In 2015, 20 residents of Yahaba, a small town in northeastern Japan, went to their town hall to take part in a unique experiment.<\/p>\n
Their goal was to design policies that would shape the future of Yahaba. They would debate questions typically reserved for politicians: Would it be better to invest in infrastructure or child care? Should we promote renewable energy or industrial farming?<\/p>\n
But there was a twist. While half the citizens were invited to be themselves and express their own opinions, the remaining participants were asked to put on special ceremonial robes and play the part of people from the future. Specifically, they were told to imagine they were from the year 2060, meaning they\u2019d be representing the interests of a future generation during group deliberations.<\/p>\n
What unfolded was striking. The citizens who were just being themselves advocated for policies that would boost their lifestyle in the short term. But the people in robes advocated for much more radical policies \u2014 from massive health care investments to climate change action \u2014 that would be better for the town in the long term. They managed to convince their fellow citizens that taking that approach would benefit their grandkids. In the end, the entire group reached a consensus that they should, in some ways, act against their own immediate self-interest in order to help the future.<\/p>\n
This experiment marked the beginning of Japan\u2019s Future Design movement. What started in Yahaba has since been replicated in city halls around the country, feeding directly into real policymaking. It\u2019s one example of a burgeoning global attempt to answer big moral questions: Do we owe it to future generations to take their interests into account? What does it look like to incorporate the preferences of people who don\u2019t even exist yet? How can we be good ancestors?<\/p>\n
Several Indigenous communities have long embraced the principle of \u201cseventh-generation decision making,\u201d which involves weighing how choices made today will affect a person born seven generations from now. In fact, it\u2019s that kind of thinking that inspired Japanese economics professor Tatsuyoshi Saijo to create the Future Design movement (he learned about the concept while visiting the US and found it extraordinary).<\/p>\n
But most of us probably haven\u2019t given much thought to how we can become good ancestors. As a quote attributed to Groucho Marx puts it: \u201cWhy should I care about future generations \u2014 what have they ever done for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also just genuinely hard to focus on the future when we\u2019re struggling under the weight of our day-to-day problems, and when everything in society \u2014 from our political structures (think two- and four-year election cycles) to our consumerist technologies (think Amazon\u2019s \u201cBuy Now\u201d button) \u2014 seems to favor short-term solutions.<\/p>\n
And yet, failing to think long term is a huge problem. Threats like climate change, pandemics, and rapidly emerging technologies are making it clear that it\u2019s not enough to adopt \u201csustainability\u201d as a buzzword. If we really want human life to be sustainable, we need to break out of our fixation on the present. Training ourselves to take the long view is arguably the best thing we can do for humanity.<\/p>\n
Why we should care about people who don\u2019t exist yet<\/p>\n
Picture this: A child is drowning in front of you. You see her desperate limbs flailing in a pond, and you know you could easily wade into the waters and save her. Your clothes would get muddy, but your life wouldn\u2019t be in any danger. Should you rescue her?<\/p>\n
Of course you should.<\/p>\n
Now, what if I told you that the child was on the other side of the world, in a village in Nepal. She\u2019s drowning in a pond there right now. An adult just like you is passing by the pond and sees her flailing. Is it just as important for that adult to save her as it is for you to save the child near you?<\/p>\n
Hilary Greaves, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, thinks you should answer yes. \u201cI\u2019d hope that most reasonable people would agree that pain and suffering on the other side of the world matter just as much as pain and suffering here,\u201d she said. In other words, spatial distance is morally irrelevant.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you think that, then it\u2019s pretty hard to see why the case of temporal distance would be any different,\u201d Greaves continued. \u201cIf there\u2019s a child suffering terribly in 300 years\u2019 time, and this is completely predictable \u2014 and there\u2019s just as much that you could do about it as there is that you could do about the suffering of a child today \u2014 it\u2019d be pretty strange to think that just because it\u2019s in the future it\u2019s less important.\u201d<\/p>\n
This hypothetical \u2014 an adaptation of a classic Peter Singer thought experiment \u2014 highlights the idea that future lives matter, and that we should care about improving them just like we care about improving those of people alive today.<\/p>\n
