“No science and no analysis of the future consequences of various actions taken today can in itself tell us what to do. We need, in addition, to factor in what kind of future we value, and to what extent we care at all about the future compared to more immediate concerns here and now. The later aspect is usually modeled and economics by the so-called discount rate, which has played a prominent role in discussions of climate change on a decadal and centennial time scale, but hardly at all in the context of longer perspectives or the various radical technologies[.] We are less used to thinking about ethical issues on long time scales, so our intuitions trying to fail us and lead to paradoxes. These issues need to be resolved, because dodging the bullet would in my opinion be unacceptably irresponsible.”
Quote by Olle Häggström
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Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity
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