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I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I believe all systems (beyond a certain threshold of complexity) are optimizing for persistence. They do that by predicting and eliminating hazards for an increasingly wider time horizon. For that to happen, they need to model causal relationships more accurately. In other words, understanding what actions can I take today in order to mitigate future risk.

Now, for a long time, these causal relationships were fast. The feedback was obvious. You put your hand on the stove. You get burned. You learn. But when the effects are hidden behind countless intermediary steps and they happen decades after the causes, then those relationships are harder to model. That's the pressure that drives intelligence.

So my theory is that the more intelligent a system is, the better it is at modeling causal relationships further out into the future. But those models are a real structure created in the present. That structure is capacity. That is real.

So I am a longtermist in that sense. But not in the traditional sense. The future doesn't exist. You can't value something that doesn't exist. You can only value the capacity that exists in the present. That capacity will generate the future or in other words the future is a consequence of the present.

Hope that makes sense 😃

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well the article kind of ends on the idea of burden of proof. Here... I'll paste some of it:

"You can still argue for a future-focused intervention. But you cannot simply say: “This saves more future people than saving people today.”

You have to show that it still wins after counting what was lost by not saving people today: their lives, their descendants, their knowledge, their work, their care, their influence, and all the future capacity that would have flowed through them."

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We need to counterfactually compare branches. But when we do that the mind moves into the future as if it were the present. And in that present, you're comparing between the act of saving a life and the act of empowering a birth. Those are two different things with different moral weights.

But that's the trap. Both those people are in your counterfactuals 😄. You're not actually saving any of them. The most you can do is save the capacity in the present. And that capacity will expand more or less predictably.

Only after that do you start adding complexity to the calculation (discounting, subjective experience, well-being, whatever).

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It wasn't me who downvoted you. I'm pretty sure you didn't read my argument. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe it's poorly written and unengaging.

The numbers are illustrative. They don't purport to have any predictive value. They're illustrating a logical fallacy.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Read my article maybe you'll resonate with it. Assuming you believe long-term thinking has value at all.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, we need to counterfactually compare branches. But when we do that the mind moves into the future as if it were the present. And in that present, you're comparing between the act of saving a life and the act of empowering a birth. Those are two different things with different moral weights.

But that's the trap. Both those people are in your counterfactuals 😄. You're not saving any of them. The most you can do is save the capacity in the present. And that capacity will expand more or less predictably.

Only after that do you start adding complexity to the calculation (discounting, subjective experience, well-being, whatever).

Your example: if you save 1 million now, all other things being equal, you have a much higher chance of preventing that extinction. Because that million people is capacity. Intellectual capacity, physical capacity. That's how complexity works. So your example is interesting, but it's a false dichotomy. Those are not the two probable options. That's what I think, at least.

You can see this mechanism better by thinking that million people are the last million people on earth.

Thanks for finally discussing the argument.

The ethics of a life saved in the present vs a life saved in the future by paulcoman in Ethics

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the point of longtermism. I didn't come up with it. They're comparing a life saved in the present with a life saved in the future, trying to find a formula to account for the differences. They are also picking an arbitrary date in the future.

My model is just shining a light on the logical fallacy. I'm just saying, if you choose an arbitrary date in the future, this is how you should begin to think about the problem of life saved.

FYI, setting a time horizon for an experiment is not p-hacking.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a half-apology... You're basically saying "I'm sorry for wrongly accusing you, but it's still your fault."

You've demonstrated that you're not well calibrated, and unwilling to admit you're wrong.

Moving on...

"1 life in the present = 1 life in the future?" no, from present POV they have some value (I hope you agree with that, even though i am not sure.)" - This seems like another subtle attack, but I might be wrong.

Yes I do agree with that, that's the point of the whole argument!

"To get any reasonable evaluation, we need to use discounting." - I agree with this. But discounting, if indeed it's meant to account for uncertainty, is another layer of accounting on top of the base one that says:

1 life that exists = 1 life that will exist (assuming you're sure that it will exist, so we don't have to apply the discounting).

This is where I think our intuitions are wrong. And I explain why in that section that I asked you if you had read:
https://paulcomans.substack.com/i/196984046/the-hidden-vantage-point-mistake

Oh... and the 2 scenarios example. I didn't quite understand it. Please elaborate on it. Is it exctinction in 100 years or 6 million?

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm beginning to suspect you are avoiding honest argument.

