Is our future to be decided by the people most isolated from reality?
February 28, 2023 1:19 AM Subscribe
'Longtermism’ is .. the hubris of a species in more trouble than it is willing to admit. It is a bid to put a worn-out myth of progress on steroids, to boost our failed civilisational model further off the cliff." .. "Its blind enthusiasm for ever more tech and ever more people is likely to hasten our current descent into oblivion, if it gains further traction." .. "It is a lullaby sung to the tune of tired fantasies of human exceptionalism. It is anaesthesia for the age of consequences." (Earth vs Futurism by Rupert Read)
"Among the world’s ultra-rich, plans to swat back the sun’s rays like they’re capital gains taxes .. have seemingly been all the rage." (Why Billionaires are Obsessed With Blocking Out the Sun by Alejandro de la Garza)
"Among the world’s ultra-rich, plans to swat back the sun’s rays like they’re capital gains taxes .. have seemingly been all the rage." (Why Billionaires are Obsessed With Blocking Out the Sun by Alejandro de la Garza)
More about solar geoengineering: A ‘climate solution’ that spies worry could trigger war
posted by chavenet at 2:33 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 2:33 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Against Longtermism and What “longtermism” gets wrong about climate change by Émile Torres @xriskology provide excellent well-cited take downs of longtermist in general and the book What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill, respectively.
"If you, like me, value the continued survival and flourishing of humanity, you should care about the long term but reject the ideology of longtermism, which is not only dangerous and flawed but might be contributing to, and reinforcing, the risks that now threaten every person on the planet."
Torres asked climate and agriculture researchers about MacAskill's dismissal of climate concerns, especially to agriculture, which resulted in answers like “nonsense” from Gerardo Ceballos or "silly and simplistic" from Luke Kemp.
Michael Mann said MacAskill’s “argument is bizarre and Panglossian at best. We don’t need to rely on his ‘best guess’ because actual experts have done the hard work of looking at this objectively and comprehensively.”
Amusingly, Torres found five scientists who MacAskill claimed advised his book, but who actually never reviewed or commented on the book.
As an aide, Torres has an upcoming book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation, with an interesting preview at The ethics of human extinction.
Also: The Rich Have Their Own Ethics: Effective Altruism & the Crypto Crash (ft. F1nn5ter)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:37 AM on February 28, 2023 [11 favorites]
"If you, like me, value the continued survival and flourishing of humanity, you should care about the long term but reject the ideology of longtermism, which is not only dangerous and flawed but might be contributing to, and reinforcing, the risks that now threaten every person on the planet."
Torres asked climate and agriculture researchers about MacAskill's dismissal of climate concerns, especially to agriculture, which resulted in answers like “nonsense” from Gerardo Ceballos or "silly and simplistic" from Luke Kemp.
Michael Mann said MacAskill’s “argument is bizarre and Panglossian at best. We don’t need to rely on his ‘best guess’ because actual experts have done the hard work of looking at this objectively and comprehensively.”
Amusingly, Torres found five scientists who MacAskill claimed advised his book, but who actually never reviewed or commented on the book.
As an aide, Torres has an upcoming book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation, with an interesting preview at The ethics of human extinction.
Also: The Rich Have Their Own Ethics: Effective Altruism & the Crypto Crash (ft. F1nn5ter)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:37 AM on February 28, 2023 [11 favorites]
Dealing with global heating also means dealing with one of the underlying conceits of capitalism itself - that infinite growth from resource exploitation is a) possible and b) highly desirable.
The planet has resource limits - specifically capacity to absorb CO2, for just one example, and we're pushing past them so much as to impact on the viability of us continuing to live here. Mitigating that threat means changing business as usual in substantial ways.
Limiting (or ending) capitalism is far harder to imagine for people who have benefited so much from funnelling vast wealth to themselves; or they more cynically know that that's what it would take, and don't want to change.
Hence vast geo-engineering 'hacks' with massive anticipated drawbacks, let alone the as-yet unforeseen consequences of altering the atmosphere even more on a global scale - all so we don't look at how we make money, and who gets most of it.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 2:44 AM on February 28, 2023 [19 favorites]
The planet has resource limits - specifically capacity to absorb CO2, for just one example, and we're pushing past them so much as to impact on the viability of us continuing to live here. Mitigating that threat means changing business as usual in substantial ways.
Limiting (or ending) capitalism is far harder to imagine for people who have benefited so much from funnelling vast wealth to themselves; or they more cynically know that that's what it would take, and don't want to change.
Hence vast geo-engineering 'hacks' with massive anticipated drawbacks, let alone the as-yet unforeseen consequences of altering the atmosphere even more on a global scale - all so we don't look at how we make money, and who gets most of it.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 2:44 AM on February 28, 2023 [19 favorites]
More about solar geoengineering: A ‘climate solution’ that spies worry could trigger war
Food security seems to be a thread already tying many current wars and conflicts. Syria is deep in a civil war because of climate change-induced drought. Russia is waging war on Ukraine, partly and not least to secure control over the latter country's globally-significant agricultural output.
