William MacAskill
Philosopher at Oxford; co-founded effective altruism and 80,000 Hours, wrote Doing Good Better and What We Owe the Future, and now works on what a good future would actually contain.
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Where they publish
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 7 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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Recent
Improving how good the future turns out to be, given that humanity survives, is roughly as high a priority as preventing extinction.
This essay series will argue that work on Flourishing is in the same ballpark of priority as work on Surviving.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
Avoiding catastrophe is not enough, because a future in which humanity survives can still fall far short of what was possible.
On this view, it’s not enough to avoid near-term catastrophe, because the future could still fall far short of what’s possible.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
A common-sense utopia is much closer to the present day than it is to the best futures actually available to us.
But the difference in value between the world today and that common-sense utopia might be very small compared to the difference between that common-sense utopia and the best futures we could feasibly achieve.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
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Whether anyone can actually do anything about how good the future is, rather than whether it matters, is the strongest objection to prioritising it.
I see this as the strongest argument against the better futures perspective, and the reason why I don’t feel confident that work on Flourishing is higher-priority than work on Surviving, rather than merely in the same ballpark.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
We should act on the assumption that we have almost no idea what the best futures would look like, so committing today to any particular vision would be a great mistake.
Given how much moral progress we should hope to make in the future, and how much we’ll learn about what’s even empirically possible, we should act on the assumption that we have almost no idea what the best feasible futures would look like. Committing today to some particular vision would be a great mistake.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
Working on how good the long-run future is does not require accepting consequentialism or believing that you should always maximise the good.
But I don’t claim you should always maximize the good, no matter the self-sacrifice, and no matter what means are involved.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
The near-term goal should be a state of the world that can steer itself towards good outcomes, not any particular end state.
From my point of view, the key priority in the world today is to get us closer to viatopia, not to some particular narrow end-state.
Introducing Better Futures Said 3 Aug 2025
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