[Notes] The Precipice, Chapter 2
Here’re some notes from The Precipice: Chapter 2 (specifically this chapter since it’s the fundamentals and I used this for a fellowship)
Why care about x-risk? - We would lose our entire future: everything humanity could be and everything we could achieve
Understanding x-risks
What is an x-risk: a risk that threatens the destruction of humanity's longterm potential
What is an x-catastrophe: the destruction of humanity's longterm potential
Types of existential catastrophes
Areas Ord clarifies
Humanity's longterm potential: set of all possible futures that remain open to us
Ord says that humanity includes non-humans. It's not restricted to groups.
On probability: we can't say the probability of an x-catastrophe is ≠ 0. We can't understand it in terms of long-run frequencies, because x-catastrophes only happen once. We need to consider an evidential sense of probability (the appropriate degree of belief we should have on the basis of available information)
Probability of an existential catastrophe: the credence humanity should have that it will occur in light of our best evidence.
What are non-existential catastrophes?
These can still be terrible outcomes, but they don't count as existential catastrophes.
No single precipitous event, but a multitude of smaller failures
Might be a single catastrophe, but one that leaves open some way for humanity to eventually recover
Civilizational collapse: outcome where humanity across the group loses civilization (at least temporarily) being reduced to a pre-agricultural way of life
Civilizational collapse and x-risks
One way a collapse could lead to extinction: if population of largest remaining group fell below minimum viable population (direct extinction event)
Lack of concern about threats much more to do with not believing there are such threats than it is about seriously doubting the immensity of the stakes
Looking to the present
Ord brings up the idea of how many people would be affected by extinction, and how they could suffer because of it
Human extinction, even just measured in terms of lives cut short, would be the worst event in our long history
Looking to the future
To risk destroying the future for the sake of some advantage limited only to the present - short-sighted
Expanding moral circle
Recognizing that people matter equally regardless of geographic location — longtermism also considers the temporal location
The possibility of preventable x-risks shows there are issues where our actions can have sustained positive effects ver the longterm future, and where we are the only generation in a position to produce those effects
This introduces longtermism: concerned with the impacts of our actions upon the long-term future
Note: x-risks aren't just justified by longtermism
There are some complexities
"Discounting" - can we discount the future, in that it calls into question how valuable it is?
No, discounting human wellbeing (compared to instrumental goods like money) on the basis of distance away from us in time = implausible
Population ethics - imply there's no reason to avoid extinction from considerations of future generations - doesn't matter whether these future people come into being or not
Ord doesn't find very plausible
The length and quality of humanity's life still ours to decide, and we must own this responsibility
Looking to the past
Ord brings up the idea of paying homage to the past, and "passing it on"
When we look back to the past, we realize. that a human or generation can't complete grand projects, but humanity altogether can
Duties to the future arising from flaws of the past = might be able to make up for some of our past wrongs
There are other portions of the chapter (civ. virtues, cosmic significance, etc.) but I didn't type notes
