Comments
Musikcookie t1_it76laq wrote
This just feels dumb. I don’t know anyone who advocates for longtermism. It sounds like a strawman or some debate in a niche philosophical circle which gets spiralled out by talking about it.
The fact is, future humans are a problem in ethics we currently face. What about climate change and non-renewable energy sources? What about the ever growing distance between the richest and the poorest on earth? What about education? The list goes on.
We need to find answers to these things. As I understand it: Either this article is about a completely irrelevant niche of philosophy or - and this is why I’m so cautious here - it’s from someone who doesn’t like giving up the comforts of an unsustainable lifestyle.
nodeal-ordeal t1_it7barz wrote
Not sure why you got a downvote.
I would be quite interested in understanding how to quantify or otherwise make suffering visible.
We try quite a bit on heuristics to try to avoid suffering but in the end we cannot avoid it. Thus, with animals we are quick to euthanize them when they suffer a lot (again for which scale) but for humans we do not.
I would like to understand if there is something like that.
To the topic of longterminism: cool idea to think about it but completed useless in every day. It is mental gymnastics. Like sudoku. In the end nothing practical comes out of it but you had fun thinking about it.
From a more pessimistic perspective: this is the sociological equivalent of terminal value calculations in Discounted Cashflow (DCF) calculations. It is the sum of all future possibilities, weighted by probability and discounted for time value and risk.. needless to say, it is a perversion of the value of life to apply this to future human beings
Edit: and also quite utilitarian, void of any ethics as the focus is on human beings alive and to be born, not what they do with their lives.
Aggravating_Roe t1_it7cwl5 wrote
I believe that there are somewhat a false dichotomy here. Taking stock of the future does not rule out the present and vice versa.
Plus, anti-longtermism is not intuitive. If future generations counts for nothing, then we have no real incentive for true sustainability. Also, by the fact that generations progresses continuously we are connected with the long term already.
My interpretation of longtermism is as a attempt to come to terms with the current human condition under the anthropocene, where resources have to be viewed as finite and externalities have nowhere to be pushed.
Further, the article in general misses the mark and the good form of giving one’s philosophical opponent it’s best interpretation: the argument that a person in the 1900:s could not have foresight of the coming century is kind of irrelevant. The point to steel man is that we should think seriously about alternative futures and consequences when implementing technology or making policy. And the AI issue does not rely on AGI - rather on alignment and optimization to what values under who’s control.
antiquemule t1_it7df9u wrote
Well said!
Burning down rainforest, unsustainable fishing, destruction of soil quality by poor agricultural practices... The list is never ending.
And frankly some of these "long term" problems are going to start impacting us a lot sooner than the more naive expect.
SovArya t1_it7gmlp wrote
Based on history, if we truly wish not to repeat past errors, there should be a few tried and true things that work and should be maintained. I feel the saying, don't fix what isn't broken can be applied in that sense and then improve on it if it is better than the tested method.
It made me think if too fast an innovation may be the enemy.
Another way to think of the idea is like building blocks. We stand on the shoulder of giants.
TMax01 t1_it7gn8m wrote
It all comes down to what is meant by "moral" and "improve". It seems to me the only way to accurately describe any change in the present society as an "improvement" must include considering whether it will (or at least could) likewise improve the future society by that same measure. Any other approach is unreasonable and immoral.
wrathandweeping t1_it7p6qw wrote
Considering how shortsighted and inconsiderate we are as a society, and, say, how 70% of wildlife has been eradicated in half a century, this doesn’t seem like an actual problem. In fact, this article and sentiment seems profoundly harmful.
EfraimWinslow t1_it7vc7i wrote
I understand the logic here and would probably concede a few points if I heard your argument fully. However, many people have children and I believe that puts skin in the game, so to speak. Most people are not solipsistic and have at least some degree of empathy for others, even if they don’t know these people or these people aren’t even born yet. Think about student debt for example. Some people may want their student debt payed off, but they don’t think it’s right that other taxpayers are paying their personal debt. These taxes would be raised in the future as well. I think there are actually a ton of actions people take because they are keeping one eye out on the future. Think of the principle as to why problem go into debt or make investments. They’re expecting a bigger reward at the end. I think ethics can operate on a similar principle, if not one to one. I would argue if people threw out any sort of personal investment in the future would destroy the present as people would simply do what they need to do to get ahead, future be damned.
Sorry this was a bit of a ramble
JustAPerspective t1_it7xxbm wrote
Does a competent designer build a home for "now" without considering tomorrow's needs?
PrimePhilosophy t1_it8dsjm wrote
"Our moral obligation is to improve the society we live in, not the ones to come." - why not both?
backwardog t1_it8ljr4 wrote
No. You can set down a path of harvesting all the resources for temporary improvement and then fuck over future generations.
dayumbrah t1_it8os5k wrote
Nah, if you attempted to harvest all resources you would see a significant collapse of many ecosystems which would have immediate effects
backwardog t1_it8p3am wrote
Things can definitely slowly get worse.
Look at what happened/is happening with industrialization and climate change. Not all effects are immediately apparent from every cause.
And notice I said “set down a path.” I don’t mean wipe out all resources in an instant. We are set down a path to harvest all the oil, this won’t happen over night, but once that supply dwindles there will be significant negative outcomes.
dayumbrah t1_it8plpp wrote
Notice I said "genuinely improve society"
backwardog t1_it8ppx6 wrote
You don’t think oil genuinely improves society? It has, and does.
