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This article had the opposite of its intended effect on me. Longtermism seems like pretty sound thinking. I don't know why the article calls it a religion, it j

by Dig1t 3y ago

This article had the opposite of its intended effect on me. Longtermism seems like pretty sound thinking. I don't know why the article calls it a religion, it just seems like a good idea.

PaulHoule 3y ago
With all their trigger warnings for things that deviate slightly from the classic Yudkowsky line, Less Wrong seems to be a center for free thinking right up there with a weekend that half the conference center is rented out to transsexual maximalists and the other half is rented out to anti-vaxxers. But seriously, betting it all on a very rare outcome that requires multiple unknowns to line up doesn't make a lot of sense. I could just as easily make up 10 other improbable scenarios of effective measure zero that demand people's attention as much.
- handoflixue 3y ago
  Keep in mind, every scenario that Less Wrong warns about (nuclear war, climate change, bio-terrorisms, AI risk, etc.) is backed up by a large number of experts in the field. Can you point to even one improbable scenario you made up, that has anywhere near that level of expert agreement?
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    The underlying crazy scenario is that they say you have to evaluate all of the above relative to the possibility of losing a glorious future where we colonize the galaxy with self-replicating machines and put Dyson spheres around all of the stars, and can then simulate millions of copies of all the people who had the foresight to be cryonically frozen or something… And practically those folks are dismissive of climate change relative to the others and are generally not interested in technology relevant to their “long term” vision such as space industrialization, rather they spam us will trolley problems in an attempt to erase our moral sensibilities. Overall there is a religious orientation to the problem and a complete indifference to the complex social and technical problems of, for instance, switching to a carbon neutral energy system and otherwise managing risks.
    - handoflixue 3y ago
      I mean, you can drop everything about Dyson spheres and the like and still appreciate "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". The central arguments aren't about cryonics or anything, they're about "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". To say those folks are "dismissive and generally not interested in technology" seems pretty wild, given those folks include Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the CEO of OpenAI, etc. - despite any flaws you might find with them, this is hardly a group known for being disinterested in tech.
      - PaulHoule 3y ago
        As far as I know, those people (Musk, Gates, et. al) aren’t hanging about on Less Wrong. Sure, anti-capitalists impute great significance in Musk giving nearly $2M to a longtermist organization but for him that is like me giving 78 cents to a bum and getting blamed for the latest explosion at the homeless colony. If you don’t want mankind to go extinct I would recommend you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action for some explanation why problems that could get solved never get solved. Civilizations don’t fail because they have problems, they fail because they can’t solve the problems in front of them. Some mash-up up of H.P. Lovecraft, Teilhard de Chardin, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology isn’t going to help.
JohnFen 3y ago
Judging by their writings, longtermists take the point of view that it's acceptable to basically ignore the real problems of today in order to address fantasy problems in the distant future. That seems like a poor idea to me.
- more_corn 3y ago
  This is unhelpful framing. What if we could both care about the problems of today and also care about the long term survival of our species? They’re not incompatible. In fact care and concern are probably self reinforcing. The more the better. Criticism of longtermism seems to center around two concerns: I will discount these ideas because of who has them, and don’t think of the big picture because the immediate picture is so bad. Neither of which are very good arguments.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > What if we could both care about the problems of today and also care about the long term survival of our species? Oh, I'm on board with that. But that's not what I hear longtermists talking about.
- handoflixue 3y ago
  > it's acceptable to basically ignore the real problems of today in order to address fantasy problems in the distant future. Longtermism came from the "Effective Altruism" movement, which focuses a large portion of it's effort on things like Malaria nets - https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/against-malaria-foundation https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/against-malaria-f... I don't think that you can argue that donating $58 million to fight Malaria is "basically ignoring real problems"
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > I don't think that you can argue that donating $58 million to fight Malaria is "basically ignoring real problems" Certainly not. But that's not longtermism. That's, as you say, part of EA. I have a ton of issues with EA as well, but far less than with longtermists.

by Dig1t 3y ago

This article had the opposite of its intended effect on me. Longtermism seems like pretty sound thinking. I don't know why the article calls it a religion, it just seems like a good idea.

