What We Owe the Future

Our distant ancestors could not predict their longterm impact on the world. Hunter-gatherers did not know they were driving species to extinction. Early agriculturalists could not guess that deforestation would warm the planet, nor what the consequences of this warming would be.

gender roles still vary widely across different countries, some women have more opportunities than others. For example, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan all have about the same income per capita. But in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, about three out of every four women participate in the labour force, while in India and Pakistan fewer tha

Thanks to long-standing policy support from environmentally motivated governments, the cost of solar panels has fallen by a factor of 250 since 1976, while the cost of lithium ion batteries has fallen by a factor of 41 since 1991.83 Even though solar and wind supply only around 3 percent of energy today, if the exponential cost declines continue, i

We typically think that if someone has benefited you, that gives you a reason to repay them. But future people don’t benefit you the way others in your generation do.

our attention should be, first, on what states of affairs might be the most persistent. Then, afterwards, we can think about significance and contingency.

Today, the Constitution is again very rigid: it’s only been amended once in the last fifty years, and that amendment—to prevent increases in congressional salaries from taking effect until the next term of office—was first proposed in 1789.

The dynamic is like that of glassblowing: In one period, the glass is still molten and malleable; it can be blown into one of many shapes. After it cools, it becomes rigid, and further change is impossible without remelting.

greater uncertainty should prompt more concern about worst-case outcomes, and this shift is not offset by a higher chance of best-case outcomes, because the worst-case outcomes are worse than the best-case outcomes are good.

Yet despite its historical ubiquity, its longevity, and its acceptance, and despite the luminaries who defended it, slavery was abolished. Was its abolition inevitable, a result of economic changes or the inexorable march of moral progress? Or was it a contingent matter, where if history had gone down a different path, it might never have occurred?