“Will morally motivated actors steer us towards a near-best future?” by William_MacAskill, finm, Forethought

To what extent, in the future, will we get widespread, accurate, and motivational moral convergence - where future decision-makers avoid all major moral mistakes, are motivated to act to promote good outcomes, and are able to do so? And, even if we only get partial convergence, to what extent can we get to a near-best future by different groups, with very different moral views, coming together to compromise and trade?

In a new essay, Convergence and Compromise, Fin Moorhouse and I (Will) discuss these ideas.

Given “no easy eutopia”, we’re very unlikely to get to a near-best future by default. Instead, we’ll need people to try really hard to bring it about: very proactively trying to figure out what's morally best - even if initially counterintuitive or strange - and trying to make that happen.

So: how likely is that to happen?

Convergence

First: maybe, in the future, most [...]

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Outline:

(01:06) Convergence

(05:35) Compromise

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First published:
August 8th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qdcRfuqSfBBYJu6bx/will-morally-motivated-actors-steer-us-towards-a-near-best

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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