Longtermism and the Ethics of Intergenerational Meddling

The future could be vast, and our actions today will influence how it unfolds. If humanity survives for another few millennia or more, an incomprehensible number of beings will be affected. The decisions we make now ripple outward across the unfathomable future. 

Yet one question lingers: whose future are we shaping? Longtermist arguments often assume that we can and must act now to steer the trajectory of civilization toward “better” outcomes. But what if the preferences, values, and sources of meaning for future generations diverge radically from our own? Is it ethical for us, here and now, to design a world in which they must live—one built according to our tastes, our fears, and our limited imagination?

Essays on Longtermism acknowledges questions of intergenerational ethics, particularly through debates about population ethics and the non-identity problem. But it tends to focus on whether future lives are worth creating or how to compare their welfare to our own. Here, the focus shifts: not whether future people matter, but whether we have the moral right to decide for them.

The Temptation to Engineer the Future

The longtermist project often imagines future generations in broad strokes: people much like us, with similar desires for safety, flourishing, knowledge, and beauty. Through this lens, our responsibility is to safeguard their existence and secure conditions for their well-being.

But futures rarely obey past blueprints. What if our descendants develop motives or enjoyments that we can barely comprehend? They might choose values alien to us, just as our ancestors could not have imagined modern ideas of equality, digital connection, or climate justice. To assume we know best is to risk cosmic-scale paternalism.

There is also the risk of lock-in. Essays on Longtermism discusses scenarios where early political or technological decisions entrench values that persist for millennia. The fear is usually dystopian lock-in—authoritarian regimes or harmful systems frozen in place. Yet lock-in could also come from our own good intentions: efforts to preserve certain moral priorities might constrain future generations to live inside our conception of what is best.

Examples of Paternalism
Imagine if our 19th-century ancestors had gained the power to shape our world according to their values. They might have locked in gender roles, colonial hierarchies, or attitudes toward animals that today we find abhorrent. Their idea of “flourishing” would feel suffocating to us. Why should we assume we are wiser than they were?

Or consider a future that looks like science fiction but is philosophically serious: suppose our descendants come to see the highest form of flourishing as plugging into a digital pod, living in a simulated world with an AI romantic companion. To us, this looks like imprisonment or loss of authenticity. To them, it might feel like perfection—no hunger, no loneliness, no disease. If we act now to prevent such a future because it offends our sensibilities, are we safeguarding value, or are we meddling in choices that are not ours to make?

A similar tension arises with proposals to create vast digital populations. Some longtermist scenarios emphasize the astronomical number of potential lives that advanced simulation could enable. But what if future generations reject this vision? They may prefer shorter lives with deeper quality, or forms of existence we cannot picture. Our attempt to maximize life-years today could become their nightmare tomorrow.

Humility as a Principle
If meddling too much risks paternalism, perhaps our role is not to design the future in detail, but to preserve the conditions under which future generations can make their own choices.

The distinction resembles that between gardening and architecture. An architect fixes the structure for the future; a gardener tends the soil, removes weeds, and creates space for growth without knowing exactly what will bloom. Longtermism may be more ethical as a kind of gardening: protecting against collapse, maintaining openness, and allowing future communities to choose their own form.

Essays on Longtermism touches on this indirectly in its concerns about lock-in. The book warns of dystopian futures where authoritarian systems entrench themselves, leaving no room for moral progress. This essay extends the point: even benevolent lock-in, guided by our best current guesses, risks stealing choice from those yet to come.

The Role of Uncertainty
One reason paternalism is tempting is that we often imagine the future in our own image. But the greater the uncertainty, the weaker our justification for control. We do not know whether future people will find meaning in the same activities, technologies, or relationships as we do. We cannot even be sure they will share our sense of selfhood or consciousness. 

If uncertainty is the rule, then humility becomes not just a virtue but a safeguard. Our role may be to keep pathways open rather than to dictate their destination. The less we know about future desires, the less right we have to script them.

Conclusion
Longtermism often frames our responsibility as maximizing the value of the far future. But maximizing according to whose values? If the lives of our descendants are shaped by motives and enjoyments we cannot imagine, then efforts to dictate their world may be more meddling than stewardship.

Essays on Longtermism grapples with population ethics, the non-identity problem, and the danger of lock-in. What appears there mainly as a theoretical puzzle becomes, here, an ethical provocation: do we have the right to shape futures for people (or other consciousnesses) who might not want what we design?

Perhaps the most respectful role for the present is not to script the world of tomorrow, but to keep it open—to prevent collapse, resist lock-in, and preserve the possibility that future generations will choose their own path. The question is not just how many lives we create, or how happy they will be by our standards, but whether we leave them free to decide what matters on their own.