Time Scope
Description
"Bomb Timer About To Blow" by AbleIdioms (pixabay.com).
In some systems, cause and effect seem to happen almost simultaneously. However, in other systems, effects can take years, or even millennia, to become apparent. When considering such systems, we need to take a long-term view so that we can take into account the consequences of our actions.
If the consequences take longer than our lifespan to become significant, they won't even affect us as individuals at all. In such cases, we may want to consider the effect of the consequences on future generations (and future things in general). The extent to which we do this depends on our priorities.
The simplest reason for delayed consequences is that their effect can be cumulative and can accrue slowly. However, this doesn't mean that a sudden change can't occur in the distant future: if the system is complex, it may reach a tipping point, at which time its behaviour can change drastically.
Examples
Continual budget deficits don't damage a country's economy instantly. It may take years or decades before the burden of debt repayments becomes significant. (Because multiple deficits are involved, this could also be an example of tiny impacts.)
If a large asteroid was expected to collide with the earth, we would almost certainly know about it several decades in advance.
High levels of carbon dioxide emissions don't cause the temperature to rise to dangerous levels instantly. It may take decades. The first generations of people that significantly increased emissions didn't notice or suffer any adverse climatic consequences of their actions. The full effects of climate change won't be experienced by current generations.
While on the subject of global warming, looking at the problem with a long time-scope shows that changing lifestyle (e.g., reducing per capita CO2 emissions) isn’t a sufficient enduring solution. If the population continues to increase, lifestyle-related improvements will be insufficient to nullify the effect of population growth. However, changing lifestyle would buy us some time in which to work out how to exist sustainably.
Related Issues
This section describes similarities and differences between this issue and related problem factors and thinking traps.
Other Scopes
Element Scope, Relationship Scope, Action Scope and Outcome Scope are other ways in which the system and its behaviour can be large and complicated.
Tiny Impacts
If a system is subject to many tiny impacts over a sustained period, the system's behaviour may change only slowly. A long time-scope would be needed to assess the full significance of the impacts.
Probability
The accuracy of our predictions about system behaviour diminishes the further ahead we look. This is especially unfortunate for problems that develop over long periods of time, as there is greater uncertainty about their significance: a situation that will eventually become a catastrophe may appear to be insignificant (or vice versa).
Unclear Causality
A lengthy delay between cause and effect makes it difficult to discern the causal relationship; i.e., we may not notice that something we're doing has adverse side-effects. Likewise, a gradual onset of effects may not be obviously the result of a protracted impact.
Instinct and Intuition
Instinct prioritises survival of the individual, so it has evolved to deal with systems that react relatively quickly. (An exception is the desire to reproduce so that the species can survive.)
Intuition also tends to have a relatively short-term emphasis since it is built from experiences obtained during one's lifetime. It is blind to phenomena that the individual hasn't encountered.
For these reasons, subconscious thinking modes are not well-suited to dealing with very long time-scopes. Reasoning needs to be applied, and we may need to consciously override our instincts and intuitions when dealing with inter-generational problems.
Busy and Reductionism
Being busy encourages us to simplify our problem-solving. A common trap is to limit our thinking to the immediate future, which can cause us to neglect bigger issues that may arise subsequently. This is a form of reductionism.
Familiarity Bias
An aspect of familiarity bias is that we are more concerned about problems that will affect people or things we may experience during our lifetimes. Problems that may primarily affect future generations are less likely to motivate us to action.
Not Urgent
If a problem develops slowly, we often deem it to be not urgent. This can make things worse because continually deferring action to deal with a problem can make the problem more severe, and can necessitate more drastic actions to deal with it when we eventually decide to do so.
Risk Factor Misjudgement
We're less likely to notice deterioration if it happens slowly compared to human timescales. This can lead to risk factor misjudgement: if we don't notice a slowly-deteriorating situation, we will treat it as having a probability of zero even though it may kill millions of people in future generations.
Related Engine Processes
Later, we will describe a thinking framework that comprises multiple processes. This section points forward to the processes that deal with this page's topic.
Conscious consideration of our personal priorities can mitigate some of the difficulties associated with long time-scopes. In particular, it would require us to consider the extent to which we value shorter-term interests (such as the well-being of people we know) over longer-term interests (such as the well-being of future generations). If we place some value on longer-term interests, we will be prompted to consider the full implications of problems with long time-scopes.
Further Reading
The Limits to Growth.
To Do
Murdered Darlings
Using something doesn't cause it to wear out instantly. It may take years.
Rain doesn't cause a dam to overflow instantly. It may take days.