Part of the issue with longtermism in the present politic is pessimism on climate change. Specifically, because people treat tech and development as antithetical to healthy futures, they don't develop a positive vision of the 50 year future.<p>We need a positive vision. We need to be optimistic that we <i>are</i> addressing the environmental issues and that humans <i>will</i> be thriving and flourishing in 2100. Therefore, what will that look like? And what is the work we need to do to design and develop that positive future?
What this author forgets is that many young people today are not procreating because having children is increasingly becoming a luxury of the upper middle class. Why should childless individuals care all that much about how issues like global warming and growing economic inequality will affect future generations when they're desperately just trying to hold onto their current jobs in order to service increasingly unjustifiable levels of debt (home, medical, educational,...)?
When the next collapse of civilization happens those that caused it will be holding most of the money. They will then use this money to rebuild civilization and make yet more profit...
The opposite is true. We're currently so occupied with imagined problems from the future that we forget to take care of present issues. The interesting time span for normal folks and most politicians to deal with should be the next 5 years, not the end of the century. Leave that to science fiction authors. Better and more interested people will deal with problems in 81 years, whatever they will be.