Hi!
I'm Tobias Baumann, co-founder of the Center for Reducing Suffering, a new longtermist research organisation focused on figuring out how we can best reduce severe suffering, taking into account all sentient beings. Ask me anything!
A little bit about me:
I’m interested in a broad range of research topics related to cause prioritisation from a suffering-focused perspective. I’ve written about risk factors for s-risks, different types of s-risks, as well as crucial questions on longtermism and artificial intelligence. My most-upvoted EA Forum post (together with David Althaus from the Center on Long-Term Risk) examines how we can best reduce long-term risks from malevolent actors. I’ve also explored various other topics, including space governance, electoral reform, improving our political system, and political representation of future generations. Most recently, I’ve been thinking about patient philanthropy and the optimal timing of efforts to reduce suffering.
Although I'm most interested in questions related to those areas, feel free to ask me anything. Apologies in advance if there are any questions which, for any of many possible reasons, I’m not able to respond to.
One of my most confusing experiences with EA in the last couple of month has been this poll https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/3127490440640625/ where you and your colleauge Magnus stated that one day of extreme suffering (drowning in lava) could not be outweighed by even an (almost) infinite number of days experience extreme happiness (which was the answer with the most upvotes). Some stated in the comments that even a chance of “1 in a gogol probability of 1 minute in lava” could never be outweighed by an (almost) infinite number of days experiencing extreme happiness.
To be honest these sound like extremely strange and unituitive views to me and made me wonder if EAs are different compared to the general population in ways I haven’t much thought about (eg less happy in general). So I have several questions:
1. Do you know about any good articles etc. that make the case for such views?
2. Do you think such or similar views are necessary to prioritize S-Risks?
3. Do you think most people would/should vote in such a way if they had enough time to consider the arguments?
4 For me it seems like people constantly trade happiness for suffering (taking drugs expecting a hangover, eating unhealthy stuff expecting health problems or even just feeling full, finishing that show on Netflix instead of going to sleep… ). Those are reasons for me to believe that most people might not want to compensate suffering through happiness 1:1 , but are also far from expecting 1:10^17 returns or even stating there is no return which potentially could compensate any kind of suffering.
Disclaimer: I haven't spent much time researching S-Risks, so if I got it all wrong (including the poll), just let me know.
Thanks a lot for the reply and the links.