---
product_id: 486825163
title: "What We Owe The Future: The Sunday Times Bestseller"
brand: "william macaskill"
price: "1021820₫"
currency: VND
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.vn/products/486825163-what-we-owe-the-future-the-sunday-times-bestseller
store_origin: VN
region: Vietnam
---

# What We Owe The Future: The Sunday Times Bestseller

**Brand:** william macaskill
**Price:** 1021820₫
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** What We Owe The Future: The Sunday Times Bestseller by william macaskill
- **How much does it cost?** 1021820₫ with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.vn](https://www.desertcart.vn/products/486825163-what-we-owe-the-future-the-sunday-times-bestseller)

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## Description

What We Owe The Future: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    The future is bright, if enough of us want it to be great
  

*by A***N on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 November 2022*

Absolute bargain that this great book is 99p on kindle today. Get it. This is a book that really could shape our future. You won't perhaps agree with everything in it, but the questions and topics it raises are important and thought provoking. And the larger idea that our future could be great happy and positive in tangible ways is important. Optimism drives us forward.This fascinating yet non-fiction and non-gloomy well written book is a deeply interesting book whatever country you're in. The book is about us all on Earth and it's about what our future could be like. Our future could be great beyond belief and yet predictably charted as likely to be that great by wise use of technology and resources. Clearly that's contingent on politics and business deciding we deserve a great future, but it could happen. Goodness knows we've had a lot of wake-up calls to abandon bad politicians and bad political systems so politics and business might be much better in some countries in the nearish future. We also feel after the pandemic we deserve a great future. It could happen. And by describing a possible great future, this book might help that future happen.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 3.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    An easy to understand case for longterm thinking, but with flawed assumptions and logic
  

*by J***G on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 August 2023*

What We Owe the Future is well researched which is exemplified by the extensive notes section at the end of the book. MacAskill offers a balanced view on the future which straddles the line between acknowledging our problems while not veering too much into techno-optimism.The key philosophical premise of the book, is that future people count, and there could be a lot of them. The proposition that we should care for future generations isn't a revolutionary idea - in fact, a key argument for climate change action is to preserve the environment for future generations. MacAskill argues that actually taking this premise seriously leads us to significantly change how we think and make decisions.The future could be extremely bad, or it could be extremely good. If there are 100 billion humans alive in the future (or even more), then the stakes for them living good lives is high, and we are uniquely positioned to help those future people if we choose to. Overall, MacAskill outlines a strong case for longtermism and why we should care for the future.I found some of the assumptions in the book to be unconvincing, and it felt like not enough attention was paid to the potential pitfalls of longtermism. While I agree that we should care a lot about future generations, I don’t think MacAskill goes into enough depth into how this idea can be taken down the wrong path. For example, by focussing too much attention on the problems of the future, we can neglect the problems of the present, which remain critically important. longtermism can imply that because the capacity to do good in the future is so high, the needs of the present are not as important.I would also second a point made by another reviewer that there are some questionable statements made. One being that “Information can persist indefinitely because the cost to replicate it is so tiny”. The conclusion of that point being that digital information such as the software that runs Pong the video game, could last as long as civilisation. From my experience working in software, I would agree the act of copying digital information is easy. Actually preserving digital information through time on the other hand, is a non-trivial problem that is not alluded to (Perhaps the extensive research didn’t prevent all cases of the Dunning-Kruger effect).MacAskill outlines a framework for assessing the longterm value of something or state of affairs - the SPC (Significance, Persistence, Contingency) framework. I won’t go into details of the whole framework, but will explain contingency to make a point. The contingency of a state of affairs is the extent to which the state of affairs depends on a small number of specific actions. That is to say that something that is not very contingent is something that is likely to have happened anyway, whereas something that is very contingent is not very likely to have happened. You could say that the invention of writing was not very contingent as it is believed multiple groups of people invented writing independently. You could say that the writing of Macbeth is very contingent, as if Shakespeare didn’t write it, it is unlikely someone else would have conjured up the same story.MacAskill argues that abolition of slavery may have been very contingent, and that we may still be living with slavery today, in spite of the enlightenment and the broader transition to liberal societies. To say that slavery might still be legal today, and also that several re-runs of history would have left it alive and kicking I think misses the entire point of the enlightenment. The values instilled in society over the past 400 years strongly point to slavery being a morally and logically inconsistent institution, an argument MacAskill considers, but doesn’t seem to wholeheartedly agree with. Of course it is possible that the enlightenment never happened, and in that case the contingency of abolition may have been high.The book ends with a chapter containing practical steps about how we should take action. While trying to target actions in an effective way is likely better than not trying at all, it exposes a key misconception of the book, and highlights a critique against the wider Effective Altruism movement, of which MacAskill is a key thought leader. We cannot predict the future, and we cannot accurately predict what knowledge will be needed to solve future issues. It is not uncommon that knowledge created unintentionally or in unexpected fields ends up solving our problems (a salient example of unintentional progress is the discovery of penicillin). The idea that you can focus your energy on longterm future problems and arrive at the correct solution is questionable and perhaps risky.Overall, What We Owe the Future is an easy to understand case for longtermism. If you are interested in the future and how we can impact it, I would recommend this book, even if only to understand ideas related to the Effective Altruism movement. That said, there are several shortcomings which I found made it hard to give this book a higher rating. It was readable with some interesting points, but fell short of being a definitive call to action about caring for the future.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Absolute bargain. Get it while you can.
  

*by U***G on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 October 2022*

I originally went to a bookshop to buy this as I'd seen it advertised on billboards and it looked very interesting. When they didn't have it I came to Amazon and was offered a £5 promotion on this item which was already 25% off of the RRP, essentially saving me 50% of what I would've ended up paying. The book had me hooked pre-chapter 1. The ideas in the introduction made me know I would be in for a wild one. I don't generally find myself gravitating towards non-fiction but this is a must even if you're the slightest bit tempted. A real eye opener and a fascinating look into the world we live in and the passion of someone in a very different field to myself.

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*Last updated: 2026-02-25*