Hey Nat, thanks for writing up this post (I’ve been procrastinating on writing a similar sort of post myself) and sharing it :)
Like Bella, I think many people who’d call themselves longtermists would agree with a lot of it. I’ve tried to reconstruct this argument from it (paraphrasing as little as I can), but please correct me if I’m wrong:
1 - we live in a deeply unequal world and some of the causes of inequality are deeply entrenched into our systems
2 - these challenges (most of them systemic) are quite likely to persist into the future if they are not strategically and intentionally addressed
3 - an increasing percentage of the world’s population will be born in and live in a world with deeply entrenched systemic issues
4 - it is difficult to envision a truly flourishing longterm future for all people while social, political, and economic inequalities persist and become more entrenched
5 - currently, longtermism’s focus on mitigating x-risks leads it to promote interventions that are too narrow to change these systemic issues
Conclusion—Therefore, current longtermism will not guarantee a truly flourishing future
I think many people in EA would be on the spectrum of sympathetic to in full agreement with you here. So I’d be interesting where your perception of longtermism or longtermists being against or averse to this comes from? I think my counterpoint is that at the moment there isn’t a lot of longtermist work out there (compared, say, to discussions on animal welfare or the moral value of philanthropy) as it’s a young movement
And in What We Owe the Future, MacAskill talks a lot about “Trajectory Changes”, i.e. making the future world better (or not worse) and not just creating more of it. and gives the example of abolitionism as a movement for longtermists to emulate when trying to effective long-term moral change.
If you want to revisit this post or make it a sequence, I think looking into:
Examples of what current longtermist interventions and why you think they’re narrow
Examples of specific interventions that should be considered instead (e.g. reforming global institutions such as the World Trade Organisation or UN Security Council?)
If the current state of the world were to be existential secured—how good would that be? I think, reading between the lines,[1] you might conclude that the human race lasting into the long-term future in its current form would be morally questionably if not outright bad. Perhaps this might be a crux with some longtermists who view that existence as positive morally, or perhaps think that the future will be morally better than the present ‘by default’
These would be great to read, but no pressure, I really enjoyed this post :)
I am glad to hear there are others grappling with these questions too, and I would really like to see your take on this, as I’m sure there are certain things about which you have thought more deeply or differently. Your summary is pretty accurate, and because your question is similar to Bella’s, I tried to respond more fully there. However, if I missed anything, I’d love to continue the conversation!
I do agree with your ‘reading between the lines’ conclusion of my post that a long-term future where these injustices and inequalities persist or worsen is morally questionable. I still think that there’s value in such a future, as at least then there would be a chance to improve things (although I worry that as these problems become more and more entrenched, the chances of things changing for the better decrease).
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll start looking into them
Hey Nat, thanks for writing up this post (I’ve been procrastinating on writing a similar sort of post myself) and sharing it :)
Like Bella, I think many people who’d call themselves longtermists would agree with a lot of it. I’ve tried to reconstruct this argument from it (paraphrasing as little as I can), but please correct me if I’m wrong:
1 - we live in a deeply unequal world and some of the causes of inequality are deeply entrenched into our systems
2 - these challenges (most of them systemic) are quite likely to persist into the future if they are not strategically and intentionally addressed
3 - an increasing percentage of the world’s population will be born in and live in a world with deeply entrenched systemic issues
4 - it is difficult to envision a truly flourishing longterm future for all people while social, political, and economic inequalities persist and become more entrenched
5 - currently, longtermism’s focus on mitigating x-risks leads it to promote interventions that are too narrow to change these systemic issues
Conclusion—Therefore, current longtermism will not guarantee a truly flourishing future
I think many people in EA would be on the spectrum of sympathetic to in full agreement with you here. So I’d be interesting where your perception of longtermism or longtermists being against or averse to this comes from? I think my counterpoint is that at the moment there isn’t a lot of longtermist work out there (compared, say, to discussions on animal welfare or the moral value of philanthropy) as it’s a young movement
And in What We Owe the Future, MacAskill talks a lot about “Trajectory Changes”, i.e. making the future world better (or not worse) and not just creating more of it. and gives the example of abolitionism as a movement for longtermists to emulate when trying to effective long-term moral change.
If you want to revisit this post or make it a sequence, I think looking into:
Examples of what current longtermist interventions and why you think they’re narrow
Examples of specific interventions that should be considered instead (e.g. reforming global institutions such as the World Trade Organisation or UN Security Council?)
If the current state of the world were to be existential secured—how good would that be? I think, reading between the lines,[1] you might conclude that the human race lasting into the long-term future in its current form would be morally questionably if not outright bad. Perhaps this might be a crux with some longtermists who view that existence as positive morally, or perhaps think that the future will be morally better than the present ‘by default’
These would be great to read, but no pressure, I really enjoyed this post :)
and please correct me if I’m wrong
Hi JWS,
I am glad to hear there are others grappling with these questions too, and I would really like to see your take on this, as I’m sure there are certain things about which you have thought more deeply or differently. Your summary is pretty accurate, and because your question is similar to Bella’s, I tried to respond more fully there. However, if I missed anything, I’d love to continue the conversation!
I do agree with your ‘reading between the lines’ conclusion of my post that a long-term future where these injustices and inequalities persist or worsen is morally questionable. I still think that there’s value in such a future, as at least then there would be a chance to improve things (although I worry that as these problems become more and more entrenched, the chances of things changing for the better decrease).
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll start looking into them