
Ways to think long-term: a cognitive toolkit for good ancestors - MindGods
https://blog.longnow.org/02020/07/20/six-ways-to-think-long-term-a-cognitive-toolkit-for-good-ancestors/
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jkingsbery
> Out of the ashes of World War Two came pioneering long-term institutions
> such as the World Health Organisation, the European Union and welfare
> states.

Comparing the length of the existence of those organizations to how long many
cathedrals took to build (some decades, but some centuries to complete), I
don't understand how they're considered "long-term" institutions. It seems
like if we want to look at institutions that have been successful long-term
institutions, we would want to look at (1) secular governments such as the
Roman Republic/Empire (which arguably lasted from the republic's founding in
509 BC until 1453), or Ancient Egyptian or Chinese societies (each of which
also lasted through various dynasties as a continuous organization for
thousands of years) and (2) various religious groups such as the
Catholic/Orthodox Christian Churches which have existed as centralized
institutions for a couple millenia.

~~~
dr_dshiv
I believe the academy is the longest lasting institution, founded by Plato in
387 BC.

~~~
idoh
I googled this, found the relevant wikipedia article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy)

Seems like it has not endured unbroken from then until now. But if you
disagree I'd love to read about your take.

~~~
dr_dshiv
Sure, the academy shut down several times. But, it was a novel mode of social
organization -- and as such, it continues today with great effect. Surely the
role of the academy in the scientific revolution is certain, for instance.

------
xamuel
One of my favorite papers highlighting the counter-intuitiveness of the world
on a truly long term is Rohde et al, 2004, "Modelling the recent common
ancestry of all living humans". Wherein they show using computer simulations,
with conservative assumptions, that it's almost certainly the case that the
so-called "identical ancestor point" was as recent as a few thousand years ago
(a blink of an eye in geological terms).

What is this "identical ancestor point"? The IA point is the most recent time
t such that if you choose any human alive at time t, then there are only two
possibilities: (1) everyone alive in 2020 is their descendant, or (2) they
have no descendant alive in 2020.

Or in other words: it's the most recent time t such that for every two people
in the world today (say, me and you), the set of {my ancestors alive at time
t} and the set of {your ancestors alive at time t} are identical.

And, with high probability, that time is within the past few thousand years.
One consequence: if you were alive a few thousand years ago, it would be
easier for you to literally become an ancestor of everyone alive in all of
2020, than it would be for you to write a book and have that book survive to
2020.

~~~
hinkley
That is either a very Eurocentric calculation or there has been a lot more
congress with sailors than anyone wants to admit.

How could the people in the Andes trace a common ancestor a few thousand years
ago with people in Tibet? Their ancestors probably last saw each other
12-14,000 years ago.

~~~
xamuel
Bear in mind, you don't need regular trade routes from Andes to Tibet, you
only need the tiniest "leakage" (e.g., one outcast per 250 years
leaving/entering the Andes, one outcast per 250 years leaving/entering Tibet,
one explorer per 25 years starting after 1400AD traversing the Atlantic, that
would probably be more than enough).

In their paper, Rohde et al take all this into account, they do their
homework, see p. 564 for the data they use about most recent establishment of
routes. I'll quote this interesting tidbit from the paper: "Several factors
could cause the time to the true MRCA or IA point to depart from the
predictions of our model. If a group of humans were completely isolated, then
no mixing could occur between that group and others, and the MRCA would have
to have lived before the start of the isolation. A more recent MRCA would not
arise until the groups were once again well integrated. In the case of
Tasmania, which may have been completely isolated from mainland Australia
between the flooding of the Bass Strait, 9,000–12,000 years ago, and the
European colonization of the island, starting in 1803 (ref. 13), the IA date
for all living humans must fall before the start of isolation. However, the
MRCA date would be unaffected, because today there are no remaining native
Tasmanians without some European or mainland Australian ancestry." To force
the IA older than 9000-12000 years ago would require Tasmania be totally
isolated, without even a single sexually productive immigrant/emigrant per
1000 years, for all that time.

[http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/Nature...](http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/NatureCommonAncestors-
Article.pdf)

~~~
lazyasciiart
The authors express the problems with their paper very well within it: "the
model contains several obvious sources of error, as it was motivated more by
considerations of theoretical insight and tractability than by realism."

