The Hidden Dangers Of Silicon Valley's Philosophical Trend, 'Longtermism'

Most people would agree that it's a good idea to think about how our actions affect not only the present but also future generations. And we don't just mean one's own family, community, city, or country, but all people everywhere: humanity the species. Take climate change, where survival and quality of life require getting over the petty short-sightedness of quarterly dividend yields and this year's hot-button item of political expediency. We might not see Manhattan go underwater during our lifetimes, it's true, and there'll always be "I've got mine, Jack" naysayers. But provided we minimally hinge our empathy on the old tried-and-true "think of the children" argument, we might craft a better future. 

That's "longtermism" in a super simplified nutshell. Part philosophy, part ethical creed, part brainchild of Oxford-led professors and Silicon Valley tech giants, longtermism asks people to think beyond the present — way, way beyond it, as The New York Times explains. We're talking past the next 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years, or even a million years, to all the trillions of people who might be born to a humanity that lives and thrives far into the future. If that sounds ridiculous, or it's hard to believe that our ape race could survive that long, you're not alone. 

Such apocalyptic presumptions are baked into longtermism's DNA, deep within its darker undercurrents. Behind high-minded thinking lies unnerving implications, especially if those with wealth and power presume to know what's best for everyone.

At its most extreme, longtermism gives rise to the same "the ends justify the means" moral fallacy that's been critiqued in countless stories, books, films, etc. So a glorious, shining future of billions necessitates the deaths of motley millions? "Well ok, then," a longtermist might conclude.

Such detached intellectualism comes across in longtermist literature, which is overflowing with technical jargon and a bizarre obsession with numerical prediction. "The Case for Strong Longtermism" talks about "benefit ratio (BR) and ASL (axiological strong longtermism)," "influencing the choice among non-extinction persistent states," "ambiguity aversion," and more. When talking about how humanity's population might grow as we migrate off-world, the article says, "Even a 50% credence that the number of future beings will be zero would decrease the expected number by only a factor of two. In contrast, a credence as small as 1% that the future will contain, for example, 1 trillion beings per century for 100 million years (rather than 10 billion per century for 1 million years) increases the expected number by a factor of 100."

Lots of outlets have called out longtermism for not being "ethically sound," as The Washington Post says, including Salon, Aeon, Current Affairs, The Intercept, and more. And you might be thinking, "Okay, a bunch of stuffy academics with their heads up their butts have some wacky ideas. And?" The problems start when longtermism spills out into the real world and gets co-opted by those with influence, like the billionaires of Silicon Valley.

There's another even stranger layer to Silicon Valley's preoccupation with longtermism, and it connects to Silicon Valley being at the forefront of technological innovation. Specifically, it deals with transhumanism, the belief that humans will fuse with machines and become ultra-humans. Cyborg limbs, neural implants, consciousness uploads: This is how to transcend the definition of "human" and embrace some grand, tech-facilitated utopia. Slate, contrarily, has described transhumanism as a kind of neo-eugenics that could split humanity even further into haves and have-nots, while an article on MedCrave describes transhumanism as a form of "digital slavery" where humans are even more beholden to the whims of tech superpowers.

Nick Bostrom, the Oxford professor Salon calls the "father of longtermism," has written a transhumanism-extolling manifesto called "Transhumanist Values." Salon also describes how Bostrom has expressed concern at the overbreeding of less-than-talented, less-than-smart people. "If such selection were to operate over a long period of time, we might evolve into a less brainy but more fertile species," he wrote in "Existential Risks." Transhumanism, he says, is the solution to such a problem. According to Futurism, Elon Musk has expressed similar desires and wants to "jump-start the next stage of human evolution" with his "brain hacking" tech, Neuralink.

When taking into context Silicon Valley's fear of human extinction and longtermism's emphasis on the future over the present, a very creepy and alarming picture emerges. Longtermism becomes the vehicle for the wealthy, powerful, and tech-minded to sidestep ethics and presume to know what's best for everyone.