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Dagon comments on Should humanity give birth to a galactic civilization? - Less Wrong
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Thanks for posting. Upvoted.
I have always had an uncomfortable feeling whenever I have been asked to include distant-future generations in my utilitarian moral considerations. Intuitively, I draw on my background in economics, and tell myself that the far-distant future should be discounted toward zero weight. But how do I justify the discounting morally? Let me try to sketch an argument.
I will claim that my primary moral responsibility is to the people around me. I also have a lesser responsibility to the next generation, and a responsibility lesser yet to the generation after that, and so on. A steep discount rate - 30% per generation or so. I will do my duty to the next generation, but in turn I expect the next generation to do its duty to the generation after that. After all, the next generation is in a far better position than me to forsee what problems the generation after that really faces. Their efforts will be much less likely than mine to be counterproductive.
If I were to spread my concern over too many generations, I would be shortchanging the next generation of their fair share of my concern. Far-future generations have plenty of predecessor generations to worry about their welfare. The next generation has only us. We mustn't shortchange them!
This argument is just a sketch, of course. I just invented it today. Feedback is welcome.
I tend to agree, in that I also have a steep discount across time and distance (though I tend to think of it as "empathetic distance", more about perceived self-similarity than measurable time or distance, and I tend to think of weightings in my utility function rather than using the term "moral responsibility").
That said, it's worth asking just how steep a discount is justifiable - WHY do you think you're more responsible to a neighbor than to four of her great-grandchildren, and do you think this is the correct discount to apply?
And even if you do think it's correct, remember to shut up and multiply. It's quite possible for there to be more than 35x as much sentience in 10 generations as there is today.