Dreaded_Anomaly comments on Rationalists don't care about the future - Less Wrong

3 Post author: PhilGoetz 15 May 2011 07:48AM

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Comment author: CarlShulman 15 May 2011 08:34:57PM *  3 points [-]

Any temporal discounting other than temporal is provably inconsistent, a point Eliezer makes in his post against temporal discounting.

People are in fact inconsistent, and would like to bind their future selves and future generations. Folk care more about themselves than future generations, but don't care much more about people 100 generations out than 101 generations out. If current people could, they would commit to a policy that favored the current generation, but was much more long-term focused thereafter.