Talk:Longtermism

longtermism versus long-termism
This article currently presents these terms as identical. It also lists short-termism as its antonym. But I don't think this is correct.

"Longtermism" is an effective altruism concept that focuses on moral value. It is different from "long-termism", which is a business concept that focuses on the profits of an individual business. It is the latter that is the antonym of "short-termism"; the former is not related to the business concept of "short-termism" at all. (They aren't antonyms.)

I'm not sure how to deal with this on a Wikipedia entry. This page could, for example, list both uses of longtermism/long-termism in separate sections. Or we could have separate wikipedia entries for "longtermism" and "long-termism". Or we could just focus on "longtermism", which seems to warrant a wikipedia entry, but not "long-termism", which otherwise might not have its own entry.

(Another relevant grammatical point is that "long-term future" is the preferred spelling, even though the EA concept dealing with the long-term future is "longtermism". More info on the proper hyphenation of these terms can be found |on the EA Forum.)

For now, I won't make any changes, but I welcome others to be WP:BOLD and implement one of these solutions, or to otherwise engage in the comments here as to why we might not make these changes. In the absence of others' comments or changes, I'll make the changes myself later. &mdash; Eric Herboso 20:54, 27 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising this concern, Eric. I agree with you that "longtermism" (the concept within effective altruism) and "long-termism" (within business/investing) are distinct concepts that should be covered in separate pages. I renamed this article from "Long-termism" to "Longtermism" since it deals with the philosophical concept, not the business one. To clarify this further, we could call this article "Longtermism (philosophy)" and then if the business concept is believed to be notable enough also have a "Long-termism (business)" article. &mdash; Ego.Eudaimonia (talk) 19:08, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
 * They are not dissimilar in my opinion, although "long-term" thinking for most businesses is only in years usually instead of eons. The difference between "moral value" and "profits" is not as categorical as it may seem either, they are both merely different flavors of utility. - Indefensible (talk) 02:17, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This opinion, like editor opinions about content generally, is not relevant to WP. Regardless of whether they are "dissimilar", they are distinct topics. Jibal (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Multiple images: vertical or horizontal?
I changed the default from horizontal to vertical to benefit mobile readers. Unfortunately, this change barely improves on the resolution of the original images. I’m wondering if there is a way to improve the readability of the font and type used to make these images. I’m going to self-revert as the benefits of vertical alignment are minimal. Viriditas (talk) 23:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

as the original content creator of the images, can you improve the readability of the font in the images? It’s too small and fuzzy for useful display purposes. As a reader, I would like to be able to glance at the image and get a rough takeaway of the content. Right now, on mobile, the only way to do this is to click on the image and then click on the commons image, and then zoom, a three step process that detracts from quick comprehension. Is there any way you can fix this? I’ve seen this problem before, and it’s usually fixed by adding a much larger font and cutting down on the word count. Viriditas (talk) 23:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up, Viriditas. Unfortunately, I don't know of a solution to fix this. The pictures are already uploaded to Wiki Commons at a resolution of 5,201 × 7,747. For what it's worth, while I agree this isn't optimal, I also don't regard it as a major issue. It seems pretty intuitive for both mobile and desktop users to click on the image and then simply zoom, which allows them to read the text just fine. Since I didn't create the pictures myself (they're from Our World in Data), I cannot make changes to the font size on the pictures. Ego.Eudaimonia (talk) 20:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries. It’s probably the case that I’m old and blind like a cat on his ninth life.  Too many years of staring at screens.  Still, it would be great if there was a way for the information to be readable in text.  Viriditas (talk) 23:52, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Longtermism and Elon Musk
Vaidhyanathan (2022) discusses longtermism and Elon Musk, perhaps there is some merit in including this material in the main article? RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 17:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Questionable sources and WP:TONE and WP:EDITORIALIZING issues.
I see two related problems here.

First, I see several questionable or poor-quality sources for this article. Some of these may be usable with attribution (according to so-and-so...) but some of them should just be cut.

For example,

Longtermism.com appears to be the blog of Fin Moorhouse. This source doesn't demonstrate a history of accuracy and fact checking, so does not appear to be an WP:RS. Forum.effectivealtrusim.org is WP:UGC. There are multiple problems with using any forum as a source, even if citing posts from topic experts (and topic experts need to be recognized by independent sources as topic experts, per WP:UGC). 80,000 Hours is not an inherently reliable source. It may be useful as a primary source, but context should first come from WP:IS. What is the The Center for Reducing Suffering and does it have a history of accuracy and fact checking? The article also over-relies on working papers from the Global Priorities Institute. Per that institute's website, these appear to be drafts, not final published papers. There are also WP:PRIMARY issues with this.

This leads to another issues. These sources are used for some vague and loaded language, so removing these source and replacing them with 'citation needed' tags is not sufficient. It appears that in several cases, a source presents a criticism, and an unreliable source is used to add a response to that criticism. In addition to WP:RS and WP:NPOV issues, this approach damages the credibility of the article.

Specific examples of editorializing language include ...plays an important part... (how important?), ...is often discussed in relation to... (discussed by who, and why does it matter?), Others argue... (who and why do their arguments matter?), etc. If reliable sources are debating a specific issue, cite those sources and provide attribution as appropriate. Unreliable sources should be edited out. Grayfell (talk) 07:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * This does seem to be a problem. For example, supporting a statement like Accepting such a view makes the case for longtermism particularly strong... with a working paper and a forum post sends up major WP:PRIMARY and WP:UGC red flags. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * While I agree that the article relies heavily on primary sources, I would caution against removing large sections. Instead, I suggest adding the "Primary sources" template at the top to highlight this issue. The overall content appears generally accurate, so it should be possible to enhance the sourcing without drastic changes.
 * Regarding the 0.001% estimate from Fin Moorhouse's blog: The accuracy of this figure is questionable, and the paragraph needs to be improved. Or at least we should indicate that it's a rough estimate.
 * As for the language concerns: It's challenging to avoid vague quantifiers, especially when discussing philosophical topics that often deal with various viewpoints. However, the sentences that contain "plays an important part", "is often discussed in relation to" and "Others argue" don't seem particularly controversial, and they don't appear to misrepresent longtermism. As indicated by XOR'easter, this sentence could have a more encyclopedic tone and a better source: "Accepting such a view makes the case for longtermism particularly strong...". Alenoach (talk) 01:05, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Banners asking for more and/or better sources hang around for years without anyone doing anything. They're not a solution. Moreover, polishing up the tone is an insufficient fix if there are no better sources. Using an encyclopedic tone to write about a topic that is only covered in WP:PRIMARY/WP:UGC references is just laundering unreliable material. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:16, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I plan to spend some time in the coming weeks to improve the article. I understand that it's a tedious task to go through newspaper articles and revise sentences as needed. However, there should be more secondary sources available today than when the article was originally written. Alenoach (talk) 01:39, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Having encountered this kind of situation a few times in the past, I suspect that instead of trying to fix up the article piecemeal, it would be simpler to start over by finding what the good sources are and then writing from scratch a summary of them. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 02:15, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. As I said, adding CN templates isn't sufficient, and the same applies to a primary sources template. The problem isn't just that the article over-relies on primary sources, it is also how those primary sources are being used. Grayfell (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)