The longtermism greentext: from mosquito nets to calculating humanity's 500-million-year future
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-18
A greentext-style post narrates how effective altruism reasoning escalates: start with efficient giving (mosquito nets), then accept that future people matter, then grandchildren, 500 years, 500 million years — until you're running calculator numbers on humanity's cosmic lifespan. A quote-tweet adds the punchline: the "one-in-a-million" probability figures came from "expert judgement — us." A sharp satire of how modest quantitative assumptions compound into extreme conclusions.
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