If you want to draw the boundaries in concept-space that are simple and useful for compressing ideas, then taking the stereotypical examples of religion to be concepts like Christianity and Hinduism, then longtermism isn’t in that cluster.
If a bizarre tax system forces you to count it as a religious charity to gain tax breaks, then that’s between you and the tax man.
Setting aside disagreements about what aspects of religions makes it practical to distinguishing them from other kinds of organizations, or about whether longtermism is on a trajectory to develop those
that’s between you and the tax man.
And no one else? It seems likely that this conversation with the tax man will need to involve other people, via a requirement that the variant publicly identifying as a religion somewhere, or via at least one published text that analyses the group as a religion (which I’d probably have to write).
Although skimming NZ’s laws, it does seem as if the texts we have might already be enough! (for reasons I will prefer not to publicly expound until a decision has been made.)
Fully agree with both points (that it’s not “naturally” a religion, and that groups are free to try whatever they like to optimize government and other-group interactions).
The best approach is probably not to be as general as “some variant of longtermism”. Identify an actual group (or set of groups) that would sufficiently benefit from getting this religion recognized in some specific jurisdiction(s). Then those groups can discuss the actual weights of the pros and cons among their constituents.
If you want to draw the boundaries in concept-space that are simple and useful for compressing ideas, then taking the stereotypical examples of religion to be concepts like Christianity and Hinduism, then longtermism isn’t in that cluster.
If a bizarre tax system forces you to count it as a religious charity to gain tax breaks, then that’s between you and the tax man.
Setting aside disagreements about what aspects of religions makes it practical to distinguishing them from other kinds of organizations, or about whether longtermism is on a trajectory to develop those
And no one else? It seems likely that this conversation with the tax man will need to involve other people, via a requirement that the variant publicly identifying as a religion somewhere, or via at least one published text that analyses the group as a religion (which I’d probably have to write).
Although skimming NZ’s laws, it does seem as if the texts we have might already be enough! (for reasons I will prefer not to publicly expound until a decision has been made.)
Fully agree with both points (that it’s not “naturally” a religion, and that groups are free to try whatever they like to optimize government and other-group interactions).
The best approach is probably not to be as general as “some variant of longtermism”. Identify an actual group (or set of groups) that would sufficiently benefit from getting this religion recognized in some specific jurisdiction(s). Then those groups can discuss the actual weights of the pros and cons among their constituents.