Post AQ1asecgXbNPmdqBPs by timorl@qoto.org
(DIR) More posts by timorl@qoto.org
(DIR) Post #AQ1a7hWfvhu7B1dmOu by timorl@qoto.org
2022-11-27T09:16:51Z
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Augh, I just read a huge list of critiques of longtermism, reading a couple of the more interesting-sounding ones in detail and skimming a couple more, and **not one** mentions the core of the issue with treating future people exactly the same as currently existing ones. (Vaden Masrani in https://vmasrani.github.io/blog/2020/against_longtermism/ comes the closest, although he also accidentally invalidates all epistemology with one of his arguments. Anyway, credit to him for coming the closest.) I don't think this is correct, for two kinds of reasons, anthropics and the fact that people are beings existing in time, so it shouldn't be surprizing that our values are not time-invariant. Why no one(?) is properly criticizing this part is beyond me, am I really the only one who sees these specific problems? Seems extremely unlikely.Oh, and to be clear the criticisms of the _effects_ of longtermism are on point – the dangers of the ideology should be clear even to its proponents – the criticisms of the practicalities are pretty good (I would put more stress on the fact that a big part of the problem is that thinking about sufficiently small probabilities almost surely hits the problems with resource limited reasoning, in which case it's well known that Bayesianism ceases to be optimal, but in general the points are good) the criticisms of utilitarianism mostly suck (although mostly inasmuch as they conflate utilitarianism in general with the total utility variant, and it's hard to blame them for that since this is important as a basis for longtermism), it's just the complete absence of criticisms of the core idea described above that worries me and likely makes proponents of longtermism feel secure in these assumptions, which they really shouldn't.For reference, the list I'm referring to: https://www.longtermism-hub.com/critiques .
(DIR) Post #AQ1asecgXbNPmdqBPs by timorl@qoto.org
2022-11-27T09:25:20Z
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@modulux Yeah, I understand why this looks like the default to them, I even think that most of the time assuming things are time-invariant at first is the reasonable approach (e.g. I strongly suspect that the correct decision theory will end up being time-invariant), I'm just mystified why no one examined this assumption with regards to morality among so many critiques.
(DIR) Post #AQ1cI4wFw9V6asgLPE by cappallo@qoto.org
2022-11-27T09:41:09Z
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@timorl Maybe you've already seen this, or it's too much of a layman treatment for you, but I liked https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/292-how-much-does-the-future-matter which touched on this quite a bit.
(DIR) Post #AQ1eacrClcqSuYI6YS by timorl@qoto.org
2022-11-27T10:06:54Z
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@cappallo Unfortunately I am quite averse to podcasts as a format, and this one additionally seems to start with quite some unrelated stuff – do you know of any transcripts? Even if not, thanks anyway, I might end up listening to this at some point.
(DIR) Post #AQ1rIRHGNdwJBm8bQ0 by robryk@qoto.org
2022-11-27T12:29:16Z
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@timorl @modulux Note that there are two point in time involved in this problem, so there are many varied forms of a time-invariance assumption.
(DIR) Post #AQ2GIAEyDlwVCh1z0a by nomi@qoto.org
2022-11-27T17:09:22Z
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@timorl maybe I'm missing a piece here, but the reason you don't treat future people the same as currently living people is:1) they don't exist2) their potential existence does not give them a probabilistic moral standing3) even if 2 is wrong, they have no way to voice their needs or desiresFuture people shouldn't be treated the same as living people because they do not have moral standing as full people. They're more like a species of tree we don't want to go extinct. I can comprehend it's general needs (air, water, sunlight), but there is no want to understand it's specific needs
(DIR) Post #AQ2LjGzNjnTvivU9zs by timorl@qoto.org
2022-11-27T18:10:17Z
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@nomi Yes! I have minor quibbles with some of the things your wrote, but this is the general line of reasoning I would like someone to follow, only in a more formal philosophical language (unfortunately none of these assertions are sufficiently well supported a priori from a formal point of view). Why no one has is exactly what annoys me.
(DIR) Post #AQ8ILvJX1b4avQqPeC by robryk@qoto.org
2022-11-30T15:00:43Z
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@timorl @nomi What's the most important distinction between people who don't exist yet and people who are sleeping?
(DIR) Post #AQ8ckgHi2TR6dS4h2O by 8petros@petroskowo.pl
2022-11-30T18:43:46Z
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@timorl May I humbly ask for a tl;dr of your critique?
(DIR) Post #AQ8k1h6YwSe3mUv8Ou by timorl@qoto.org
2022-11-30T20:10:46Z
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@8petros Unfortunately, I don’t have the whole thing written down or even fully thought through, if I had I would have at least linked it. :<The line of reasoning I would start with would go something like: The mere existence of people is not inherently valuable (this is what I was referring to as “anthropics”, which is not quite correct, but I tend to think of it as a moral equivalent of the epistemological problem), so there is no moral incentive to produce more of them a priori. This already puts into question whether the future will contain that many more people as longtermists claim is likely or desired (depending on the specific subschool of thought). From there I would also examine assumptions of how much we actually should be deciding for potential people – while I see we might have some obligations towards future generations, assuming too much risks impeding on their autonomy, which is also problematic.Eh, there would likely be more, but even what I have already written contains so many philosophical holes that I get anxious re-reading it. If I ever get a week free I might end up writing down a semi-rigorous version of this argument. Actually, probably a couple weeks, since I have higher priority things to do… bleh.