Just a half-formed thought how something could be “meta but not longtermist” because I thought that was a conceptually interesting issue to unpick.
I suppose one could distinguish between meaning “meta” as (1) does non-object level work or (2) benefits more than one value-bearer group, where the classic, not-quite-mutually-exclusive three options for value-bearer groups are (1) near-term humans, (2) animals, and (3) far future lives.
If one is thinking the former way, something is meta to the degree it does non-object level vs object-level work (I’m not going to define these), regardless of what domain it works towards. In this sense, ‘meta’ and (e.g.) ‘longtermist’ are independent: you could be one, or the other, both, or neither. Hence, if you did non-object level work that wasn’t focused on the longterm, you would be meta but not longtermist (although it might be more natural to say “meta and not longtermist” as there is no tension between them).
If one is thinking the latter way, one might say that an org is less “meta”, and more “non-meta”, the greater the fraction of its resources are intentionally spent to benefit just only one value-bearer group. Here “meta” and “non-meta” are mutually exclusive and a matter of degree. A “non-meta” org is one that spends, say, more than 50% of its resources aimed at one group. The thought is of this is that, on this framework, Animal Advocacy Careers and 80k are not meta, whereas, say, GWWC is meta. Thinking this way, something is meta but not longtermist if it primarily focuses on non-longtermist stuff.
(In both cases, we will run into familiar issues about to making precise what an agent ‘focuses on’ or ‘intends’.)
Just a half-formed thought how something could be “meta but not longtermist” because I thought that was a conceptually interesting issue to unpick.
I suppose one could distinguish between meaning “meta” as (1) does non-object level work or (2) benefits more than one value-bearer group, where the classic, not-quite-mutually-exclusive three options for value-bearer groups are (1) near-term humans, (2) animals, and (3) far future lives.
If one is thinking the former way, something is meta to the degree it does non-object level vs object-level work (I’m not going to define these), regardless of what domain it works towards. In this sense, ‘meta’ and (e.g.) ‘longtermist’ are independent: you could be one, or the other, both, or neither. Hence, if you did non-object level work that wasn’t focused on the longterm, you would be meta but not longtermist (although it might be more natural to say “meta and not longtermist” as there is no tension between them).
If one is thinking the latter way, one might say that an org is less “meta”, and more “non-meta”, the greater the fraction of its resources are intentionally spent to benefit just only one value-bearer group. Here “meta” and “non-meta” are mutually exclusive and a matter of degree. A “non-meta” org is one that spends, say, more than 50% of its resources aimed at one group. The thought is of this is that, on this framework, Animal Advocacy Careers and 80k are not meta, whereas, say, GWWC is meta. Thinking this way, something is meta but not longtermist if it primarily focuses on non-longtermist stuff.
(In both cases, we will run into familiar issues about to making precise what an agent ‘focuses on’ or ‘intends’.)