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# The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk”
- URL: https://werd.io/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk/
- Published: 2022-08-06T17:57:08.000Z
- Updated: 2022-08-06T17:57:08.000Z
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: #Import 2025-06-13 09:23

“By reducing morality to an abstract numbers game, and by declaring that what’s most important is fulfilling “our potential” by becoming simulated posthumans among the stars, longtermists not only trivialize past atrocities like WWII (and the Holocaust) but give themselves a “moral excuse” to dismiss or minimize comparable atrocities in the future. This is one reason that I’ve come to see longtermism as an immensely dangerous ideology. It is, indeed, akin to a secular religion built around the worship of “future value,” complete with its own “secularised doctrine of salvation.”” [#Society](https://werd.io/tag/Society)

\[[Link](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/07/the-dangerous-ideas-of-longtermism-and-existential-risk)\]