Evaluating the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis - Introductory Series
This sequence introduces three hypotheses, starts evaluating them, their macrostrategic impact for impartial longtermists, and whether making further progress on them is tractable.
(A) The Civ-Saturation Hypothesis posits that when making decisions, we should assume most of Humanity's Space-Faring Civilization (SFC) resources will eventually be grabbed by SFCs regardless of whether Humanity's SFC exists or not.
(B) The Civ-Similarity Hypothesis posits that the expected utility efficiency of Humanity's future Space-Faring Civilization (SFC) would be similar to that of other SFCs.
(A and B) The conjunction of these hypotheses forms the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis. Which, if true, would have macrostrategic implications for the longtermist community.
The series hints at preliminary research results, produces a first evaluation of the Civ-Saturation Hypothesis, evaluates the tractability of evaluating these hypotheses, and explores which macrostrategic implications these hypotheses could have for longtermists.
Content of the series
(Introduction)
- (1) Longtermist implications of aliens Space-Faring Civilizations - Introduction
(A first pass at evaluating the Civ-Saturation Hypothesis)
- (2) Space-Faring Civilization density estimates and models - Review
- (3) Decision-Relevance of worlds and ADT implementations
- (4) Formalizing Civ-Saturation concepts and metrics
- (5) Other Civilizations Would Recover 84+% of Our Cosmic Resources - A Challenge to Extinction Risk Prioritization
(Objects-level arguments about the Civ-Similarity Hypothesis and its tractability)
- (6) The Convergent Path to the Stars - Similar Utility Across Civilizations Challenges Extinction Prioritization
- (7) High-level reasons for optimism in studying the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis
(Introducing the research project & implications)
- (8) Evaluating the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis - A research project
- (9) Longtermist Implications of the Existence Neutrality Hypothesis - Lower Extinction-Risk Priority, Higher Alignment-Risk Priority