------
Robotbeat
I strongly disagree with this claim that is presented uncritically and without
evidence:

> _Additionally, the more we set our sights on escaping to other worlds, the
> less likely we are to look after our existing one._

The _opposite_ seems to be true. There’s some evidence the Apollo program
fostered the environmental movement. As Carl Sagan said, “Whatever the reason
we first mustered the Apollo program, however mired it was in Cold War
nationalism and the instruments of death, the inescapable recognition of the
unity and fragility of the Earth is its clear and luminous dividend, the
unexpected final gift of Apollo.”

The “Overview Effect” has apparently caused a strong movement among astronauts
to protect the Earth, from both war and environmental degradation.

The two most prominent benefactors of human expansion into space, Elon Musk
and Jeff Bezos, flawed as both men are, seem to also be sincerely concerned
with the long-term ability of humanity to live on Earth sustainably. Musk does
this through Tesla (accelerating clean energy transition), and Bezos through
climate donations and, of course, funding the Long Now foundation that
thoughtpieces like this are the product of.

And NASA is deeply involved in environmental protection, whether monitoring
the ozone layer or climate change. Few other agencies are as focused on
protecting the habitability of the Earth as the only agency that is involved
in sending people to other worlds, and you’d find fewer more strident
proponents of protecting the environment than astronauts who have seen the
entire Earth as it is.

So this is just a false dilemma. A straw argument & it seems likely the exact
opposite is likely to be true: lack of focus on the reality of Earth in space
and the long term of humanity possibly taking root among the stars seems to
make ignoring of environmental degradation easier, not harder. When you do not
see Earth as “finite, alone,” it’s easy to lose the perspective that we must
protect the Earth... the only home we’ve had and by far the best planet.

------
analbumcover
This is distinctly at odds with the techno-optimist view that is so prevalent
on this site, and in the tech world in general, that expects technology to
address societies ills in a way that allows us to forgo systemic changes.

~~~
clairity
that's not bad as one-line critiques go, but few people are narrowly techno-
optimist. few would say that only technology will fix our ills, with no other
structural changes.

but certainly technology as solution can be misguided. UBI for instance
(applying the term 'technology' broadly), as a path to labor and leisure
utopia that actually further entrenches power/wealth in the hands of the few,
thereby making no meaningful structural change addressing unproductivity or
unfairness.

