“We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come. ... What about that seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?”
—Oren Lyons (1980)
This week we’ll explore a different approach to finding high-impact interventions – ‘longtermism’ – which attempts to find interventions that beneficially influence the long-run course of humanity. In particular, we should pay attention to both (i) ways in which we can ensure the existence of future value (e.g., happiness, equality) and (ii) ways in which we can prevent the existence of future disvalue (e.g., suffering, injustice).
It’s also worth considering to what extent long-termist priorities – such as existential risk reduction and improving epistemic institutions – are also valuable even when only considering the impact on present generations.
Longtermism
Bayes' rule and evidence