Cross-posting some thoughts of mine from the EA Forum (note that there is a lot of good discussion there, such as from Jakob and Eliezer):
Among other objections, I don’t find it plausible that a vision of impending TAI-induced utopia, an acceleration of technological progress and human flourishing even more significant than the industrial revolution, would… send stock prices plummeting?
If someone told me that humanity’s long-term future was totally assured and there was a gigantic economic boom just around the corner, I feel like my discount rate would go down rather than up, and I would care about the future much more rather than less, and I would consequently want to invest as much as possible now, so that I could have more influence over the long and wondrous future ahead of me.
You could make an analogy here between stable utopia and assured personal longevity (perhaps to hundreds of years of age), similar to the one you make between human extinction and personal death. The promise of a stable utopian future (or personal longevity) seems like it should lead to the opposite of the short-term behavior seen in the near-term-extinction (or personal death) scenario. But your post says that these two futures end up in the same place as far as the discount rate is concerned?
Cross-posting some thoughts of mine from the EA Forum (note that there is a lot of good discussion there, such as from Jakob and Eliezer):
Among other objections, I don’t find it plausible that a vision of impending TAI-induced utopia, an acceleration of technological progress and human flourishing even more significant than the industrial revolution, would… send stock prices plummeting?
If someone told me that humanity’s long-term future was totally assured and there was a gigantic economic boom just around the corner, I feel like my discount rate would go down rather than up, and I would care about the future much more rather than less, and I would consequently want to invest as much as possible now, so that I could have more influence over the long and wondrous future ahead of me.
You could make an analogy here between stable utopia and assured personal longevity (perhaps to hundreds of years of age), similar to the one you make between human extinction and personal death. The promise of a stable utopian future (or personal longevity) seems like it should lead to the opposite of the short-term behavior seen in the near-term-extinction (or personal death) scenario. But your post says that these two futures end up in the same place as far as the discount rate is concerned?