Debate: Should future people be discounted? Longtermism vs temporal discounting on X
NathanpmYoung · x · 2026-09-18
MatthewTanous argues temporal discounting is the antidote to longtermism: at a 5% rate, a person 50 years out is worth 8.7% of someone today, 0.76% at 100 years, and by 470 years the entire planet is worth less than one present person. NathanpmYoung pushes back: money is discounted due to inflation, but "consciousness is consciousness" — discounting should be probability-based, not a yearly rate, which becomes noise beyond 5 years for most things.
More from AGI Musings
- Alpha School investigation: 17 campuses on probation, Bill Ackman as shadow lead, Holmes involved — benjaminjriley · 2026-11-02
- Google's chief economist: AI will transform more jobs than it kills — gains come from redesigning workflows — danielrock · 2026-11-02
- Daniel Lemire: AI is exploding demand for boring compute, server CPUs to double — lemire · 2026-11-02
- Alignment researcher: the word "aligned" implies consistencies that don't exist — davidmanheim · 2026-11-02
- By 2035, Indian Parents Will Ask How Many Agents You Manage, Not Your Salary — theteknosaur · 2026-11-02
- Under 5% of US consumers pay for AI, yet compute demand is already forcing usage cuts — NinaDSchick · 2026-11-02