~~~
yarrel
If people wish to push for structural change, having time to do so is a good
affordance of UBI.

~~~
clairity
a better affordance might be a wealth tax that supports grants to individuals
and organizations pushing for structural change, perhaps encouraging civic
participation and jumpstarting economic opportunity in disadvantaged regions.
a fixed and constant cycle of money that distorts economic, political, and
social incentives is not the only way, nor even a good way, i'd contend.

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dharma1
Great post, tempted to read the book.

We just don't have the inbuilt evolutionary incentives for optimising for
long-term/generational success in today's landscape.

We are new to the role of custodians of spaceship Earth and it doesn't look we
are ready to be in the driver's seat.

Our genetic reward pathways guide us in the short term. But there is no
dopamine hit for recycling, consuming less, polluting less. None of these
things were a problem for evolution to optimise away in the past, and the
speed of technological development vs timescale of evolutionary pressure to
fix these issues is at odds.

I think I agree with Lovelock - best bet is to develop AI fast enough and let
it take over long term optimisation for us.

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zazerbayev
Where does the author get the idea that sustainable growth is no longer
possible? Even setting aside how unfair it is to tell the global poor they've
had enough growth when we've had 10x more, the claim isn't even true for
developed countries. Rich countries are comfortably able to grow at rates
higher than 1% a year (which, thinking long-term, is 2.7x in 100 years) and
there is no reason to suspect that decarbonization will put a serious dent in
that. The author seems to believe that growth is predicated solely on physical
inputs, when in reality institutions and human capital are the real drivers.

------
suyash
This is an excellent article, we often get sucked into short term thinking -
fighting fire day in and out not only adds unnecessary stress but also keeps
us away from thinking long term. People like Elon Musk, Gates come to mind who
think long term and take on projects that will benefit not only current but
also future generations.

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tomrod
Their pathways for civilization
([https://miro.medium.com/max/2086/1*1dhjzhchffxWXdoNZ8V_lA.jp...](https://miro.medium.com/max/2086/1*1dhjzhchffxWXdoNZ8V_lA.jpeg))
reminds me of the outcomes for Sid Meirs "Beyond Earth."

In that game you have five outcomes that I paraphrase as:

\- Failure: you fail the game.

\- World Domination: Your sectarian group becomes dominant. This does not
guarantee ultimate survival, just survival in the moment.

\- Biological integration: you merge with the native flora/fauna, taking the
"best" from both, gaia-ist style

\- Humanist conformity: you maintain human hegemony ranging from global purity
to genetic purity

\- Transhumanist: you merge with technology

I don't know if there are formal philosophical terms or treatise on these
topics, but the view is interesting. The only recognizably "human" after
millions of years had significant eugenic or otherwise authoritarian
overtones. I wonder whether our imagination simply fails us, or we are doomed
to a Morlocks/Eloi transformation of the species.

------
thecupisblue
Honestly, this article is so Medium.

1\. N ways to X

2\. Cognitive toolkit, Mental model, Ruleset, Guidelines,

3\. “Oh humanity is selfish and has a short term view, we need to think long
term and in unity boohoo”.

4\. This is just PR for a book.

It feels like a highschooler read some "Think Like Elon Musk" brainporn and
decided to write a pop-philosophy article without even thinking about it.
After reading the article, I am sorry for those that waste money on this
"interesting thinkers" book, because there seems to be nothing interesting or
even thought out in this article. I assume TLDR of the whole book is "think
about humanity in the long term and not just about yourself", which is exactly
what isn't done here.

A lot of the "six drivers" overlap, short/long aren't "the counter" of each
other but can actually work in synergy. If you can even call them drivers.

"Tyranny of the clock", no, we just have a social and technological standard
enabling us to keep our distributed system in sync. We aren't doing field work
all day, we're doing things that take minutes and hours, sometimes even
second.

A lot of times, it isn't even technology that captures our attention in
technology, it's other people or stories, and if it was 1538, people and
stories would still capture each attention, they'd gossip, hang around, go to
pubs, theaters, fire dances with the shaman, it was just localised and you
were limited to your tribe/area. This brought as much good things as it
brought bad things.

We focus on the next election because that is the way we fix the system, not
by wishful thinking. Political corruption is a whole another sport that has
nothing to do with this set of gloves, but we can also correlate it to age of
the politicians, time when the system was established and the information
scale at which average human operated at the time (let's say 100 years, my
city/village scale). They are remnants of a legacy way of thinking, a way that
will be seen as disgusting even by politicians in 50 years. Just like we look
at guillotines in disgust.

The same "speculative capitalism" (lol) is what feeds innovation and growth,
it's the same thing that enabled us to connect and achieve more, it's the same
thing that raised our standards worldwide and made the world a better and
safer place to live. The speculation is called investment and it enables long-
term scaling and thinking. Yes, we spent the last 150 years destroying the
planet in the name of economic growth, but it's also what got us out of the
mud, connected to each other, learning more about nature and ourselves,
noticing the damage we're doing and pivoting to correct it.

Of course we are "selfish", we have known for nothing but our tribe since the
beginning of time, and we worked both to protect our unionized "self" (tribe)
and our selfish (me, family, kids..) "self" against anything. For thousands of
years we knew nothing but family pride and tribal pride, for the last 100ish
years people really discovered national pride (we knew it before, but it
wasn't that big of a pond or that concrete of a deal) and now we're just
"discovering" global pride.

We have been long-term thinking since the start of humanity, except in a
"selfish" way, and we just recently realised "oh wait there is a whole world
out there", with the latest generations being the only ones born into that
kind of world and growing up understanding that there are other, diverse
people around the world and how their actions impact others.

For an article covering long-term thinking, it's a shame such short-term
behavior (particulary last 50-100 years) is used to describe a whole
civilisation.

~~~
cbsmith
I would agree it's not informative, and is mostly intended to plug the book.

However, like a lot of stuff on Medium, it can still alter someone's thinking
and potentially shake them out of existing context trap or inspire some
thoughtful contemplation. There's value there, just of a different kind.

------
shadowprofile77
Talk about hand wavy:

>A more likely trajectory is Reform, where we respond to global crises such as
climate change but in an inadequate and piecemeal way that merely extends the
Breakdown curve outwards, to a greater or lesser extent. Here governments put
their faith in reformist ideals such as ‘green growth’, ‘reinventing
capitalism’, or a belief that technological solutions are just around the
corner.