Civil unrest may come to the UK in the form of food riots, as much as soaring food and energy prices have already brought domestic instability to Argentina, Chile, Greece, Iran, Peru, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Tunisia.
With all of this comes a gradual eroding of democratic ideals and human rights, as authoritarianism spreads, providing handsome profits to shareholders of military contractors and tech companies, which sell weaponry and surveillance technology.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:25 AM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
Food security seems to be a thread already tying many current wars and conflicts. Syria is deep in a civil war because of climate change-induced drought. Russia is waging war on Ukraine, partly and not least to secure control over the latter country's globally-significant agricultural output.
Civil unrest may come to the UK in the form of food riots, as much as soaring food and energy prices have already brought domestic instability to Argentina, Chile, Greece, Iran, Peru, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Tunisia.
With all of this comes a gradual eroding of democratic ideals and human rights, as authoritarianism spreads, providing handsome profits to shareholders of military contractors and tech companies, which sell weaponry and surveillance technology.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:25 AM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
Yes.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:13 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:13 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you're unfamiliar with longtermism and are curious about whether it has useful contributions to make, just read pretty much anything by its high priest, Nick Bostrom. Very intelligent bloke, Nick Bostrom, highly regarded and quite influential in certain circles.
He's made an entire career out of ignoring the obvious while contemplating the abstruse, and his conclusions serve as the absurdam that should give anybody with their feet planted on the ground a more than sufficient dose of reductio.
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 AM on February 28, 2023 [13 favorites]
He's made an entire career out of ignoring the obvious while contemplating the abstruse, and his conclusions serve as the absurdam that should give anybody with their feet planted on the ground a more than sufficient dose of reductio.
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 AM on February 28, 2023 [13 favorites]
Would it be morally wrong, or perhaps morally right, to cause or allow our extinction to occur?
Morally wrong to cause, sure. But we really didn't have proper awareness until it was too late.
Allow? Quite the assumption we have any choice in the extinction process, there.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:34 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Morally wrong to cause, sure. But we really didn't have proper awareness until it was too late.
Allow? Quite the assumption we have any choice in the extinction process, there.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:34 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
... one of the underlying conceits of capitalism itself - that infinite growth from resource exploitation is a) possible and b) highly desirable ...
Never, never forget the demand side of this problem. The only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while. Which isn't going to happen, so ...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:36 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Never, never forget the demand side of this problem. The only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while. Which isn't going to happen, so ...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:36 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while
Seems like it is happening in Japan for example and other countries with enlightened medical infrastructure and reproductive rights policies.
posted by sammyo at 5:40 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Seems like it is happening in Japan for example and other countries with enlightened medical infrastructure and reproductive rights policies.
posted by sammyo at 5:40 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Karin Kuhlemann retweets some healthy opposition to pronatalism, like John Vidal or Naomi Oreskes or Nandita Bajaj.
We're already deep in ecological overshoot so our population must and shall decline, but population measures act slowly so really we need to rein in the fossil fuel use, ala Naomi Oreskes again, and the meat consumption, ala George Monbiot:
"It's not us it's them"
The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb
posted by jeffburdges at 6:10 AM on February 28, 2023
We're already deep in ecological overshoot so our population must and shall decline, but population measures act slowly so really we need to rein in the fossil fuel use, ala Naomi Oreskes again, and the meat consumption, ala George Monbiot:
"It's not us it's them"
The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb
posted by jeffburdges at 6:10 AM on February 28, 2023
Quite the assumption we have any choice in the extinction process, there.
We're Living in an Age of Small Creatures - "The various paths to impressive, humongous sizes hint, to me, that Earth is likely to see such creatures again. The sad part is that we probably won't see any of these future beings. We have a habit of killing off large animals—from whaling to declaring open season on gray wolves—and causing target species to shrink, if not go extinct. Remember Steller's sea cow or that ground-dwelling pigeon, the dodo? But the evolutionary processes and interactions that spur species to become larger will surely kick up once we get out of the way... Eventually, when humans step off Earth's stage, whatever species outlast us will get to live in a world where we are not putting such harsh limits on survival, where they are more evenly matched against their competitors. It's a sad irony for those of us nostalgic for times when life truly lived large. For giants to once again roam the Earth, we have to get out of the way."*
posted by kliuless at 6:18 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
We're Living in an Age of Small Creatures - "The various paths to impressive, humongous sizes hint, to me, that Earth is likely to see such creatures again. The sad part is that we probably won't see any of these future beings. We have a habit of killing off large animals—from whaling to declaring open season on gray wolves—and causing target species to shrink, if not go extinct. Remember Steller's sea cow or that ground-dwelling pigeon, the dodo? But the evolutionary processes and interactions that spur species to become larger will surely kick up once we get out of the way... Eventually, when humans step off Earth's stage, whatever species outlast us will get to live in a world where we are not putting such harsh limits on survival, where they are more evenly matched against their competitors. It's a sad irony for those of us nostalgic for times when life truly lived large. For giants to once again roam the Earth, we have to get out of the way."*
posted by kliuless at 6:18 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
The idea of dimming the sun (usually with sulfate aerosols) keeps getting pushed into public attention. It's never presented with breathless enthusiasm but instead with a sense of grim inevitability: "It's going to happen, so make your peace." Just today an article about it hit the front page of reddit.
