The rationalisation of longtermism amounts to this: If the steerage class is going to drown as the boat sinks, at least they can die happy in the knowledge that the first-class passengers - the greatest innovators and entrepreneurs, the billionaires - are in the lifeboats and ready to build afresh a better future for coming generations.
To think otherwise - to believe that the billionaires are part of the problem and that they must be required to become part of the solution - is small-minded and selfish. It stands in the way of progress. It risks preventing humanity's survival by dragging everyone down, denying our species the chance of a glorious, technologically enhanced future we can only dream of now.
Bostrom argues too that, when measured against the moral imperative for humanity to unlock its full potential - for its development into a superior breed of Nietzschean digital Supermen - curbs on our current freedoms are justified. That could entail the development of more sophisticated global surveillance systems, greater authoritarianism and, if necessary, preemptive violence. It is hard to see what could not be justified on these grounds to ensure humanity's "most deserving" survive the apocalypse.
Bostrom even hijacks a key concept of the environmental movement - that the planet's resources are finite - to make the case for maintaining our current gross inequalities and reifying greed. If there are limited resources, they should not be "frittered away" on "feelgood projects" and philanthropy to save those about to reap the whirlwind of the very economic system - capitalism - that created the billionaire class. That would be to betray the survivors - the super-rich and a few lucky others - who will need those resources to create a new civilisation built on the ruins of the current one.
If this all sounds like a reinvention of old-fashioned colonialism with a new twist -- the white man's burden becomes the billionaire's burden -- that is because it springs from exactly the same ideological source.
Stated so bluntly, it may sound patently ridiculous -- and dangerous -- to those of us who are not super rich. But these ideas are already subtly permeating the wider culture through media narratives.
The long term success of the super rich in gas-lighting us can be measured in the fact that billionaires are seen as fulfilling a legitimate, philanthropic role in our societies -- so much so that they grow ever richer -- rather than parasites leeching the planet of its resources. (Listen out for those so brainwashed that they eagerly rush to the defense of the billionaire class, not only accusing critics of envy but warning us off comparing anyone to parasites.)
During the first 16 months of mass suffering spurred by the pandemic, the world's 2,690 billionaires increased their fortunes by $5.5 trillion -- hoarding more global wealth than they managed in the previous 15 years. And a large part of the reason for their accelerating enrichment is that western politicians and corporate lobbyists -- now barely distinguishable -- have made sure that the corporate class pays ever less tax. That this in itself has not provoked an uprising is down to our soma-fication by the corporate media.
But the indulgence of the super rich runs deeper, and is only made starker, by the report this week of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It warns that the effects of the manmade "climate crisis" on temperature rises and more extreme weather events are now "irreversible," and that urgent action is needed to stop runaway overheating of the planet.
The billionaires own the media. So one can hardly be surprised that the IPCC's warning that we are standing on the edge of a precipice writing our species' suicide note rated second billing in many papers, while others frantically grasped for silver linings or attention-grabbing but mind-numbing "Code Red" headlines worthy of a Thomas Harris thriller.
And, of course, even the IPCC avoided pointing the finger directly at the corporations and their obfuscating media for our dismal plight. It was a generalized, faceless "humanity" that was guilty: "Humanity, through its actions, or lack of action, has unequivocally overheated the planet." That might come as a surprise to the Kalahari bushmen, or Aboriginal elders in Australia or many Bedouin tribes across the Middle East. Are they really as guilty as Bezos or Musk?
"Astronaut" consumers
The IPCC's latest report received a more sympathetic assessment than the similar findings it produced in 2013, when much of the media felt the need to "balance" that report with counter-claims from climate "sceptics". But that doubtless reflects the fact that the super rich are now far better positioned to profit from popular concerns about "climate change." The billionaires have been investing in what they have persuaded us are green, planet-saving technologies. They have diversified their portfolios to monetize our fears. We are being persuaded that we can consume (more ethically) our way out of this "crisis."
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