Anonymous’s Reviews > What We Owe the Future > Status Update
Anonymous
is on page 30 of 335
The scale of population by introducing conceptual baseline using population thought experiments (similar to the charts around page 23), he demonstrates that the sheer number of people who could live in the future dwarfs everyone who has ever lived. If we survive our current technological bottlenecks, future generations could number in the trillions.
— Oct 08, 2026 07:53AM
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Anonymous
is on page 15 of 335
Humanity is in its Infancy: MacAskill begins by contrasting our 5,000 years of written history against the deep time of the future. Because mammalian species typically last about 1 million years, and humanity could potentially endure for hundreds of millions of years, our civilization is at a very early, highly malleable stage.
— Oct 08, 2026 07:53AM
Anonymous
is on page 12 of 335
in first chapter LONGVIEW he setups the case for modern people which is obviously many critique called expected value calculation, which is the deep future can lead to counterintuitive conclusions (such as prioritizing astronomical future populations over pressing, concrete suffering happening right now). He took three metaphors first one is taking humanity now as imprudent somewhat short-term thrills
— Oct 08, 2026 07:52AM
Anonymous
is starting
William MacAskill a british philosopher and Ethicist, wrote a foundational book on the idea of LongTermism, the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is the key moral priority of our time.
What do we owe to people who don't exist?. He argues that the future civilization could contain an enormous number of people, potentially billions or even trillions over the course of civilization.
— Oct 08, 2026 07:49AM
What do we owe to people who don't exist?. He argues that the future civilization could contain an enormous number of people, potentially billions or even trillions over the course of civilization.

