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Longtermism Seems Like A Religion
4 min readAug 5
This is a cross post from my blog post.
Longtermism is typically framed as an academic philosophy or as a pet project of billionaires, but it’s worth pointing out that, in many ways, it also functions similarly to a secular religion.
Although I do think that longtermism should be attacked and defended on academic grounds, I also think it’s important to take seriously the ways in which the view has a religious appeal.
This will not only allow us to think more clearly about it as a philosophy, but it will also help those who are questioning the philosophy to better deconstruct it.
With that said, here’s five ways longtermism is like a religion:
Religions often make claims about the nature of reality that cannot be disproven. Since there’s no way to challenge them, their followers can maintain faith regardless of what counterarguments they hear.
Similarly, longtermists make a lot of unfalsifiable claims about what the future will look like, despite the fact that we know very little about what the future will hold.
Longtermists variously believe that:
Each of these claims may appear plausible on the surface, but it’s important to point out that we have very little information on which to assess them and no ability to falsify them.
Religions often make claims about things that cannot be known and then go into great detail about the nature and quality of these things. This makes them feel real and grants them more importance.
Longtermists do the same with the far future.
Although we have no clue what the far future will be like, longtermists describe it in such vivid terms that it feels like a place that we could inhabit.
For instance, in What We Owe The Future, William MacAskill writes, “Consider the very best moments in your life—moments of joy, beauty, and energy, like falling in love, or achieving a lifelong goal, or having some creative insight. These moments provide proof of what is possible: we know that life can be at least as good as it is then. But they also show us a direction in which our lives can move, leading somewhere we have yet to go. If my best days can be hundreds of times better than my typically pleasant but humdrum life, then perhaps the best days of those in the future can be hundreds of times better again.”
Religious individuals often believe that they are privy to special knowledge, and that, as a result, their actions are enormously consequential.
For instance, many Christians believe that, if they convert someone to Christianity, they’re not merely convincing someone to follow their religious figure, but, instead, that they’re literally saving someone from eternal torture.
Longtermists, similarly, believe that their actions are uniquely important.
Because they expect the future to persist on a timescale of billions or even trillions of years, they believe that, even if they reduce existential risk by an extremely small amount, they are effectively saving vast amounts of people. In Nick Bostrom’s paper “Astronomical Waste,” he even suggests that by reducing absolute existential risk by one percentage point, one would, in expectation, save 10^36 human lives.
Religious people often believe that the present world is a shadow of the world that will eventually come and that, as a result, the present world isn’t particularly important.
Longtermists similarly believe that virtually all value lies in the far future, and that, as such, the present world isn’t particularly important.
For instance, longtermism’s strongest proponents, Toby Ord and William MacAskill, were originally founders of the effective altruism movement, in which they encouraged people to donate significant portions of their income to help save the lives of people in low-income countries.
But, now, because longtermism suggests that the present world has minimal value, Ord and MacAskill generally promote working on longtermist interventions such as pandemic preparedness and AI safety instead.
The lives of those who are living today are seen as almost insignificant compared to what humanity will one day achieve, and that, as such, humanity’s current problems aren’t worth being concerned about.
Religious people often believe that the world is likely to end within their own lifetime. This gives their actions unique importance and causes them to view the world on a more cosmic scale.
Longtermists, similarly, believe that humanity is currently going through a period of heightened existential risk, during which virtually all of humanity’s future value could be destroyed. One of the most prominent longtermists, Toby Ord, suggests that there is a one in six chance that this could happen this century.
To be clear, I am not arguing that, because longtermism seems like a religion, we should not think that longtermism is true. I just think it's important to be aware of the ways in which psychologically functions as such so that we can ensure that we're reasoning about in a rational way.
