Book Review: What We Owe The Future
Read the original on Astral Codex Ten →
Follow-up reading
↳ Highlights From The Comments On The Repugnant Conclusion And WWOTF — Highlights (companion) · Aug 2022
Summary
Scott's review of MacAskill's longtermism manifesto 'What We Owe The Future.' The book-as-PR-campaign opening; the longtermism case (Broken Bottle, 50 quadrillion future people); three methods of affecting the future (progress/survival/trajectory-change); the reindustrialization-without-coal worry; abolitionism as value-lock-in; the population-ethics muggings (the Repugnant Conclusion, with Scott's memorable 'just stay in World A / refuse to extend to infinity' refusal); and the influential closing point that long-termism rarely differs from near-termism ('unaligned AI might kill you and everyone you know' is the better pitch than 'your descendants in 30,000 AD').
Why this score
Quality 80 · Excellent. A definitive, engaging strong-classic book review: top-tier writing (the PR-campaign opening, the counterfactual-mugging-philosopher), genuinely substantive philosophy (Scott stakes out a real anti-Repugnant-Conclusion 'stay in World A' position), and an influential practical payoff (the long-termism-vs-x-risk argument that near-termism gets you most of the way). Excellent; just below the very-top strong-classic tour-de-force tier (Sadly-Porn/Age-of-Em 83-84) as a definitive critical review rather than a singular original synthesis.
Claude’s paradigm shift 58 · Moderate. Notable - conveys MacAskill's longtermism; the 'long-termism rarely differs from near-termism / x-risk is the near-term pitch' reframe is a fresh, influential original argument.
Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. 3 - influential within the EA/longtermism discourse; a key rationalist take on WWOTF, and the long-termism-vs-x-risk framing shaped EA conversation.