Arguments For and Against Longtermism

August 30, 2022

Thanks to William MacAskill's excellent new book on the topic (What We Owe the Future), lots of people are talking about longtermism right now. For those not familiar with the concept, "longtermism" is the ethical view that "positively influencing the long-term future should be a key moral priority of our time." Below are some of my favorite arguments for longtermism, followed by some of my favorite against it. Note that I borrow from Will's book heavily here in the section on arguments ...

Genesis according to science: The Empirical Creation Story

February 8, 2009

Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet

This was first written on February 8, 2009. I put it up on this site on February 10, 2023. 1 In the beginning, the big bang created the heavens. 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 The universe was formless and infinitesimal. Plasma hotter than a thousand suns permeated the explosively expanding fabric of space. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of t...