Thanks for the always helpful and interesting engagement, Richard!
I'd like to clarify the Nuclear War argument a bit. I am claiming that we are clueless about whether a nuclear war in the near future would overall have good vs bad consequences over a billion-years-plus time frame continuing at least to the heat death of the universe. I do think a nuclear war would be bad for humanity! The way you summarize my claim, which depends on a certain way of thinking about what is "bad for humanity", makes my view sound more sharply in conflict with common sense than I think it actually is.
Clarifying "N-Bad" as *that* claim, it's not clear to me that denying it is commonsensical or that it should have a high prior.
(I do also make a shorter-term claim about nuclear war: That if we have a nuclear war soon, we might learn an enduring lesson about existential risk that durably convinces us to take such risks seriously, and if this even slightly decreases existential risk, then humanity would be more likely to exist in 10,000 years than without nuclear war. My claim for this argument is only that it is similar in style to and as plausible as other types of longtermist arguments; and that's grounds for something like epoche (skeptical indifference) regarding arguments of this sort.)
Thanks for the always helpful and interesting engagement, Richard!
I'd like to clarify the Nuclear War argument a bit. I am claiming that we are clueless about whether a nuclear war in the near future would overall have good vs bad consequences over a billion-years-plus time frame continuing at least to the heat death of the universe. I do think a nuclear war would be bad for humanity! The way you summarize my claim, which depends on a certain way of thinking about what is "bad for humanity", makes my view sound more sharply in conflict with common sense than I think it actually is.
Clarifying "N-Bad" as *that* claim, it's not clear to me that denying it is commonsensical or that it should have a high prior.
(I do also make a shorter-term claim about nuclear war: That if we have a nuclear war soon, we might learn an enduring lesson about existential risk that durably convinces us to take such risks seriously, and if this even slightly decreases existential risk, then humanity would be more likely to exist in 10,000 years than without nuclear war. My claim for this argument is only that it is similar in style to and as plausible as other types of longtermist arguments; and that's grounds for something like epoche (skeptical indifference) regarding arguments of this sort.)
How do Schwitzgebel's points about the long-term unpredictability of our actions relate to McAskill and Mogensen's "paralysis argument"?
https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/summary-the-paralysis-argument/#:~:text=In%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Paralysis%20Argument%2C%E2%80%9D,improving%20the%20long%2Drun%20future.
BTW is it possible to embed links in the comments?