Bias towards recently acquired information| en.wikipedia.org
By Simon Knutsson| Simon Knutsson
Will we go extinct, or will we succeed in building a flourishing utopia? Discussions about the future trajectory of humanity often center around these two possibilities, which tends to ignore that survival does not always imply utopian outcomes, or that outcomes where humans go extinct could differ tremendously in how much suffering they contain.| Center on Long-Term Risk
The psychological appeal of salient events and risks can be a major hurdle to optimal altruistic priorities and impact. My aim in this post is to outline a few reasons to approach our intuitive fas…| Magnus Vinding
Space colonization would likely increase rather than decrease total suffering. Because many people care nonetheless about humanity’s spread into the cosmos, we should reduce risks of astronomical future suffering without opposing others’ spacefaring dreams. In general, we recommend to focus on making sure that an intergalactic future will be good if it happens rather than making sure there will be such a future.| Center on Long-Term Risk
The number of wild animals vastly exceeds that of animals on factory farms. Therefore, animal advocates should consider focusing their efforts to raise concern about the suffering that occurs in nature. In theory, engineering more humane ecological systems might be valuable. In practice, however, it seems more effective to promote the meme of caring about wild animals to other activists, academics and other sympathetic groups.| Center on Long-Term Risk