11 ms·

The perils of short-termism

46 points by noego 7y ago

selfishgene 7y ago
What this author forgets is that many young people today are not procreating because having children is increasingly becoming a luxury of the upper middle class. Why should childless individuals care all that much about how issues like global warming and growing economic inequality will affect future generations when they're desperately just trying to hold onto their current jobs in order to service increasingly unjustifiable levels of debt (home, medical, educational,...)?
- rogerkirkness 7y ago
  That's a weak argument for antinatalism. The global middle class is much larger and more capable of supporting the necessities that children require. People consider upper middle class lifestyles table stakes for child raising, which is why they choose to opt out of the children having status tournament. Diapers and food are actually not that expensive, but toddler yoga, dual earner flexible childcare, private school and similar absolutely are.
  - analog31 7y ago
    The risk of being destroyed financially if something goes wrong with your kids is sobering.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - DollarGuru 7y ago
    Do you believe raising children should be an act of duty and self-sacrifice? While I would like to raise a family one day the idea of raising children with just being capable of supporting their necessities doesn't appeal to me at all. If I can't offer them the best start in life or be the parent I wish I had (due to a lack of resources) I would rather not have children.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Read Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Bryan Caplan. Most people are glad to have been born, most parents raise happy, healthy children in the industrialized world and in substantial parts of the world outside it, most children would rather have happy parents who spend time with them than more stuff and while you can effect how happy their childhood is you aren’t going to greatly effect their adult outcomes if you parent within the good enough to be allowed to adopt norms. The best start in life is a start.
      - DollarGuru 7y ago
        My parents kind of had children for selfish reasons and objectively speaking neither of them should have had children. Now as an adult I have issues that seem to stem from childhood emotional neglect that I struggle with. My sibling isn't that much better emotionally adjusted either. I wasn't a particularly happy child but neither of them noticed or paid much attention even when they could have.
        barry-cotter 7y ago
        > My parents kind of had children for selfish reasons and objectively speaking neither of them should have had children. If you or your sibling regret being born I’m sorry for you.
        rogerkirkness 7y ago
        I think that's an entirely valid experience, I don't think anyone is arguing having kids of a universal good, but it also can't be seen as a universal bad. Ideally, as close to 100% of people possible are in a position to make a good choice for themselves.
  - djrobstep 7y ago
    This is nonsense born from classist contempt. Every day middle class people are struggling not with luxuries but with everyday essentials like housing. The correct response to this is not antinatalism but anticapitalism: Why should we have a system that systematically subjects people to financial hardship for having children? It's easily fixed with a sensibly-designed welfare state, but we don't have one because we'd rather be judgemental to the poor about wanting "luxuries" like a decent house to live in.
    - TuringNYC 7y ago
      In the US, I’ve been hearing this point of view consistently amongst co-workers for almost two decades. But talk is cheap and if this was really something people wanted, especially the middle class, I imagine votes would go this way — in the US they do not. It doesn’t even seem to scratch the top 3 issues list.
      - djrobstep 7y ago
        People do not make these choices in a vacuum. They are determined by the limited options available to vote for, and the enormous media and cultural resources dedicated to convincing people to vote against their own interests.
    - dr_dshiv 7y ago
      I feel like the main misconception propogated by this argument is the idea that to be pro-welfare, one must be anti capitalist. In fact, socialism (Viz., state support of human needs not met by market) and capitalism (Viz., state support of health of market economy) go hand in hand. Markets are healthier when states selectively intervene to manage externalities, shocks, unemployed, education, health. Of course devil is in the details, but the point here is that capitalism and socialism are two different axes and, hypothetically, the best society maximises both.
      - djrobstep 7y ago
        Capitalism doesn't mean "markets", just as socialism doesn't mean "not markets" (hence the existence of "market socialism" as a concept). The defining feature of capitalism is ownership of the means of production aka capital, by a capitalist class. Socialism is common ("social") ownership of the capital, and thus the abolition of the capitalist class.
  - watwut 7y ago
