I disagree a lot! Many things have gotten better! Is sufferage, abolition, democracy, property rights etc not significant? All the random stuff eg better angels of our nature claims has gotten better.
Either things have improved in the past or they haven’t, and either people trying to “steer the future” in some sense have been influential on these improvements. I think things have improved, and I think there’s definitely not strong evidence that people trying to steer the future was always useless. Because trying to steer the future is very important and motivating, i try to do it.
Yes the counterfactual impact of you individually trying to steer the future may or may not be insignificant, but people trying to steer the future is better than no one doing that!
I disagree a lot! Many things have gotten better! Is sufferage, abolition, democracy, property rights etc not significant? All the random stuff eg better angels of our nature claims has gotten better.
Either things have improved in the past or they haven’t, and either people trying to “steer the future” in some sense have been influential on these improvements. I think things have improved, and I think there’s definitely not strong evidence that people trying to steer the future was always useless. Because trying to steer the future is very important and motivating, i try to do it.
Yes the counterfactual impact of you individually trying to steer the future may or may not be insignificant, but people trying to steer the future is better than no one doing that!
“Let’s abolish slavery,” when proposed, would make the world better now as well as later.
I’m not against trying to make things better!
I’m against doing things that are strongly bad for present-day people to increase the odds of long-run human species survival.