I never quite know how to engage with sociological analysis of this sort. It attacks longtermism not by its arguments as a philosophical stance, but by its function as a social group.
This is however, how the world works. If someone powerful proclaims an altruistic motive for a move that just happens to increase their power (like Elon entering MAGA and trying to reduce the power of government), alarm bells should be going off.
Moreover, Longtermism should not be central to our society. Longtermism provides a convenient justification for all sorts of monstrosities, simply because it says all of us are less important than trillions of people in the future. That’s not something that democracy really is compatible with.
I propose that no more than 1% of our societal resources go towards long-term thought and planning. That’s much more than we do today, but it’s less dangerous to humans currently alive.
I think sociological analyses are valuable in their own right (irrespective of the inherent goodness of an idea). But they tend to be overly critical & overly influenced by certain leftist inclinations. This 1 seems not too bad based on the short description.
The problem with longtermism is that it’s either scamy or it’s trivial {more good is better} thinking. There is some good faith but {people tend to believe what they want to believe} + {very high ignorance} = probably scamy BS. P(‘waste’ of money)>95%, P(actual harm)≈25%.
I never quite know how to engage with sociological analysis of this sort. It attacks longtermism not by its arguments as a philosophical stance, but by its function as a social group.
This is however, how the world works. If someone powerful proclaims an altruistic motive for a move that just happens to increase their power (like Elon entering MAGA and trying to reduce the power of government), alarm bells should be going off.
Moreover, Longtermism should not be central to our society. Longtermism provides a convenient justification for all sorts of monstrosities, simply because it says all of us are less important than trillions of people in the future. That’s not something that democracy really is compatible with.
I propose that no more than 1% of our societal resources go towards long-term thought and planning. That’s much more than we do today, but it’s less dangerous to humans currently alive.
I think sociological analyses are valuable in their own right (irrespective of the inherent goodness of an idea). But they tend to be overly critical & overly influenced by certain leftist inclinations. This 1 seems not too bad based on the short description.
The problem with longtermism is that it’s either scamy or it’s trivial {more good is better} thinking. There is some good faith but {people tend to believe what they want to believe} + {very high ignorance} = probably scamy BS. P(‘waste’ of money)>95%, P(actual harm)≈25%.