#17 - Against Longtermism

Well, there's no avoiding controversy with this one. We explain, examine, and attempt to refute the shiny new moral philosophy of longtermism. Our critique focuses on The Case for Strong Longtermism by Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill.

We say so in the episode, but it's important to emphasize that we harbour no animosity towards anyone in the effective altruism community. However, we both think that longtermism is pretty f***ing scary and do our best to communicate why.

Confused as to why there's no charming, witty, and hilarious intro? Us too. Somehow, Ben managed to corrupt his audio. Classic. Oh well, some of you tell us you dislike the intros anyway.

References

• The Case for Strong Longtermism, by Greaves and MacAskill
• Vaden's EA forum post on longtermism
• The reddit discussion surrounding Vaden's piece
• Ben's piece on longtermism (which he has hidden in the depths of Medium because he's scared of the EA forum) 
• Ben on Pascal's Mugging and Expected Values
• Gwern and Robin Hanson making fun of Ben's piece 

Yell at us on the EA forum, on Reddit, on Medium, or over email at incrementspodcast@gmail.com.