The climate scientist Ray Pierrehumbert once brought up an aspect of stratospheric sulfate aerosol release that I never see mentioned in these discussions. Imagine that we keep emitting carbon. Total cumulative CO2 emisions under the RCP 8.5 scenario will be about 3,000 petagrams of carbon by 2050 if you also include the several hundred petagrams that were emitted before 2005. Carbon's relatively long residence time means it stays in circulation for centuries to millennia. One modeling study indicates that if we release 3000 Pg of carbon, then after 2000 years the atmosphere will still have something like 800 ppm CO2; after 10,000 years, it will still be over 500 ppm.
Now imagine that we shoot sulfur into the stratosphere to counteract the carbon. Sulfate aerosols have an atmospheric residence time of about a year, give or take, if you shoot them into the stratosphere. Think about that for a moment. Do you see what it leads to? The very different residence times of carbon and sulfur mean that if we start shooting huge amounts of sulfur into the stratosphere (and it would have to be huge, in the order of a teragram of sulfur per year) to counteract the warming effect of CO2, then we lock ourselves into that plan for literally thousands of years. Because if we start doing it and then miss a scheduled payload for even one year, the carbon is still up there but the sulfur is suddenly gone. Which means, for example, that if we follow the RCP 8.5 emission scenario plus sulfur but then miss a sulfur delivery around the year 2300, the planet's mean air temperature will skyrocket something like 4 to 7 degrees Celsius in about a year. It will truly be an apocalypse. It will make everything we've seen so far look like a nice quiet day at the beach.
So the next time you hear about sulfate aerosol geoengineering, ask yourself if you fully, completely trust the human race to keep shooting teragrams of sulfur up there every year like clockwork for *at least* the next 2,000 years, with absolutely no interruptions for any conceivable reason. Ask yourself if you trust every future Mars-obsessed billionaire, every future Christian fundamentalist yearning for the day of Judgment, to refrain from trying to stop one of those payloads for the next two millennia. Because if we start, we cannot stop for any reason.
posted by cubeb at 6:52 AM on February 28, 2023 [28 favorites]
The climate scientist Ray Pierrehumbert once brought up an aspect of stratospheric sulfate aerosol release that I never see mentioned in these discussions. Imagine that we keep emitting carbon. Total cumulative CO2 emisions under the RCP 8.5 scenario will be about 3,000 petagrams of carbon by 2050 if you also include the several hundred petagrams that were emitted before 2005. Carbon's relatively long residence time means it stays in circulation for centuries to millennia. One modeling study indicates that if we release 3000 Pg of carbon, then after 2000 years the atmosphere will still have something like 800 ppm CO2; after 10,000 years, it will still be over 500 ppm.
Now imagine that we shoot sulfur into the stratosphere to counteract the carbon. Sulfate aerosols have an atmospheric residence time of about a year, give or take, if you shoot them into the stratosphere. Think about that for a moment. Do you see what it leads to? The very different residence times of carbon and sulfur mean that if we start shooting huge amounts of sulfur into the stratosphere (and it would have to be huge, in the order of a teragram of sulfur per year) to counteract the warming effect of CO2, then we lock ourselves into that plan for literally thousands of years. Because if we start doing it and then miss a scheduled payload for even one year, the carbon is still up there but the sulfur is suddenly gone. Which means, for example, that if we follow the RCP 8.5 emission scenario plus sulfur but then miss a sulfur delivery around the year 2300, the planet's mean air temperature will skyrocket something like 4 to 7 degrees Celsius in about a year. It will truly be an apocalypse. It will make everything we've seen so far look like a nice quiet day at the beach.
