I believe the majority of “neartermist” EAs don’t have a high discount rate. They usually prioritise near-term effects because they don’t think we can tractably influence the far future (i.e. cannot improve the far future in expectation). You might find the 80,000 Hours podcast episode with Alexander Berger interesting.
EDIT: neartermists may also be concerned by longtermist fanatical thinking or may be driven by a certain population axiology e.g. person-affecting view. In the EA movement though high discount rates are virtually unheard of.
As somewhat an aside I think one might only justify discount rates over well-being as an indirect and probably inadequate proxy for something else, such
as a belief that ’intervention $‘s go less far to help people in the future because we don’t know much about how to help them’
a belief that the future may not exist, and if it’s lower probability it enters less unto our welfare function.
There is very little direct justification of ‘people in the future’ or ‘welfare in the future’ itself matters less.′
From reading this and other comments, I think we should rename longtermists to be “Temporal radicalists”. The rest of the community can be “Temporal moderates” or even be “Temporal conservatives” (aka “neratermists”) if they are so inclined. I attempt to explain why below.
It looks like there is some agreement that long-termism is a fairly radical idea.
Many (but not all) of the so-called “neartermists” are simply not that radical and that is the reason why they perceive their monicker to be problematic. One side is radical and many in the other side are just not that radical while still believing in the fundamental idea
By “radical”, I mean believing in one of the extreme ends of the argument. The rest of the community is not on the other extreme end which is what “neartermism” seems to imply. It looks like many of those not identifying as “longermists” are simply on neither of the extreme ends but somewhere in the spectrum between “longtermists” and “neartermists”. I understand now that many who are currently termed “Neartermists” would be willing to make expectation value bets on the future even with fairly low discount rates. From the link to the Berger episode that JackM provided (thanks for that BTW!):
“It’s tied to a sense of not wanting to go all in on everything. So maybe being very happy making expected value bets in the same way that longtermists are very happy making expected value bets, but somehow wanting to pull back from that bet a little bit sooner than I think that the typical longtermist might.”
So to overcome the naming issue, we must have a way to recognize that there are extreme ends in this argument and also a middle ground. With this in mind, I would rename the currently “longtermists” as “Tempoal radicalists” while addressing the diversity of opinions in the rest of the community with two different labels “Temporal moderates” and “Temporal conservatives” (which is the synonym of “neartermism”). You can even call yourself ‘Temporal moderate leaning towards conservatism’ to communicate your position with even more nuance.
PS: Sorry for too many edits. I wanted to write it down before forgetting it and later realized I had not communicated properly.
I believe the majority of “neartermist” EAs don’t have a high discount rate. They usually prioritise near-term effects because they don’t think we can tractably influence the far future (i.e. cannot improve the far future in expectation). You might find the 80,000 Hours podcast episode with Alexander Berger interesting.
EDIT: neartermists may also be concerned by longtermist fanatical thinking or may be driven by a certain population axiology e.g. person-affecting view. In the EA movement though high discount rates are virtually unheard of.
I agree with JackM.
As somewhat an aside I think one might only justify discount rates over well-being as an indirect and probably inadequate proxy for something else, such
as a belief that ’intervention $‘s go less far to help people in the future because we don’t know much about how to help them’
a belief that the future may not exist, and if it’s lower probability it enters less unto our welfare function.
There is very little direct justification of ‘people in the future’ or ‘welfare in the future’ itself matters less.′
From reading this and other comments, I think we should rename longtermists to be “Temporal radicalists”. The rest of the community can be “Temporal moderates” or even be “Temporal conservatives” (aka “neratermists”) if they are so inclined. I attempt to explain why below.
It looks like there is some agreement that long-termism is a fairly radical idea.
Many (but not all) of the so-called “neartermists” are simply not that radical and that is the reason why they perceive their monicker to be problematic. One side is radical and many in the other side are just not that radical while still believing in the fundamental ideaBy “radical”, I mean believing in one of the extreme ends of the argument. The rest of the community is not on the other extreme end which is what “neartermism” seems to imply. It looks like many of those not identifying as “longermists” are simply on neither of the extreme ends but somewhere in the spectrum between “longtermists” and “neartermists”. I understand now that many who are currently termed “Neartermists” would be willing to make expectation value bets on the future even with fairly low discount rates. From the link to the Berger episode that JackM provided (thanks for that BTW!):
So to overcome the naming issue, we must have a way to recognize that there are extreme ends in this argument and also a middle ground. With this in mind, I would rename the currently “longtermists” as “Tempoal radicalists” while addressing the diversity of opinions in the rest of the community with two different labels “Temporal moderates” and “Temporal conservatives” (which is the synonym of “neartermism”). You can even call yourself ‘Temporal moderate leaning towards conservatism’ to communicate your position with even more nuance.
PS: Sorry for too many edits. I wanted to write it down before forgetting it and later realized I had not communicated properly.