people sometimes think "this guy is smart, he just have his shit together"
this is fundamentally backwards; the whole point of being smart is that you can get away with having your shit very far apart indeed
>be me
>longtermist
>future people matter just as much as people alive today
>completely agree
>there could be trillions of them
>also agree
>therefore we must decide what they need now
>hang on
>born in 1990
>making plans for people born in 2190
>they will have 164 more years of science
>164 more years of political experience
>164 more years of technological progress
>possibly machine superintelligence
>fortunately they also have me
>guy with a pdf
>explain that future generations may be unimaginably capable
>they could cure diseases
>build space habitats
>engineer new forms of intelligence
>solve problems we cannot even formulate
>incredible
>anyway i've worked out their priorities
>friend asks why they can't decide for themselves
>because by then it may be too late
>too late for what
>for us to tell them what to do
>imagine 5000 BC
>very serious longtermist meeting
>our descendants will face unimaginable dangers
>we must prepare
>manufacture 80 million stone axes
>bury them in strategic caches
>future-proof civilization
>bronze age begins
>lol
>lmao
>committee publishes report blaming insufficient stone-axis funding
>obvious lesson
>don't just leave descendants tools
>leave them the ability to make better tools
>education
>institutions
>science
>wealth
>optionality
>capacity to change course
>sounds suspiciously like helping people who are alive
>quickly return to asteroid scenarios
>friend says maybe the best thing for 2200 is to help 2050 become competent enough to help 2100
>then 2100 helps 2150
>then 2150 helps 2200
>sounds inefficient
>why use succession when i can personally optimize the year 2200 from my laptop
>explain moral uncertainty
>we should expect future people to know more than us
>possibly be morally wiser than us
>this is why we must be very careful not to lock in today's values
>friend nods
>asks whether they should be allowed to reject our values
>that's value drift
>very important distinction
>future people are morally equal to us
>they are not epistemically equal to us
>obviously
>they know less
>friend points out they literally live in the future
>ignore heckler
>write grant proposal
>goal: preserve humanity's option value
>excellent
>preserve options by building institution dedicated to one worldview
>hire people who agree the worldview should remain influential for centuries
>call this epistemic diversity
>someone proposes spending money on children today
>ridiculous
>their effect on the distant future is impossible to calculate
>someone proposes funding my speculative intervention
>its effect on the distant future is impossible to calculate
>exactly
>that's why expected value is so large
>imagine ancestor from 1720
>leaves me a letter
>dear descendant
>i have carefully considered your interests
>you must invest in sailmaking
>avoid electricity
>maintain the divine right of kings
>and under no circumstances revise these instructions
>laugh at primitive idiot
>open document titled
>"Recommendations for the Long-Term Future of Humanity"
>begin to understand the actual duty to descendants
>not "solve their problems for them"
>more like "don't destroy the world and leave them a functioning civilization"
>this seems disappointingly normal
>where are the exponents
>try new framing
>humanity is an intergenerational relay race
>our job is to hand over the baton in good condition
>next runner may be faster
>may choose a better route
>may discover the race is actually swimming
>important thing is not welding the baton to our hand
>colleague objects
>some problems really are irreversible
>asteroids
>nuclear war
>engineered pandemics
>AI
>fair enough
>then show that this problem actually requires action now
>show that delay destroys future options
>show that your intervention helps
>this sounds like a lot of work
>can't we just say 10^50 people
>realize the funniest part
>entire argument for longtermism depends on future civilization becoming vastly more capable than us
>entire argument for present control depends on future civilization being unable to reconsider our decisions
>Schrödinger's descendant
>smart enough to colonize the lightcone
>too dumb to edit the roadmap
>future humans convert stars into computronium
>build minds beyond our comprehension
>master matter and energy
>open ancient archive from 2026
>"hello descendants, we anticipated your needs"
>everyone stops
>thank god
>the stone-tool people left instructions
--
this part is inspired by some @visakanv writings
The final red pill is that there is no real difference between EFFICIENTLY doomsday prepping for the NWO global fashocommunist tyranny, the collapse of civilisation into mad max barberism, Ww3 total nuclear apocalypse, 4d aliens, machine elves, the second coming of jesus, etc, AND, just being an efficiently adult man operating in a functional civilization and human economy: you have to be as competent as possible, and you have to make friends with skills you don't have, and you guys can have a little gang or "friendship", and fill in the skill gaps for each other, because that's just what civilization is at the end of the day. Whether the world ends tomorrow or not has exactly zero impact on your daily life, your calculus for "hmm okay so what should I do next", and it is all in a practical sense purely an intellectual excersise for its own sake. You should have a stockpile of beans, you should have a garden, you should know how to do basic carpentry and electrical work, you should own an antique blunderbuss for self defence, you should do push-ups, you should eat healthy, and so on and so on. There's so much to do and very few hours in the day, and it's probably better to be alive than to be proven right about your theories about politics, and the way your spend your time, either prepping or worrying, might be the difference between life and death. Doomsday prep for the living Now. Doomsday prep for living in the moment.
My friend, who was an ER doc, had a young boy who had fallen into a pool when he was 2 or 3 years old in the winter. They found him floating and rushed him to the ER.
My friend was a new ER doc, and he would not stop giving him CPR. They told him to stop over and over. He would not. He kept at it until the seemingly dead boy took in a deep breath.
That boy is now alive and before this doc retired, would come visit him every year on that day. The same ambulance drivers from when he was young would pick him up each year to take him back to the hospital to thank my friend.
My friend said that when the body is so cold, it saves it from many injuries you can get from simple drowning. The cold actually is a protection.
I am so thankful this hospital did not give up on her, and that she is well.
Formidable!
War has been slowly losing all its machoness and glory since the invention of dishonorable projectile weapons, now in the drone era its just a bugman video game x industrial complex ordeal
Embrace world peace, not because we are enlightened, but because war has become too gay