So the next time you hear about sulfate aerosol geoengineering, ask yourself if you fully, completely trust the human race to keep shooting teragrams of sulfur up there every year like clockwork for *at least* the next 2,000 years, with absolutely no interruptions for any conceivable reason. Ask yourself if you trust every future Mars-obsessed billionaire, every future Christian fundamentalist yearning for the day of Judgment, to refrain from trying to stop one of those payloads for the next two millennia. Because if we start, we cannot stop for any reason.
posted by cubeb at 6:52 AM on February 28, 2023 [28 favorites]
Longtermism and MacAskill are also discussed in the latest Philosophy Tube.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:54 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:54 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
So the next time you hear about sulfate aerosol geoengineering,
Yep, the relentless billionaire worship with this particularly dumb tech "fix" in Stevenson's Termination Shock finally shredded the respect I have for that author.
posted by lalochezia at 6:58 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Think about that for a moment. Do you see what it leads to?
Futurama already explained it to me.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:58 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Futurama already explained it to me.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:58 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Years ago I read this (horrifying) story about the capsizing and sinking of the MS Estonia. Among all the other haunting details, this bit really stuck out:
There was criminality, too, perhaps because among the various admirable characteristics being selected for, the less admirable traits of opportunism and raw aggression lay inextricably entwined. Indeed, some of the first people to follow Rolf Sörman and his three female companions outside onto the nearly empty promenade were brazen thieves—a band of young Estonian men who took advantage of the confusion to tear a gold chain off Sörman's neck and to strip cash and jewelry from the women. With startling speed they robbed others on the deck and then disappeared inside, apparently to work through the crowds that were just beginning to surge up the staircases. They were confident, as criminals tend to be, and they must not even have considered that the ship might then trap them, though the best evidence is that it did.
So even as this ferry was sinking, with the thieves on board in as much danger (and, in most cases, almost certainly as doomed) as the rest of the passengers, they saw what they perceived as an opportunity to enrich themselves and proceeded to take it, future consequences for both themselves and others be to worried about later.
The planet is that ferry and the thieves are the people at the top scrambling to grab as much as they can for as long as they can, confident that they'll wind up in the lifeboats with pockets full before the ship goes under.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:00 AM on February 28, 2023 [36 favorites]
There was criminality, too, perhaps because among the various admirable characteristics being selected for, the less admirable traits of opportunism and raw aggression lay inextricably entwined. Indeed, some of the first people to follow Rolf Sörman and his three female companions outside onto the nearly empty promenade were brazen thieves—a band of young Estonian men who took advantage of the confusion to tear a gold chain off Sörman's neck and to strip cash and jewelry from the women. With startling speed they robbed others on the deck and then disappeared inside, apparently to work through the crowds that were just beginning to surge up the staircases. They were confident, as criminals tend to be, and they must not even have considered that the ship might then trap them, though the best evidence is that it did.
So even as this ferry was sinking, with the thieves on board in as much danger (and, in most cases, almost certainly as doomed) as the rest of the passengers, they saw what they perceived as an opportunity to enrich themselves and proceeded to take it, future consequences for both themselves and others be to worried about later.
The planet is that ferry and the thieves are the people at the top scrambling to grab as much as they can for as long as they can, confident that they'll wind up in the lifeboats with pockets full before the ship goes under.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:00 AM on February 28, 2023 [36 favorites]
“The tech tycoon martyrdom charade,” Anil Dash, 27 February 2023
Cf. Artw's comment in the “Twitter is (or was) down“ from today.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:18 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Cf. Artw's comment in the “Twitter is (or was) down“ from today.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:18 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
I used to believe "eat the rich" was a slogan of revenge. But maybe they should be eaten for self-protection.
posted by heyitsgogi at 7:19 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by heyitsgogi at 7:19 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
soaring food and energy prices have already brought domestic instability
This is happening in the US too, it's just currently mostly playing out at the local and regional level. For now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:50 AM on February 28, 2023
This is happening in the US too, it's just currently mostly playing out at the local and regional level. For now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:50 AM on February 28, 2023
Anil Dash: "In a way, it's sort of like a 'VC Qanon', and it colors almost everything that some of the most powerful people in the tech industry see and do — and not just in their companies or work, but in culture, politics and society overall. We're already seeing more and more irrational, extremist decision-making that can only be understood through this lens, because on its own their choices seem increasingly unfathomable."
@paul@paulkedrosky.com: "My general view is that one of the unexpected consequences of the mass disappearance of meaningful work will be the unexpected re-rise of religions—by which I mean organized and arbitrary belief systems of all kinds, not just deity-specific ones... I like to think of them as nano-religions, small-scale belief startups that organize and inspire their followers, and that, sometimes, grow very quickly. We got a taste of this during pandemic, when people paid to stay home came up with Qanon, a nano-religion startup. This is entirely predictable, and may be stabilizing at the individual level, providing meaning, but will be destabilizing at the societal level, as the social contract breaks down further given people's shifting allegiances and lack of shared beliefs with fellow citizens."
@anildash@me.dm: "...I'm refraining from adding the effective altruism hashtag here!"
AI Techies! - "Any of these ideas may be largely true or largely false, but the purpose they serve has little to do with their truth or falsity; they help motivate the people in and around the AI world, and to give a sense of purpose, uniqueness, and specialness."