    > Diapers and food are actually not that expensive, but toddler yoga, dual earner flexible childcare, private school and similar absolutely are. While toddle yoga is fluff for healthy children, it is not that expensive and baby exercising can help to the ones that have mild motoric issues. It is actually often something mom does also for herself so that her time is occupied and she meets other moms (social isolation sux, being in same room whole day sux). It is also literally mom seeing problem in her own mental state and taking steps to fix it before it affects her behavior toward kids and husband. When you are socially isolated and bored, you can stay home and be depressed or find a place with people and something that makes somewhat sense to do. Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. Good school also eases out situation for parent, as bad school means the parent have to re-teach, have to work around bullying and social pressures on child to be bully or not learn. Dual earner flexible childcare is something traditional man does not appreciate. But, mom who wants ability to fend for herself too if needed and not be dependent and helpless completely appreciates a lot. If nothing else for psychological reasons - staying home is depression inducing for a lot of reasons. And when husband dies or get sick or get unemployed, yeah, it matters a lot. > they choose to opt out of the children having status tournament Well, social status matter to people and always mattered. How others treat you matter a lot to you.
    - n4r9 7y ago
      > While toddle yoga is fluff for healthy children, it is not that expensive I looked this up, near me in SW London it looks like the cheapest monthly membership is £45pm, which is less than an average gym membership, up to £100pm for unlimited classes. I'd go for it if it was a big benefit to the baby. > Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. I don't know if it's how it was intended but this is a concise & scathing description of how class structures become entrenched.
    - seem_2211 7y ago
      > Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. Nail on the head. Virtue signal all you want, but I know that I'll be putting my money into making sure that any kids I have see a lot of these advantages.
  - paganel 7y ago
    Just wanted to add that diapers are really expensive for lots of middle-class people from around the world. Baby food is also more expensive compared to food for grown-ups.
    - dr_dshiv 7y ago
      Baby food makes no sense. Chew your own food and put it in baby's mouth, just like humans did for the past 100k+ years. Good for microbiome, too. Lazy parenting is (usually) good parenting.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        I would advise against that for anyone with oral herpes (cold sores) even if you’re not presenting. Also there’s a limited amount of food baby can eat when small. Don’t chew pizza and give that to a three month old.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Baby food is as expensive as finely chopped or mashed vegetables. It does not take long to mash carrots or potatoes. Even making meat paste is trivial with a blender. Diapers really are expensive but baby food should not be breaking the bank because they just don’t eat much. Unsalted mashed up vegetables and small portions of fish, egg or meat aren’t really expensive.
  - marble-drink 7y ago
    I cannot find a woman who will be a full time mother after giving birth. I will not put my children into day care for 12 hours a day. I could afford to support a family in my own, but only with my very frugal and minimalist lifestyle (no fancy car, no expensive holidays, no eating at restaurants etc)
    - Angostura 7y ago
      So you do what I did - marry a woman with a good career and become a stay at home dad. Even better if you have a skill set that allows you to do some work from home, around nap times to allow you to keep your eye in.
      - marble-drink 7y ago
        I firmly believe that the key to happiness is to do what you're good at. For me that means working and not raising children. I will never be a stay at home dad.
        watwut 7y ago
        Yeah, you are totally different from women who want to work. In their case it is selfishness and wanting things most people can easily live without. In your case it is because work gives you happiness and totally nothing to do with material things. Majority of women live without expensive holidays and expensive cars. Majority of men live without expensive car and men are more car-focused and tend to be the ones who control the car when car is in family. Most people, neither males nor females go to expensive restaurants. You know what else second income does? No one can tell you that he earned money and you are wasting them. It means that you can leave when relationship goes bad. It means you can handle when husband goes sick or dies. It means that you are less vulnerable and safer.
        marble-drink 7y ago
        Yeah, that's all great. But I don't want to be a part of a relationship where I'm disposed of as soon as I stop being useful.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > What this author forgets is that many young people today are not procreating because having children is increasingly becoming a luxury of the upper middle class For a small part of the world's population, that's mostly true, everywhere else it is not. > Why should childless individuals care all that much about how issues like global warming and growing economic inequality will affect future generations Apparently they do though, many of those who demonstrate (FFF etc.) are still in school.
- keiferski 7y ago
  This argument for antinatalism never made any sense to me. A casual glance at history will show you that it’s easier and cheaper to raise children today than at pretty much any point in time, except perhaps for middle class white Americans ~1955-1990. What’s changed is the (perception) that keeping up with the consumerist Jones’ is somehow required to have a family.
  - JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
    >middle class white Americans ~1955-1990. Isn't that where most people get their idea of family life from?
    - Arnt 7y ago
      I don't know about you, but I got my ideas mostly from my parents, and the parents of my friends while in school.
      - JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
        And a large amount of their perception is influenced by the dominant media, which I'm hypothesising generally pushes the idea of a middle to upper class nuclear family as being the norm.
  - pytester 7y ago
    Did the cost of rent, medical care and college go down?
    - keiferski 7y ago
      No, they've gone up - but my point is that the baseline costs for raising a child in average, decent-quality conditions (in today's terms) are still drastically lower than even the lowest of salaries. We've simply come to expect all kinds of consumerist goods as "required." Furthermore, even a "poor" childhood today is materially leagues above the average child of 100 years ago. That's not to say we should aim to return to that, but simply that there are a lot of "needs" which are really "wants." Housing is a good example. Yes, housing prices in coastal cities have spiraled out of the reach of middle class people. Yet, there are thousands, even tens of thousands, of affordable cities all throughout the South and Midwest. The "problem" with those areas is that they are perceived as undesirable places to live. Again - a want, not a need. The issue of inequality is a separate one and not the direct point that I am making. I'm simply saying that throughout all of human history, people were far poorer and yet still had children. Even today, the majority of the world's population is poorer than the poorest in the west. Clearly the main reason Western people aren't having kids today is not because they legitimately can't afford it - there are other cultural factors at play.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
devoply 7y ago
When the next collapse of civilization happens those that caused it will be holding most of the money. They will then use this money to rebuild civilization and make yet more profit...
- Spooky23 7y ago
  The problem is that wealth is tied to functioning society. Law and our current monetary system need order to function.
  - devoply 7y ago
    You can move wealth into all sorts of assets that you can then protect with that wealth... When the Roman empire fell the rich did not suffer only the poor did. Same thing will repeat.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Didn't work out so well for the Aztecs.
      - devoply 7y ago
        Unless pale skin aliens from distant lands are coming to Earth on ships to cause our problems I see no parallels between their situation and ours.
        ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Ok, French Revolution, revolution in Russia, the Chinese civil war, in all of those cases rich people were the first targets.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        Spooky23 7y ago
        The pale skin guys were the catalyst. The Spanish rounded up everyone who hated the Aztecs (ie. everyone who interacted with them) and used that with their horses, guns and crossbows as shock troops to defeat them. Future conquests (Inca, etc) were aided by the devastation of disease that wiped out stove populations. Our situation isn’t so different. Look at how quickly the Soviet state degraded into near anarchy and what happened when the pieces stabilized.
lazyjones 7y ago
The opposite is true. We're currently so occupied with imagined problems from the future that we forget to take care of present issues. The interesting time span for normal folks and most politicians to deal with should be the next 5 years, not the end of the century. Leave that to science fiction authors. Better and more interested people will deal with problems in 81 years, whatever they will be.
- c22 7y ago
  The horizon of our problem-solving should be based on the scope of our activities. If we are making decisions with 100 year outcomes then we should certainly be thinking about 100-year problems.
  - lazyjones 7y ago
    > If we are making decisions with 100 year outcomes then we should certainly be thinking about 100-year problems. Can you name a few decisions that were actually made only with 100 year outcomes in mind and not to solve current problems?
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  A lot of great projects -- subways, tunnels, bridges, constitutions, the metric system, manifest destiny, the marine chronometer, GNU -- wouldn't have happened if people only cared about the next five years.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    You forgot pyramids, cathedrals, and great walls :)
    - SamReidHughes 7y ago
      And trees.
  - lazyjones 7y ago
    All of these were built in order to immediately improve the current situation, not the one in 100 years.
ptah 7y ago
this is not a new problem. it's been around since at least the industrial revolution
dr_dshiv 7y ago
Part of the issue with longtermism in the present politic is pessimism on climate change. Specifically, because people treat tech and development as antithetical to healthy futures, they don't develop a positive vision of the 50 year future. We need a positive vision. We need to be optimistic that we are addressing the environmental issues and that humans will be thriving and flourishing in 2100. Therefore, what will that look like? And what is the work we need to do to design and develop that positive future?

