80,000 Hours, If It Were Founded In Interwar Britain

What longtermism would look like a century ago

Julian Huxley, arguably a major longtermist thinker.

[This blog post got its start when I read The Twilight Years, an excellent book about British people in the 1920s and 1930s who were worried about the long-term future, the collapse of civilization, and the end of the human race. I noticed that the people in the book thought in a way very similar to effective altruists, and it made me wonder what effective altruism would look like if it were soaked in the intellectual milieu of the 1920s instead of a century later.

This post might get read as satirical or as making some kind of point. I have no intention of satirizing anything or making any points. I’m just representing the viewpoints of “longtermist” people in the 1930s in as accurate and as entertaining a method as I can.

The hypothetical 1920s 80,000 Hours is sexist, racist, ableist, and eugenicist. Please read with caution. I do not intend to say “2022 80,000 Hours is sexist, racist, ableist, and eugenicist.” I do think people should think about the way that their viewpoints, while they may seem scientific, actually come from their own cultural prejudices.]

Our list of the world’s most pressing problems

1. Ending war

We believe that it is very likely that civilization—and perhaps humanity—will not survive another war. Scientific discoveries—such as chemical warfare, submarines, and long-range bombers—have rendered war more and more deadly. New technologies enable the destructive idea of “total war”: war where everywhere in the world is a front and everyone, from the smallest baby to the most elderly man, is a soldier. If there are no civilians, then there is no one whom it doesn’t benefit a combatant to kill. Historically, war has always been one of the greatest spurs to technological development. Another war will likely lead to new weapons, even more horrible than mustard gas, which threaten humanity itself.

Even if a war does not destroy the human race, the costs would be devastating. Another war could destroy most of the art, literature, and great cities of Europe. Machinery and food supplies destroyed by the war could be impossible to recover, leading to widespread starvation and perhaps a second Fall of Rome.

Although the Great War has been called “the war to end all wars,” it’s all too likely that it will do no such thing. Large wars have small causes, or no cause at all: the arms race, ambitious politicians, breakdowns in the political order. Far too little has been done to nip these in the bud.

What is needed is an end to global anarchy. As a policeman protects your local block, the League of Nations should protect the world. As the policeman has his gun, the League of Nations should have the exclusive right to have an army—which it may use only to prevent all other attempts to maintain a standing army and war itself. We must maintain free, open trade so that it is in no country’s interest to go to war with any other country. The world’s wealth should be distributed equitably: poverty causes violence among countries as it does among men.

Some readers may object to how high this cause area is ranked on our list, because there is a large and active pacifist movement, so this area is not especially neglected. However, we believe the pacifist movement is ignoring the most important aspect of war prevention: understanding its causes. We cannot have a sustainable peace without understanding why countries go to war, whether it is a natural part of the human mind, and how war can be prevented. With luck, psychologists may be able to develop some form of treatment for the urge to commit violence.

2. Promoting the genetic health of humanity

Any dog breeder knows that the intelligence, personality, and health of a dog is genetic. The same is true of humans. And yet we have put far more care into breeding our pets and beasts of burden than we have into breeding ourselves. Studies suggest that as many as half of children have defects. During the Great War, only a third of British recruits were healthy enough to fight for Britain.

The “social problem group” is a term for those who are not necessarily ill, but who oughtn’t breed: those on welfare, the mentally ill, epileptics, criminals, slum dwellers, the unemployed, prostitutes, and alcoholics. Intellectually disabled children are normally born to members of the social problem group. Members of the social problem group are typically promiscuous and cannot repress their desire to have sex, even when it is immoral or not in their best interest. As such, sterilization is the kind and compassionate approach for them, for their future children, and for the human race.

Today, elite women often keep themselves to one or two children, to give them time for their other interests. We believe that this is misguided. The future of humanity depends on healthy, useful, intelligent people with excellent pedigrees having as many children as possible. There is no better gift you can give—for your child and for the world—than the long, healthy, joyful life of the superior child.

