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backwardog t1_it8ljr4 wrote

Reply to comment by dayumbrah in What we don't owe the future | Longtermism is a philosophy of grandiose ambition but short on useful insights. Our moral obligation is to improve the society we live in, not the ones to come. by IAI_Admin

No. You can set down a path of harvesting all the resources for temporary improvement and then fuck over future generations.

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dayumbrah t1_it8os5k wrote

Nah, if you attempted to harvest all resources you would see a significant collapse of many ecosystems which would have immediate effects

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backwardog t1_it8p3am wrote

Things can definitely slowly get worse.

Look at what happened/is happening with industrialization and climate change. Not all effects are immediately apparent from every cause.

And notice I said “set down a path.” I don’t mean wipe out all resources in an instant. We are set down a path to harvest all the oil, this won’t happen over night, but once that supply dwindles there will be significant negative outcomes.

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dayumbrah t1_it8plpp wrote

Notice I said "genuinely improve society"

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backwardog t1_it8ppx6 wrote

You don’t think oil genuinely improves society? It has, and does.

Society would basically collapse if we suddenly ran out of oil. The absolute worst part of using oil is our dependency on it for such a great number of industries. It’s not renewable, things will get worse when it runs out. It’s a perfect example of activity that benefits society now but makes it potentially worse in the future.

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