I have to say that i'm so tired of reading these things - as interesting it might be to read about some whackos like them - that just being apalled is not enough to describe how repulsive is a world in which human value is used like a number - especially if it is pulled out of their arse just to hide their racism, classism, sexism (ecc ecc)

Btw, i also have the pet peeve that such horrible calculations do not take into account that an earlier action that saves less lives actually has a theorethical effect of saving other lives for the sheer fact that the people you saved now might provide value in the future. In their perverse logic, this is something that should be taken into account. Given that i'm only an ai major taking a small course on ethics, i both find myself repelled by what i said and amused that such deep thinkers couldn't think of the "potential" value generated after saving someone now rather than in the future.

Given they're all for this sort of horrible calculations, if someone doesn't include this in their thinking - and as far as I read, this potential is not taken into consideration - they might have just condemned billions to die for a wrong calculation. Gah

> Longtermism should not be confused with “long-term thinking.” It goes way beyond the observation that our society is dangerously myopic, and that we should care about future generations no less than present ones. At the heart of this worldview, as delineated by Bostrom, is the idea that what matters most is for “Earth-originating intelligent life” to fulfill its potential in the cosmos. What exactly is “our potential”? As I have noted elsewhere, it involves subjugating nature, maximizing economic productivity, replacing humanity with a superior “posthuman” species, colonizing the universe, and ultimately creating an unfathomably huge population of conscious beings living what Bostrom describes as “rich and happy lives” inside high-resolution computer simulations.

> This is what “our potential” consists of, and it constitutes the ultimate aim toward which humanity as a whole, and each of us as individuals, are morally obligated to strive.

I do not believe that this is either obvious, an accurate generalization of longtermism or backed by references (did I miss one?)

EDIT: Did miss the "noted elsewhere" link (pdf): https://c8df8822-f112-4676-8332-ad89713358e3.filesusr.com/ug...

There is an argument that western civilization went astray when Plato elevated human reason above all other virtues. The obvious problem is that for all of the wonderful things reasoning has given us, it is just as effectively used for deceit both of the self and others. The arguments behind much of today's so called rationalists are laughable -- especially to someone outside of their bubble. It is precisely for these reasons that they have to cloak their ridiculous arguments in arbitrary quantitative analysis and impenetrable jargon. And then there is the irony of their nearly universal militant atheism that comes along with sneering contempt for traditional religion (which they also generally have at best an extremely superficial knowledge of).

I also am particularly amused by the worship of Bayesian statistics without serious reflection on the fact that it is premised on subjective belief in the prior.

I remember reading about a company that had these 5-year projections of what their sales and revenue was going to be. A new CEO came in and said, wait a minute, we can't accurately predict what our sales are going to be next month. How are we going to make 5-year predictions that are anything other than worthless?

He scrapped the long-term planning system, shrinking the planning window down shorter and shorter. They ran the company on a 30-day window for a year or 18 months. Only then did they get the numbers right. After that, they extended the planning window, but never back to five years.

So, those who are doing longtermism: How accurate are your short-term forecasts? Can you accurately predict a year from now? If not, how can you predict the long term future with enough accuracy to act on?

Worse: For every year further in the future, you should probably multiply your certainty in your prediction by 0.8. (This depends on the nature of the prediction, of course, and is a made-up number. Still, the point is valid - the longer term the prediction, the more probability that it is not only wrong, but wildly wrong.) That means (using that number) that predictions 10 years out only have 10% accuracy. Predictions 20 years out only have 1% accuracy. How do you think you know enough today about what will happen then in order to make decisions now on the basis of what will happen then?

I don't plan to live forever, but I do go to the doctor to check if something may affect my short and middle term health, and try to follow his advice for short and middle term recommendations, from taking some medicine for some present problem to exercise and eat healthy for the not long term future.

Putting the extremes as the two options frame the discussion as having only two unreasonable alternatives. Worrying and taking action to avoid the worst of climate change won't ensure our very long term survival, but we are expected to survive a few centuries more at the very least. Its like reaching 40 and do everything in our hands to kill ourselves what the civilization is doing.