Vitalik defends EA ties while reasoning his way out of longtermism
inductionheads · x · 2026-09-20
- Vitalik Buterin argued it's more honorable to admit EA's core beliefs than strategically disavow them while still holding >80% of them.
- He systematically critiqued longtermism: unfalsifiable distant consequences, tiny probabilities times astronomical stakes, and power-seeking rationalized as serving the future — "if your arguments can justify anything, they imply nothing."
- banteg read it as Vitalik reasoning his way out of longtermism, noting even a sincere optimizer gets pathological answers once small errors are multiplied by 10^50 hypothetical beneficiaries.
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