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What We Owe The Future: Difference between revisions
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Of their possible future <br> | Of their possible future <br> | ||
To take care. | To take care. | ||
: | :—Pink Floyd, ''Your Possible Pasts''}} | ||
===On getting out more=== | ===On getting out more=== | ||
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Perhaps to talk us down from our grandiosity, MacAskill spends some time remarking, rightly, on our contingency — that ''we'' happen to be the ones here to talk about the future is basically a fluke — but then neglects to appreciate that this contingency is by no means in our gift, and ''nor does it now stop''. | Perhaps to talk us down from our grandiosity, MacAskill spends some time remarking, rightly, on our contingency — that ''we'' happen to be the ones here to talk about the future is basically a fluke — but then neglects to appreciate that this contingency is by no means in our gift, and ''nor does it now stop''. | ||
For, per the [[entropy|second law of thermodynamics]] — ''pace'' | For, per the [[entropy|second law of thermodynamics]] — ''pace'' the ’Floyd — there is just ''one'' possible past, ''one'' possible now, and an ''infinite'' array of possible futures. They stretch out ''in front of us'' into an unknown black void. Some are short, some long, some dystopian, some enlightened. Some will be cut off by the apocalypse. Some will fade gently into warm [[Entropy|entropic]] soup. | ||
It is as if MacAskill has got this perfectly backward. He talks about the present as if we are at some single crossroads; a one-time determining fork in the history of the planet where by our present course of action we can steer it conclusively this way or that, and that we have the wherewithal (or even the necessary information) to understand all the dynamics, all the second, third, fourth ... nth-order consequences to deliver a future appropriate for the organisms we expect to be. MacAskill appears under the illusion that [[Butterfly effect|we Amazonian butterflies have the gift to avert future Filipino hurricanes]]. | It is as if MacAskill has got this perfectly backward. He talks about the present as if we are at some single crossroads; a one-time determining fork in the history of the planet where by our present course of action we can steer it conclusively this way or that, and that we have the wherewithal (or even the necessary information) to understand all the dynamics, all the second, third, fourth ... nth-order consequences to deliver a future appropriate for the organisms we expect to be. MacAskill appears under the illusion that [[Butterfly effect|we Amazonian butterflies have the gift to avert future Filipino hurricanes]]. | ||