Nick Beckstead on the Importance of the Far Future
Nick Beckstead recently finished a Ph.D in philosophy at Rutgers University, where he focused on practical and theoretical ethical issues involving future generations. He is particularly interested in the practical implications of taking full account of how actions taken today affect people who may live in the very distant future. His research focuses on how big picture questions in normative philosophy (especially population ethics and decision theory) and various big picture empirical questions (especially about existential risk, moral and economic progress, and the future of technology) feed into this issue.
Apart from his academic work, Nick has been closely involved with the effective altruism movement. He has been the director of research for Giving What We Can, he has worked as a summer research analyst at GiveWell, and he is currently on the board of trustees for the Centre for Effective Altruism, and he recently became a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute.