Exercise for 'What could the future hold? And why care?'

Abstract

This exercise explores the question of whether the interests of future generations matter as much as those of people alive today. It is argued that effective altruists should strive for impartiality, avoiding privileging the interests of some individuals over others based on arbitrary factors like their appearance, race, gender, or nationality. This impartiality should extend to individuals living in different time periods. The exercise uses thought experiments to encourage reflection on this issue, asking the reader to consider whether they would choose to save 100 people today at the cost of killing thousands in the future, or whether they would be less excited about a donation that saves a life in the future. The exercise also suggests that individuals can improve their ability to make accurate predictions about the future by practicing calibration, a skill that involves being able to accurately assess the likelihood of different outcomes. – AI-generated abstract.