Synopsis: There are several ways to think long-term, some are more effective than others. But what’s overlooked is the skills and attitudes needed to bring together and nurture different values and ideas to open up rather than lock-down future potentials.
Existential risks are driving thinking about the long term
There is an uptick in discussions about long-term thinking and “existential risks.” Concern about the latter, along with the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change impacts, often drive the former.
Existential risks are events with the potential to wipe out most of humanity (and many other species) – asteroids, nuclear wars, climate crises, malignant artificial intelligence, plagues, etc. Though in a sign that “existential risk” can quickly become a slogan, a United Nations report recently labelled wide-spread disinformation as an existential risk.
“Longtermism” or intergenerational thinking is often a “new to us” western phenomenon. Māori and some other indigenous societies have traditionally incorporated inter-generational thinking into their decision making.
In western societies it usually pops up again after times of crisis - after the second world war and in the 1960s. But some organisations have been in the longer term thinking space before the pandemic. The Long Now Foundation has been championing long-term thinking for nearly three decades.
More recently, Wales established a Future Generations Commissioner, and Finland’s parliament has a Committee for the Future. Singapore’s government too has been building longer term thinking capabilities for over a decade.
There are a variety of approaches to long term thinking. They are distinct by the scale at which they operate, and the values that drive them.
Wrongtermism
At one end of the continuum, William MacAskill’s recent book What we owe the future offers what it calls a guide to extreme long-term thinking. It projects out over the next million years. His premise is focussed on solving existential risks, largely with technologies, to unlock humanities “real potential.” He calls for a “moral revolution” because he contends that the world’s long-run fate depends, at least partly, on the choices we make over the next few decades.
It received a glowing uncritical review in the Guardian, and has be praised by others because it offers what they see as an optimistic view of the future, in contrast to abundant pessimistic ones. Part of its appeal is that it also doesn’t appear to require much change to existing economic systems.
On the other hand, a polemical commentary on the book called MacAskill’s version of longtermism a “quasi-religious worldview.” It highlighted some of the questionable values and ethical views in MacAskill’s and his supporters ideas.
A more reasoned exploration of some of MacAskill’s ideas can be found in an article in The New Yorker. It notes that most of his support comes from a narrow ideological base, who imagine a technological utopia. The economists’ myth of the rational consumer replaced by one driven by data and optimisation. The article also mentions that MacAskill’s future is called most charitably by some critics “clueless”, and that looking so far ahead is pointless.
Even some of MacAskill’s colleagues at Oxford & Cambridge criticise the “techno-utopian approach” to this type of long-term thinking. They point out that insufficient consideration is given to how to prevent existential risks that result from technological developments. And, that the future isn’t a simplistic choice between “technological maturity” and extinction. They criticise the proponents of techno-utopianism of ignoring the visions and values of most of the planet they claim to want to save.
The future isn’t deterministic
MacAskill’s grand narrative of the future mimics the simplistic grand historical narratives of Jared Diamond, Yuval Noah Harari, and Steven Pinker. They favour key historical turning points, involving technological, social, environmental and/or political determinism.
“The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality” by Oded Galor is another optimistic book about humanity’s future. Taking a macrohistory perspective too, it suggests that we’ll be able to face future challenges, because we have in the past. That comes across as too glib and rosily -tinted hindsight.
An alternative historical view was proposed recently by Graeber and Wengrow in their book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. They reject the sweeping narratives of many historians. And they reject determinism too, favouring human improvisations to circumstance. But in their analysis it didn’t always end well.
That’s not a call for inaction now, and reliance on “she’ll be right” and “Number 8 wire” attitudes. Graeber and Wengrow stress the importance of humans not being passive.
Cathedral thinking and colonising the future
Calls to return to “Cathedral thinking” have also become more common over the last five years. This references the vision of cathedral building centuries ago, where multiple generations were required to complete them. Or, more prosaically, (re)planting woods whose timber wouldn’t be needed for a century.
While this metaphor can be useful for inspiration, one risk is that it initiates utilitarian or vanity projects. We must build something big (looking at you Saudi Arabia), rather than change the system.
Another risk is that a cathedral thinking mindset can fail to imagine how values and societies change. Cathedrals can be wonderful to look at, but they are rigid and high maintenance. Today only a small proportion of a city may use them for their intended purpose.
A growing concern for some futures thinkers is that what we start now needs to be considered carefully to avoid what has been referred to as “colonising the future.” How much are we casting our values and needs forward, constraining the future rather than creating foundations for future generations to shape to their needs?
Becoming good ancestors
Roman Krznaric has focused on this, promoting the concept of being a “good ancestor” (derived from the Iroquois nation and other indigenous societies). This helps individuals, communities, and institutions identify things that they can do to, potentially, help future generations (like local habitat restoration projects).
In Japan, this has led to a “future design” movement, where urban design involves participatory democracy and imagining how residents could want to live seven generations into the future. This challenges current ideas about how to design or redesign cities.
“Seeds of good anthropocenes” is another initiative . It is helping share stories about communities that are creating realistic and optimistic visions of what the world could be. We are seeing examples of that in Aotearoa New Zealand, such as the growing number of local habitat restoration and clean-up projects, and Te Kura Whare.
Rather than one dominant vision of the future these approaches provide space for different ideas, values and approaches at a more local level. And, in illustrating new opportunities.
Where they can struggle is in effecting broader societal or systemic changes.
Breaking through the present
A big challenge to long-term thinking is that it gets crowded out by the present. Grand visions soon topple under the storms of the now. We’ve seen that with the pandemic. Early on, a recognition and desire to make sure “this never happens again.” Now, being ground down to returning to some sort of “normality”, and responding to more immediate social, economic, and political consequences of the past two years (or in reality, the last few decades).
Graeber and Wengrow commented that “Nowadays, most of us find it increasingly difficult even to picture what an alternative economic or social order would be like,”
Overcoming this requires further changes in mindsets and institutional incentives. This is where futures literacy and futures thinking, as well as practical examples, are essential. Necessary, but not sufficient.
The forgotten long-term skills
An underappreciated long-termist challenge is the growing diversity of long-term thinking projects or proposals. On the one hand it is great to see a flowering of ideas and initiatives. An innovators’ delight.
But on the other hand, many of the initiatives may have conflicting values and approaches. And proponents of individual projects can hold strong views on why their approach and goals are right. In turbulent times people can prefer certainty, even if short-sighted.
Rather than creating a metaphorical cathedral, we are potentially heading for many nascent symbolic Towers of Babel. Competition overwhelms cooperation.
Promotion of long-term thinking often assumes that a better future will emerge given the opportunity or vision. But it can neglect how competition and conflicts will need to be shepherded so that future generations are better placed to create their own opportunities.
There won’t be a single perfect long-term vision or idea. This is the oft neglected part in futures. There is no utopia, but a tangled bank of ideas, values and compromises. Like history, the future isn’t a simple narrative with clearly marked tipping points. Futures require active ongoing participation, nurturing, and humility. Skills and attitudes that still are often under developed.
Featured image: Cary Bates on Unsplash