5 Reading Summary

What We Ow the Future, Chapter 1

Longtermism is about giving recognition to the disempowered, similarly to civil rights movement.

To overcome the tyranny of the present, over the future.

To apply longtermism ask this: 'Will this be of benefit to the seventh generation ahead?'

Main Principles of Longtermism

• Future people count morally

  • e.g., Suppose while hiking, I drop a glass bottle on the trail and it shatters. And suppose that if I don’t clean it up, later a child will cut herself badly on the shards. In deciding whether to clean it up, does it matter when the child will cut herself? Should I care whether it’s a week, or a decade, or a century from now? No. Harm is harm, whenever it occurs.

  • Ask yourself if your ancestors should have positively influenced about providing a good future to you

  • Examples of current longtermism concern

    • e.g., nuclear waste disposal, climate change prevention, longterm scientific projects, preserve paintings, traditions, languages

• Scale is big. There could be a lot of them.

  • If you could save someone you should.

  • If you could save more, you should.

  • Scale of Future Humans

    • Variables

      • Time: next million years (average live time of a species)

      • Population: Same as currently (2023)

    • Result

      • 80 trillion people yet to come

      • Future 10,000 : 1 Present

• Solvability. We can make their lives go better.

  • Future can either improve or deteriorate

    • Past Improvements

      • Average life expectancy from 30 -> 73a

      • Extreme poverty 80% -> <10%

      • Literacy Rate 10% -> 85%

      • Rights Movement -> Feminism, Sexual Orientation, Slavery

      • Democracy: No Democracy -> >50%

    • Future Potential of Deterioration

      • Climate Catastrophe, Farmed Animal Suffering, Slavery, Totalitarian Regimes, Scientific advances used negatively e.g., nuclear war, factory farms

  • Now is a good time to positively influence the future

    • Connectedness

      • Past: impossible to communicate between continents

      • Now: easy

      • Future: Spreading to the stars may cause difficulties to communicate

    • Power Centralisation

      • few people hold much power to influence the future

    • Technological Shifts

      • away from bad values and survival

Causes of Neglect of Longtermism

• Not on social media - Cannot voice their opinion

• Not within politics - cannot vote or lobby

• Not within the economic market - cannot trade