A lot of comments (partly highly upvoted*) do not do much beyond disagreeing and affirming that they don’t feel obligated to their or other past selves. That’s fine and their privilege but it is not engaging with the meat of the argument—and an argument that is pretty close to arguments about caring about future people.
UPDATED: * This comment was made when the top-voted comment had 26 karma, right now it is at 14.
I don’t think I see many arguments about caring for future people’s weird and unsympathetic specific demands. Certainly many would argue for caring about existence and quantity of future people. Many would also abstractly care about “quality of life” or even “happiness” of future people.
Even to the extent that caring is similar, there’s a HUGE asymmetry in control. Things we do can affect the experiences (or existence) of future people. Things we do can NOT affect anything about past people.
The argument wasn’t about sympathy, and Utilitarianism also doesn’t care about whether you personally like those people.
You also don’t control anybody in all those acausal trade scenarios, and these are still useful ways to coordinate or at least discuss whether they work.
The amount of asymmetry sure plays a role but doesn’t invalidate the argument but just weighs it.
Why the caps? I think the OP’s view gets people emotional, and emotion distracts from appreciating reasonable observations.
A lot of comments (partly highly upvoted*) do not do much beyond disagreeing and affirming that they don’t feel obligated to their or other past selves. That’s fine and their privilege but it is not engaging with the meat of the argument—and an argument that is pretty close to arguments about caring about future people.
UPDATED: * This comment was made when the top-voted comment had 26 karma, right now it is at 14.
I don’t think I see many arguments about caring for future people’s weird and unsympathetic specific demands. Certainly many would argue for caring about existence and quantity of future people. Many would also abstractly care about “quality of life” or even “happiness” of future people.
Even to the extent that caring is similar, there’s a HUGE asymmetry in control. Things we do can affect the experiences (or existence) of future people. Things we do can NOT affect anything about past people.
The argument wasn’t about sympathy, and Utilitarianism also doesn’t care about whether you personally like those people.
You also don’t control anybody in all those acausal trade scenarios, and these are still useful ways to coordinate or at least discuss whether they work.
The amount of asymmetry sure plays a role but doesn’t invalidate the argument but just weighs it.
Why the caps? I think the OP’s view gets people emotional, and emotion distracts from appreciating reasonable observations.