One distinction one might make is that between institutions that:
a) Generate knowledge about how to help future generations effectively.
b) Give more power to people who want to help future generations, or whose task is to help future generations.
Using a belief-preference framework, one might say that a) generates true beliefs (and corrects false beliefs), whereas b) effectively makes the government’s preferences more future-oriented.
An In-government Think Tank would be an example of a), and age-weighted voting an example of b). Some of the other institutions may be mixes; have both components.
Impartiality with respect to time is often compared with impartiality with respect to gender, ethnicity, etc. However, it seems to me that there is an important policy disanalogy, namely that it’s probably more difficult to know how to advance the interests of future generations, than to know how to advance the interests of an underprivileged gender or ethnic group (even though that isn’t trivial either). There’s a risk that many policies that people might advocate for the sake of future generations aren’t especially effective. One upshot of that is that when it comes to helping future generations, institutions that generate more knowledge may be unusually important.
Thanks, I agree that pinpointing whether these institutions target the epistemic vs motivational (vs other) determinants of short-termism will be important. One more reason to do this is that the best solutions will combine a multiplicity of institutions and policies to address all of the different sources of short-termism without reduplicating effort.
Also note that most institutions will do at least a little bit of both. The government think tank will also address some motivational failings by providing more government officials focused on the long-term and by creating coordination points for government action, while generally we might expect that making a body more motivated to improve the future (such as with AWV) will make it more likely to seek good information about the future.
I agree that some institutions will do both. I’m not sure that age-weighted voting will change voters’ tendency, weighted by voting power, to seek good information about the future much, though.
I agree it will probably not change voter epistemic behavior. The thought was that it would change the epistemic behavior of the parties catering to voters and the representatives acting on behalf of the voters, since the voting rule will select for parties and representatives which are less short-termist. This of course can’t be guaranteed—if parties are not motivationally longtermist but are merely trying to appease voters to hold power, for example, it won’t change their epistemic incentives very much unless competing actors (parties, media) can demonstrate to young people that their plans are bad. But even in this case this is plausible.
One distinction one might make is that between institutions that:
a) Generate knowledge about how to help future generations effectively.
b) Give more power to people who want to help future generations, or whose task is to help future generations.
Using a belief-preference framework, one might say that a) generates true beliefs (and corrects false beliefs), whereas b) effectively makes the government’s preferences more future-oriented.
An In-government Think Tank would be an example of a), and age-weighted voting an example of b). Some of the other institutions may be mixes; have both components.
Impartiality with respect to time is often compared with impartiality with respect to gender, ethnicity, etc. However, it seems to me that there is an important policy disanalogy, namely that it’s probably more difficult to know how to advance the interests of future generations, than to know how to advance the interests of an underprivileged gender or ethnic group (even though that isn’t trivial either). There’s a risk that many policies that people might advocate for the sake of future generations aren’t especially effective. One upshot of that is that when it comes to helping future generations, institutions that generate more knowledge may be unusually important.
Thanks, I agree that pinpointing whether these institutions target the epistemic vs motivational (vs other) determinants of short-termism will be important. One more reason to do this is that the best solutions will combine a multiplicity of institutions and policies to address all of the different sources of short-termism without reduplicating effort.
Also note that most institutions will do at least a little bit of both. The government think tank will also address some motivational failings by providing more government officials focused on the long-term and by creating coordination points for government action, while generally we might expect that making a body more motivated to improve the future (such as with AWV) will make it more likely to seek good information about the future.
I agree that some institutions will do both. I’m not sure that age-weighted voting will change voters’ tendency, weighted by voting power, to seek good information about the future much, though.
I agree it will probably not change voter epistemic behavior. The thought was that it would change the epistemic behavior of the parties catering to voters and the representatives acting on behalf of the voters, since the voting rule will select for parties and representatives which are less short-termist. This of course can’t be guaranteed—if parties are not motivationally longtermist but are merely trying to appease voters to hold power, for example, it won’t change their epistemic incentives very much unless competing actors (parties, media) can demonstrate to young people that their plans are bad. But even in this case this is plausible.