Looks like I missed this, but I wanted to try it out anyway. Maybe it’ll be useful to someone.
That’s a great question. Prioritizing is important. There are many problems and we want to fix what affects us. But let’s imagine this question differently.
It’s pretty nice having fresh, clean water to drink, right? That’s going to be true for you today, tomorrow, and next week. It’ll be true in 10 days or 10 years. You wouldn’t consider yourself as having less of a right to clean water today than you did 10 years ago, right? And you wouldn’t want people to make decisions today that take away your water tomorrow. Or decisions 10 years ago that ruined your water today.
You’ll probably also want your kids to have clean water—and their kids too. You won’t want anyone to take that away. Because no matter how far you go into the future, they will still need clean water as much as you do today. There’s always going to be someone around who needs clean water just like us. They’ll feel the same pain, joy, and thirst. And they will be just as real and valuable as our own future self. Just as we are as real and valuable as people 10 years ago. Future people have value the same way our future self does. And just as past people ensured we would have clean water, we should ensure that future people can enjoy clean water too.
If something won’t affect anyone for a long time, then we might spend less effort and prioritize more immediate problems that are causing suffering. Here it makes sense to discount future people’s needs somewhat—not because they are worth less, but because we have more time. An asteroid 100,000 years away doesn’t mean ignore starvation today. Nor does starvation today mean we should forget those who will feel hungry tomorrow.
Looks like I missed this, but I wanted to try it out anyway. Maybe it’ll be useful to someone.
That’s a great question. Prioritizing is important. There are many problems and we want to fix what affects us. But let’s imagine this question differently.
It’s pretty nice having fresh, clean water to drink, right? That’s going to be true for you today, tomorrow, and next week. It’ll be true in 10 days or 10 years. You wouldn’t consider yourself as having less of a right to clean water today than you did 10 years ago, right? And you wouldn’t want people to make decisions today that take away your water tomorrow. Or decisions 10 years ago that ruined your water today.
You’ll probably also want your kids to have clean water—and their kids too. You won’t want anyone to take that away. Because no matter how far you go into the future, they will still need clean water as much as you do today. There’s always going to be someone around who needs clean water just like us. They’ll feel the same pain, joy, and thirst. And they will be just as real and valuable as our own future self. Just as we are as real and valuable as people 10 years ago. Future people have value the same way our future self does. And just as past people ensured we would have clean water, we should ensure that future people can enjoy clean water too.
If something won’t affect anyone for a long time, then we might spend less effort and prioritize more immediate problems that are causing suffering. Here it makes sense to discount future people’s needs somewhat—not because they are worth less, but because we have more time. An asteroid 100,000 years away doesn’t mean ignore starvation today. Nor does starvation today mean we should forget those who will feel hungry tomorrow.