Whats the Opposite of Triage?
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how we make long-term decisions. The trite reply of “poorly” is perhaps correct, but only underscores the necessity of coming up with reliable (or, at least, trustable) mechanisms for thinking about the very long tomorrow. Many of the biggest crises likely to face human civilization in the 21st century have important long-term characteristics, and our relative inability to think in both complex and actionable ways about slow processes may be our fundamental problem. Whether we’re talking about asteroid impact, global warming, introduction of engineered self-replicating devices (biotech or nanotech) into the environment, or radical longevity, we seem stuck in the mindset that says “if it’s not a squeaky wheel, it gets no grease.” It’s a triage mentality — we’re dealing with bloody, awful problems right here and right now, and something that won’t affect us for decades is something we can ignore for the moment. The thing is, these aren’t the k
