In an Open Philanthropy Project blog post, The Moral Value of the Far Future, Holden Karnofsky mentions Nick Bostrom’s Astronomical Waste argument to say that he does not consider it robust enough to play an overwhelming role in his belief systems and actions.
In Astronomical Waste, Nick Bostrom makes a more extreme and more specific claim: that the number of human lives possible under space colonization is so great that the mere possibility of a hugely populated future, when considered in an “expected value” framework, dwarfs all other moral considerations. I see no obvious analytical flaw in this claim, and give it some weight. However, because the argument relies heavily on specific predictions about a distant future, seemingly (as far as I can tell) backed by little other than speculation, I do not consider it “robust,” and so I do not consider it rational to let it play an overwhelming role in my belief system and actions[emphasis added].
Admittedly, Karnofsky proceeds to say that even if he fully accepted the reasoning, he isn’t sure what implications it would have.
In addition, if I did fully accept the reasoning of “Astronomical Waste” and evaluate all actions by their far future consequences, it isn’t clear what implications this would have. As discussed below, given our uncertainty about the specifics of the far future and our reasons to believe that doing good in the present day can have substantial impacts on the future as well, it seems possible that “seeing a large amount of value in future generations” and “seeing an overwhelming amount of value in future generations” [emphasis added] lead to similar consequences for our actions.
Nonetheless, I suspect that were we to have a non-speculative, robust case about what is possible that this well might push our behavior in particular directions. For instance, perhaps we find that Bostrom’s 10^38 humans lost per century of delay is extremely speculative, yet 10^20 is eminently attainable. I believe that if did have a robust case for the latter, this would shift the prioritization of some and likely bolster the altruistic motivation of those who right now are primarily sustained by the speculative plausibility of Bostrom’s extreme case.
Perhaps more importantly, if we are unable to even establish a firm lower bound much above what the Earth alone could sustain long-term, then those who have made Astronomical Waste arguments part of their belief systems and actions have reason to pause and reconsider how they should update given that the potential of space colonization might be much weaker than previously hoped.
Addendum:
In an Open Philanthropy Project blog post, The Moral Value of the Far Future, Holden Karnofsky mentions Nick Bostrom’s Astronomical Waste argument to say that he does not consider it robust enough to play an overwhelming role in his belief systems and actions.
Admittedly, Karnofsky proceeds to say that even if he fully accepted the reasoning, he isn’t sure what implications it would have.
Nonetheless, I suspect that were we to have a non-speculative, robust case about what is possible that this well might push our behavior in particular directions. For instance, perhaps we find that Bostrom’s 10^38 humans lost per century of delay is extremely speculative, yet 10^20 is eminently attainable. I believe that if did have a robust case for the latter, this would shift the prioritization of some and likely bolster the altruistic motivation of those who right now are primarily sustained by the speculative plausibility of Bostrom’s extreme case.
Perhaps more importantly, if we are unable to even establish a firm lower bound much above what the Earth alone could sustain long-term, then those who have made Astronomical Waste arguments part of their belief systems and actions have reason to pause and reconsider how they should update given that the potential of space colonization might be much weaker than previously hoped.