I was wondering if anyone has a good response to Toby Ord's reservations about progress studies.
In summary, Ord argues that it's far from obvious that advancing progress is inherently good or bad, since this depends on whether it also accelerates humanity's extinction, undermining standard economic arguments for progress.
My first reaction was that this seems to be assuming a zero discount rate on the future. I haven't had a chance to really dig into it though
Yes, that's correct. Ord's writes this about discount rates:
So what's the best argument for having a discount rate on value itself?