{"id":7197,"date":"2013-08-20T17:58:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T17:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/?p=7197"},"modified":"2013-08-20T17:58:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T17:58:26","slug":"cosmology-meets-philanthropy-guest-post-by-jess-riedel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/2013\/08\/20\/cosmology-meets-philanthropy-guest-post-by-jess-riedel\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosmology meets Philanthropy — guest post by Jess Riedel"},"content":{"rendered":"
My colleague Jess Riedel<\/a> recently attended a conference<\/a>\u00a0 exploring the connection between these seemingly disparate subjects, which led him to compose the following essay.–CHB<\/em><\/div>\n
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\"Impact_event\"<\/div>\n

People sometimes ask me what how my research will help society. \u00a0This question is familiar to physicists, especially those of us whose research is connected to every-day life only… shall we say…tenuously. \u00a0And of course, this is a fair question from the layman; tax dollars support most of our work. <\/span>
\nI generally take the attitude of former Fermilab director Robert R. Wilson. \u00a0During his testimony before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in the US Congress, he was asked how discoveries from the proposed accelerator would contribute to national security during a time of intense Cold War competition with the USSR. \u00a0He famously replied “this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending<\/a>.”<\/span>
\nStill, it turns out there are philosophers of practical ethics who think a few of the academic questions physicists study could have tremendous moral implications, and in fact might drive key decisions we all make each day. Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has in particular written about the idea of “astronomical waste<\/a>“. \u00a0As is well known to physicists, the universe has a finite, ever-dwindling supply of negentropy, i.e. the difference between our current low-entropy state and the bleak maximal entropy state that lies in\u00a0our far future<\/a>. \u00a0And just about everything we might value is\u00a0ultimately\u00a0powered by it. \u00a0As we speak (or blog), the stupendously vast majority of negentropy usage is directed toward rather uninspiring ends, like illuminating distant planets no one will ever see. <\/span>
\nThese resources can probably be put to better use. \u00a0Bostrom points out that, assuming we don’t destroy ourselves, our descendants likely will one day\u00a0spread\u00a0through the universe. \u00a0Delaying our colonization of the Virgo Supercluster by one second<\/i> forgoes about $latex 10^{16}$ human life-years. Each year, on average, an entire galaxy<\/span>\u2014<\/span>with its billions of stars<\/span>\u2014<\/span>is slipping<\/a> outside of our cosmological event horizon, forever separating it from Earth-originating life.\u00a0 Maybe we should get on with it?<\/span>
\nBut the careful reader will note that not everyone<\/a> believes the supply of negentropy is well understood or even necessarily fixed, especially given the open questions in general relativity, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and (recently)\u00a0black holes<\/a>. \u00a0Changes in our understanding of these and other issues could have deep implications for the future. \u00a0And, as we shall see, for what we do tomorrow.<\/span>
\nOn the other side of the pond, two young investment analysts at Bridgewater Associates got interested in giving some of their new disposable income to charity. Naturally, they wanted to get something for their investment, and so they went looking<\/a> for information about what charity would get them the most bang for their buck. \u00a0 But it turned out that not too many people in the philanthropic world seemed to have many good answer. \u00a0A casual observer would even be forgiven for thinking that nobody really<\/i> cared<\/a> about what was actually getting done with the quarter trillion<\/a> donated annually to charity. \u00a0And this is no small matter; as measured by just about any metric you choose\u2014lives saved, seals unclubbed, children dewormed\u2014charities vary by many orders of magnitude<\/a> in efficiency.<\/span>
\nThis prompted them to start GiveWell,\u00a0now considered by many esteemed commentators to be the\u00a0premier charity evaluator.\u00a0\u00a0One such commentator is Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, who proposed the famous thought experiment of the drowning child<\/a>. \u00a0Singer is also actively involved<\/a> with a larger movement that these days goes by the name “Effective Altruism”. \u00a0It’s founding question: If one wants to accomplish the most good in the world, what, precisely, should one be doing? \u00a0<\/span>
\nYou won’t be surprised that there is a fair amount of disagreement on the answer. \u00a0But what might surprise you is how disagreement about the fundamental normative questions involved (regardless of the empirical uncertainties) leads to dramatically different recommendations for action. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>
\nA first key topic is animals. \u00a0Should our concern about human suffering be traded off against animal suffering? Perhaps weighted by neural mass? \u00a0Are we responsible for just the animals we farm, or the untold number suffering in the wild<\/a>? \u00a0Given Nature’s fearsome indifference, is the average animal life even worth living? \u00a0Counterintuitive results abound, like the argument that we should eat more meat because animal farming actually displaces<\/a> much more wild animal suffering than it creates.<\/span>
\nPutting animals aside, we will still need to balance<\/a> “suffer<\/span>ing averted”\u00a0 with “flourishing created”. \u00a0How many malaria deaths will we allow to preserve a Rembrandt? \u00a0Very, very bad futures controlled by totalitarian regimes are conceivable; should we play it safe and blow up the sun<\/a>?<\/span>
\nBut the accounting for future people leads to some of the most arresting ideas. \u00a0Should we care about people any less<\/a> just because they will live in the far future? \u00a0If their existence is contingent on our action, is it bad for them to not exist? \u00a0Here, we stumble on deep issues in population ethics. \u00a0Legendary<\/a> Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit formulated the argument of the ”repugnant conclusion<\/a>”. \u00a0It casts doubt on the idea that a billion rich, wealthy people living sustainably for millennia on Earth would be as ideal as you might initially think.\u00a0<\/span>
\n(Incidentally, the aim of such arguments is not to convince you of some axiomatic position that you find implausible on its face, e.g. “We should maximize the number of people who are born”. \u00a0Rather, the idea is to show you that your own already-existing beliefs about the badness of letting people needlessly suffer will probably compel you to act differently, if only you reflect carefully<\/a> on it.)<\/span>
\nThe most extreme end of this reasoning brings us back to Bostrom, who points out that we find ourselves at a pivotal time in history.\u00a0Excepting<\/a> the last century, humans have existed for a million years without the ability to cause our own extinction. \u00a0In probably a few hundred years\u2014or undoubtedly in a few thousand\u2014we will have the ability to create sustainable settlements on other worlds, greatly decreasing the chance that a calamity could wipe us out. In this cosmologically narrow time window we could conceivably extinguish<\/a>\u00a0our potentially intergalactic civilization through nuclear holocaust or other new technologies<\/a>. \u00a0Even tiny, well-understood risks like asteroid and comet strikes (probability<\/a> of extinction event: ~$latex 10^{-7}$ per century) become seriously compelling when the value of the future is brought to bear<\/a>. Indeed, between $latex 10^{35}$ and $latex 10^{58}$ future human lives hang<\/a> in the balance, so it’s worth thinking hard<\/a> about.<\/span>
\nSo why are you on Facebook when you could be working on Wall Street<\/a> and donating all your salary to avert<\/a> disaster? Convincingly dodging this argument is harder<\/a> than you might guess. \u00a0And there are quite a number of smart people who bite<\/a> the bullet.<\/span>
\n \n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My colleague Jess Riedel recently attended a conference\u00a0 exploring the connection between these seemingly disparate subjects, which led him to compose the following essay.–CHB People sometimes ask me what how my research will help society. \u00a0This question is familiar to physicists, especially those of us whose research is connected to every-day life only… shall we … <\/p>\n

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