A fortnightly online talk series on cultivating care for the world beyond our lifetimes.
Thursday 3 September, 1-2pm
2020 is a poignant reminder that we need longer-term thinking now to tackle the existential risks we face and create a better world for future generations. The Long Time Sessions is a fortnightly Zoom talk series on cultivating care for the world beyond our lifetimes. It will bring together leading thinkers and doers from art, culture, philosophy, science, technology, law, finance and politics, to take a longer view. Speakers will explore how engaging with the long-term can change the way we act in the short term. Click here to view all sessions.
In the third session, moral philosopher Toby Ord will be in conversation with Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA, to discuss the risks to humanity’s future, from the familiar, human-generated threats of climate change and nuclear war, to more unfamiliar threats such as engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence.
The Long Time Sessions are organised by The Long Time Project, in collaboration with the RSA and the General Ecology Network at the Serpentine Galleries.
Biographies
Toby Ord is a moral philosopher based at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. He focuses on the big picture questions facing humanity. His earlier work explored the ethics of global health and global poverty, which led him to create an international society called Giving What We Can and the wider Effective Altruism movement. His current research is on avoiding the threat of human extinction which he considers to be among the most pressing and neglected issues we face. He has advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Office, and Government Office for Science.
Matthew Taylor has been Chief Executive of the RSA since 2006. Prior to becoming Chief Executive of the RSA, Matthew was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister. He was the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research between 1999 and 2003, has written numerous articles, and is a regular panellist on Radio 4’s Moral Maze.
