You’re completely correct about a couple of things, and not only am I not disputing them, they are crucial to my argument: first, that I am only focusing on only one side of the distribution, and the second, that the scenarios I am referring to (with WW2 counterfactual or nuclear war) are improbable.
Indeed, as I have said, even if the probability of the future scenarios I am positing is of the order of 0.00001 (which makes it improbable), that can hardly be the grounds to dismiss the argument in this context simply because longtermism appeals precisely to the immense consequences of events whose absolute probability is very low.
At the risk of quoting out of context:
If we increase the odds of survival at one of the filters by one in a million, we can multiply one of the inputs for C by 1.000001.
So our new value of C is 0.01 x 0.01 x 1.000001 = 0.0001000001
New expected time remaining for civilization = M x C = 10,000,010,000
In much the same way, it’s absolutely correct that I am referring to one side of the distribution ; however it is not because the other-side does not exist or is not relevant bur rather because I want to highlight the magnitude of uncertainty and how that expands with time.
It follows also that I am in no way disputing (and my argument is somewhat orthogonal to) the different counterfactuals for WW2 you’ve outlined.
Thanks for the response. I believe I understand your objection but it would be helpful to distinguish the following two propositions:
a. A catastrophic risk in the next few years is likely to be horrible for humanity over the next 500 years.
b. A catastrophic risk in the next few years is likely to to leave humanity (and other sentient agents) worse off in the next 5,000,000 years, all things considered.
I have no disagreement at all with the first but am deeply skeptical of the second. And that’s where the divergence comes from.
The example of a post-nuclear generation being animal-right sensitive is just one possibility that I advanced; one may consider other areas such as universal disarmament, open borders, end of racism/sexism. If the probability of a more tolerant humanity emerging from the ashes of a nuclear winter is even 0.00001, then from the perspective of someone looking back 100,000 years from now, it is not very obvious that the catastrophic risk was bad, all things considered.
For example, whatever the horrors of WWII may have been, the sustenance of relative peace and prosperity of Europe since 1945 owes a significant deal to the war. In addition, the widespread acknowledgement of norms and conventions around torture and human rights is partly a consequence of the brutality of the war. That of course if far from enough to conclude that the war was a net positive. However 5000 years into the future, are you sure that in the majority of scenarios, in retrospect, WW2 would still be a net negative event?
In any case, I have added this as well in the post: