If people 500 or 1000 years ago took longtermism and applied it to their values, they might justify more radical action in order to meet the goals of [insert religion here], for purposes of eternal salvation / heaven etc. There's probably no set of values from previous generations we'd want to "give longtermism to" if it also meant their values were locked in.
Is there any reason to believe that people 500 or 1000 years from now won't look at us in the same way?
2) Had we invested massively into iron lungs for polio 100 years ago for purposes of future generations, much of that would have been wasted when the polio vaccine came out.
Is there any reason to believe future generations won't be better at dealing with future problems than us, apart from near-term extinction events, or near term events that will stop future generations from having the capability to solve their problems?
BruceTsai11 karma
Hey Will, thanks for doing the AMA!
If people 500 or 1000 years ago took longtermism and applied it to their values, they might justify more radical action in order to meet the goals of [insert religion here], for purposes of eternal salvation / heaven etc. There's probably no set of values from previous generations we'd want to "give longtermism to" if it also meant their values were locked in.
Is there any reason to believe that people 500 or 1000 years from now won't look at us in the same way?
2) Had we invested massively into iron lungs for polio 100 years ago for purposes of future generations, much of that would have been wasted when the polio vaccine came out.
Is there any reason to believe future generations won't be better at dealing with future problems than us, apart from near-term extinction events, or near term events that will stop future generations from having the capability to solve their problems?
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