I studied Physics, hold a MSc in Photonics and was working for some years in a micro-cavitation lab. Then, as I wanted to work in improving the long-term future, I switched and did a PhD in applied foresight. Since then, I work as foresight researcher, first in the Centre for Foresight and Internationalisation of the Łukasiewicz Network and currently in Fraunhofer ISI. I helped to design Nüwa, a 1M people Mars city-state ranked top 10 in the Mars Society contest 2020, and have experience in sustainability projects and social volunteering. I'm very interested in the relation between global energy and progress, and their consequences for the environment, which may pose a global catastrophic risk. Dad of 2 still in that period when there's no time for anything else than taking care of them and working.
well, you actually answered what i asked. It was me who didn't ask what I meant to ask... :-S
ok, but I mean ask about what the relation is of intimate partner violence with prediction markets.
If it is not indiscreet, can you explain what you mean by "intimate partner violence"? Couples fighting due to different views on bets? or more something like bets on couples' separations triggering the separation? I'm pretty curious what you mean.
This is awesome, Michael! Thanks. I have your post in my reading list, now :-)
Then it definitely fits with your vote. I just meant that the fact that you (and me) tend to think that making the near-future better also will make the far-future better shouldn't influence the answer to this question.
We just disagree on how confident we are on our assessment of how our actions will affect the far-future. And probably this is because of our age ;-)
Point 1 in favour reads very much like "focus on near-future benefits because this will (most likely) bring far-future benefits", which is in practice indistinguishable from just "focus on near-future benefits". Plus the assumption --improving near-future will most likely improve far-future, which I also tend to think-- is far from certain (you acknowledge it). With this reasoning, technically, the underlying reason to do X is improving the far-future, indeed. But the actual effect of X is improving the near-future with much higher certainty than improving the far-future; everything is aligned. This is not, AFAI understand, the point of the question. Who wouldn't do X? Answering assuming this scenario doesn't give any information.
Consider the following different scenario: doing X will make near-future worse with much higher certainty than it does far-future better (assume same value generation magnitudes as before, just make the value for near-future negative). Would you then advocate doing X? I think this gives the information the question is asking for.
I would overwhelmingly most likely not do X in that scenario. Because I know how dumb we (I) am and how complex reality is, so the longer the time frame, the less I trust any reasoning (cluelessness) [It is difficult enough to find out whether an action taken has actually been net positive for the immediate future!]. Would you? If your answer tends to No, then the far-future effects are not the most important determinant of what we ought to do for you.
Cluelessness. The world is far too complex and we are far too dumb to pretend that we can predict whether if what we do now is going to be net-positive in the very long run.
I just came to the forum to ask the same question and you did it much better than I would, as I don't have the time to have given much information to accompany the question. I'm glad you asked it!
I agree in general but I strongly miss something in the lines of:
Each problem is different, the roots of a single problem are ill defined and they usually span along probably endless levels... and, most importantly, problems are nested. One should be aware of this otherwise one cannot address the most interesting question which is whether, overall, it is more helpful/effective to address a problem in a superficial level or in a deeper one.
In some cases the number and severity of problems is going to fade by addressing them directly, but sometimes they are only going to get worse with time if a deeper parent problem is not addressed. You gave examples of the first type. An example of the second type are problems stemming from climate change. If we'd not do anything to stop the climate to continue warming, we could move cities further from the coast, rebuild and protect us from more extreme weather events, etc.; but these problems would continue to reproduce only getting worse with time.
"Solving a problem doesn’t require addressing the root cause of it", yes; but sometimes, not doing it produces more and more problems. The aim is not solving problems, the aim is having so few problems as possible. And these are significantly distinct aims.
I know far to less about economy for having a strong opinion about it, but I feel the same way.
Have you heard about the movement EconGood that came out of the book Economy for the common good by C. Felber? I find their proposals very reasonable and I would like to know what EAs think about it. I made a couple of comments mentioning it in the forum but the movement is too unknown, probably really few EAs have heard about it outside say Germany, Austria and maybe Spain.