What do we owe the future? If you are a futurist like William MacAskill, the answer is complex. We owe future generations the willingness to consider their needs and to make them a part of the conversation because as is pointed out very early in the book, there is a potential for there to be way more people in the future than currently exist today. How we count the people in the future is a complex calculus no one seems to be able to agree upon, but MacAskill makes a cogent argument that policy makers, activists, and really anyone interested in climate change or social issues should take seriously.

At the heart of this book is complex philosophy you might need to sit with for a while before you can really decide how you feel about it. That is ok. The ideas in these pages are challenging, but we should consider the impact we are going to have on future generations might be, particularly once you begin to consider the chapter where you realize how disturbingly high the probability of humankind killing ourselves out is.

Ultimately, there are some amazing ideas in here and this book has the power to change lives. I may not agree with everything presented here, but I think the ideas presented are ones that people who are serious about changing the world should be considering, grappling with, and possibly refuting.

Thank you to Netgalley and Basic books for the ARC to this book.

This is a fascinating book that explains and advocates "longtermism," the idea that we should give significant weight to the long-term future--centuries, millennia, eons--in setting social and individual priorities today. MacAskill, a philosopher, brings intellectual rigor to perplexing questions about the consequences of our actions, the well-being of humans (and other sentient beings), and how to choose among competing priorities and pressures. Ironically, short-term considerations--a busy schedule--prevent me from writing about this book in more detail at the moment, but I recommend this thoughtful treatise that ranges across topics including climate change, artificial intelligence, animal welfare, economic stagnation, and the merits of having kids.