46 points by noego 7y ago

What this author forgets is that many young people today are not procreating because having children is increasingly becoming a luxury of the upper middle class. Why should childless individuals care all that much about how issues like global warming and growing economic inequality will affect future generations when they're desperately just trying to hold onto their current jobs in order to service increasingly unjustifiable levels of debt (home, medical, educational,...)?

rogerkirkness 7y ago
That's a weak argument for antinatalism. The global middle class is much larger and more capable of supporting the necessities that children require. People consider upper middle class lifestyles table stakes for child raising, which is why they choose to opt out of the children having status tournament. Diapers and food are actually not that expensive, but toddler yoga, dual earner flexible childcare, private school and similar absolutely are.
- analog31 7y ago
  The risk of being destroyed financially if something goes wrong with your kids is sobering.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- DollarGuru 7y ago
  Do you believe raising children should be an act of duty and self-sacrifice? While I would like to raise a family one day the idea of raising children with just being capable of supporting their necessities doesn't appeal to me at all. If I can't offer them the best start in life or be the parent I wish I had (due to a lack of resources) I would rather not have children.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Read Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Bryan Caplan. Most people are glad to have been born, most parents raise happy, healthy children in the industrialized world and in substantial parts of the world outside it, most children would rather have happy parents who spend time with them than more stuff and while you can effect how happy their childhood is you aren’t going to greatly effect their adult outcomes if you parent within the good enough to be allowed to adopt norms. The best start in life is a start.
    - DollarGuru 7y ago
      My parents kind of had children for selfish reasons and objectively speaking neither of them should have had children. Now as an adult I have issues that seem to stem from childhood emotional neglect that I struggle with. My sibling isn't that much better emotionally adjusted either. I wasn't a particularly happy child but neither of them noticed or paid much attention even when they could have.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        > My parents kind of had children for selfish reasons and objectively speaking neither of them should have had children. If you or your sibling regret being born I’m sorry for you.
      - rogerkirkness 7y ago
        I think that's an entirely valid experience, I don't think anyone is arguing having kids of a universal good, but it also can't be seen as a universal bad. Ideally, as close to 100% of people possible are in a position to make a good choice for themselves.
- djrobstep 7y ago
  This is nonsense born from classist contempt. Every day middle class people are struggling not with luxuries but with everyday essentials like housing. The correct response to this is not antinatalism but anticapitalism: Why should we have a system that systematically subjects people to financial hardship for having children? It's easily fixed with a sensibly-designed welfare state, but we don't have one because we'd rather be judgemental to the poor about wanting "luxuries" like a decent house to live in.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    In the US, I’ve been hearing this point of view consistently amongst co-workers for almost two decades. But talk is cheap and if this was really something people wanted, especially the middle class, I imagine votes would go this way — in the US they do not. It doesn’t even seem to scratch the top 3 issues list.
    - djrobstep 7y ago
      People do not make these choices in a vacuum. They are determined by the limited options available to vote for, and the enormous media and cultural resources dedicated to convincing people to vote against their own interests.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    I feel like the main misconception propogated by this argument is the idea that to be pro-welfare, one must be anti capitalist. In fact, socialism (Viz., state support of human needs not met by market) and capitalism (Viz., state support of health of market economy) go hand in hand. Markets are healthier when states selectively intervene to manage externalities, shocks, unemployed, education, health. Of course devil is in the details, but the point here is that capitalism and socialism are two different axes and, hypothetically, the best society maximises both.
    - djrobstep 7y ago
      Capitalism doesn't mean "markets", just as socialism doesn't mean "not markets" (hence the existence of "market socialism" as a concept). The defining feature of capitalism is ownership of the means of production aka capital, by a capitalist class. Socialism is common ("social") ownership of the capital, and thus the abolition of the capitalist class.
- watwut 7y ago
  > Diapers and food are actually not that expensive, but toddler yoga, dual earner flexible childcare, private school and similar absolutely are. While toddle yoga is fluff for healthy children, it is not that expensive and baby exercising can help to the ones that have mild motoric issues. It is actually often something mom does also for herself so that her time is occupied and she meets other moms (social isolation sux, being in same room whole day sux). It is also literally mom seeing problem in her own mental state and taking steps to fix it before it affects her behavior toward kids and husband. When you are socially isolated and bored, you can stay home and be depressed or find a place with people and something that makes somewhat sense to do. Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. Good school also eases out situation for parent, as bad school means the parent have to re-teach, have to work around bullying and social pressures on child to be bully or not learn. Dual earner flexible childcare is something traditional man does not appreciate. But, mom who wants ability to fend for herself too if needed and not be dependent and helpless completely appreciates a lot. If nothing else for psychological reasons - staying home is depression inducing for a lot of reasons. And when husband dies or get sick or get unemployed, yeah, it matters a lot. > they choose to opt out of the children having status tournament Well, social status matter to people and always mattered. How others treat you matter a lot to you.
