Flourishing futures

Applied to Beyond a better world 1y ago

LessWrong (2009) Fun theory, LessWrong Wiki, June 25.

Fun Theory, LessWrong

Pearce, David (1995/2007)(1995) The Hedonistic Imperative, BLTC Research.Research (updated 2007).

  • A better understanding of how positive the future might be or is likely to be is relevant to the question of how much to prioritise reducing existential risks.
  • A better understanding of how good and likely various flourishing futures are, and what would make them more or less likely, could aid in generating, prioritising among, and implementing longtermist interventionsinterventions.
  • Having clearer pictures of how the future might go extremely well could aid in building support for work to reduce existential risksrisks.
  • A better understanding of what futures should be steered towards might aid in working out which scenarios might constitute unrecoverable dystopias or unrecoverable collapses (i.e., existential catastrophes other than extinction).