The Little Nicholson Baker In My Mind - "To keep walking, you need a story about what you are doing, and why—going out for cigarettes, running away from home. And things in themselves aren't a story, any more than envelopes are a message. To tell a story you need imagination, which, precisely because it is outside (or inside, if you prefer) the envelope of experience, gives you a perspective from which to understand that there's more to envelopes than the presence or absence of a security pattern, the variety of adhesive, and the thickness of the paper—that the envelope has a use, the transmission of letters, which no amount of meditation on the thingness of the envelope alone will reveal."[1,2]
posted by kliuless at 7:51 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
@paul@paulkedrosky.com: "My general view is that one of the unexpected consequences of the mass disappearance of meaningful work will be the unexpected re-rise of religions—by which I mean organized and arbitrary belief systems of all kinds, not just deity-specific ones... I like to think of them as nano-religions, small-scale belief startups that organize and inspire their followers, and that, sometimes, grow very quickly. We got a taste of this during pandemic, when people paid to stay home came up with Qanon, a nano-religion startup. This is entirely predictable, and may be stabilizing at the individual level, providing meaning, but will be destabilizing at the societal level, as the social contract breaks down further given people's shifting allegiances and lack of shared beliefs with fellow citizens."
@anildash@me.dm: "...I'm refraining from adding the effective altruism hashtag here!"
AI Techies! - "Any of these ideas may be largely true or largely false, but the purpose they serve has little to do with their truth or falsity; they help motivate the people in and around the AI world, and to give a sense of purpose, uniqueness, and specialness."
The Little Nicholson Baker In My Mind - "To keep walking, you need a story about what you are doing, and why—going out for cigarettes, running away from home. And things in themselves aren't a story, any more than envelopes are a message. To tell a story you need imagination, which, precisely because it is outside (or inside, if you prefer) the envelope of experience, gives you a perspective from which to understand that there's more to envelopes than the presence or absence of a security pattern, the variety of adhesive, and the thickness of the paper—that the envelope has a use, the transmission of letters, which no amount of meditation on the thingness of the envelope alone will reveal."[1,2]
posted by kliuless at 7:51 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while
That's precisely what China's One Child policy was about, and look how well that turned out.
You can't meaningfully manage population growth in an ethical way. And if you do incentivize people out of procreation, like they did in Singapore, then you start to depopulate, which brings a whole host of other problems. Also, the Against Longtermism article discusses how those likely to bear the brunt of ill effects from the long term view are those in the global South, which cohort would also be the prime target of any attempt to force reduced birth rates.
The truth is that nobody knows how we're going to get ourselves out of this mess, and nobody has the One True Answer. Thinking long term - even extremely long term - is not an inherently bad thing. I mean, that's what climate activism is about, right? Making sure there is a future. Clearly any philosophy that completely ignores the suffering of the present is a bad philosophy that should not be enacted. But "hey, maybe we'd be better off not existing" is also a terrible, no-good philosophy.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:52 AM on February 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
That's precisely what China's One Child policy was about, and look how well that turned out.
You can't meaningfully manage population growth in an ethical way. And if you do incentivize people out of procreation, like they did in Singapore, then you start to depopulate, which brings a whole host of other problems. Also, the Against Longtermism article discusses how those likely to bear the brunt of ill effects from the long term view are those in the global South, which cohort would also be the prime target of any attempt to force reduced birth rates.
The truth is that nobody knows how we're going to get ourselves out of this mess, and nobody has the One True Answer. Thinking long term - even extremely long term - is not an inherently bad thing. I mean, that's what climate activism is about, right? Making sure there is a future. Clearly any philosophy that completely ignores the suffering of the present is a bad philosophy that should not be enacted. But "hey, maybe we'd be better off not existing" is also a terrible, no-good philosophy.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:52 AM on February 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I wonder if Rupert Read ever stopped being transphobic — just saying
posted by lokta at 9:14 AM on February 28, 2023
posted by lokta at 9:14 AM on February 28, 2023
if you do incentivize people out of procreation, like they did in Singapore, then you start to depopulate, which brings a whole host of other problems
almost all of which could be solved by a humane, refugees-first immigration policy.
posted by flabdablet at 9:17 AM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
almost all of which could be solved by a humane, refugees-first immigration policy.
posted by flabdablet at 9:17 AM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
Thinking long term - even extremely long term - is not an inherently bad thing.
It becomes an inherently bad thing once the length of the term becomes so large that you're no longer so much thinking as just making shit up.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
It becomes an inherently bad thing once the length of the term becomes so large that you're no longer so much thinking as just making shit up.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
They were confident, as criminals tend to be,
posted by elkevelvet at 9:28 AM on February 28, 2023
posted by elkevelvet at 9:28 AM on February 28, 2023
Related: Can Super Babies Save the World?
