I'm no defender of modern day consumerist culture, but one thing that's remarkable to me is just how much economic wealth we have built up and how poorly we turn it into human happiness. People often talk to me about my giving and kind of surprised that I regard it as an positive and my well-being. And that's because the best things in life are free. We can easily make those skeptics shaking their heads at our techno-utopianism by turning to some of the downside scenarios.
If the human race lasts as long as a typical mammalian species and our population continues at its current size, then there are 80 trillion people yet to come. Oxford philosophy professor William MacAskill says it's up to us to protect them.
In his bold new book, "What We Owe the Future," MacAskill makes a case for longtermism. He believes that how long we survive as a species may depend on the actions we take now.
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