Suppose we get many little things right and make some progress. What use, if we are marching in the wrong direction? Or wasting our resources on projects of small utility while pivotal tasks are left undone? What if we are profoundly mistaken about what matters most?
There are big potential gains from getting better at thinking about the right kinds of macro-questions, because at stake is our whole scheme of priorities.
Some of these questions are about moral judgment and values. Others have to do with rationality and reasoning under uncertainty. Still others pertain to specific concerns and possibilities, such as existential risks, the simulation hypothesis, human enhancement, transhumanism, and the singularity hypothesis.
My working assumption: These high-leverage questions deserve to be studied with at least the same level of seriousness, scholarship, and creativity that is routinely applied to all sorts of insignificant micro-questions.
This assumption might be wrong. Perhaps we are so irredeemably inept at thinking about the big picture that it is good that we usually don’t. Perhaps attempting to wake up will only result in bad dreams. But how will we know unless we try?