Planning For A Distant Future

One Hundred Years?  One Thousand?
.................

Dylan Matthews, at Vox, has a new free newsletter called Future Perfect (sign up here).  Last Friday's issue features highlights from a paper written by Nick Beckstead about how we might "shape the far future", beginning with highly targeted ideas, then broadening out.  Here are a few reactions I have (in dark green, small type):

•  Do technical research which will help build a Friendly AI
Can't argue with this.

•  Advocate for nuclear disarmament to prevent a nuclear war
Again, good point.

•  Reduce carbon emissions so that climate change is a smaller problem
What's not to like.

Now some more moderately targeted proposals:

•  Tell people about the importance of shaping the far future....
Let's do that.

•  Tell people about the importance of helping animals....
This sounds rather arbitrary until one realizes that 'animals' are easier to identify with than "the environment"

•  Do research on risks and opportunities from future technologies....
I'd be surprised if this isn't built-in to most tech research.


Now some very broad proposals:

•  Help make computers faster so that people everywhere can work more efficiently
Though there's a need (high speed internet where it doesn't exist), speed is seldom a limitation

•  Change intellectual property law so that technological innovation can happen more quickly
There is a good argument for this; the flip side is that patents, for example, encourage inventors and investors to get involved in the first place.  Avoiding frivolous lawsuits and patents that rip-off the public are worthwhile goals of course.

•  Advocate for open borders so that people from poorly governed countries can move to better governed countries and be more productive
Objectively, this makes sense: allow people everywhere to live productive lives.  There are, however, several objections: some valid, some not.  
Illegitimate objections involve racism and nativism, which have been resurgent in many more economically advanced countries, due to an acceleration in immigration.  
Legitimate objections include the abandonment of countries gripped by undesirable leaders (removing a despot's critics), along with the crowding and environmental degradation that large increases in immigration necessarily involve.
Then there is the political question of whether 'open borders' is the issue to fight for when so many other concerns require our limited resources and political capital.

•  Go work for Wikipedia to help improve the site’s overall functionality
Nothing to argue with here, though this seems like it belongs in a different category.

There are even broader items, but they are rather vague.

Any time one advocates for policy, future-oriented or not, one is making a political choice.  Do the limited prospects for success outweigh the drag on resources and political capital?  Most items in Mr. Beckstead's list are likely, some even very likely, but there is at least one that will doom any politician who adopts it.  Frankly, there isn't much new here hanging on the concept of "the far future".