[this a comment about the post/project, not an answer to the question about moral discounting]
I’m curious—when talking to people new to EA, have you heard that question a lot, in those words and terms?
I’m asking because—and I might be typical-minding here—I’d be surprised if most people who are new to longtermism have the explicit belief ‘people in the future have less moral value than people in the present’. In particular, the language of moral discounting sounds very EA-ish to me. I imagine that if you ask most people who are sceptical to longtermism ‘so do future people have less moral value than present people?‘, they’d be like ‘of course not, but [insert other argument for why it nonetheless makes more sense to focus on the present.’
(Analogously, imagine an EA having a debate with someone who thinks that we should focus on helping people in our local communities. At one point the EA says ‘so, do you think that people in other countries have less moral value than people in your community?’
I find it hard to imagine that the local-communitarian would say ‘yeah! Screw people in other countries!’ [even if from an EA perspective, their actions and beliefs would seem to entail this attitude]
I find it more likely that they would say something like ‘of course people everywhere have moral value, but it’s my job to help people in my community, and people in other countries should be helped by people in their own communities’. And they might give further reasons for why they think this.)
[this a comment about the post/project, not an answer to the question about moral discounting]
I’m curious—when talking to people new to EA, have you heard that question a lot, in those words and terms?
I’m asking because—and I might be typical-minding here—I’d be surprised if most people who are new to longtermism have the explicit belief ‘people in the future have less moral value than people in the present’. In particular, the language of moral discounting sounds very EA-ish to me. I imagine that if you ask most people who are sceptical to longtermism ‘so do future people have less moral value than present people?‘, they’d be like ‘of course not, but [insert other argument for why it nonetheless makes more sense to focus on the present.’
(Analogously, imagine an EA having a debate with someone who thinks that we should focus on helping people in our local communities. At one point the EA says ‘so, do you think that people in other countries have less moral value than people in your community?’
I find it hard to imagine that the local-communitarian would say ‘yeah! Screw people in other countries!’ [even if from an EA perspective, their actions and beliefs would seem to entail this attitude]
I find it more likely that they would say something like ‘of course people everywhere have moral value, but it’s my job to help people in my community, and people in other countries should be helped by people in their own communities’. And they might give further reasons for why they think this.)
Seems right, I agree. Thanks for the feedback!