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Are you interested in what we owe the future?

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Summary of the book titled What we owe the future from 2022 by William MacAskill, based on my reading experience and other summaries.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what future prospects are there for the really long run and how we can influence them. This book describes the unprecedented opportunities for humanity to influence the future and its numerous generations for the better or worse. I hope this gives you some food for thought this time of the year or anytime and how to move forward.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Longtermism is the idea that positively influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority of our time, not just making things less bad, but actually making them better.
2. There are actions we can take to influence the future based on the presented exemplary problem areas and prevent existential risks.
3. If we make wise choice today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.

Summaries used:

• What we owe the future review – a thrilling prescription for humanity by Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian;
• What we owe the future: a review and summary of what I learned by Michael Townsend, Giving What We Can;

Learn more about the risk areas and actions at 80000hours.org.

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