MacAskill - What We Owe the Future
Out of the hundreds of thousands of years in humanity’s past and the potentially billions of years in her future, we find ourselves living now, at a time of extraordinary change. A time marked by the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with thousands of nuclear warheads standing ready to fire. A time when we are burning through our finite fossil reserves, producing pollution that might last hundreds of thousands of years. A time when we can see catastrophes on the horizon - from engineered pathogens to value lock-in to technological stagnation - and can act to prevent them.
This is a time when we can be pivotal in steering the future onto a better trajectory. There’s no better time for a movement that will stand up, not just for our generation or even our children’s generation, but for all those who are yet to come.