The Good Ancestor Quotes

“At this moment in history the dominant force is clear: we live in an age of pathological short-termism. Politicians can barely see beyond the next election or the latest opinion poll or tweet. Businesses are slaves to the next quarterly report and the constant demand to ratchet up shareholder value.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World

“We know the Roman Empire fell into oblivion but can scarcely imagine let alone admit that we might face a similar fate.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Seneca’s observation that “growth is slow, but ruin is rapid,” to coin the concept of “the Seneca cliff”: Large structures, such as financial systems or animal populations, tend to follow a skewed S-curve in their development, reaching a peak and then suddenly collapsing.12”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“For organizational behavior expert Charles Handy, the S-curve is the essential form of how businesses, social organizations and political systems develop over time, “it is the line of all things human.”7 Tech analyst Paul Saffo advises to “look for the S-curve,” noting that the uptake of new technologies—from personal robots to driverless cars—is destined to follow its shape.8 Scholars have used the sigmoid curve to describe the rise and fall of ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire, but also to predict modern-day shifts, such as the decline of the United States as a global superpower.9 In the field of systems thinking, the authors of the Club of Rome’s 1972 report The Limits to Growth put the S-curve at the heart of their analysis.10 More recently, economist Kate Raworth has shown that mainstream economics assumes that GDP growth follows an “exponential curve left hanging in mid-air,” when the reality is that it is far more likely to level off into the shape of the S-curve.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“This could come as disheartening news to ecological campaigners who believe that positive and optimistic messages of a better future are far more effective than visions of apocalypse in rousing people to action. While that may be true for motivating action among the general public, it is less obviously the case for the privileged and powerful, who are more likely to respond to crisis and even fear. The chances are that they will only take radical action if they feel they have something to lose.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“people (especially in the West) don’t experience it as a severe crisis like the Great Stink or the Second World War. The impacts are too gradual: Like a frog that gets slowly boiled alive in water that rises only gradually in temperature, the planetary heat is getting turned up slowly and we’re failing to jump out of the pot.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“One of the key lessons to draw from Bazalgette’s sewers is that successful long-term planning needs to be based on building adaptability, flexibility, and resilience into the original design. In his book How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand points out that the most long-lasting buildings are those that can “learn” by adapting to new contexts over time: They can accommodate different users or be easily extended, retrofitted, or upgraded. He draws an analogy with biology: “The more adapted an organism to present conditions, the less adaptable it can be to unknown future conditions.”24 This is exactly where the London sewers were exemplary. By making the tunnels double the size needed at the time, Bazalgette designed long-term adaptability into the system, just as his use of the finest building materials gave the sewers enough resilience to survive over a century of constant wear and tear. Of course, we can learn about resilience not just from cases like the Victorian sewers, but from natural phenomena such as a delicate spider web that manages to survive a storm or the way sweating and shivering help regulate human body temperature.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“The Great Stink (or How a Crisis Can Kickstart Radical Planning) Picture London in the 1850s. In fact, don’t picture it—smell it. Since medieval times, the city’s human waste had been deposited in cesspools—stinking holes in the ground full of rotting sludge, often in the basements of houses—or flushed directly into the River Thames. While thousands of cesspools had been removed since the 1830s, the Thames itself remained a giant cesspool that also happened to be the city’s main source of drinking water: Londoners were drinking their own raw sewage. The result was mass outbreaks of cholera, with over 14,000 people dying in 1848 and a further 10,000 in 1854.20 And yet city authorities did almost nothing to resolve this ongoing public health disaster. They were hampered not just by a lack of funds and the prevalent belief that cholera was spread through the air rather than through water, but also by the pressure of private water companies who insisted that the drinking water they pumped from the river was wonderfully pure. The crisis came to a head in the stiflingly hot summer of 1858. That year had already seen three cholera outbreaks, and now the lack of rainfall had exposed sewage deposits six feet deep on the sloping banks of the Thames. The putrid fumes spread throughout the city. But it wasn’t just the laboring poor who had to bear it: The smell also wafted straight from the river into the recently rebuilt Houses of Parliament and the new ventilation system conspired to pump the rank odor throughout the building. The smell was so vile that debates in the Commons and Lords had to be abandoned, and parliamentarians fled from the committee rooms with cloths over their faces. What became known as the “Great Stink” was finally enough to prompt the government to act.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“In fact, looking through the historical record, there are powerful examples of democratic regimes making long-term planning a policy priority. But under what circumstances are they willing to do so? To answer this question, we must descend deep into the sewers of Victorian London.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“It was a long-term plan implemented over decades, which required the ruling authorities to envision at least 50 to 100 years into the future, as it would take that long for substantive reforestation to occur.15 The results were slow but spectacular. For centuries, the country had been sucked into the classic “progress trap,” pursuing a path to civilizational decline by undermining the ecological resource base on which the society was founded.