We begin with a look at Daniel Faggella's pro-extinctionism, show how it's nearly identical to longtermism, and then examine a number of dubious assumptions underlying the longtermist ideology.
I’m a utilitarian, andI think Bostrum is batshit insane, so I take offence at the conclusion that all utilitarians must think like him. I also completely disagree that numbercrunching equals capitalism. Eg, numbercrunching might mean rationing your consumption to what you can afford to consume. That’s survival and prudent, and not doing so, causing your children to starve, would be immoral. (That’s not to conflate the situation with the capitalistic system, which is obviously deeply immoral.)
In short, just because some utilitarians are deeply confused, it doesn’t mean utalitarinism as a whole isn’t obviously the least bad way to make sense of a meaningless universe. That people can’t intuitively wrap their heads around the value of future lives makes sense, evolutionarily, but principles dictate that the babies born tomorrow have just as much worth as those born next year, and so on.
i always read yr stuff and this is particularly wild (i.e.:good). thanks for existing 🤗
I’m a utilitarian, andI think Bostrum is batshit insane, so I take offence at the conclusion that all utilitarians must think like him. I also completely disagree that numbercrunching equals capitalism. Eg, numbercrunching might mean rationing your consumption to what you can afford to consume. That’s survival and prudent, and not doing so, causing your children to starve, would be immoral. (That’s not to conflate the situation with the capitalistic system, which is obviously deeply immoral.)
In short, just because some utilitarians are deeply confused, it doesn’t mean utalitarinism as a whole isn’t obviously the least bad way to make sense of a meaningless universe. That people can’t intuitively wrap their heads around the value of future lives makes sense, evolutionarily, but principles dictate that the babies born tomorrow have just as much worth as those born next year, and so on.
Thanks for this- the dependence of longtermism on digital minds is definitely unremarked upon by most longtermists. People might be interested in my interview with Anil Seth on why AI will not become conscious, here- https://substack.com/@beneaththechip/note/c-257309533?r=22wy94&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
brilliant thank you for putting in the effort to dissect this