Against “longtermist” as an identity

Abstract

This is mostly addressing people who care a lot about improving the long-term future and helping life continue for a long time, and who might be tempted to call themselves “longtermist.”. There have been discussions about how “effective altruist” shouldn’t be an identity and some defense of EA-as-identity. (I also think I’ve seen similar discussions about “longtermists” but don’t remember where.) In general, there has been a lot of good content on the effect of identities on truth-seeking conversation (see Scout Mindset or “Keep Your Identity Small” ).