(Evidently there’s a certain amount of visual correction needed in our genetic future...)
posted by staggernation at 9:44 AM on February 28, 2023
(Evidently there’s a certain amount of visual correction needed in our genetic future...)
posted by staggernation at 9:44 AM on February 28, 2023
Oh right, this is the Twenties! And we've done plague, so it must be time for eugenics to come around again.
But I thought there was supposed to be roaring. Where is the roaring?
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
But I thought there was supposed to be roaring. Where is the roaring?
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on February 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
The roaring is actually weeping this time.
Or maybe sob-laughing.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:12 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Or maybe sob-laughing.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:12 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
It becomes an inherently bad thing once the length of the term becomes so large that you're no longer so much thinking as just making shit up.
"Making shit up" is called "contingency planning." Planning for the future requires estimates and theories of what might and will happen in the future, which is fundamentally unknowable. So, no, it is not inherently bad to use one's imagination.
It is inherently bad when the Very Distant Future is all anyone cares about, to the detriment of the people living here and now.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:53 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
"Making shit up" is called "contingency planning." Planning for the future requires estimates and theories of what might and will happen in the future, which is fundamentally unknowable. So, no, it is not inherently bad to use one's imagination.
It is inherently bad when the Very Distant Future is all anyone cares about, to the detriment of the people living here and now.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:53 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
"Making shit up" is called "contingency planning."
Contingency planning operates on a vastly shorter timescale than galactic human domination, is my point.
The whole longtermism stance is predicated on most of the disasters we could conceivably contingency plan our way to mitigating being insignificant blips compared to the Greater Good for the Many inherent in humanity's assumed potential for unbounded exponential growth off this planet.
That is making shit up. I have no beef with contingency planning for reasonably foreseeable contingencies.
It is inherently bad when the Very Distant Future is all anyone cares about
Then we are in heated agreement.
posted by flabdablet at 11:05 AM on February 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
Contingency planning operates on a vastly shorter timescale than galactic human domination, is my point.
The whole longtermism stance is predicated on most of the disasters we could conceivably contingency plan our way to mitigating being insignificant blips compared to the Greater Good for the Many inherent in humanity's assumed potential for unbounded exponential growth off this planet.
That is making shit up. I have no beef with contingency planning for reasonably foreseeable contingencies.
It is inherently bad when the Very Distant Future is all anyone cares about
Then we are in heated agreement.
posted by flabdablet at 11:05 AM on February 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
I do think future goals matter, even far future provided you foresee them correctly. You need to be correct though, so you should be cautious, and error on the right side, given error margins increase into future time. You must work from sound physics principles in particular.
An elementary physics argument proves exponential growth is impossible, which wrecks longtermism. A slightly deeper argument proves exponential growth remains impossible for a space fairing civilization, which further destroys longtermism and maybe answers the Fermi paradox.
I agree that Nick Bostrom "made an entire career out of ignoring the obvious while contemplating the abstruse" of course, flabdablet, but really Nick Bostrom is some mixture of fraud and idiot. I'd never describe him as a "very intelligent bloke", not unless I'd praise Trump's intellectual talents in the same setting. ;)
About this statement holds for neo-liberal economists like William Nordhaus, ala critiques by Steve Keen and others, or like Paul Krugman, ala critiques by Jason Hickel or Timothée Parrique or Andrew Ahern.
Afaik Krugman never claims foresight beyond a few decades though, so Krugman could say "oops I called the peak of the human ponzi a few decades too late" when synchronous maize crop failures cause widespread famines in the 2040s, or whatever.
Bostrom lacks any similar escape hatch because his projections are profoundly aphysical, and the physics limits dominate within 100 years, making him either a fraud or an idiot.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:28 PM on February 28, 2023
An elementary physics argument proves exponential growth is impossible, which wrecks longtermism. A slightly deeper argument proves exponential growth remains impossible for a space fairing civilization, which further destroys longtermism and maybe answers the Fermi paradox.
I agree that Nick Bostrom "made an entire career out of ignoring the obvious while contemplating the abstruse" of course, flabdablet, but really Nick Bostrom is some mixture of fraud and idiot. I'd never describe him as a "very intelligent bloke", not unless I'd praise Trump's intellectual talents in the same setting. ;)
About this statement holds for neo-liberal economists like William Nordhaus, ala critiques by Steve Keen and others, or like Paul Krugman, ala critiques by Jason Hickel or Timothée Parrique or Andrew Ahern.
Afaik Krugman never claims foresight beyond a few decades though, so Krugman could say "oops I called the peak of the human ponzi a few decades too late" when synchronous maize crop failures cause widespread famines in the 2040s, or whatever.
Bostrom lacks any similar escape hatch because his projections are profoundly aphysical, and the physics limits dominate within 100 years, making him either a fraud or an idiot.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:28 PM on February 28, 2023
"longtermism" is such a bullshit name for a program intended to maintain (and increase!) present-day inequalities. Fuck these people and their self-serving lies.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:35 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:35 PM on February 28, 2023 [9 favorites]
That's precisely what China's One Child policy was about, and look how well that turned out.
China has entered a period of declining population (2023)
I don't think China ended the One Child policy for altruistic reasons. They abandoned it because they projected the economic consequences of having a declining population like other countries - it would mean that a increasing number of the older generation would have to be supported by a decreasing number of people.
The United States is pretty close to achieving a declining population: U.S. population growth inches higher in 2022, driven by immigration. With the current political situation, I doubt immigration will rebound to prepandemic numbers.
posted by meowzilla at 1:48 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
China has entered a period of declining population (2023)
I don't think China ended the One Child policy for altruistic reasons. They abandoned it because they projected the economic consequences of having a declining population like other countries - it would mean that a increasing number of the older generation would have to be supported by a decreasing number of people.
The United States is pretty close to achieving a declining population: U.S. population growth inches higher in 2022, driven by immigration. With the current political situation, I doubt immigration will rebound to prepandemic numbers.
posted by meowzilla at 1:48 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
I never got around to reading What We Owe the Future (as often happens, I had it on hold at the library but then forgot to pick it up before it went back into the queue for the next person to borrow), but it sounds like it is not at all the book I assumed it was.
More happy people = a good in itself? (More happiness for currently existing people, and those who will come in the future, sure, but there's no obvious reason that making more people (happy ones, ideally) is a good in and of itself that will automatically make the universe a better place.)
Building massive, planet-sized computers so trillions of people can happily live in simulated realities? I suppose I am insufficiently post-human, but this sounds rather dystopian to me.
And then, of course, the very term "longtermism" which seems to imagine that no one else in the world has been engaging in long-term thinking (to be fair, most of our elected officials seem not to be). Indeed, climate scientists have been thinking and warning about the long-term for so long that the thing they were warning us about has become the short-term/immediate present. If we'd listened 20-30 years ago, things could have been quite different. Instead, we truly are facing an existential threat (if not to humanity, at least to civilization as we know it) and there may actually not be much of a long term if we don't deal with it.
posted by asnider at 2:34 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
More happy people = a good in itself? (More happiness for currently existing people, and those who will come in the future, sure, but there's no obvious reason that making more people (happy ones, ideally) is a good in and of itself that will automatically make the universe a better place.)
Building massive, planet-sized computers so trillions of people can happily live in simulated realities? I suppose I am insufficiently post-human, but this sounds rather dystopian to me.
And then, of course, the very term "longtermism" which seems to imagine that no one else in the world has been engaging in long-term thinking (to be fair, most of our elected officials seem not to be). Indeed, climate scientists have been thinking and warning about the long-term for so long that the thing they were warning us about has become the short-term/immediate present. If we'd listened 20-30 years ago, things could have been quite different. Instead, we truly are facing an existential threat (if not to humanity, at least to civilization as we know it) and there may actually not be much of a long term if we don't deal with it.
posted by asnider at 2:34 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
The thing that bothers me about longtermism is that I think people keep tackling it as an earnestly held belief, and I'm no longer sure that's the case.
It is a textbook example of what a certain kind of person would call "Pascal's mugging", where if you combine an extremely unlikely occurrance with an expected outcome large enough, you can justify anything as the rational choice. One particular philosopher has a very influential paper where they lay out exactly how this works and why it's flawed.
That philosopher is Nick Bostrom. The people who identified Pascal's mugging are the LessWrong crowd that longtermism sprouts from. They have to know what they're doing - they found the fallacy, and thus invoke it to justify doing what they want to do, in the belief that no-one else will be able to put their finger on exactly why it's wrong. I think the whole thing's been a con from the beginning.
posted by Merus at 2:51 PM on February 28, 2023 [16 favorites]
It is a textbook example of what a certain kind of person would call "Pascal's mugging", where if you combine an extremely unlikely occurrance with an expected outcome large enough, you can justify anything as the rational choice. One particular philosopher has a very influential paper where they lay out exactly how this works and why it's flawed.
That philosopher is Nick Bostrom. The people who identified Pascal's mugging are the LessWrong crowd that longtermism sprouts from. They have to know what they're doing - they found the fallacy, and thus invoke it to justify doing what they want to do, in the belief that no-one else will be able to put their finger on exactly why it's wrong. I think the whole thing's been a con from the beginning.
posted by Merus at 2:51 PM on February 28, 2023 [16 favorites]
What Merus just said!
Longtermism seems to be the perfect example of the lie behind "the ends justify the means" -- that the means are the ends. It isn't really about pursing some noble outcome through unpleasant but necessary cruelty (or "making the tough decisions" as they like to call it); it's about justifying the use of cruelty.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Longtermism seems to be the perfect example of the lie behind "the ends justify the means" -- that the means are the ends. It isn't really about pursing some noble outcome through unpleasant but necessary cruelty (or "making the tough decisions" as they like to call it); it's about justifying the use of cruelty.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Related: "Don’t Fall for the Longtermism Sales Pitch" from the Tech Won't Save Us podcast.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:48 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AlSweigart at 8:48 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Limiting (or ending) capitalism is far harder to imagine for people who have benefited so much from funnelling vast wealth to themselves; or they more cynically know that that's what it would take, and don't want to change.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What
The only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while. Which isn't going to happen, so ...
posted by ZenMasterThis
I think the planet and species saving plan of these long-termer fuckers is to either actively manufacture or knowingly fail to prevent a massive die off of the human population from environmental catastrophe, extreme poverty, and complete social disintegration, leaving a billion or so remaining and fully under their feudal control.
I doubt it will work. For a start from what I have seen of them I don't think the fuckers are actually smart enough to figure out the details and manage the consequences of their handiwork. But mostly because all the armies in the world won't save you from several billion desperate angry people with nothing left to lose and an unquenchable righteous desire to slit your throat.
My bet for the solution to the Fermi paradox is self-destruction.
posted by Pouteria at 1:17 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What
The only way out I can see is for us to stop making new people for a while. Which isn't going to happen, so ...
posted by ZenMasterThis
I think the planet and species saving plan of these long-termer fuckers is to either actively manufacture or knowingly fail to prevent a massive die off of the human population from environmental catastrophe, extreme poverty, and complete social disintegration, leaving a billion or so remaining and fully under their feudal control.
I doubt it will work. For a start from what I have seen of them I don't think the fuckers are actually smart enough to figure out the details and manage the consequences of their handiwork. But mostly because all the armies in the world won't save you from several billion desperate angry people with nothing left to lose and an unquenchable righteous desire to slit your throat.
My bet for the solution to the Fermi paradox is self-destruction.
posted by Pouteria at 1:17 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's certainly interesting Nick Bostrom wrote the Pascal's mugging piece, thanks Merus!
I still think longtermists wind up mostly just being dumb or deluded, like the post tittle indicates, but yeah there are always a few racists who want mass die offs in the global south, villains who see "chaos as a ladder", and folks who see $$$ but see nothing else.
In this, there are always people who just convince themselves of the necessity of evil things, not unlike how people convert religions. Joseph Goebbels spent a whole week secluded convincing himself to run Hitler's holocaust. Tony Blair spent a few hours convincing himself to invade Iraq.
We donno if Bostrom fully groks the con he runs. I think philosophers' intelligence is often over rated, but yeah quite possible. Irregardless, these guys are mostly just incompetent due to being disconnected from reality.
Wed never face self-destruction without so much fossil fuels, which maybe common but enough bypasses exist that I think growth being impossible better explains the Fermi paradox.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:20 PM on March 1, 2023
I still think longtermists wind up mostly just being dumb or deluded, like the post tittle indicates, but yeah there are always a few racists who want mass die offs in the global south, villains who see "chaos as a ladder", and folks who see $$$ but see nothing else.
In this, there are always people who just convince themselves of the necessity of evil things, not unlike how people convert religions. Joseph Goebbels spent a whole week secluded convincing himself to run Hitler's holocaust. Tony Blair spent a few hours convincing himself to invade Iraq.
We donno if Bostrom fully groks the con he runs. I think philosophers' intelligence is often over rated, but yeah quite possible. Irregardless, these guys are mostly just incompetent due to being disconnected from reality.
Wed never face self-destruction without so much fossil fuels, which maybe common but enough bypasses exist that I think growth being impossible better explains the Fermi paradox.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:20 PM on March 1, 2023
Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall, after which South American becomes a desert.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:28 PM on March 1, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 3:28 PM on March 1, 2023
Researchers launched a solar geoengineering test flight in the UK last fall
posted by jeffburdges at 12:14 AM on March 3, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 12:14 AM on March 3, 2023
Ted Nordhaus and Mike Shallenberger arguing that environmental degradation is *good*
posted by jeffburdges at 7:56 AM on March 4, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 7:56 AM on March 4, 2023
"Ah yes. What could possibly go wrong with a bunch of overconfident Palo Alto tech-humpers trying to profit off geoengineering?"
"As it stands, there are no regulations, no oversight, and politicians probably know little to nothing about it."
posted by jeffburdges at 4:57 PM on March 4, 2023
"As it stands, there are no regulations, no oversight, and politicians probably know little to nothing about it."
posted by jeffburdges at 4:57 PM on March 4, 2023
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posted by DeSelbyofDalkey at 2:13 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]