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Long-Term Thinking for a Short-Sighted World
“Future considerations should dwarf the present—the same way unborn humans vastly outnumber the living, the same way the accumulative never-born of an endangered species should loom over the debate over its protection.” Stewart Brand, The Long Now Foundation.
Welcome to longtermthinking.net, a site dedicated to encouraging long-term thinking in our nation’s politics, energy policies, agriculture, businesses, and personal lives. It has become apparent that many of the problems we face today, including global warming, the economic meltdown, healthcare costs, environmental degradation, political turmoil, the ongoing energy crisis, and so much more, share one common theme: a lack of foresight. Despite the obvious reasons for changing this, we continue to pursue short-term gains at the expense of our long-term well being. We do this in our national policies, and in our personal lives.
The Lost Art of Community
We worship individualism in our society. This emphasis on the individual has caused many of us to insulate ourselves from each other and created a loss of community. America has long promoted the belief/myth that “anyone who works hard can pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and achieve success. There is some truth to this, of course, but over time it has fostered an economic model that emphasizes “looking out for number one.”
Three important considerations for decision making
Here are three major considerations that we must keep in mind when we evaluate a decision with a long term perspective: