Iâm sorry youâve had a rough time with your first posts! The norms here are somewhat different than a lot of other places on the internet. Personally I think theyâre better, but they can lead to a lot of backlash against people when they act in a way that wouldnât be unusual on, say, Twitter. Specifically, I would look at our commenting guidelines:
Commenting guidelines:
Aim to explain, not persuade
Try to be clear, on-topic, and kind
Approach disagreements with curiosity
This comment doesnât really fit the last two. Itâs rather uncharitable and uncurious to assume that people are faking concern for future people /â unborn babies, even if you canât personally think of a reason why someone would genuinely care about these things. It is a pretty counterintuitive worldview, but on this forum we tend to think the right response to ideas we donât understand is âWhy do you believe that?â not âNobody could actually believe that.â
As for a reason for why someone might genuinely care about longtermism, maybe I can provide one.
EA started with the idea that we should care about people we donât know, people on the other side of the world who might not look like us or share our language, as much as we care about our own communities. This led to a lot of great work done on alleviating global poverty, which continues to this day.
Nowâdoes anyone care about any future people? I think the answer is clearly yes hereâsome parents begin preparing for a better life for their kid before they ever get pregnantâtheyâre still a purely conceptual child at this point. Many people report wanting to leave a better world for their childrenâs children, whether they currently exist or not. That means we can care about at least some future people, if they feel close to us.
So why not care about future people who arenât close to us? In the same way that I can care about people in Africa who Iâll never meet, I can care about future people who I donât feel personally close to as well. In this way, caring about future people is a logical expansion of the moral circle, just like caring about people outside oneâs own country.
You may not agree with this argument, and thats fine, but hopefully that lets you see why someone might legitimately care about people who donât yet exist, rather than just pretend to do so in service of some other goal.
Welcome to the forum.
Iâm sorry youâve had a rough time with your first posts! The norms here are somewhat different than a lot of other places on the internet. Personally I think theyâre better, but they can lead to a lot of backlash against people when they act in a way that wouldnât be unusual on, say, Twitter. Specifically, I would look at our commenting guidelines:
Commenting guidelines:
Aim to explain, not persuade
Try to be clear, on-topic, and kind
Approach disagreements with curiosity
This comment doesnât really fit the last two. Itâs rather uncharitable and uncurious to assume that people are faking concern for future people /â unborn babies, even if you canât personally think of a reason why someone would genuinely care about these things. It is a pretty counterintuitive worldview, but on this forum we tend to think the right response to ideas we donât understand is âWhy do you believe that?â not âNobody could actually believe that.â
As for a reason for why someone might genuinely care about longtermism, maybe I can provide one.
EA started with the idea that we should care about people we donât know, people on the other side of the world who might not look like us or share our language, as much as we care about our own communities. This led to a lot of great work done on alleviating global poverty, which continues to this day.
Nowâdoes anyone care about any future people? I think the answer is clearly yes hereâsome parents begin preparing for a better life for their kid before they ever get pregnantâtheyâre still a purely conceptual child at this point. Many people report wanting to leave a better world for their childrenâs children, whether they currently exist or not. That means we can care about at least some future people, if they feel close to us.
So why not care about future people who arenât close to us? In the same way that I can care about people in Africa who Iâll never meet, I can care about future people who I donât feel personally close to as well. In this way, caring about future people is a logical expansion of the moral circle, just like caring about people outside oneâs own country.
You may not agree with this argument, and thats fine, but hopefully that lets you see why someone might legitimately care about people who donât yet exist, rather than just pretend to do so in service of some other goal.