Society would basically collapse if we suddenly ran out of oil. The absolute worst part of using oil is our dependency on it for such a great number of industries. It’s not renewable, things will get worse when it runs out. It’s a perfect example of activity that benefits society now but makes it potentially worse in the future.
dayumbrah t1_it8pukl wrote
ConfusedObserver0 t1_ita2jmx wrote
Well said.
MacAskill’s book has spurned a lot of interest recently.
I think we are obviously tangibly tethered to the future as far as our lives will be effected by it and our offspring will be too. As that generational relay team race steps ever forward in time.
I’ve heard people signal for years, “it not just IQ but people that plan for the long term future that achieve more and have a better lifelong outcomes,” curiously from alt-right people I grew up with who are fighting the now wars.
Often the long term ism, is not just oriented for 100 years from now but mid term and even short duration as well yield declines in this problems that some people would prefer to hand wave away as insoluble. The issue is that if people can’t make it day to day, you will never convince them to invest in the future. This is what I call the conditional statement of being liberal in the first place. In the old model which leans conservative you fight like an animal for survival. Once we take you out of this state of being, you can attempt to view some i thing like liberal rights, free speech as universal in a long term ism way that’s twice removed 10x in laws of bigger numbers and evaluations. Otherwise it’s all just hand to mouth and gun in hand.
Take a solution to retirement as an example. If we gave every child born from today on out, 10k that’s invested into a Janus fund or whatever, then by the age 65 they would have over a million in retirement (think it’s potentially much more with average historical yield’s). Though, now who is going to see a need to solve a problem that takes 65 years to show the results? But it’s the old small time thinking that has us stuck in the present situation with many problems.
We can’t fix it all either, since we can’t predict it all. Flexibility is an important feature of a government. Much division and bureaucracy slows one’s ability to be malleable but have their own valuable purpose as well.
I would think someone that disputes this, is more a fan of Cioran and practices more nihilistic behaviors. The only catch is I don’t mind if you go back to the organic man on your own, but your not taking any of the abstract man with you. But how can one decide to be an unevolved monkey after already being apart of it? In the end it’s just self validation for one’s independent experience that would destroy all the gains for the masses past peoples worked so hard for us to ameliorate.
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BernardJOrtcutt t1_itakfqm wrote
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Green_End8154 t1_itavktp wrote
Aggravating_Roe t1_itazsqx wrote
Interesting spottings and I agree!
[deleted] t1_itb61nz wrote
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Musikcookie t1_itb709n wrote
Well you habe no answer because you are begging the question. Your premise is that life is unsustainable. Which it isn’t inherently.
However currently most people - and I don’t exclude myself here - live unsustainably. And when you admit defeat before you try, that will never change.
[deleted] t1_itb7wzc wrote
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Musikcookie t1_itb83s7 wrote
Yup. But just because something is, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.
[deleted] t1_itb8p88 wrote
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Musikcookie t1_itb8zco wrote
No. But we can do research for recycling technology and make sure energy for those smart phones is produced sustainably.
Also it’s on a scale. You can do it more or less environmentally friendly. So even if we just lived less unsustainably, it’d already be better than just being like “there’s no phone fairy so it’s just a moral quandary, oh well”.
[deleted] t1_itbeue5 wrote
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PositiveStrength5694 t1_itbfacg wrote
Personally, I can think of many things this kind of thinking can help us with. For instance in terms of political and institutional decision making, many decisions are made on a time span of an election cycle or for the next consensus, because that is the thing politicians are rated on. If we look at political decisions, there are many that are obviously beneficial for the next couple years and harmful in 10 years or future generations, and many times one can easily think of an alternative that benefits the now less, but is much less harmful or even beneficial for the future. E.g. the rate on sovereign debt most countries take on is completely irrational when looking at the expected results of decisions to take on more debt today on a time span of even 20 years. Now I do not expect people to start to think in centuries or longer time spans, but if decisions we taken looking at a more long-term time span that would already provide a better would for our children and their children and their children ...
Musikcookie t1_itbfuui wrote
I meant the article. I said it “feels dumb”, with emphasis on “feels” because I did read it, but that’s all. I didn’t put a lot of research into it.
However, the article from my recollection just says why “longtermism” doesn’t work which is because it doesn’t give any concrete advice on what to do now. Again, this is not my final word on it, however I think it’s a bit of a lazy critique. I can come up with some ideas and moral categories for such a “longtermism” pretty much on the spot. Furthermore, it’s the critique of a philosophical direction, that seems rather academically encapsulated. I haven’t seen a person or politician be a follower of longtermism. To be honest, from what I understand it very much sounds more like a component than a moral framework. I could only understand the critique in the article if it was advocated as a complete and exclusive moral framework, but then it seems like someone is arguing against some idea that most likely will die off soon anyway.
I guess I found the article to be quite extensive for the goal it tried to reach. I also was afraid of it for being some Jordan Peterson style shit where it’s like “hey, don’t worry about the future. Future generations will figure out how to sort out the mess we leave now. Cause you know, it’s so hard to care about the future, like we’d actually have to put effort into it. Let’s not do it.” But I looked into the person behind this article a bit and it doesn’t seem like that on the surface.
[deleted] t1_itbx5ob wrote
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[deleted] t1_it71bn7 wrote
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