PaulHoule 3y ago

With all their trigger warnings for things that deviate slightly from the classic Yudkowsky line, Less Wrong seems to be a center for free thinking right up there with a weekend that half the conference center is rented out to transsexual maximalists and the other half is rented out to anti-vaxxers. But seriously, betting it all on a very rare outcome that requires multiple unknowns to line up doesn't make a lot of sense. I could just as easily make up 10 other improbable scenarios of effective measure zero that demand people's attention as much.

handoflixue 3y ago
Keep in mind, every scenario that Less Wrong warns about (nuclear war, climate change, bio-terrorisms, AI risk, etc.) is backed up by a large number of experts in the field. Can you point to even one improbable scenario you made up, that has anywhere near that level of expert agreement?
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  The underlying crazy scenario is that they say you have to evaluate all of the above relative to the possibility of losing a glorious future where we colonize the galaxy with self-replicating machines and put Dyson spheres around all of the stars, and can then simulate millions of copies of all the people who had the foresight to be cryonically frozen or something… And practically those folks are dismissive of climate change relative to the others and are generally not interested in technology relevant to their “long term” vision such as space industrialization, rather they spam us will trolley problems in an attempt to erase our moral sensibilities. Overall there is a religious orientation to the problem and a complete indifference to the complex social and technical problems of, for instance, switching to a carbon neutral energy system and otherwise managing risks.
  - handoflixue 3y ago
    I mean, you can drop everything about Dyson spheres and the like and still appreciate "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". The central arguments aren't about cryonics or anything, they're about "I would prefer the human race not to go extinct". To say those folks are "dismissive and generally not interested in technology" seems pretty wild, given those folks include Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the CEO of OpenAI, etc. - despite any flaws you might find with them, this is hardly a group known for being disinterested in tech.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      As far as I know, those people (Musk, Gates, et. al) aren’t hanging about on Less Wrong. Sure, anti-capitalists impute great significance in Musk giving nearly $2M to a longtermist organization but for him that is like me giving 78 cents to a bum and getting blamed for the latest explosion at the homeless colony. If you don’t want mankind to go extinct I would recommend you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action for some explanation why problems that could get solved never get solved. Civilizations don’t fail because they have problems, they fail because they can’t solve the problems in front of them. Some mash-up up of H.P. Lovecraft, Teilhard de Chardin, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology isn’t going to help.

JohnFen 3y ago

Judging by their writings, longtermists take the point of view that it's acceptable to basically ignore the real problems of today in order to address fantasy problems in the distant future. That seems like a poor idea to me.

more_corn 3y ago
This is unhelpful framing. What if we could both care about the problems of today and also care about the long term survival of our species? They’re not incompatible. In fact care and concern are probably self reinforcing. The more the better. Criticism of longtermism seems to center around two concerns: I will discount these ideas because of who has them, and don’t think of the big picture because the immediate picture is so bad. Neither of which are very good arguments.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > What if we could both care about the problems of today and also care about the long term survival of our species? Oh, I'm on board with that. But that's not what I hear longtermists talking about.
handoflixue 3y ago
> it's acceptable to basically ignore the real problems of today in order to address fantasy problems in the distant future. Longtermism came from the "Effective Altruism" movement, which focuses a large portion of it's effort on things like Malaria nets - https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/against-malaria-foundation https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/against-malaria-f... I don't think that you can argue that donating $58 million to fight Malaria is "basically ignoring real problems"
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > I don't think that you can argue that donating $58 million to fight Malaria is "basically ignoring real problems" Certainly not. But that's not longtermism. That's, as you say, part of EA. I have a ton of issues with EA as well, but far less than with longtermists.