Thanks for writing—I skimmed so may have missed things, but I think these arguments have significant weaknesses, e.g.:
They draw a strong conclusion about major historical patterns just based on guesswork about ~12 examples (including 3 that are explicitly taken from the author’s imagination).
They do not consider examples which suggest long-term thinking has been very beneficial.
E.g. some sources suggest that Lincoln had long-term motivations for permanently abolishing slavery, saying, “The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come—a measure of such importance that these two votes must be procured.”
As another comment suggests, the argument does not consider ways in which our time might be different (e.g. unusually many people are trying to have long-term impacts, people are less ignorant, tech advances may create rare opportunities for long-term impact).
Another example of long-term thinking working well is Ben Franklin’s bequests to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia, which grew for 200 years before being cashed out. (Also one of the inspirations for the Patient Philanthropy Fund.)
To your Lincoln example I’d add good governance attempts in general—the US constitution appears to have been written with the express aim of providing long term democratic and stable government.
Thanks for adding this as an additional example—the US constitution is a very good example of how longtermism can achieve negative results! There’s a growing body of research from political scientists that the constitution is a major cause of a lot of US governance problems, for example here.
I think the slavery example is a strong example of longtermism having good outcomes, and it probably increased the amount of urgency to reduce slavery.
My base rate for “this time it’s different” arguments are low, except for ones that focus on extinction risk. Like if you mess up and everyone dies, that’s unrecoverable. But for other things I am skeptical.
Thanks for writing—I skimmed so may have missed things, but I think these arguments have significant weaknesses, e.g.:
They draw a strong conclusion about major historical patterns just based on guesswork about ~12 examples (including 3 that are explicitly taken from the author’s imagination).
They do not consider examples which suggest long-term thinking has been very beneficial.
E.g. some sources suggest that Lincoln had long-term motivations for permanently abolishing slavery, saying, “The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come—a measure of such importance that these two votes must be procured.”
As another comment suggests, the argument does not consider ways in which our time might be different (e.g. unusually many people are trying to have long-term impacts, people are less ignorant, tech advances may create rare opportunities for long-term impact).
Another example of long-term thinking working well is Ben Franklin’s bequests to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia, which grew for 200 years before being cashed out. (Also one of the inspirations for the Patient Philanthropy Fund.)
Thank you, this is a great example of longtermism thinking working out, that would have been unlikely to happen without it!
To your Lincoln example I’d add good governance attempts in general—the US constitution appears to have been written with the express aim of providing long term democratic and stable government.
Thanks for adding this as an additional example—the US constitution is a very good example of how longtermism can achieve negative results! There’s a growing body of research from political scientists that the constitution is a major cause of a lot of US governance problems, for example here.
I think the slavery example is a strong example of longtermism having good outcomes, and it probably increased the amount of urgency to reduce slavery.
My base rate for “this time it’s different” arguments are low, except for ones that focus on extinction risk. Like if you mess up and everyone dies, that’s unrecoverable. But for other things I am skeptical.