That’s exactly correct. But if you take post-singularity life into account, survivors from our time are competing for resources with new lives. If you fix the date of the singularity and trust post-singularity resources to be allocated optimally, our decisions don’t have moral consequence beyond the singularity; we can’t take credit for the 28k years either way.
If you fix the date of the singularity and trust post-singularity resources to be allocated optimally
But can you? Why not make the singularity earlier, or more likely? As for resources, the best way to do them is to make it early, so we can stop wasting sunlight.
Sure, you should try to affect the singularity. But the OP pretty explicitly takes this off the table by asking to compare just these two charities. The implicit assumption that these particular charities do not affect the singularity has been disputed before, but this takes us to a much more difficult calculation. (multifoleraterose argues both sides in the comments)
It may be difficult to tell how much they affect it, and even in which direction, but the idea that it will is pretty certain.
From what I can see, the only reason for doing something like VillageReach rather than preventing existential dangers or hastening the singularity is if you a) think we’re doomed either way, or b) don’t care about the future. For what it’s worth, I’m (mostly) in group a.
That’s exactly correct. But if you take post-singularity life into account, survivors from our time are competing for resources with new lives. If you fix the date of the singularity and trust post-singularity resources to be allocated optimally, our decisions don’t have moral consequence beyond the singularity; we can’t take credit for the 28k years either way.
But can you? Why not make the singularity earlier, or more likely? As for resources, the best way to do them is to make it early, so we can stop wasting sunlight.
Sure, you should try to affect the singularity. But the OP pretty explicitly takes this off the table by asking to compare just these two charities. The implicit assumption that these particular charities do not affect the singularity has been disputed before, but this takes us to a much more difficult calculation. (multifoleraterose argues both sides in the comments)
It may be difficult to tell how much they affect it, and even in which direction, but the idea that it will is pretty certain.
From what I can see, the only reason for doing something like VillageReach rather than preventing existential dangers or hastening the singularity is if you a) think we’re doomed either way, or b) don’t care about the future. For what it’s worth, I’m (mostly) in group a.