or millennia, which will have a huge influence over the whole rest of the future. There are some potential ways to set up future people to take those actions better in expectation, yet very few people are thinking strategically and working intensely on doing that. So that’s probably the best thing we can do right now.”
Those “potential ways” of punting to the future could be things like building a community of people with good values and epistemics or increasing the expected future wealth or influence of such people.
And this story could involve thinking there will be a future time that’s much “higher leverage” / more “hingey” / more “influential”, or thinking that there are larger returns to some ways of “punting to the future”, or both.
Another possible story, which could underpin some efforts along the lines of patient altruism / punting to the future: “There will probably be key actions that need taking in the coming decades, centuries, or millennia, which will have a huge influence over the whole rest of the future. There are some potential ways to set up future people to take those actions better in expectation, yet very few people are thinking strategically and working intensely on doing that. So that’s probably the best thing we can do right now.”
Those “potential ways” of punting to the future could be things like building a community of people with good values and epistemics or increasing the expected future wealth or influence of such people.
And this story could involve thinking there will be a future time that’s much “higher leverage” / more “hingey” / more “influential”, or thinking that there are larger returns to some ways of “punting to the future”, or both.
(See also.)
(Personally, I find this sort of story at least plausible, and it influences me somewhat.)