Thanks for your insightful comment! You’re quite right that being able to consider the long term future when making decisions about one’s own life requires a certain level of affluence. So I’m sure you’re right that most of our ancestors, including mine as well as yours, couldn’t afford to do so. My question, however, is less about what actually happened in the past and more about how advocates of longtermism make their argument, whether anyone has put forward this sort of argument, and whether it would be useful to do so. If you have any thoughts about that, I’d love to hear them!
Hi Phil,
Thanks for your insightful comment! You’re quite right that being able to consider the long term future when making decisions about one’s own life requires a certain level of affluence. So I’m sure you’re right that most of our ancestors, including mine as well as yours, couldn’t afford to do so. My question, however, is less about what actually happened in the past and more about how advocates of longtermism make their argument, whether anyone has put forward this sort of argument, and whether it would be useful to do so. If you have any thoughts about that, I’d love to hear them!