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> my longtermist leanings. I do value the species over the individual Do you think the essay misrepresents "big L" Longtermist beliefs? My reading of it makes

> my longtermist leanings. I do value the species over the individual Do you think the essay misrepresents "big L" Longtermist beliefs? My reading of it makes it seem that "value the species over the individual" maybe does not reflect their goals very accurately. I tend to think in the long term myself. I like a lot of the same goals that Longtermists have: using technology to make ourselves better than we are, and expanding into other star systems being the most obvious ones. On the other hand, I don't consider myself a Longtermist. I think it's completely futile to try to calculate "utility" for individuals, and abhorrent to develop a society that tries to forcibly maximize that imaginary "utility" number, instead of letting people choose for themselves, because I believe that trying to forcibly maximize a value that can't actually be measured accurately would inherently reduce the overall happiness of the entire species. In other words, rather than "value the species over the individual", I would describe Longtermism (as portrayed in the article) as trying to forcibly scale up act-utilitarianism to apply to everyone, everywhere, all the time. At that scale, it can superficially seem like valuing the species, but IMO if one actually wants to think in the long term, rule-utilitarianism should be the guiding philosophy. Rule-utilitarianism makes it even more impossible to calculate results, of course, so it can only be a philosophy, not a rigid system of data and calculation.

imtringued 3y ago
One problem with neoclassical economics is that utility curves are unobservable and they have philosophical origin. At some point some has to decide what utility really means and capitalists run into the problem that they run out of things to invest that turn a profit and even if they don't, the profit they get becomes increasingly meaningless. At some point all forms of investment become recreational, just like a video game.

imtringued 3y ago

One problem with neoclassical economics is that utility curves are unobservable and they have philosophical origin. At some point some has to decide what utility really means and capitalists run into the problem that they run out of things to invest that turn a profit and even if they don't, the profit they get becomes increasingly meaningless. At some point all forms of investment become recreational, just like a video game.