Roman Krznaric, a research fellow at the Long Now Foundation and the author of the new book <\/em>The Good Ancestor<\/em>, offers an even starker analogy. \u201cIf it\u2019s wrong to plant a bomb on a train that kills a bunch of children right now, it\u2019s also wrong to do it if it\u2019s going to go off in 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 years,\u201d he told me. \u201cI think we shouldn\u2019t be afraid of making that moral argument.\u201d<\/p>\n And, increasingly, people are<\/em> making that moral argument. \u201cLegal struggles for the rights of future people are exploding around the world,\u201d Krznaric said.<\/p>\n In 2015, 21 young Americans filed a landmark case against the government \u2014 Juliana v. United States<\/em> \u2014 in which they argued that its failure to confront climate change will have serious effects on both them and future generations, which constitutes a violation of their rights.<\/p>\n In 2019, 15 children and teens in Canada filed a similar lawsuit. That same year, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands issued a groundbreaking ruling ordering the government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, citing its duty of care to current and future generations.<\/p>\n This past April, Germany\u2019s Federal Constitutional Court likewise ruled that the government\u2019s current climate measures weren\u2019t good enough to protect future generations, giving it until the end of 2022 to improve its carbon emissions targets.<\/p>\n Also in April, Pakistan\u2019s Supreme Court ruled against the expansion of the cement industry, which is terrible for the climate, in certain areas of Punjab. In the decision, the presiding justice wrote: \u201cThe tragedy is that tomorrow\u2019s generations aren\u2019t here to challenge this pillaging of their inheritance. The great silent majority of future generations is rendered powerless and needs a voice. This Court should be mindful that its decisions also adjudicate upon the rights of the future generations of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Krznaric, who was surprised and delighted to find his book cited in the court proceedings, told me, \u201cThese lawyers and judges are trying to find a language to talk about something they know is right, and it\u2019s about intergenerational justice. Law is generally slow, but stuff is happening fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n How to nudge society to care more about the long term<\/p>\n The push to embrace this kind of thinking isn\u2019t limited to the courts. A few countries have already created government agencies dedicated to thinking about policy in the very long term. Sweden has a \u201cMinistry of the Future,\u201d and Wales and the United Arab Emirates both have something similar.<\/p>\n Prominent figures in other countries are pushing their governments in that direction. For example, philosopher Toby Ord, a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, published a report in June urging the UK to appoint a chief risk officer who would be responsible for sussing out and preparing for extreme risks.<\/p>\n \u201cBy my estimate, the likelihood of the world experiencing an existential catastrophe over the next 100 years is one in six \u2014 Russian roulette,\u201d Ord said. \u201cWe cannot survive many centuries operating at a level of extreme risk like this.\u201d <\/p>\n Ord emphasizes that humanity is highly vulnerable to dangers in two realms: biosecurity and artificial intelligence. Powerful actors could develop bioweapons, and individuals could misuse advances in synthetic biology to create man-made pandemics that are much worse than those that occur naturally. AI could outstrip human-level intelligence in the coming decades and, if not aligned with our values and goals, could wreak havoc on human life. These are potential existential risks to humanity, and we need to devote a lot more time and money to mitigating them.<\/p>\n On both sides of the Atlantic, intellectuals in recent years have formed organizations dedicated to cultivating long-term thinking. While the UK has groups like the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, Ari Wallach has been working on Longpath in the US. Operating under the motto \u201cBe Great Ancestors,\u201d Longpath gathers together CEOs, academics, and other individuals to do exercises meant to counter short-term thinking, from practicing mindfulness to writing letters to their future selves.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a story in the Talmud that Wallach likes to tell participants: \u201cOne day, a man named Honi was walking along and saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked him, \u2018How many years will it take until it will bear fruit?\u2019 He said, \u2018Not for 70 years.\u2019 Honi said, \u2018Do you really believe you\u2019ll live another 70 years?\u2019 The man answered, \u2018I found this world provided with carob trees, and as my ancestors planted them for me, so I too plant them for my descendants.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n What the man expresses in the story is gratitude toward his ancestors, and it\u2019s that emotion that propels him to look out for his future descendants. The story captures a truth about human psychology that has since been validated in scientific studies: Eliciting gratitude in people is an effective behavioral nudge for getting them to act in the best interests of future generations.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people evoke feelings of gratitude (through prayer, counting blessings, etc.), the result on decisions is one of patience and value for the future relative to the present. We find they become more generous and even extract fewer resources from common resource pools,\u201d David DeSteno, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, told me. \u201cIf gratitude makes you willing to extract fewer resources in the present (e.g., fish), they (e.g., fish stocks) can replenish or remain for future generations. Of course, this reduces immediate profit.