LONGTERMISM: Why You Should Care About Future People

Are we humans, as a species, in the adolescence of our lives? Are we reckless teenagers, drunk driving with the pedal on the floor and the music cranked to 11?

William MacAskill, the famed Scottish philosopher – the youngest in history to join the faculty at Oxford – makes the case that we are. Rather than at the mercy of new hormones coursing through our blood, causing us to risk our lives, we are powered by exhilarating new technologies. We have unlocked atomic power, changed the chemistry of our skies and oceans, and we are on the brink of possessing god-like power over the biological world, and creating new forms of intelligence that exceed our own. We are careening around corners, barely cognizant of the power of our exponential technological acceleration.

We have finally, as a species, started to take action to offset climate change. But we remain largely oblivious to the imminent threats of biohacking and of artificial intelligence that defies our comprehension – arguably threats that will pose a larger existential risk to our species in the next century than climate change.

MacCaskill, one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement, which has inspired thousands of young people to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to addressing the world’s most pressing problems, has just published a new book called What We Owe the Future. It lays out the case for Longtermism, which goes something like this – future people count, there will be a lot of them, perhaps one million people for every person alive today, and the choices we make in the coming decades will profoundly affect those future people. We are at an unusual inflection point in history where our actions could result in hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions of years, of human flourishing, or a dystopian, Orwellian future, or perhaps no future at all – extinction of our species.?

Though I suspect that every generation has felt as though they lived at the fulcrum of the future — that is what the present is, after all – I fundamentally buy Will’s argument. Not just his argument that we are in the reckless adolescence of our species’ journey, but also his argument that most of us should be doing more than we are to help others. And those others include our progeny. And theirs and theirs and theirs.

For many years, I have believed that contributing to healthy civic discourse and putting beautiful things into the world — art and ideas, and strange dancing that causes people in roughly equal proportions to laugh at my expense or dance – was enough of a contribution. Sure, I try to give to street musicians and the homeless and we make donations (relatively small ones, if I am honest) to various charities we believe in. But do we make meaningful personal sacrifices to help people we don’t know? People separated from us by space and time? Not really.?

Having read Will’s book and had this conversation with him, I have begun to change my view of the positive impact that I may be capable of – that we all are. I am going to be processing this conversation for some time … I think it may pretty profoundly change some of the decisions I make in the future.?

What do you think? Do you buy Will’s argument? Listen to our conversation below or on Apple or Spotify and let us know what you think in the comments below!

Episode Notes

?? William MacAskill's?5 key insights from?What We Owe the Future

?? Get your copy of What We Owe the Future

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