EA - New Princeton course on longtermism by Calvin Baker

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: New Princeton course on longtermism, published by Calvin Baker on September 2, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This semester (Fall 2023), Prof Adam Elga and I will be co-instructing Longtermism, Existential Risk, and the Future of Humanity, an upper div undergraduate philosophy seminar at Princeton. (Yes, I did shamelessly steal half of our title from The Precipice.) We are grateful for support from an Open Phil course development grant and share the reading list here for all who may be interested.Part 1: Setting the stageWeek 1: Introduction to longtermism and existential riskCoreOrd, Toby. 2020. The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. London: Bloomsbury. Read introduction, chapter 1, and chapter 2 (pp. 49-56 optional); chapters 4-5 optional but highly recommended.OptionalRoser (2022) "The Future is Vast: Longtermism's perspective on humanity's past, present, and future" Our World in DataKarnofsky (2021) 'This can't go on' Cold Takes (blog)Kurzgesagt (2022) "The Last Human - A Glimpse into the Far Future"Week 2: Introduction to decision theoryCoreWeisberg, J. (2021). Odds & Ends. Read chapters 8, 11, and 14.Ord, T., Hillerbrand, R., & Sandberg, A. (2010). "Probing the improbable: Methodological challenges for risks with low probabilities and high stakes." Journal of Risk Research, 13(2), 191-205. Read sections 1-2.OptionalWeisberg, J. (2021). Odds & Ends chapters 5-7 (these may be helpful background for understanding chapter 8, if you don't have much background in probability).Titelbaum, M. G. (2020) Fundamentals of Bayesian Epistemology chapters 3-4Week 3: Introduction to population ethicsCoreParfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read sections 4.16.120-23, 125, and 127 (pp. 355-64; 366-71, and 377-79).Parfit, Derek. 1986. "Overpopulation and the Quality of Life." In Applied Ethics, ed. P. Singer, 145-164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read sections 1-3.OptionalRemainders of Part IV of Reasons and Persons and "Overpopulation and the Quality of Life"Greaves (2017) "Population Axiology" Philosophy CompassMcMahan (2022) "Creating People and Saving People" section 1, first page of section 4, and section 8Temkin (2012) Rethinking the Good 12.2 pp. 416-17 and section 12.3 (esp. pp. 422-27)Harman (2004) "Can We Harm and Benefit in Creating?"Roberts (2019) "The Nonidentity Problem" SEPFrick (2022) "Context-Dependent Betterness and the Mere Addition Paradox"Mogensen (2019) "Staking our future: deontic long-termism and the non-identity problem" sections 4-5Week 4: Longtermism: for and againstCoreGreaves, Hilary and William MacAskill. 2021. "The Case for Strong Longtermism." Global Priorities Institute Working Paper No.5-2021. Read sections 1-6 and 9.Curran, Emma J. 2023. "Longtermism and the Complaints of Future People". Forthcoming in Essays on Longtermism, ed. H. Greaves, J. Barrett, and D. Thorstad. Oxford: OUP. Read section 1.OptionalThorstad (2023) "High risk, low reward: A challenge to the astronomical value of existential risk mitigation." Focus on sections 1-3.Curran, E. J. (2022). "Longtermism, Aggregation, and Catastrophic Risk" (GPI Working Paper 18-2022). Global Priorities Institute.Beckstead (2013) "On the Overwhelming Importance of Shaping the Far Future" Chapter 3"Toby Ord on why the long-term future of humanity matters more than anything else, and what we should do about it" 80,000 Hours podcastFrick (2015) "Contractualism and Social Risk" sections 7-8Part 2: Philosophical problemsWeek 5: FanaticismCoreBostrom, N. (2009). "Pascal's mugging." Analysis, 69 (3): 443-445.Russell, J. S. "On two arguments for fanaticism." Noûs, forthcoming. Read sections 1, 2.1, and 2.2.Temkin, L. S. (2022). "How Expected Utility Theory Can Drive Us Off the Rails." In L. S. ...