I’m glad to see CRS take something of an interest in this topic and I’m particularly happy to see some meta-level discussion of representing the interests of future generations which has been sorely missing from the longtermism space.
We are in full agreement that most extant proposals to represent future generations involve very weak institutions and often rely on tenuous political commitments. In fact, it’s because political commitments are so tenuous that political institutions to represent future generations must at first be weak. Strong institutions for future generations have historically been repealed very rapidly, as Jones, O’Brien, and Ryan (2018) have argued from a couple case studies.
We are also in full agreement that there are problems of predicting the interests of future generations, and that getting more objective information about their interests is a key problem. This problem proliferates with increasingly longer timescales. This is why many of the solutions I am personally most favorable to are information interventions, such as creating research bodies like the now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which can distill and package extant expertise for legislative bodies, as well as posterity impact assessments, which can create strong incentives to gather more information about the future.
I find much less compelling the idea that “if there is the political will to seriously consider future generations, it’s unnecessary to set up additional institutions to do so,” and “if people do not care about the long-term future,” they would not agree to such measures. The main reason I find this uncompelling is just that it overgenerates in very implausible ways. Why should women have the vote? Why should discrimination be illegal?
The main long-term function that I see longtermist institutional reform, or any other kind of institutional reform playing is an institutional signalling role. There is compelling evidence that legal and political reform significantly shifts the norms and attitudes that people come to see as acceptable (Berkowitz and Walker 1967, Bilz and Nadler 2009, Flores and Barclay 2015, Tankard and Paluck 2016, 2017, Walker and Argyle 1964). Shifting laws and institutional norms credibly signals information about group attitudes to anyone who has access to information about those laws and norms. In this case, it signals that good, sensible, right-thinking people think that future generations are of great importance and that our political systems must be responsive to their interests. For this reason, there is a chicken and egg problem for institutional reform, but this chicken and egg problem is very friendly to supporters of institutional reform. Reforming institutions changes attitudes, which in turn creates the political will necessary to reform institutions further. Reformed institutions in turn create stable shelling points that prevent value drift away from core values.
For this reason, longtermist institutional reform is quite beneficial for information-gathering purposes. Representing future generations creates greater political and cultural will to gather objective information about the interests of future generations. It’s an exercise in movement-building.
I don’t know if you meant to narrow in on only those reforms I mention which attempt to create literal representation of future generations or if you meant to bring into focus all attempts to ameliorate political short-termism. In the latter case, it’s worth noting that there are a large variety of likely causes of short-termism. Some of them are epistemic (we don’t know what to do) and motivational (we lack the political will), but others are merely institutional. In these latter cases, the problem is not that we don’t have enough information or will, but rather that the right information is not getting to the right people or that institutional mechanisms are preventing appropriately-motivated and informed actors from acting for the long term. These sorts of problems sometimes require different fixes, and they can sometimes be fixed simply by creating designated stakeholders who create relevant coordination points in government and have time allocated explicitly to considering the long-term. Political problems are often a problem of institutional incentives rather than of political will, and there are currently very strong incentives to focus on the short-term. I canvass many of the various causes of political short-termism in my (now rather lengthy) review on longtermist institutional design and policy.
As a classical utilitarian, I’m also not particularly bothered by the philosophical problems you set out above, but some of these problems are the subject of my dissertation and I hope that I have some solutions for you soon.
In short, I think there is reason for more optimism about longtermist institutional reform than you express here, but I am happy to have some further discussion of the problem and to see a call to consider more seriously the epistemic problems that plague such reform along with some possible solutions.
I find much less compelling the idea that “if there is the political will to seriously consider future generations, it’s unnecessary to set up additional institutions to do so,” and “if people do not care about the long-term future,” they would not agree to such measures. The main reason I find this uncompelling is just that it overgenerates in very implausible ways. Why should women have the vote? Why should discrimination be illegal?
Yeah, I agree that there are plenty of reasons why institutional reform could be valuable. I didn’t mean to endorse that objection (at least not in a strong form). I like your point about how longtermist institutions may shift norms and attitudes.
I don’t know if you meant to narrow in on only those reforms I mention which attempt to create literal representation of future generations or if you meant to bring into focus all attempts to ameliorate political short-termism.
I mostly had the former in mind when writing the post, though other attempts to ameliorate short-termism are also plausibly very important.
I’m glad to see CLR take something of an interest in this topic
Might just be a typo but this post is by CRS (Center for Reducing Suffering), not CLR (Center on long-term risk). (It’s easy to mix up because CRS is new, CLR recently re-branded, and both focus on s-risks.)