To encourage the superior to bear and raise children, we support family allowances, tax breaks, health examinations before marriage, and an end to war. To discourage people below the average from breeding, we support the creation of a sterilization board which will assess individuals’ genes and offer an opinion on whether they ought to have children. (We don’t support birth control—the social problem group would have difficulty using it reliably.) Sterilization should be voluntary, but we believe that most people would step up and do their duty for humanity if called upon.

Eugenics is relatively high on our list, even though we prioritize eugenic policy activism well below other forms of policy activism. This is because we recommend eugenics as a priority cause area for most of our female readers. If you have excellent genes, nothing you can do outside the home is worth as much as birthing and raising high-quality children. We also encourage our readers with poor genes—including those who are high-quality as individuals but who carry negative recessives—to seek sterilization. Sterilization is a honorable, noble sacrifice for the good of the humanity, and you should never be ashamed of it.

3. Overthrowing capitalism

Today we have enough food, housing, medicine, and leisure activities for everyone, if it is shared equally. As scientists develop more and more labor-saving technology, there will be less reason for the average person to work. In a hundred years, the ordinary person will live the life of a lord. A man will work perhaps twenty hours a week; machines will free his wife from the daily drudgery of cooking and laundry. Both can devote themselves to improving their minds, to the education of their children, and to the cultivation of fine taste in art.

However, reaching this state requires a fundamental restructuring of society. Capitalists are wealthy because they take "surplus value" from workers paid less than the value of goods they produce. Without a transition to socialism, the benefits of technology will accrue to the capitalist. Instead of freedom and equality for everyone, a few will live in unimaginable splendor while the ordinary man continues to not know how he will feed his children.

Science has transformed every aspect of our lives. Any sensible man would seek scientific management of a factory he owns, a disease he suffers from, or the electrification of his home; any sensible woman would choose to scientifically manage her household. And yet the economy—which touches nearly every part of everyone’s lives—is run in as casual and haphazard a manner as a medieval farm.

An orderly, rational plan for the economy will make everyone wealthy. No more will men starve in Surrey for lack of work, while jobs go unfilled in Edinburgh. No more will thousands of pounds be wasted on fripperies for the wealthy, while children go without shoes. All farms and factories will be run in the most efficient manner possible. We see the value of planning through the extraordinary success of the USSR’s Five-Year Plans. Even in such an impoverished country, government planning is the path to wealth.

We do not support a violent revolution or a complete overthrow of economic institutions, as occurred in Russia. These disruptions risk famine, disease, and death as severely as continued capitalism does. We support a peaceful, democratic, gradual transition to a planned economy run by the government. Over time, expansion of welfare, tax reform, nationalization of socially important industries, regulation of monopolies, and unionization will allow a safe and stable transformation to a socialist economy.

4. Combating political radicalism

The religious conflict of the past has been replaced with ideological conflict over politics and economics. Extremist political groups and dictatorships are rising all over the world. We are particularly concerned about Italian fascism and German National Socialism, which are violent and authoritarian reversions to a barbaric state. Although Soviet communism reflects the civilization of the future in many ways, it too is violent and illiberal, and we consider it a subject of concern.

Political radicalism is ranked relatively low, because we believe that it is mostly addressed through other cause areas. While fascists, National Socialists, and Soviet communists are likely to start wars, a strengthened League of Nations would address this problem. Further, Italian fascism and German National Socialism are both responses to the crisis of capitalism. Soviet communism only succeeded because of the lack of a peaceful, democratic alternative in Russia.

However, we believe that some people ought to prioritize political radicalism. The National Socialists have harassed, threatened, harmed, imprisoned, or expelled hundreds if not thousands of talented doctors, scientists, academics, artists, writers, and musicians. Stable countries must welcome all people who wish to leave Germany, before the National Socialist regime becomes even more violent and repressive. Many individuals should choose to prioritize this urgent issue over more important but longer-term problems.

Further, some people may have a high level of personal fit for promoting democracy, freedom, and cooperation, which may have a direct effect on reducing the amount of political radicalism.

The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between The Wars, by Richard Overy. Published 2010. 544 pages. $7.