The Scottish philosopher William MacAskill, in a talk with the Wired website, said that a wonderful future awaits us if we avoid extinction. This is the central theme of his latest book, What We Owe the Future, where he argues that tomorrow is unwritten. For this young thinker, 35 years old, we could be on a habitable Earth for up to 1.3 billion years. However, if we succeed in the colonization of space, the species could have billions of years of existence without being in danger of disappearing.
In his new text, MacAskill delves into his area of work, which is the moral challenges of this new time. For the philosopher, we are in a 21st century that will be essential in determining the shape we are giving to the future in the long term. Our decisions could lead to extinction or lead us to a more morally harmonious life that would take us many centuries on this planet.
The wonderful future we could build
For the Scottish philosopher, it is essential that we begin to be concerned about the life and well-being of the humans of the future. As a co-founder of effective altruism, MacAskill aims to maximize what people realize from their lives. The site that interviewed him pointed to some topics such as extinction, economic stagnation and Elon Musk.
In this world of instantaneity, MacAskill points to long-termism as a policy that will have a positive impact. Here the philosopher confronts Elon Musk and his book “A Close Coincidence”. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into question and how this could cause moral modifications that could be counterproductive for the future of humanity.
