---
title: Long-term thinking
author: Issa Rice
created: 2015-01-12
date: 2015-01-12
status: notes
belief: possible
---

I'm a big fan of **long-term thinking**; after all, I'm very interested in anti-aging, [[long content]], [[durable link]]s, and so on.
I think Peter Thiel nailed it with these quotes:

> People always say they want to live every day as though it will be their
> last. I always have this contrasting view that I think I’d like to live
> every day as though it will go on for ever.
>
> If we had an indefinite life span, we would continue to work and start
> great new projects, we would be very careful about how we treated the
> people around us because we would encounter them again.[^forever]

[^forever]: “[Peter Thiel: ‘We attribute too much to luck. Luck is an atheistic word for God’](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/21/peter-thiel-paypal-luck-atheist-god)\ ”.

> People always say you should live your life as if it were your last day.
> I think you should live your life as though it will go on for ever; that
> every day is so good that you don’t want it to end.[^telegraph]

[^telegraph]: "[Peter Thiel: the billionaire tech entrepreneur on a mission to cheat death](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11098971/Peter-Thiel-the-billionaire-tech-entrepreneur-on-a-mission-to-cheat-death.html)"

From [Rough Consensus and Maximal Interestingness](http://breakingsmart.com/season-1/rough-consensus-and-maximal-interestingness/):

> It is generally smarter to assume that problems that seem difficult
> and important today might become trivial or be rendered moot in the
> future. Behaviors that would be short-sighted in the context of
> scarcity become far-sighted in the context of abundance.
>
> The original design of the Mosaic browser, for instance, reflected the
> optimistic assumption that everybody would have high-bandwidth access
> to the Internet in the future, a statement that was not true at the
> time, but is now largely true in the developed world. Today, many
> financial technology entrepreneurs are building products based on the
> assumption that cryptocurrencies will be widely adopted and accepted.
> Underlying all such optimism about technology is an optimism about
> humans: a belief that those who come after us will be better informed
> and have more capabilities, and therefore able to make more creative
> decisions.

# See also

- [Long Now Foundation](!w)
- [Choose a Spouse Who Would Resemble the Children you Want](http://freenortherner.com/2012/05/25/choose-a-spouse-who-would-resemble-the-children-you-want/)
- [On Progress and Prosperity](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/9f/on_progress_and_prosperity/)