Why bother trying to find a cure for cancer, or to enhance the seismic safety of bridges, or to improve the quality of early childhood education, if there will be nobody around to benefit from one’s efforts?
The problem with this claim is that some people simply engage in these jobs since they align with their skillset while also providing a paycheck. I agree that there's a large percentage of people concerned with collective survival, but I can't pretend that those who care only for their personal survival do not exist. Furthermore, I think those concerned only with personal survival can be associated with projects pertaining to collective survival. I think the job of enhancing the quality of the seismic safety of bridges is the best example. I think it's fair to infer that whichever major an individual goes into, whether that be seismology, engineering geology, etc., the reason they go into the major is not always a desire to improve humanity's survival or benefit humanity. Job offers within this field tend to engage in these collective projects, but the source of interest can easily stem from thinking the topic is interesting. I agree that these projects would shut down in the face of something akin to the Children of Men, but worker's interest could only wane because of the dissolution of the project by project leaders. The worker who works just out of general interest and the paycheck cannot work because the paycheck and funding for the project and gone.
Now, Scheffler's point does indicate something more striking: that those who value intergenerational preservation will be more likely to dominate and shape norms of society. The people who simply live for the paycheck and have little care for what is transmitted still have to live under and work for these intergenerational enterprises, regardless of their beliefs. The likelihood of those people have are less likely to care and sway in a way that would matter to the collective afterlife. Take writers, for example. There are people who write solely for themselves. How many people with that mindset have altered the trajectory of human civilization? A percentage exists, but there's a definite disparity, for the likelihood in which the responsibility of whom disseminated a creative work (especially without consent) not being the author is rare. Furthermore, writers may want to write for themselves, but they're propelled to confront the collective if they wish to have means of financial security. I'm not sure if this weakens the claim that temporal parochialism is ubiquitous, but it is a left out dimension.
Also, just speculation here, but I wonder how one's belief system changes by being under jobs that support reasons of the continuation of generations, and if there were to be an effect, how mutually reinforcing would the ideologies of workers and project leaders would be. Like, if I am engaging in work for bridges, how likely is it that I would find value in helping those beyond my time because why would I not if I'm already working the job, really? This doesn't contradict my first point, for I'm more talking about the people who are more morally amorphous regarding the issue. Although I am willing to rescind my first point if this point has more thrust than I currently imagine.
Finally, I'm not denying that there large enterprises antithetical to intergenerational survival (whether that be through a direct rejection, neutrality, or those with agreeing intentions despite their conflicting results). Causes of climate change are relevant here. I think this calls into the tension mentioned in Chapter 1.
