“How hard to achieve is eutopia?” by William_MacAskill, finm

This is a summary of the new paper “No Easy Eutopia”, here.

How easy is it to get to a future that's pretty close to ideal?

You could think of reaching eutopia as like an expedition to sail to an uninhabited island. The expedition is more likely to reach the island to the extent that:

1. The island is bigger, more visible, and closer to the point of departure;
2. The ship's navigation systems work well, and are aimed toward the island;
3. The ship's crew can send out smaller reconnaissance boats, and not everyone onboard the ship needs to reach the island for the expedition to succeed.

Similarly, we could be on track for a near-best future for a few different reasons.

First, eutopian futures could present a big target: that is, society would end up reaching a near-best outcome across a wide variety of possible futures, even without [...]

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Outline:

(03:49) Future moral catastrophe

(07:56) How maximum achievable value varies with total resources

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First published:

August 6th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rv5DAeDLsJ27xsQNB/how-hard-to-achieve-is-eutopia

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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