We agree that the Torres piece is annoying and, to some extent irresponsible and unfair. And it’s certainly true that there are more sober, thoughtful, penetrating criticisms of specific aspects of longtermism.
Our reasons for including the piece anyway are: (1) It’s probably the single most well-known attack on longtermism, and it’s helpful to know what kinds of objections have made it out into the world and gotten traction outside the EA bubble. (2) It bundles together many criticisms in one place, so we don’t have to read four or five different essays. (3) We think it’s healthy to hear outside-view criticisms that don’t shy away from denouncing the whole longtermist program. (4) Although Torres focuses too much on (particular interpretations of) Bostrom as a stand-in for longtermism generally, some of his worries about Bostromism do a good job raising tricky and essential questions.
We wish there were a piece that did a similar amount of useful things without so many flaws, but we don’t know of any!
That said, we think Scott Alexander’s recent piece on longtermism is pretty good, and maybe we should read that too.
This depends also on your demand. You can apply now, and it's OK if you can't come because the discussion time is terrible for you. After looking at the timetable, I think doing it afternoons is the best option at the moment. Sadly, then it's pretty late in the Philippines :(also depends
Thanks for putting this together! Learned some new things about my local group!
We are here: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=48.150172364595484%2C11.588365696370602
Maybe https://foodimpacts.org/ ?
Me as well! Thanks a lot!
https://founderspledge.com/funds/patient-philanthropy-fund Founders Pledge tries the opposite and Phil Trammell's research also argues that more patient philanthropists (who value the long term future) should save most of their money. But if u have very short timelines this might change as discussed here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8c7LycgtkypkgYjZx/agi-and-the-emh-markets-are-not-expecting-aligned-or
Philip Trammell has researched this topic of the timing of philanthropy. You can find it here: https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Trammell-Dynamic-Public-Good-Provision-under-Time-Preference-Heterogeneity.pdf or more informal here:
Thanks for the warm words, Kevin! I am looking forward to getting to know you on Tuesday!
Thanks for writing this! Great to see this written out finally.
We agree that the Torres piece is annoying and, to some extent irresponsible and unfair. And it’s certainly true that there are more sober, thoughtful, penetrating criticisms of specific aspects of longtermism.
Our reasons for including the piece anyway are: (1) It’s probably the single most well-known attack on longtermism, and it’s helpful to know what kinds of objections have made it out into the world and gotten traction outside the EA bubble. (2) It bundles together many criticisms in one place, so we don’t have to read four or five different essays. (3) We think it’s healthy to hear outside-view criticisms that don’t shy away from denouncing the whole longtermist program. (4) Although Torres focuses too much on (particular interpretations of) Bostrom as a stand-in for longtermism generally, some of his worries about Bostromism do a good job raising tricky and essential questions.
We wish there were a piece that did a similar amount of useful things without so many flaws, but we don’t know of any!
That said, we think Scott Alexander’s recent piece on longtermism is pretty good, and maybe we should read that too.
This depends also on your demand. You can apply now, and it's OK if you can't come because the discussion time is terrible for you. After looking at the timetable, I think doing it afternoons is the best option at the moment. Sadly, then it's pretty late in the Philippines :(also depends