It’s a good point, there’s often cases for discounting in a lot of decisions where we’re weighing up value. It’s usually done for two reasons – one being uncertainty, so we’re less certain of stuff in the future and therefore our actions might not do what we expect or the reward we’re hoping for might not actually happen. And the second being only relevant to financial stuff, but given inflation – and that you’re likely to have more income the older you are—the money’s real value is more now than later.
The second reason doesn’t really apply here because happiness doesn’t decrease in value as you go through generations, like your happiness doesn’t matter less than your parents or grandparents did, even though $5 now means less than $5 then. The first reason is interesting because there is a lot of uncertainty in the future. And for some of our actions this means we should discount their expected effects, like they might not do what we expect, but that doesn’t mean the people itself are of less value – just that we’re not as sure how to help them. I think the actions we can be most sure of helping them are things that reduce risks in the short-term future, because if everything goes to crap or we all die that’s pretty sure to be negative for them. But uncertainty on the people themselves would look like – ‘I know how to help these guys, but I’m not sure I want to, like I’m not sure they’ll be people worth helping’. Personally I think I might care about them more, given every generation so far has had advances in the way they treat others, I like you already but I reckon I might like us even better if we’d grown up 5000 years from now!
It’s a good point, there’s often cases for discounting in a lot of decisions where we’re weighing up value. It’s usually done for two reasons – one being uncertainty, so we’re less certain of stuff in the future and therefore our actions might not do what we expect or the reward we’re hoping for might not actually happen. And the second being only relevant to financial stuff, but given inflation – and that you’re likely to have more income the older you are—the money’s real value is more now than later.
The second reason doesn’t really apply here because happiness doesn’t decrease in value as you go through generations, like your happiness doesn’t matter less than your parents or grandparents did, even though $5 now means less than $5 then. The first reason is interesting because there is a lot of uncertainty in the future. And for some of our actions this means we should discount their expected effects, like they might not do what we expect, but that doesn’t mean the people itself are of less value – just that we’re not as sure how to help them. I think the actions we can be most sure of helping them are things that reduce risks in the short-term future, because if everything goes to crap or we all die that’s pretty sure to be negative for them. But uncertainty on the people themselves would look like – ‘I know how to help these guys, but I’m not sure I want to, like I’m not sure they’ll be people worth helping’. Personally I think I might care about them more, given every generation so far has had advances in the way they treat others, I like you already but I reckon I might like us even better if we’d grown up 5000 years from now!
Thanks for your submission!