What can one do today to have a big predictable influence on the long-term future? In this post I’ll use a simple decision framework, wherein there is no game or competition, one is just trying to influence a random uncaring universe. I’ll
Sure if your focus is promoting a particular viewpoint then fertility might not seem as attractive a strategy. But here I'm looking at all ways to influence the distant future. Surely fertility influences something.
I'm not sure your argument about fertility holds up. Having more progeny only bolsters your side of any future fights to the extent that your distant progeny share your viewpoints on those issues. There are a few, very broad struggles where this seems plausible, as in western liberal democracy vs more regressive societies, but it seems unlikely to help if your concern is with a particular outcome for FAI or growth vs stasis. And I'm not very convinced that population growth is going to be a decisive factor in preserving democracy.
Sorry missed that (I was tripped up by the previous sentence since I don't think of existential risk mitigation as primarily an innovation/growth rate change).
Work (or funding of work) to mitigate certain existential risks *may* have huge long term impact (and can be credibly estimated upfront to have large expected benefits, which seems predictable enough for most practical purposes).
This begs the question of why returns are greater than growth and whether seeking higher higher returns would actually lead to more more growth. Innovation is risky and has a wide variance of returns, so it is not unlikely adopting them can be less risky than developing them, but also that growth won't happen without investing in them, so it seems unlikely that avoiding this risk will lead to greater growth. Instead, there should be a risk return tradeoff which if you believe is mispriced you should take advantage of if you can. You may be misguided, as we may all together, but uncertain a priori, variance can be to your advantage, and there may be social benefits to failure even not personal. I wouldn't say there is any lack of interest in this as educational/scientific donations are second only to religious.
Lowered population growth seems to indicate the returns from this are low or negative, while their is no shortage of children to invest in, and selecting those to invest in may be far more efficient than having your own, depending on your capabilities and resources and how extendable they are. Favoring education, gender equality, and vaccination also promote these.
Sure if your focus is promoting a particular viewpoint then fertility might not seem as attractive a strategy. But here I'm looking at all ways to influence the distant future. Surely fertility influences something.
I'm not sure your argument about fertility holds up. Having more progeny only bolsters your side of any future fights to the extent that your distant progeny share your viewpoints on those issues. There are a few, very broad struggles where this seems plausible, as in western liberal democracy vs more regressive societies, but it seems unlikely to help if your concern is with a particular outcome for FAI or growth vs stasis. And I'm not very convinced that population growth is going to be a decisive factor in preserving democracy.
Sorry missed that (I was tripped up by the previous sentence since I don't think of existential risk mitigation as primarily an innovation/growth rate change).
Yes.
What is "p3s2"? Paragraph 3, sentence 2?
Did you miss p3s2? Or did you just want to repeat the point?
Work (or funding of work) to mitigate certain existential risks *may* have huge long term impact (and can be credibly estimated upfront to have large expected benefits, which seems predictable enough for most practical purposes).
I didn't claim that seeking higher investment returns would cause more growth.
This begs the question of why returns are greater than growth and whether seeking higher higher returns would actually lead to more more growth. Innovation is risky and has a wide variance of returns, so it is not unlikely adopting them can be less risky than developing them, but also that growth won't happen without investing in them, so it seems unlikely that avoiding this risk will lead to greater growth. Instead, there should be a risk return tradeoff which if you believe is mispriced you should take advantage of if you can. You may be misguided, as we may all together, but uncertain a priori, variance can be to your advantage, and there may be social benefits to failure even not personal. I wouldn't say there is any lack of interest in this as educational/scientific donations are second only to religious.
Lowered population growth seems to indicate the returns from this are low or negative, while their is no shortage of children to invest in, and selecting those to invest in may be far more efficient than having your own, depending on your capabilities and resources and how extendable they are. Favoring education, gender equality, and vaccination also promote these.