4 ms·
This feels a bit straw man like in that proponents of longtermism appear to be aware of improbable outcomes and of discounting and things like that. One of the
by conformist 5y ago
This feels a bit straw man like in that proponents of longtermism appear to be aware of improbable outcomes and of discounting and things like that.
One of the problems seems to be that even if you agree that the utility of unlikely but great outcomes for humanity in the far future is something like (very small probability of perfect scenario) x (very small discount factor) x (very large utility), people might disagree fundamentally about the order of magnitude of all three quantities, which will lead to vastly different judgements?
I'm curious whether this sort of argument is too naive, too, and whether there are convincing arguments why this ought not to be the case that are prevalent in the longtermist community?