It's frustratingly difficult to come up with an elevator pitch level counter-argument to longtermism and related arguments.
"These ideas lead to behaviors that are both cruel and ridiculous" is the objection that gets often made. But naturally, that's rejecting a position based on it's conclusion, a fallacy these types will panting to name as soon as this argument leaves someone's mouth (though I feel the objection is reasonable and needs something more).
So, the argument I'd go with saying that all these reasonings involve basically multiplying tiny-numbers-with-big-variations by large-numbers-with-big-variations resulting in ... complete garbage ... a distribution pseudo-estimate with no validity... [1].
The further point I'd add is that aside from dealing with crises whose extent are moderately calculable, such as climate change, the activity which would contribute to humanity's future is ... actually improving humanity's qualities - increasing the general sensibleness of people, our knowledge of science and scientific method, our tendency to protect each others, the cohesiveness of our communities, our caution in avoiding destroying things we don't understand - Chesterton's fence, etc.
Which is to say also that the longtermists, the Bostroms etc don't understand that truly hard problems require not equation calculating the odds but a general flexibility and caution in dealing in the world. Why humans can solve the car-driving problem and robots still can't, etc.
[1] JM Kaynes in the general articulated a similar view: "By uncertain knowledge, I do not mean merely to distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain . . . There is no scientific basis to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know. There is a world of difference between low-probability events drawn from the tail of a known statistical distribution and extreme events that happen but had not previously been imagined."
"These ideas lead to behaviors that are both cruel and ridiculous" is the objection that gets often made. But naturally, that's rejecting a position based on it's conclusion, a fallacy these types will panting to name as soon as this argument leaves someone's mouth (though I feel the objection is reasonable and needs something more).
So, the argument I'd go with saying that all these reasonings involve basically multiplying tiny-numbers-with-big-variations by large-numbers-with-big-variations resulting in ... complete garbage ... a distribution pseudo-estimate with no validity... [1].
The further point I'd add is that aside from dealing with crises whose extent are moderately calculable, such as climate change, the activity which would contribute to humanity's future is ... actually improving humanity's qualities - increasing the general sensibleness of people, our knowledge of science and scientific method, our tendency to protect each others, the cohesiveness of our communities, our caution in avoiding destroying things we don't understand - Chesterton's fence, etc.
Which is to say also that the longtermists, the Bostroms etc don't understand that truly hard problems require not equation calculating the odds but a general flexibility and caution in dealing in the world. Why humans can solve the car-driving problem and robots still can't, etc.
[1] JM Kaynes in the general articulated a similar view: "By uncertain knowledge, I do not mean merely to distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain . . . There is no scientific basis to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know. There is a world of difference between low-probability events drawn from the tail of a known statistical distribution and extreme events that happen but had not previously been imagined."