  - n4r9 7y ago
    > While toddle yoga is fluff for healthy children, it is not that expensive I looked this up, near me in SW London it looks like the cheapest monthly membership is £45pm, which is less than an average gym membership, up to £100pm for unlimited classes. I'd go for it if it was a big benefit to the baby. > Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. I don't know if it's how it was intended but this is a concise & scathing description of how class structures become entrenched.
  - seem_2211 7y ago
    > Good school, healthcare and do actually matter, you know. So that the child has also middle class future. Nail on the head. Virtue signal all you want, but I know that I'll be putting my money into making sure that any kids I have see a lot of these advantages.
- paganel 7y ago
  Just wanted to add that diapers are really expensive for lots of middle-class people from around the world. Baby food is also more expensive compared to food for grown-ups.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Baby food makes no sense. Chew your own food and put it in baby's mouth, just like humans did for the past 100k+ years. Good for microbiome, too. Lazy parenting is (usually) good parenting.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      I would advise against that for anyone with oral herpes (cold sores) even if you’re not presenting. Also there’s a limited amount of food baby can eat when small. Don’t chew pizza and give that to a three month old.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Baby food is as expensive as finely chopped or mashed vegetables. It does not take long to mash carrots or potatoes. Even making meat paste is trivial with a blender. Diapers really are expensive but baby food should not be breaking the bank because they just don’t eat much. Unsalted mashed up vegetables and small portions of fish, egg or meat aren’t really expensive.
- marble-drink 7y ago
  I cannot find a woman who will be a full time mother after giving birth. I will not put my children into day care for 12 hours a day. I could afford to support a family in my own, but only with my very frugal and minimalist lifestyle (no fancy car, no expensive holidays, no eating at restaurants etc)
  - Angostura 7y ago
    So you do what I did - marry a woman with a good career and become a stay at home dad. Even better if you have a skill set that allows you to do some work from home, around nap times to allow you to keep your eye in.
    - marble-drink 7y ago
      I firmly believe that the key to happiness is to do what you're good at. For me that means working and not raising children. I will never be a stay at home dad.
      - watwut 7y ago
        Yeah, you are totally different from women who want to work. In their case it is selfishness and wanting things most people can easily live without. In your case it is because work gives you happiness and totally nothing to do with material things. Majority of women live without expensive holidays and expensive cars. Majority of men live without expensive car and men are more car-focused and tend to be the ones who control the car when car is in family. Most people, neither males nor females go to expensive restaurants. You know what else second income does? No one can tell you that he earned money and you are wasting them. It means that you can leave when relationship goes bad. It means you can handle when husband goes sick or dies. It means that you are less vulnerable and safer.
        marble-drink 7y ago
        Yeah, that's all great. But I don't want to be a part of a relationship where I'm disposed of as soon as I stop being useful.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lazyjones 7y ago
> What this author forgets is that many young people today are not procreating because having children is increasingly becoming a luxury of the upper middle class For a small part of the world's population, that's mostly true, everywhere else it is not. > Why should childless individuals care all that much about how issues like global warming and growing economic inequality will affect future generations Apparently they do though, many of those who demonstrate (FFF etc.) are still in school.
keiferski 7y ago
This argument for antinatalism never made any sense to me. A casual glance at history will show you that it’s easier and cheaper to raise children today than at pretty much any point in time, except perhaps for middle class white Americans ~1955-1990. What’s changed is the (perception) that keeping up with the consumerist Jones’ is somehow required to have a family.
- JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
  >middle class white Americans ~1955-1990. Isn't that where most people get their idea of family life from?
  - Arnt 7y ago
    I don't know about you, but I got my ideas mostly from my parents, and the parents of my friends while in school.
    - JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
      And a large amount of their perception is influenced by the dominant media, which I'm hypothesising generally pushes the idea of a middle to upper class nuclear family as being the norm.
- pytester 7y ago
  Did the cost of rent, medical care and college go down?
  - keiferski 7y ago
    No, they've gone up - but my point is that the baseline costs for raising a child in average, decent-quality conditions (in today's terms) are still drastically lower than even the lowest of salaries. We've simply come to expect all kinds of consumerist goods as "required." Furthermore, even a "poor" childhood today is materially leagues above the average child of 100 years ago. That's not to say we should aim to return to that, but simply that there are a lot of "needs" which are really "wants." Housing is a good example. Yes, housing prices in coastal cities have spiraled out of the reach of middle class people. Yet, there are thousands, even tens of thousands, of affordable cities all throughout the South and Midwest. The "problem" with those areas is that they are perceived as undesirable places to live. Again - a want, not a need. The issue of inequality is a separate one and not the direct point that I am making. I'm simply saying that throughout all of human history, people were far poorer and yet still had children. Even today, the majority of the world's population is poorer than the poorest in the west. Clearly the main reason Western people aren't having kids today is not because they legitimately can't afford it - there are other cultural factors at play.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

