One wrinkle on the symbolism: an hourglass typically represents not just time, but limited time; time that is running out. Think e.g. the fact that Death is often associated with an hourglass.
This works great for the avoiding-X-risks angle, but I’m not sure it best conveys the vast abundance of time the long-term future might contain. Sure, it’s still (probably) finite, but I don’t think its finitude is core to the concept of longtermism.
Of course, we could always change the flag after dealing with the X-risks.
One wrinkle on the symbolism: an hourglass typically represents not just time, but limited time; time that is running out. Think e.g. the fact that Death is often associated with an hourglass.
This works great for the avoiding-X-risks angle, but I’m not sure it best conveys the vast abundance of time the long-term future might contain. Sure, it’s still (probably) finite, but I don’t think its finitude is core to the concept of longtermism.
Of course, we could always change the flag after dealing with the X-risks.
(It now occurs that the phrase “time is running out” might actually be an hourglass metaphor.)