Perhaps you've seen the word "longtermism" in your social #media feed. Or you've stumbled upon the New Yorker profile of William MacAskill, the public face of #longtermism. Or read MacAskill's recent opinion essay in the New York Times. Or seen the cover story in TIME magazine: "How to Do More Good." Or noticed that #ElonMusk retweeted a link to MacAskill's new book, "What We Owe the Future," with the comment, "Worth reading. This is a close match for my #philosophy."
As I have previously written, longtermism is arguably the most influential #ideology that few members of the general public have ever heard about. Longtermists have directly influenced reports from the secretary-general of the United Nations; a longtermist is currently running the RAND Corporation; they have the ears of billionaires like #Musk; and the so-called Effective Altruism community, which gave rise to the longtermist ideology, has a mind-boggling $46.1 billion in committed funding. Longtermism is everywhere behind the scenes — it has a huge following in the tech sector — and champions of this view are increasingly pulling the strings of both major world governments and the business #elite.

https://www.salon.com/2022/08/20/understanding-longtermism-why-this-suddenly-influential-philosophy-is-so/ #technology #transhumanism #economics #holocaust #climatechange #poverty #religion