#10 - Nick Beckstead on how to spend billions of dollars preventing human extinction

Oct 11, 2017

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INSIGHT

Why the Far Future Matters Most

The far future holds vastly more potential value than the present because of the enormous timespan and number of possible lives.
Mitigating existential risks now can dramatically shape the quality and scale of civilization's future.

INSIGHT

Ethics of Future Generations

Different ethical views debate whether to prioritize current people or all possible future people in moral calculations.
Beckstead supports total utilitarianism, valuing all future lives, to avoid undervaluing the vast future potential.

INSIGHT

Rejecting Time Discounting in Ethics

Time discounting to reduce future value is widely rejected among moral philosophers.
Economists’ discounting often misapplies to moral value, confusing capital returns with ethical worth.

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What if you were in a position to give away billions of dollars to improve the world? What would you do with it? This is the problem facing Program Officers at the Open Philanthropy Project - people like Dr Nick Beckstead.

Following a PhD in philosophy, Nick works to figure out where money can do the most good. He’s been involved in major grants in a wide range of areas, including ending factory farming through technological innovation, safeguarding the world from advances in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, and spreading rational compassion.

Full transcript, coaching application form, overview of the conversation, and links to resources discussed in the episode:

This episode is a tour through some of the toughest questions ‘effective altruists’ face when figuring out how to best improve the world, including:

* * Should we mostly try to help people currently alive, or future generations? Nick studied this question for years in his PhD thesis, On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future. (The first 31 minutes is a snappier version of my conversation with Toby Ord.)
* Is clean meat (aka *in vitro* meat) technologically feasible any time soon, or should we be looking for plant-based alternatives?
* What are the greatest risks to human civilisation?
* To stop malaria is it more cost-effective to use technology to eliminate mosquitos than to distribute bed nets?
* Should people who want to improve the future work for changes that will be very useful in a specific scenario, or just generally try to improve how well humanity makes decisions?
* What specific jobs should our listeners take in order for Nick to be able to spend more money in useful ways to improve the world?
* Should we expect the future to be better if the economy grows more quickly - or more slowly?

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