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Long-term planning has its dangers, especially when imposed from above in a linear, dictatorial fashion that is insensitive to human needs and fragile ecosystems. Yet tackling the ecological, technological, and social crises of our age cannot be done on an ad hoc, improvised basis devoid of any planning. So how can we learn to plan wisely for the challenges of the future?”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Mormon missionaries Over 1 million Mormons have been missionaries since 1830. There are currently 70,000 a year attempting to spread their gospel in 150 countries.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“One Child Policy, China Population control program, 1979–2015. Criticized for encouraging the sex-selective abortion of female fetuses.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Soviet Five-Year Plans Five-year development plans between 1928 and 1991, part of a decades-long economic strategy. Replicated in other countries, including China, India, and Indonesia.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Freiburg eco city, Germany Renowned for sustainable urban development since the 1970s. In the Vauben district, cars must be parked in garages on the outskirts. One-third of city journeys are made by bike.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“London’s sewers, UK Built following the “Great Stink” of 1858 and deadly cholera outbreaks. Chief Engineer Bazalgette took 18 years, with 22,000 workers and 318 million bricks. The system is still in use.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Long-Term Planning in Human History RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS Step Pyramid, Saqqara, Egypt The oldest pyramid in the world, built c. 2600 BCE in 18 years, where King Djoser could be eternally reborn in the afterlife. The engineer Imhotep was revered as a god. Ulm Minster, Germany Lutheran church constructed 1377–1890. Funded by local residents, it was the mother of all crowdfunding projects lasting over 500 years. Sagrada Familia, Spain Gaudí’s basilica in Barcelona.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“If only our politicians would stop obsessing about the latest opinion poll and become a little more like William of Wykeham, we might take measures to invest seriously in public health care, put a brake on global warming, or prepare for the risks of biological warfare. We might even stop dumping nuclear waste on future generations too. That, in any case, is the hope.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, part of the Iroquois Confederacy: We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure every decision that we make relates to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come, and that is the basis by which we make decisions in council. We consider: will this be to the benefit of the seventh generation?27”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“In a story from the Jewish Talmud, a man is asked why he is planting a carob tree that will not produce fruit within his lifetime and replies, “Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“A final popular argument, which I call The Baton, is based on the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Others argue that resource distribution misses the big environmental picture and that each generation should leave the planet in a condition of life-sustaining ecological health that is at least as good as when they were bequeathed it—a principle of “regenerative justice” that echoes ideas of stewardship.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“The Blindfold refers to a thought experiment invented by the political philosopher John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice. Imagine you stand behind a “veil of ignorance,” not knowing what position in society you will be born into—you have no idea what your wealth, sex, ethnic background, intelligence, or values will be. In this “original position,” asked Rawls, how would you distribute the resources of society?”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“The Scales, a second rationale for intergenerational justice, asks us to imagine a set of scales where everyone who is alive today is on one side, and all the generations of people who are yet to be born are on the other. At least in terms of sheer numbers, the current population is easily outweighed by all those who will succeed us.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“How could we treat our descendants with such callous disregard? Discounting is an iconic expression of the colonization of the future, treating it as virtually empty of inhabitants. Shouldn’t we cease the practice of discounting and instead treat all people’s interests equally, regardless of when they happen to be born?”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“What has this all got to do with intergenerational justice? Over the last hundred years, discounting has spread from finance and accounting to infiltrate policy-making in areas ranging from public health to climate change. Governments now often decide whether to invest in hospitals, transport infrastructure, or a new flood barrier system by using a discount rate to calculate how the future benefits of such projects compare to their costs today. The discount rates they typically deploy—usually between 2 percent and 4 percent—might not sound very high, but they can be enough to tilt them against such investments even if they are likely to bring large benefits in the future, since distant benefits (beyond, say, 50 years) appear to be negligible.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“There is an Apache saying, “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”18 In the end it is not just our own children, but all children who will judge us from the future.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“We are all grandchildren and we are all ancestors,” says Māori lawyer and children’s rights campaigner Julia Whaipooti. “Personally I’m driven by our mokopuna (‘future generations’) to make the world a better place than when we found it.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Gift-giving is an ideal that resonates with the original meaning of the word legacy, which has its origins in medieval Europe. A legate—from the Latin legatus, meaning ambassador or envoy—was an emissary sent by the pope to faraway lands, bearing an important message. So someone leaving a legacy can be thought of as being an intertemporal ambassador of the present sending a gift into the distant future.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

“Giving people a death nudge might prompt immediate shifts in behavior but still may not go far enough in creating the deep psychological shifts required to embed the values of the good ancestor in society.”
― Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking