Six Ways to Think Long-term: A Cognitive Toolkit for Good Ancestors
24th August 2020
The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as public health care (like planning for the next pandemic on the horizon), to deal with technological risks (such as from AI-controlled lethal autonomous weapons), or to confront the threats of an ecological crisis where nations sit around international conference tables, bickering about their near-term interests, while the planet burns and species disappear. At the same time, businesses can barely see past the next quarterly report, we are addicted to 24/7 instant news, and find it hard to resist the Buy Now button.
What can we do to overcome the tyranny of the now? The easy answer is to say we need more long-term thinking. But here’s the problem: almost nobody really knows what it is.