I’m looking for a word similar to “longtermism” to refer to the view that the most important determinant of the value of our decisions is how they affect regions of the multiverse[1] that are causally-disconnected from ours (henceforth “causally-disconnected regions”), since those regions are very big and can contain far more value-bearing locations than causally-connected regions.[2]
(Affecting causally-disconnected regions is possible if there is some subjunctive dependence between our decisions and outcomes in those regions; for example, if there are copies of us simulated in them.)
This is related to views posed by Wei Dai in this post (though note that he doesn’t use any terminology like “causally-disconnected region”; my usage of that term is influenced by Mati Roy). I’m interested in this because it seems to me that many of the intuitions that would lead someone to support longtermism would also lead them to support this view, as Wei Dai indicated in the last paragraph of this comment.
80000hours used to call a cluster of ideas related to caring about the long-term future the “long-term value thesis,” so I might start calling this the “causally-disconnected value thesis”; however, that sounds a bit too long and cumbersome, which is why I’m asking this question.
[1] If you don’t think there is a multiverse, just interpret my usage of “multiverse” as referring to the same thing as “universe.”
[2] Note that this definition is more analogous to how William MacAskill defines strong longtermism than to how he defines longtermism.
Elsewherism strike me as the most usable of these options for aesthetic reasons. Spooky Axiology at a Distance is the name of my new prog rock band.