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSteno\u2019s words highlight a fundamental tension: If we really care about creating a sustainable future for humanity, we may need to be willing to sacrifice some short-term gains.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n But Wallach doesn\u2019t think we need to frame this as a tough trade-off at all. He doesn\u2019t ask people to sacrifice the concrete pleasures of today for the abstract rewards of tomorrow. Instead, he\u2019s found it more effective to highlight how acting altruistically toward future generations can actually bring us pleasure now.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we ask people if they want to be the great ancestor that the future needs them to be, as part of what gives them meaning and purpose, they are no longer under the spell of lifespan bias,\u201d he told me. \u201cThey see themselves as part of something larger. They are no longer being asked to sacrifice for the future, but to enhance their own sense of meaning and purpose in their present.\u201d<\/p>\n Is caring for the future more important than caring for the present?<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve gotten this far and you\u2019re convinced that you should look out for future generations, you\u2019re already ahead of lots of people. But it might interest you to know that some philosophers think longtermism \u2014 the idea that we should be concerned with ensuring that the future goes well \u2014 doesn\u2019t actually go far enough.<\/p>\n Both Greaves and another Oxford philosopher, Will MacAskill, advocate for strong longtermism, which says that impacts on the far future aren\u2019t just an important feature of our actions \u2014 they\u2019re the most <\/em>important feature. And when they say far future, they really mean far<\/em>: They argue we should be thinking about the consequences of our actions not just one or five or seven generations from now, but thousands or even millions of years ahead.<\/p>\n Their reasoning goes like this: There are going to be far more people alive in the future than there are in the present or have been in the past. Of all the human beings who will ever be alive in the universe, the vast majority will live in the future.<\/p>\n If our species lasts for as long as Earth remains a habitable planet, we\u2019re talking about at least 1 quadrillion people coming into existence \u2014 100,000 times the population of Earth today. (Even if you think there\u2019s only a 1 percent chance that our species lasts for as long as Earth is habitable, the math still means the number of future people outstrips the number of present people.) And if humans settle in space one day, we could be looking at an even longer, more populous future for our species.<\/p>\n Now, if you believe that all humans count equally regardless of where or when they live (remember the drowning-child-in-Nepal thought experiment?), you have to think about the impacts of our actions on all their lives. Since there are far more people to affect in the future \u2014 because most people who\u2019ll ever exist will exist in the future \u2014 it follows that the impacts that matter most are those that affect future humans.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how the argument goes, anyhow. And if you buy it, it might dramatically change some of your choices in life. Instead of donating to soup kitchens or charities that save kids from malaria today, you may donate to researchers who are figuring out how to ensure that tomorrow\u2019s AI will be aligned with human values. Instead of devoting your career to being a family doctor, you may devote it to research on pandemic prevention. You\u2019d know there\u2019s only a tiny probability your donation or actions will help humanity avoid catastrophe, but you\u2019d reason that it\u2019s worth it \u2014 if your bet does pay off, the payoff would be enormous.<\/p>\n But you might not buy this argument at all. You might object that you can\u2019t reliably predict the effects of your actions in one year, never mind 1,000 years, so it doesn\u2019t make sense to invest a lot of resources in trying to positively impact the future when the effects of your actions might wash out in a few years or decades.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a very reasonable objection. Greaves acknowledges that in a lot of cases, we suffer from \u201cmoral cluelessness\u201d about the downstream effects of our actions. \u201cBut,\u201d she told me, \u201cthat\u2019s not the case for all actions.\u201d<\/p>\n She recommends targeting issues that come with \u201clock-in\u201d opportunities, or ways of doing good that result in the positive benefits being locked in for a long time. For example, you could pursue a career aimed at establishing national or international norms around carbon emissions, or nuclear bombs, or regulations for labs that deal with dangerous pathogens. These actions are almost certain to do good \u2014 the kind of good that won\u2019t be undone quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s in the nature of a lock-in mechanism that the effects of your actions persist for an extremely long time,\u201d Greaves said. \u201cSo it gets rid of your concern that the effects will keep getting dampened and dampened as you get further into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n You might object to strong longtermism on different grounds, though. You might think, perhaps not unfairly, that it smacks of privilege \u2014 that it\u2019s easy to take such a position when you live in relative prosperity, but that people living in miserable conditions today need our help now, and we have a duty to ease their suffering.<\/p>\n In fact, you might reject the premise that all humans count equally regardless of when they live. Maybe you think we have an especially strong duty to humans who are alive in the present because aggregated effects on people\u2019s welfare aren\u2019t the only things that matter \u2014 things like justice matter too. We might owe it to disadvantaged groups today to help them out, possibly as reparations for harm done in the past through colonialism or slavery.<\/p>\n When I voiced this objection to Greaves, she admitted it\u2019s plausible that thinking, utilitarian-style, only about what would be the better outcome doesn\u2019t exhaust the moral story \u2014 that maybe we should take virtues such as justice into account. But she said it\u2019s still a mistake to think that that obviously sways the balance in favor of present people. If justice is in the picture, she rebutted, why shouldn\u2019t justice also apply to future people?<\/p>\n \u201cTake the case of reparations. If you think that there are some people we owe reparations to because of wrongs done in the past that are affecting their interests now, and in some of those cases you\u2019re talking about wrongs that were done hundreds of years ago, that quite nicely makes the point that bad things we do now can \u2014 via the route of justice \u2014 have adverse impacts in a couple hundred years\u2019 time,\u201d Greaves said. \u201cSo you might think it\u2019s a matter of justice that we owe it to future generations to bequeath them both an existence in the first place and the conditions for their flourishing.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that Greaves does not find it easy to live her philosophy. She told me she feels awful whenever she walks past a homeless person. She\u2019s acutely aware she\u2019s not supporting that individual or the larger cause of ending homelessness because she\u2019s supporting longtermist causes instead.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel really bad, but it\u2019s a limited sense of feeling bad because I do think it\u2019s the right thing to do given that the counterfactual is giving to these other [longtermist] causes that are more effective,\u201d she said. \u201cThe morally appropriate thing is to occupy this kind of middle space where you\u2019re still gripped by present-day suffering but you recognize there\u2019s an even more important thing you can do with the limited resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone will agree with this reasoning, and that\u2019s perfectly okay. You can agree with longtermism without agreeing with strong longtermism.<\/p>\n You can also decide that strong longtermism is pretty intellectually convincing, but you\u2019re not confident enough in its claims that you want to devote 100 percent of your charitable donations or your time to exclusively longtermist causes. In that case, you can split your money (or time) into different buckets: You might decide that 50 percent of your donations go to longtermist issues and 50 percent go to causes like poverty, homelessness, or racial justice.<\/p>\n If you feel safer hedging your bets this way, you\u2019re not alone. Even Greaves admits that it\u2019s scary to commit fully to her philosophy. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re standing on a pin over a chasm,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt feels dangerous, in a way, to throw all this altruistic effort at existential risk mitigation and probably do nothing, when you know that you could\u2019ve done all this good for near-term causes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n A few things about the future we can all probably agree on<\/p>\n If you care about helping both present and future generations, you might want to think about things that check both boxes. This is the strategy Krznaric recommends. \u201cLet\u2019s find the sweet spot between our self-interest today and the future that even Groucho Marx might be happy with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While Krznaric isn\u2019t confident in our ability to predict the knock-on effects of technological shifts, he thinks it\u2019s easier to say for sure that certain ecological shifts would be good. For example, if we donate to groups that make a positive difference in staving off climate change and preventing pandemics, that\u2019s really good for us today and in the near future \u2014 and<\/em> highly likely to be positive for the long-run future too.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do we know about human life, whether it\u2019s today or in 200 years or 300 years?\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that if there are any creatures like us, they\u2019ll need air to breathe and water to drink. If you want to think long term, one of the best ways to do it is, don\u2019t think about time, think about place.\u201d <\/p>\n He cited biologists such as Janine Benyus, who explains how some creatures have managed to survive for 10,000 generations and beyond: by taking care of the place that will take care of their offspring. They live within the boundaries of the ecosystem in which they\u2019re embedded. They don\u2019t foul the nest.<\/p>\n This focus on safeguarding place for both the present and the future could end up being an important line of research within longtermism. One advantage of this approach is that it\u2019s not excessively morally demanding, whereas it\u2019s maybe too demanding to say that we ought to devote most of our resources to improving the far future even when it comes at a serious cost to current interests.<\/p>\n