>”Personally I think it’s good to have longterm strategies. Not just for the next 10 or 20 years. But also for the next 10 thousand or 10 billion years. So I really appreciate the longtermists’ focus on the prevention of existential risks. However, I also think they underestimate just how much technological progress depends on the reliability and sustainability of our current political, economic, and ecological systems.”

Agreed.

I think if we did a good job on ameliorating the current systems, we would also greatly mitigate future risk. The benefit would not be those future generations only, but for those also experiencing life currently.