As a classical utilitarian, I’m also not particularly bothered by the philosophical problems you set out above, but some of these problems are the subject of my dissertation and I hope that I have some solutions for you soon.
Ah, it looks like I read your post to be a bit more committal than you meant it to be! Thanks for your reply! And sorry for the misnomer, I’ll correct that in the top-level comment.
Hi Tobias,
I’m glad to see CRS take something of an interest in this topic and I’m particularly happy to see some meta-level discussion of representing the interests of future generations which has been sorely missing from the longtermism space.
We are in full agreement that most extant proposals to represent future generations involve very weak institutions and often rely on tenuous political commitments. In fact, it’s because political commitments are so tenuous that political institutions to represent future generations must at first be weak. Strong institutions for future generations have historically been repealed very rapidly, as Jones, O’Brien, and Ryan (2018) have argued from a couple case studies.
We are also in full agreement that there are problems of predicting the interests of future generations, and that getting more objective information about their interests is a key problem. This problem proliferates with increasingly longer timescales. This is why many of the solutions I am personally most favorable to are information interventions, such as creating research bodies like the now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which can distill and package extant expertise for legislative bodies, as well as posterity impact assessments, which can create strong incentives to gather more information about the future.
I find much less compelling the idea that “if there is the political will to seriously consider future generations, it’s unnecessary to set up additional institutions to do so,” and “if people do not care about the long-term future,” they would not agree to such measures. The main reason I find this uncompelling is just that it overgenerates in very implausible ways. Why should women have the vote? Why should discrimination be illegal?
The main long-term function that I see longtermist institutional reform, or any other kind of institutional reform playing is an institutional signalling role. There is compelling evidence that legal and political reform significantly shifts the norms and attitudes that people come to see as acceptable (Berkowitz and Walker 1967, Bilz and Nadler 2009, Flores and Barclay 2015, Tankard and Paluck 2016, 2017, Walker and Argyle 1964). Shifting laws and institutional norms credibly signals information about group attitudes to anyone who has access to information about those laws and norms. In this case, it signals that good, sensible, right-thinking people think that future generations are of great importance and that our political systems must be responsive to their interests. For this reason, there is a chicken and egg problem for institutional reform, but this chicken and egg problem is very friendly to supporters of institutional reform. Reforming institutions changes attitudes, which in turn creates the political will necessary to reform institutions further. Reformed institutions in turn create stable shelling points that prevent value drift away from core values.
For this reason, longtermist institutional reform is quite beneficial for information-gathering purposes. Representing future generations creates greater political and cultural will to gather objective information about the interests of future generations. It’s an exercise in movement-building.
I don’t know if you meant to narrow in on only those reforms I mention which attempt to create literal representation of future generations or if you meant to bring into focus all attempts to ameliorate political short-termism. In the latter case, it’s worth noting that there are a large variety of likely causes of short-termism. Some of them are epistemic (we don’t know what to do) and motivational (we lack the political will), but others are merely institutional. In these latter cases, the problem is not that we don’t have enough information or will, but rather that the right information is not getting to the right people or that institutional mechanisms are preventing appropriately-motivated and informed actors from acting for the long term. These sorts of problems sometimes require different fixes, and they can sometimes be fixed simply by creating designated stakeholders who create relevant coordination points in government and have time allocated explicitly to considering the long-term. Political problems are often a problem of institutional incentives rather than of political will, and there are currently very strong incentives to focus on the short-term. I canvass many of the various causes of political short-termism in my (now rather lengthy) review on longtermist institutional design and policy.
As a classical utilitarian, I’m also not particularly bothered by the philosophical problems you set out above, but some of these problems are the subject of my dissertation and I hope that I have some solutions for you soon.
In short, I think there is reason for more optimism about longtermist institutional reform than you express here, but I am happy to have some further discussion of the problem and to see a call to consider more seriously the epistemic problems that plague such reform along with some possible solutions.
Hi Tyler,
thanks for the detailed and thoughtful comment!
Yeah, I agree that there are plenty of reasons why institutional reform could be valuable. I didn’t mean to endorse that objection (at least not in a strong form). I like your point about how longtermist institutions may shift norms and attitudes.
I mostly had the former in mind when writing the post, though other attempts to ameliorate short-termism are also plausibly very important.
Might just be a typo but this post is by CRS (Center for Reducing Suffering), not CLR (Center on long-term risk). (It’s easy to mix up because CRS is new, CLR recently re-branded, and both focus on s-risks.)
Looking forward to reading it!
Ah, it looks like I read your post to be a bit more committal than you meant it to be! Thanks for your reply! And sorry for the misnomer, I’ll correct that in the top-level comment.