MacAskill: How to positively influence the future if you misidentify the risks?
Details
**Please note: the date and location have been updated.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, even in ethics, and let's explore the trade-offs of longtermism, even if you agree with the premise. This belief motivates some climate change efforts and was rumoured to be behind the sudden ouster of the ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman.
What We Owe the Future: A Million Year View by William MacAskill
352 pages
Excerpted from the Amazon description:
> An Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.
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> The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today.
> In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human."
Feel free to check out AFTER you've read the book:
- https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/what-we-owe-the-future/ (This review is the most balanced and written by another philosopher)