Creating Your Ideal Future: Science-Based Protocols for Long-Term Thinking and Transgenerational Empathy

This episode features Ari Wallach, an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University and host of "A Brief History of the Future," discussing how individuals and society can cultivate a positive future. Wallach introduces his work with Long Path Labs, which focuses on long-term thinking and coordinated behavior to ensure the thriving of our species. The core argument is that while the human brain is uniquely capable of "mental time travel"—projecting thoughts to the past, present, and future—modern culture and technology have increasingly trapped us in "presentism," a state of constant stimulus-response that shortens our temporal horizon and hinders long-term planning and empathy. This immediate gratification loop, driven by our ancient hardware being "hacked" by modern cultural substrates, makes it difficult to think beyond the immediate moment, contrasting with our evolutionary need to plan for future challenges like winter.

To counteract this presentism, Wallach advocates for "transgenerational empathy," a concept that begins with self-compassion. He defines self-empathy as recognizing one is doing the best they can with what they have, acknowledging that past selves operated under different emotional and psychological capacities. This foundational self-compassion then extends to empathy for those who came before us and, crucially, for future generations. Huberman reinforces this by referencing Dr. James Hollis's advice to regularly exit stimulus-response mode for inward reflection, and the idea of focusing daily on actions that improve one's life, rather than striving to be "better than yesterday," which aligns with our circadian biology.

The discussion also addresses the paradox that, in aggregate, humanity is better off now than ever before in terms of health, longevity, and education, yet a pervasive negativity bias and constant information bombardment prevent us from fully appreciating this progress. Media's tendency to amplify negative stories further exacerbates this. The speakers emphasize that while daily management is necessary, the current era represents an "inflection point" where decisions regarding major issues like climate change, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology will dictate the course of not just decades, but potentially centuries. Therefore, breaking free from disconnection—from self, others, and nature—is paramount.

The practical insights revolve around intentionally fostering connection and expanding our temporal perspective. By understanding our cognitive biases and the evolutionary roots of our present-focused tendencies, individuals can consciously engage in practices that build empathy across generations. This involves dedicated time for introspection, a shift from reactive living to proactive future-building, and a recognition that our actions today have profound implications for the world our descendants will inherit. The episode ultimately provides a framework for integrating long-term vision with daily actions, grounded in a deeper understanding of human psychology and our place in the continuum of time.

"what separates us out from almost every other species as far as we know the ones we can talk to mostly us is that that we do two things extremely well we can do mental time travel towards the future right we can think about different possible outcomes different possible scenarios and we can collaborate to make the ones that we want to see manifest manifest"

"we're working on two 300,000 year old Hardware at the same time we have a cultural substrate that is for lack of better words has hacked into that older part of us to make us a want that immediate gratification and B Force us to now react in a way where that mental time travel has closed that temporal Horizon"

"I mean presentism as in a Hall of Mirrors there is no past there is no future there's only this moment and so it's becoming extremely difficult for us as individuals as societies as civilization to think about the long term"

"we absolutely need to take 5 to 10 minutes each day to exit stimulus response mode typically by closing one's eyes and just looking inward... in order to understand what our greater wishes are how to link our current thinking and behavior to the Future and to the past"

"what I'm advocating for is what what I call kind of transgenerational empathy it's a mouthful"

"empathy for yourself is in many ways it's almost self-compassion it's recognizing you're doing the best you can with what you have"

"you can't have your 20th birthday until you're 19"

"what can I do today to make my life and hopefully the lives of others better because it it implies a verb in action step and it's really focused on the unit of the day which is really what we've got"

"one of the the great errors of where we have taken this civilization over the past several decades if not centuries is is disconnection disconnection from ourselves disconnection from each other and disconnection from nature in the planet"

"in aggregate because we can find Peaks and valleys right when when we zoom in if we pull back there's no better time to be alive as a homo sapien on planet Earth than right now"

"the issue is that we are now at an inflection point because the things that we do or do not do across the major issues of our day and how we deal with them climate change artificial intelligence synthetic biology... will dictate not only the next several years and several decades potentially the next several centuries"

"there are parts of us the the the prefrontal cortex parts of us that are amazing that build microphones that have conversations that stream across the internet and then there are parts of us you know this is Jonathan's elephant and the writer there are parts of us that happen below the surface that have hundreds of thousands if not millions of years of legacy"