Summary of William MacAskill's What We Owe the Future

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 Your life is made up of many lifetimes, lived consecutively. You experience cruelty and kindness from both sides. The modern era is rare, because it is the only time in your life when you experience such dramatic population growth.

#2 The idea of longtermism is that positively influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority of our time. It is about taking seriously just how big the future could be and how high the stakes are in shaping it.

#3 I now believe that the world’s long-run fate depends in part on the choices we make in our lifetimes. We can choose to improve the values that guide society, and we can carefully navigate the development of AI.

#4 If I'm right, then we have a huge responsibility. We are a small minority compared to everyone who will come after us, but we hold the entire future in our hands. We need to build a moral worldview that takes the longterm implications of our decisions seriously.