CONCEPT
Deep Time Ethics
The ethical framework that emerges from taking Dyson's timescales seriously — the recognition that decisions made on cosmic horizons imply obligations that decisions made on quarterly horizons do not.
Deep time ethics is the ethical consequence of Dyson's cosmological framework. If consciousness can persist for 10^100 years, and if the structures required for that persistence must be built and maintained across cosmic epochs, then decisions made in the present moment carry consequences whose full weight requires cosmic-timescale thinking to register. The framework does not demand that every decision be evaluated against cosmic horizons — that would be paralyzing and probably impossible. It demands that some decisions receive cosmic-timescale evaluation, and that institutions exist to perform such evaluations when the decisions warrant. AI governance is, in the Dysonian reading, one such domain. The structures being built now will shape the substrate of consciousness for a very long time, and treating them with only quarterly attention is a specific ethical failure with specific consequences.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The framework draws on Hans Jonas's The Imperative of Responsibility (1979), Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984), and the emerging tradition of longtermist