>A third trajectory is Transformation, where we see a radical shift in the
values and institutions of society towards a more long-term sustainable
civilization. For instance, we jump off the Breakdown curve onto a new pathway
dominated by post-growth economic models such as Doughnut Economics or a Green
New Deal.

He makes these statements in these two sections, preceded by a first section
in which he criticizes the 20th century business as usual "greed of avaricious
capitalism and resource consumption, but then in the third point refers two
two specific linked projects that are both exactly what he describes as
piecemeal hybrids of capitalism and "new thinking" of the kind that's
supposedly wrong in the first quoted paragraph above. Denmark is in no way
escaping from the world's modern economic machinery with its so-called
doughnut project and the green new deal is a gargantuan exercise in spending,
ideological biases that could easily derail it for their lack of objectivity,
and problematic, tenuous reasoning at best. Talk about generalization that
just sweeps important substance under a rug of feel-good concepts.

So far it is exactly a pragmatic mix of technology, piecemeal innovation,
"selfish" market exchange, speculative investment and also of course gradually
improved laws coupled with activism that have made the world better over
centuries and decades. Not massive "transformative" notions. The literal
attempts at applying things in which a complete transformation is claimed have
if anything bathed the last 100 years in blood more than anything else.

The author of this essay makes some very good points but more than anything,
mashes his overall argument together in a hand wavy way that's riddled with
absurdly biased cliches about the evils of modern society and capitalism which
are heavily rooted in pop ideology and platitudes without substance. Not the
best basis for genuinely objective attempts at long term thinking. The word
"blockchain" even managed to get tossed in there.

I mean, imagine the sort of reasoning, biases and specific dogmas that a 16th
century version of this document would have in making arguments for how we
should plan for the future, and imagine just how absurdly removed they would
be from most of the real problems that the future actually confronted us with,
especially compared to said hypothetical author's absorption in the shallow,
highly specific political correctness of his own time.

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citizenpaul
This is all an exercise in hubris. I really dislike these types of things
since they always forget one thing. In a world without infinite resources
distributed to anyone that wants them. All of this is pointless. The second
anything that has solid long term staying power it will be subverted by
people's that wants a bigger share of the pie. In short all of these projects
forget or ignore human nature.

~~~
shadowprofile77
People have been making your same essential claim in different variations for
literally centuries, and have always proven to be wrong by the course of
change and more importantly, human creative innovation. The pie may be fixed
in certain specific absolute terms but in most ways it's far from that. It has
room for many unique solutions that expand the scope of how we can create more
from what we have to keep our well-being relatively high for the very long
term.

Also, because we have worries about our future sustainability now we should
thus stop the "hubris" of planning for longevity? What an absurd argument
right from square one.

~~~
PTOB
I dunno. Seems like most Marxist efforts thus far have pretty much made poor
assumptions about human nature, causing their collapse or transformation into
something less hopeful. Heck, the USA barely survived its first hundred years,
and it might be the best example the world has of a long-term plan that's
mostly intact. I think the hubris mentioned above is to believe that one set
of ideas from a small handful of people are so correct, and their conclusions
so obvious, that all of humanity will immediately shift gears in their minds
and hearts to conform to them. We _can_ look at history and see this this sort
of thinking leads to the necessary killing, enslavement, or exile of human
beings who - for some unknown reason - disagree with the ideas.

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bullen
Now is a good time to think that the code you write today might live forever
and in that context stop writing bad code for employers and instead write good
code for people.

Good code runs on both Windows on X86 and Linux on ARM.

Good code can hot-deploy. Good code is fast!

For me that means Java SE on the server and C+ (C syntax with string, stream
and objects for project organization only) on the client.

HTML, CSS and JS is ok for GUIs only, everything else should be native with
command line!

Please comment if you down vote.

~~~
jacobr1
Programming for longevity is probably less about the specific language or
tooling choices and more about things like: can you reproduce the build or
does it presume a specific environment? How is the source code stored and how
can it be recovered if the primary location is lost? Is the system well
documented? Are the abstractions robust, and well composed? Many mainframe
systems survived while desktop based systems have been killed because of the
server/client architecture that has allowed for new front-ends to built
separate from the backend. In this sense, if you are building for
malleability, things like good test coverage become very important to support
refactoring and changes. I'm sure many other considerations apply.

~~~
bullen
Sure, that's why github backed up everything in the Arctic now.

But C and Java will remain longer than anything else, for good and for bad.

