Please explain the influence that, eg., the theological writings of Peter Abelard, described as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century", had on modern-day values that might reasonably have been predictable in advance during his time. And that was only eight hundred years ago, only ten human lifetimes. We're talking about timescales of thousands or millions or billions of current human lifetimes.

My claim--very explicitly--was that lots of activities could indirectly lead to unpredictable trajectory changes, so I don't see this rhetorical question as compelling. I think it's conventional wisdom that major world religions involve path dependence, so I feel the burden of proof is on those who wish to argue otherwise.

This claim is prima facie preposterous, and Robin presents no arguments for it. Indeed, it is so farcically absurd that it substantially lowers my prior on the accuracy of all his statements, and it lowers my prior on your statements that you would present it with no evidence except a blunt appeal to authority.

You made a claim I disagreed with in a very matter-of-fact way, and I pointed to another person you were likely to respect and said that they also did not accept your claim. This was not supposed to be a "proof" that I'm right, but evidence that it isn't as cut-and-dried as your comments suggested. I honestly didn't think that hard about what he had said. I think if you weaken his claim so that he is saying these things could involve some path dependence, but not that they would last in their present form, then it does seem true to me that this could happen.

Do you have any numbers on those? Bostrom's calculations obviously aren't exact, but we can usually get key numbers (eg. # of lives that can be saved with X amount of human/social capital, dedicated to Y x-risk reduction strategy) pinned down to within an order of magnitude or two. You haven't specified any numbers at all for the size of "small, unpredictable positive trajectory changes" in comparison to x-risk, or the cost-effectiveness of different strategies for pursuing them. Indeed, it is unclear how one could come up with such numbers even in theory, since the mechanisms behind such changes causing long-run improved outcomes remain unspecified. Making today's society a nicer place to live is likely worthwhile for all kinds of reasons, but expecting it to have direct influence on the future of a billion years seems absurd. Ancient Minoans from merely 3,500 years ago apparently lived very nicely, by the standards of their day. What predictable impacts did this have on us?

I don't agree that popular x-risk charities have cost-effectiveness estimates that are nearly as uncontroversial as you claim. I know of no cost-effectiveness estimate for any x-risk organization at all that has uncontroversially been estimated within two orders of magnitude, and it's even rare to have cost-effectiveness estimates for global health charities that are uncontroversial within an order of magnitude.

I also don't see it as particularly damning that I don't have ready calculations and didn't base my arguments on such calculations. I was making some broad, big-picture claims, and using these as examples where lots of alternatives might work as well.

And just to be clear, political advocacy is not my favorite cause. It just seemed like it might be a persuasive example in this context.