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Re:The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk” by sokoloff on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @05:12AM (#28058860)
Hard to say the discount rate to apply, but I’d think that almost no discount rate would ever be lower than 1% per decade and if there’s any inherent risk in a proposal that it would need to be at least 5% per decade.

When you talk about “this specific initiative succeeding”, it’s probably more like 1% per year as a minimum. (“Will SpaceX [or its direct descendants] colonize Mars?” is a much less certain proposition than “Will anyone from Earth colonize Mars?” and even the latter is in serious question.)

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