How Longtermism Became the Most Dangerous Philosophy You’ve Never Heard of

Meet William MacAskill, the puerile professor who helps crypto capitalists justify sociopathy today for a universe of transhuman colonization tomorrow. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation. Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language. For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. Sources/Links/Notes: Andrew Anthony, " William MacAskill: 'There are 80 trillion people yet to come. They need us to start protecting them', " The Guardian , August 21, 2022. Guiding Principles of the Centre for Effective Altruism Peter Singer, " Famine, Affluence and Morality ," givingwhatwecan.org. Sarah Pessin, " Political Spiral Logics ," sarahpessin.com. Eliezer Yudkowsky, " Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down ," Time , March 29, 2023. Emile Torres explains the acronym TESCREAL in a Twitter thread . Benjamin Todd and William MacAskill, " Is it ever OK to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis ," 80,000 Hours , March 26, 2023. William MacAskill, " The Case for Longtermism , " The New York Times , August 5, 2022. Emile P. Torres, " Understanding “longertermism”: Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic ," Salon , August 20, 2022. Nick Bostrom, " Existential Risks ," Journal of Evolution and Technology (2002). Nick Bostrom, " Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development ," Utilitas (2003). Emile P. Torres, " How Elon Musk sees the future: His bizarre sci-fi visions should concern us all ," Salon , July 17, 2022. Support the show