Philosophers bicker over what morality means, but you could define it as simply helping others. The moral movement called longtermism says we should do more to help those who might live in the future; we should try to maximize the numbers and happiness of possible people. And how exactly should we do that?
William MacAskill, a philosopher and leader of longtermism, wrestles with this question in his new bestseller What We Owe the Future. MacAskill excels at conveying the vastness of our potential future, during which our descendants might colonize other star systems. He somehow makes you feel both very small and very important. Our actions now, he argues, might determine whether trillions of our ancestors live well or poorly, or whether they live at all. Young people in search of a mission should check out What We Owe the Future. But I have a few objections to MacAskill’s pitch for longtermism:
*Is AI really our biggest existential threat? MacAskill has been infected with the singularity meme, the idea that we are rapidly approaching the point when artificial intelligences become autonomous and race past us. And so, in addition to worrying about climate change, lethal pandemics and nuclear war, MacAskill frets over the possibility that intelligent machines will rise up and enslave or exterminate us, as in countless sci-fi flicks.
Rich, powerful humans are already using machines to become richer and more powerful. But the hype over AI has outrun the reality, and there are no signs that machines will become self-motivated any time soon, if ever. MacAskill, based on his credulous treatment of autonomous AI, may spend too much time hanging out with tech-obsessed futurists–which brings me to my next gripe.
*What about capitalism? MacAskill is concerned with how noxious ideologies can become so entrenched that overthrowing them is hard. I’m concerned too. Right now, humanity seems pretty locked into capitalism, which has been adopted even by communist China. Yes, capitalism has helped increase humanity’s net wealthover the past few centuries, but it has severe side effects. Capitalism is a Darwinian system, with winners and losers, and it has bequeathed us climate change as well as inequality.
Can we do better than capitalism? Are fairer economic systems possible? MacAskill never addresses these questions. Is MacAskill reluctant to criticize capitalism because he hangs out with, and raises money from, the free-market libertarians of big tech?
*What about militarism? MacAskill dwells on the threat of war between “Great Powers,” especially those possessing nuclear arms or bioweapons, but he doesn’t give war the attention it deserves. War poses the greatest threat to our near-term and long-term future. War not only harms people directly; preparations for war also consume over $2 trillion a year (more than a third attributable to the U.S.). That money could help us tackle poverty, pandemics, climate change, social injustice and other problems.
War is perpetuated by the ideology of militarism, which is as deeply entrenched as capitalism. Militarism assumes that war is a permanent feature of the human condition, and hence that nations must maintain armies to protect themselves from each other. Militarism is an apex problem, which exacerbates other problems. Militarism corrupts science. The U.S. military is a major funder of research on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, neural interfaces and other fields—not to mention nuclear weapons and biowarfare. U.S. innovation in weaponry triggers destabilizing arms races with other nations.
MacAskill says would-be altruists, when prioritizing problems, should consider two criteria: Is the problem neglected, and it is tractable? Militarism satisfies both criteria. MacAskill himself notes that the risks of war “have largely fallen out of the mainstream conversation among those fighting for a better world.” Most people, including activists, see peace between nations as a utopian pipe dream, according to informal surveys I’ve carried out for years.
If we can overcome our fatalism, I believe, the problem of militarism will turn out to be tractable. Virtually everyone except warmongers and arms dealers would welcome the end of war. War between nations is a top-down problem; Putin and Zelensky could agree to end the war in Ukraine today.
The question is, how can antagonistic nations demilitarize safely, without raising the risk of pre-emptive attacks? How will nations and other groups resolve conflicts nonviolently? Do nations, individually or collectively, need some minimal force to protect themselves against attacks by rogue nations or violent, apocalyptic groups?
I would love to see MacAskill and other smart scholar/activists hack the problem of war, infecting politicians and other leaders with their zeal. When I peer into the future, I envision a world in which war between any two nations has become inconceivable, just as war is today between Germany and France. Resources once devoted to death and destruction are used to improve human wellbeing. We should begin trying to create this world now. We owe it to the future.
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