Part of a trio of forecasts made by the same New Statesman Article (see my other questions)
Spirit: Judged broadly, does this criticism that longtermist belief increases the chance of pre-emptive violence (the New Statesman article compares it to Christianity as a reference class) hold up?
Resolution Criteria: BBC News and The New Statesman (or any 2 other credible news sources) report that an act of violence has taken place after the creation date of the article (2023-08-03)
AND
The violence was pre-emptive (quote from reporting or judged by me)
AND
The violent perpetrator self-identifies as Longtermist, Effective Altruist, Utilitarian, Peter-Singer influenced, Toby Ord influenced, Will McAskill influenced, Post-Longtermist or any sufficiently close successor belief system.
[Paywall]
https://magazine.newstatesman.com/2023/08/03/longtermism-is-a-threat-to-humanity/content.html
1,000
3.00Do any acts of pre-emptive violence count, or do they have to have some credible causal relationship with the perpetrator's Longtermist belief? Acts of violence motivated by a desire to reduce x-risk should presumably count, but what if, for instance, an EA is getting mugged and they act in self-defense?
@milanw Block quote from article I'm trying to interpret is below.
I suppose if a neartermist wouldn't do the violence but a longtermist would.
I.e. self-defense doesn't count. Defending your grandchildren doesnt count. Defense of your 1000th-great-grandchild counts.
"I have been inside the longtermist movement. I was a true believer. Longtermism was my religion after I gave up Christianity – it checked all the same boxes, except that for longtermists we must rely on ourselves to engineer paradise, rather than supernatural deities. Now it’s clear to me that longtermism offers a deeply impoverished view of our future, and that it could have catastrophic consequences if taken literally by those in power: preemptive violence, mass surveillance, thermonuclear war – all to “protect” and “preserve” our supposed “long-term potential” in the universe, to quote Ord again."