Epistemic status: quickly writtren, rehashing (reheating?) old, old takes. Also, written in a grumpier voice than I’d endorse (I got rained on this morning).

Some essays on longtermism came out recently! Perhaps you noticed. I overall think these essays were just fine[1], and that we should all talk less about longtermism.

(In what follows, I’ll take “longtermism” as shorthand for: “the effects of our actions on the long term future should be a key moral priority.")

Critics often have two[2] broad kinds of objections to longtermism:

1. It's too revisionary or radical in its implications
2. It's not action-guiding, it's irrelevant in its implications

Here I’ll say a bit more on (2). Specifically, I’m going to argue that (A) longtermism isn’t necessary to motivate most high priority work, and that ((B) for the work longtermism might be necessary to motivate, talking about object-level features [...]

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Outline:

(00:33) In which I talk about longtermism

(01:24) Longtermism doesn't distinctively motivate much work

(03:26) Longtermists act like normal people, mostly

(05:01) What about work that seemingly does need longtermism?

(05:45) Some concrete recommendations

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.