A flaw or trick in Robin’s argument is talking about 12000 years as if that is the future that people care about. People concerned about AI and Global Warming make it a point that the harm comes, or at least is well on its way, within 100 years. 2% over 100 years is sort of crappy return, not game changing in anybody’s imagination.
I wonder what the longest time that has passed between an investment aimed at a return in the far future and an actual return similar to what was expected in the far future? The few things I think of are cathedrals and universities. There are a few universities that are 1000 years old, do they qualify? I think not for these reasons: 1) the universities were not founded with the intention of a payoff 500 years or a 1000 years later, they were founded with the intention of getting value from them soon after they were founded. 2) The universities that have lasted 1000 years have been re-invested in episodically and massively over the 1000 years, so the return now from the original investment is probably quite a small part of their total present value.
And that’s 1000 years, I am aware of NOTHING with the slightest hint of long term payoff from 1000 years ago. Look forward to being shown I’m wrong in comments, though :)
12000 years? Its a joke. 11,900 years after an AI with some real capacity is developed? Supposing I cared deeply about 12000 years from now, what “signal” would I have telling me how to invest for that time period that wouldn’t be totally swamped by the noise of uncertainty and the interference of numerous possibilities?
This of course says nothing of an investment that pays a consistent or even an average of 2% over 12000 years. The fact that I can imagine such a thing does not suggest that its probability of existence is > 1.02^(-12000).
Benjamin Franklin bequeathed a reasonable sum of money (IIRC, 1000 pounds Stirling each to two cities) to get invested for two centuries. The fund is worth something like $5 million today. I don’t recall the exact details, but it’s a good past example of something like this.
Franklin donated a small amount of money which grew to a very small fraction of the economy for a time period less than 1/60th of the proposal; he got incredibly lucky that he did it in America, and not in any of the other growing powers or economies of his day or later, such as Russia/France/Germany/Mexico/Argentina/Japan, which might have wiped out his legacy; and even Americans have found it difficult to replicate his feat.
A flaw or trick in Robin’s argument is talking about 12000 years as if that is the future that people care about. People concerned about AI and Global Warming make it a point that the harm comes, or at least is well on its way, within 100 years. 2% over 100 years is sort of crappy return, not game changing in anybody’s imagination.
I wonder what the longest time that has passed between an investment aimed at a return in the far future and an actual return similar to what was expected in the far future? The few things I think of are cathedrals and universities. There are a few universities that are 1000 years old, do they qualify? I think not for these reasons: 1) the universities were not founded with the intention of a payoff 500 years or a 1000 years later, they were founded with the intention of getting value from them soon after they were founded. 2) The universities that have lasted 1000 years have been re-invested in episodically and massively over the 1000 years, so the return now from the original investment is probably quite a small part of their total present value.
And that’s 1000 years, I am aware of NOTHING with the slightest hint of long term payoff from 1000 years ago. Look forward to being shown I’m wrong in comments, though :)
12000 years? Its a joke. 11,900 years after an AI with some real capacity is developed? Supposing I cared deeply about 12000 years from now, what “signal” would I have telling me how to invest for that time period that wouldn’t be totally swamped by the noise of uncertainty and the interference of numerous possibilities?
This of course says nothing of an investment that pays a consistent or even an average of 2% over 12000 years. The fact that I can imagine such a thing does not suggest that its probability of existence is > 1.02^(-12000).
Benjamin Franklin bequeathed a reasonable sum of money (IIRC, 1000 pounds Stirling each to two cities) to get invested for two centuries. The fund is worth something like $5 million today. I don’t recall the exact details, but it’s a good past example of something like this.
I suspect the impact of this fund has been pretty small compared to the other stuff that Franklin did.
Franklin donated a small amount of money which grew to a very small fraction of the economy for a time period less than 1/60th of the proposal; he got incredibly lucky that he did it in America, and not in any of the other growing powers or economies of his day or later, such as Russia/France/Germany/Mexico/Argentina/Japan, which might have wiped out his legacy; and even Americans have found it difficult to replicate his feat.