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Aggravating_Roe t1_it7cwl5 wrote

I believe that there are somewhat a false dichotomy here. Taking stock of the future does not rule out the present and vice versa.

Plus, anti-longtermism is not intuitive. If future generations counts for nothing, then we have no real incentive for true sustainability. Also, by the fact that generations progresses continuously we are connected with the long term already.

My interpretation of longtermism is as a attempt to come to terms with the current human condition under the anthropocene, where resources have to be viewed as finite and externalities have nowhere to be pushed.

Further, the article in general misses the mark and the good form of giving one’s philosophical opponent it’s best interpretation: the argument that a person in the 1900:s could not have foresight of the coming century is kind of irrelevant. The point to steel man is that we should think seriously about alternative futures and consequences when implementing technology or making policy. And the AI issue does not rely on AGI - rather on alignment and optimization to what values under who’s control.

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ConfusedObserver0 t1_ita2jmx wrote

Well said.

MacAskill’s book has spurned a lot of interest recently.

I think we are obviously tangibly tethered to the future as far as our lives will be effected by it and our offspring will be too. As that generational relay team race steps ever forward in time.

I’ve heard people signal for years, “it not just IQ but people that plan for the long term future that achieve more and have a better lifelong outcomes,” curiously from alt-right people I grew up with who are fighting the now wars.

Often the long term ism, is not just oriented for 100 years from now but mid term and even short duration as well yield declines in this problems that some people would prefer to hand wave away as insoluble. The issue is that if people can’t make it day to day, you will never convince them to invest in the future. This is what I call the conditional statement of being liberal in the first place. In the old model which leans conservative you fight like an animal for survival. Once we take you out of this state of being, you can attempt to view some i thing like liberal rights, free speech as universal in a long term ism way that’s twice removed 10x in laws of bigger numbers and evaluations. Otherwise it’s all just hand to mouth and gun in hand.

Take a solution to retirement as an example. If we gave every child born from today on out, 10k that’s invested into a Janus fund or whatever, then by the age 65 they would have over a million in retirement (think it’s potentially much more with average historical yield’s). Though, now who is going to see a need to solve a problem that takes 65 years to show the results? But it’s the old small time thinking that has us stuck in the present situation with many problems.

We can’t fix it all either, since we can’t predict it all. Flexibility is an important feature of a government. Much division and bureaucracy slows one’s ability to be malleable but have their own valuable purpose as well.

I would think someone that disputes this, is more a fan of Cioran and practices more nihilistic behaviors. The only catch is I don’t mind if you go back to the organic man on your own, but your not taking any of the abstract man with you. But how can one decide to be an unevolved monkey after already being apart of it? In the end it’s just self validation for one’s independent experience that would destroy all the gains for the masses past peoples worked so hard for us to ameliorate.

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