Wei_Dai:

Do you really think that people like me, who do not think that literally everything is pointless and unworthy of effort, have just avoided applying the argument to some of our values?

As the only logical possibilities, it's either that, or you have thought about it and concluded that the argument is not applicable to some values. I don't find the reasons for this conclusion obvious, and I do see many selective applications of this argument as a common bias in practice, which is why I asked.

It seems obvious to me that some values (e.g., avoiding great pain) survive the argument by being hardwired to not respond to any arguments, while others (saving humanity so we can develop an intergalactic civilization, or being the first person in an eventually intergalactic civilization to really understand how decisions are supposed to be made) are grand enough that "larger scheme of things" just don't apply. (I'm not totally sure I'm interpreting your question correctly, so let me know if that doesn't answer it.)

Yes, that answers my question, thanks. I do have disagreements with your conclusion, but I grant that you are not committing the above mentioned fallacy outright.

In particular, my objections are that: (1) for many people, social isolation and lack of status is in fact a hardwired source of great pain (though this may not apply to you, so there is no disagreement here if you're not making claims about other people), (2) I find the future large-scale developments you speculate about highly unlikely, even assuming technology won't be the limiting factor, and finally (3) even an intergalactic civilization will matter nothing in the "larger scheme of things" assuming the eventual heat death of the universe. But each of these, except perhaps (1), would be a complex topic for a whole another discussion, so I think we can leave our disagreements rest at this point now that we've clarified them.