Presented By: Department of Philosophy
CANCELLED: Department Colloquium
Alice Crary (The New School)
Title: “The Toxic Ideology of Longtermism”
Abstract:
This lecture criticizes the intellectual tradition “longtermism” as an ideology, for its damaging real-world effects as well as for its reliance on a flawed ethical theory. Longtermism is an outgrowth of Effective Altruism (EA), a utilitarianism-inspired philanthropic program founded just over a decade ago by young Oxford philosophers Toby Ord and William MacAskill. EA, which claims to guide charitable giving to do the ‘most good’ per expenditure of time or money, originally focused on mitigating the effects of poverty in the global South and of the treatment of animals in factory farms. This initially modestly-funded, Oxford-based enterprise soon had satellites in the UK, US, and elsewhere in the world, several of which became multi-million-dollar organisations, while the amount of money directed by EA-affiliated groups swelled to over four hundred million dollars annually, with pledges in the tens of billions. During this period, Ord and MacAskill started using the term ‘longtermism’ to mark a view championed by members of a conspicuous subset of effective altruists. The view is that humanity is at a crossroads at which we may either self-destruct or realize a glorious future, and that we should prioritize responding to threats to the continued existence of human civilization. The ‘existential risks’ that longtermists rank as most probable are AI unaligned with liberal values and deadly engineered pathogens. They urge us to combat these risks to make it likelier that humans (or our digitally intelligent descendants) will live on for millions, billions, or even trillions of years, surviving until long after the sun has vaporised the earth by colonizing exoplanets. The longtermist enterprise has been publicly thrashed for its ties to the crypto exchange FTX, which declared bankruptcy in mid-November 2022, but the movement remains well-funded and well-positioned to repair its reputation and go on enlisting earnest individuals to energetically support and spread it. There is a pressing need to criticize its theoretical weaknesses and forcefully bring out its material harms, exposing it as the toxic ideology it is.
Abstract:
This lecture criticizes the intellectual tradition “longtermism” as an ideology, for its damaging real-world effects as well as for its reliance on a flawed ethical theory. Longtermism is an outgrowth of Effective Altruism (EA), a utilitarianism-inspired philanthropic program founded just over a decade ago by young Oxford philosophers Toby Ord and William MacAskill. EA, which claims to guide charitable giving to do the ‘most good’ per expenditure of time or money, originally focused on mitigating the effects of poverty in the global South and of the treatment of animals in factory farms. This initially modestly-funded, Oxford-based enterprise soon had satellites in the UK, US, and elsewhere in the world, several of which became multi-million-dollar organisations, while the amount of money directed by EA-affiliated groups swelled to over four hundred million dollars annually, with pledges in the tens of billions. During this period, Ord and MacAskill started using the term ‘longtermism’ to mark a view championed by members of a conspicuous subset of effective altruists. The view is that humanity is at a crossroads at which we may either self-destruct or realize a glorious future, and that we should prioritize responding to threats to the continued existence of human civilization. The ‘existential risks’ that longtermists rank as most probable are AI unaligned with liberal values and deadly engineered pathogens. They urge us to combat these risks to make it likelier that humans (or our digitally intelligent descendants) will live on for millions, billions, or even trillions of years, surviving until long after the sun has vaporised the earth by colonizing exoplanets. The longtermist enterprise has been publicly thrashed for its ties to the crypto exchange FTX, which declared bankruptcy in mid-November 2022, but the movement remains well-funded and well-positioned to repair its reputation and go on enlisting earnest individuals to energetically support and spread it. There is a pressing need to criticize its theoretical weaknesses and forcefully bring out its material harms, exposing it as the toxic ideology it is.
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