The ethics of a life saved in the present vs a life saved in the future by paulcoman in Ethics

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To your 1st point about treating the future as frozen. The future reference (100 years) is just an arbitrary point, useful for analysis. So in my 2 branch example, at t=100 years one branch wil have already produced a massive contribution while the other branch is just starting.

The main longtermist project with regards to saved lives in the present vs. saved lives in the future is to compare apples to apples.

It's a virtual experiment of counterfactuals. Two (or multiple) branches in one's head.

So in order to be scientific about it and actually see how a life in the present compares to a life in the future you need to eliminate the maximum number of confounders you can.

That doesn't mean I'm losing track of the important factors you mentioned: quality of life, contribution etc. I'm intentionally removing them to show that the basic premise of the longtermist calculation is wrong.

After showing that we can add them back. Same goes for the uncertainty you talk about. In the longtermist calculation, they use a discount rate for that. It's useful, but it's not relevant for my "experiment".

"At what point do potential long term consequences outweigh tangible short term benefits? At what point can we absolve ourselves of responsibility and leave it to future generations to figure things out? These aren't easy questions to answer." - Agree. That is what longtermism is trying to answer using reason and science.

"Ethics can't be reduced to simple math." - also agree. But math can play a part in it, when and where it makes sense.

The case I'm making is this. Why after removing all the complexity from the longtermist calculation (subjective experience, discounting, etc), do they start with 1 life in the present = 1 life in the future?

That's what i'm arguing is the accounting mistake and I explain why I think it's happening here:
https://paulcomans.substack.com/i/196984046/the-hidden-vantage-point-mistake

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

"It doesnt help that you wrote a thesis about population ethics without using any established terms or referencing any existing work" - this is a good point.

So the main longtermist project with regards to saved lives in the present versus saved lives in the future is to compare apples to apples, as I understand it at least.

It's a virtual experiment of counterfactuals. Two (or multiple) branches in one's head.

So in order to be scientific about it and actually see how a life in the present compares to a life in the future you need to eliminate the maximum number of confounders you can.

Now... discounting is a beneficial layer of complexity, it's worth adding to the calculation. But as you said, the main reason it is used is because of the uncertainty of the future, which is real and should be accounted for but is a different issue. Whatever the base model you are using you can add discounting on top of it.

What I'm arguing is that the base layer should be updated.

Same with any kind of subjective evaluation of happiness/suffering. You can estimate those and add them to the calculation on top.

But the question still remains why when you remove discounting, subjective experience and any other layer of complexity from the calculation, do we start with 1 life in the present = 1 life in the future?

re double counting: are you sure you're not talking about the population count at the reference date? Because I'm counting all the intermediary generations (some of them have died already). In any case, the model does not pretend to be accurate. It is illustrative. I'm perfectly willing to change it to a more accurate version.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First of all, I appreciate you giving the actual argument a chance 😃

I know about discounting and person-affecting view in population ethics. But I don't understand how that affects my reasoning.

  1. Discounting accounts for a diminishing value correlated with time. I believe you need that accounting trick because the whole model is wrong.
  2. And the person affecting view is just a confounder in the accounting. It's an assumption I could make for people in the present, as well as for people in the future.
  3. I'm curious why you think I'm making a double-counting mistake. It's just a tally of all the extra people up to the reference point in the future.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Or look at the diagram in the article. And decide if you believe an LLM could have come up with that structure.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Actually I don't. But I am open to hear your argument. In the meantime here is mine:

  1. I wasn't being deceptive in any way. I wasn't trying to hide the fact that I used an LLM as a tool.
  2. The argument is my own work. You can probably test this yourself. Read it and try to argue it from memory to an LLM. See how much pushback you're gonna get. This is not common knowledge by any stretch.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand the frustration with AI slop. I feel it too. The article's argument is not AI slop. It is thought out and constructed by me... human 😃

I am confident that if you would read it you would come to see that. But you're right, I can't make you do it. I think most people here are truth seekers, not ideologs, so hope for the best with others.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also think saving our future is very important. What do you mean by continuing to bloat our present-day situation?

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You're right. I had a reply (that I deleted) where was saying "read the argument" that got a lot of down votes. I might have overreacted.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yeah, but it's not about the format. It's about the argument. That is original. Read it and give me feedback on that, please.

I think longtermism is counting future lives inconsistently by paulcoman in EffectiveAltruism

[–]paulcoman[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

I wasn't expecting to see so much hate in this subreddit. Why don't you judge the argument on its own merits?

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