The forgotten future
This chapter is about the biases that make us give little importance to the distant future and, especially, to risks of suffering (s-risks). Even people who think about the future usually worry more about human extinction (x-risks) than about suffering.
Biases that make us forget the future
- Temporal bias: the further in the future something is, the less weight we give it.
- Present bias: we prefer immediate gains, even if they're smaller.
- Duration neglect: we forget to consider how long something lasts.
- Bandwagon effect: since almost everyone thinks short term, we do the same.
- Measurability bias: we think whatever is easiest to measure is the most important.
Biases with probabilities
- Probability neglect: we decide without taking the odds into account.
- Ambiguity effect: we avoid options where we don't really know the odds.
- Zero-risk bias: we'd rather wipe out a small risk than greatly reduce a big one.
- Scope neglect: we don't notice the difference between enormous numbers.
Intuitions
Biases are powerful because they feel obvious. What we think at first, before thinking carefully, is an intuition. Not every intuition is wrong, but many are just prejudices that feel right because we've believed them for a long time or because everyone believes them.
With practice, conclusions that used to seem strange can start to feel natural too.
In short
- Many biases make us ignore the distant future.
- Others make us ignore probabilities and big numbers.
- Intuitions help, but they can also be prejudices in disguise.