Our actions and decisions clearly affect future generations. Climate change is the canonical example, but this is also true for social norms, values, levels of economic growth, and many other factors. Indeed, if we give equal weight to future individuals, it is likely that the effect of our actions on the long-term future far outstrip any short-term impacts.
However, future generations do not hold any power – as they do not yet exist – so their interests are often not taken into account to a sufficient degree. To fix this problem, we could introduce some form of representation of future generations1 in our political system. (See e.g. 1,2,3 for previous discussion.) In this post, I will consider different ways to empower future generations and discuss key challenges that arise.
Hi Tyler,
thanks for the detailed and thoughtful comment!
Yeah, I agree that there are plenty of reasons why institutional reform could be valuable. I didn't mean to endorse that objection (at least not in a strong form). I like your point about how longtermist institutions may shift norms and attitudes.
I mostly had the former in mind when writing the post, though other attempts to ameliorate short-termism are also plausibly very important.
Might just be a typo but this post is by CRS (Center for Reducing Suffering), not CLR (Center on long-term risk). (It's easy to mix up because CRS is new, CLR recently re-branded, and both focus on s-risks.)
Looking forward to reading it!