Thank you for this! This is not the kind of post that I expect to generate much discussion, since itโs relatively uncontroversial in this venue, but is the kind of thing I expect to point people to in future.
I want to particularly draw attention to a pair of related quotes partway through your piece:
Iโve tried explaining the case for longtermism in a way that is relatively free of jargon. Iโve argued for a fairly minimal version โ that we may be able to influence the long-run future, and that aiming to achieve this is extremely good and important. The more precise versions of longtermism from the proper philosophical literature tend to go further than this, making some claim about the high relative importance of influencing the long-run future over other kinds of morally relevant activities.
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Please note that you do not have to buy into strong longtermism in order to buy into longtermism!
Thank you for this! This is not the kind of post that I expect to generate much discussion, since itโs relatively uncontroversial in this venue, but is the kind of thing I expect to point people to in future.
I want to particularly draw attention to a pair of related quotes partway through your piece: