Are We Prepared for Pandemics?

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Human values don't seem very good at dealing with risks that are less than 50% chance over a century. We just don't care about that, whether it's solar flares or pandemics and so forth. Pandemics kill many, many more people per year on average than plane clashes. I think we could just take the last, you know, I doubt 10 million people have died in plane clashes over the last 100 years. But are we prepared for them? No. So what we need are people who are firstly just clear thinking and numerate. And secondly, concerned to overcome the political hurdles such that we take action on them now.

It’s always a little humbling to think about what affects your words and actions might have on other people, not only right now but potentially well into the future. Now take that humble feeling and promote it to all of humanity, and arbitrarily far in time. How do our actions as a society affect all the potential generations to come? William MacAskill is best known as a founder of the Effective Altruism movement, and is now the author of What We Owe the Future. In this new book he makes the case for longtermism: the idea that we should put substantial effort into positively influencing the long-term future. We talk about the pros and cons of that view, including the underlying philosophical presuppositions.

Mindscape listeners can get 50% off What We Owe the Future, thanks to a partnership between the Forethought Foundation and Bookshop.org. Just click here and use code MINDSCAPE50 at checkout.

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William (Will) MacAskill received his D.Phil. in philosophy from the University of Oxford. He is currently an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford, as well as a research fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, director of the Forefront Foundation for Global Priorities Research, President of the Centre for Effective Altruism, and co-founder of 80,000 hours and Giving What We Can.

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