devoply 7y ago

When the next collapse of civilization happens those that caused it will be holding most of the money. They will then use this money to rebuild civilization and make yet more profit...

Spooky23 7y ago
The problem is that wealth is tied to functioning society. Law and our current monetary system need order to function.
- devoply 7y ago
  You can move wealth into all sorts of assets that you can then protect with that wealth... When the Roman empire fell the rich did not suffer only the poor did. Same thing will repeat.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Didn't work out so well for the Aztecs.
    - devoply 7y ago
      Unless pale skin aliens from distant lands are coming to Earth on ships to cause our problems I see no parallels between their situation and ours.
      - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Ok, French Revolution, revolution in Russia, the Chinese civil war, in all of those cases rich people were the first targets.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        The pale skin guys were the catalyst. The Spanish rounded up everyone who hated the Aztecs (ie. everyone who interacted with them) and used that with their horses, guns and crossbows as shock troops to defeat them. Future conquests (Inca, etc) were aided by the devastation of disease that wiped out stove populations. Our situation isn’t so different. Look at how quickly the Soviet state degraded into near anarchy and what happened when the pieces stabilized.

lazyjones 7y ago

The opposite is true. We're currently so occupied with imagined problems from the future that we forget to take care of present issues. The interesting time span for normal folks and most politicians to deal with should be the next 5 years, not the end of the century. Leave that to science fiction authors. Better and more interested people will deal with problems in 81 years, whatever they will be.

c22 7y ago
The horizon of our problem-solving should be based on the scope of our activities. If we are making decisions with 100 year outcomes then we should certainly be thinking about 100-year problems.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > If we are making decisions with 100 year outcomes then we should certainly be thinking about 100-year problems. Can you name a few decisions that were actually made only with 100 year outcomes in mind and not to solve current problems?
SamReidHughes 7y ago
A lot of great projects -- subways, tunnels, bridges, constitutions, the metric system, manifest destiny, the marine chronometer, GNU -- wouldn't have happened if people only cared about the next five years.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  You forgot pyramids, cathedrals, and great walls :)
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    And trees.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  All of these were built in order to immediately improve the current situation, not the one in 100 years.

ptah 7y ago

this is not a new problem. it's been around since at least the industrial revolution

dr_dshiv 7y ago

Part of the issue with longtermism in the present politic is pessimism on climate change. Specifically, because people treat tech and development as antithetical to healthy futures, they don't develop a positive vision of the 50 year future. We need a positive vision. We need to be optimistic that we are addressing the environmental issues and that humans will be thriving and flourishing in 2100. Therefore, what will that look like? And what is the work we need to do to design and develop that positive future?