World Peace

Targeting long-term goals means that we can greatly extend the realm of achievable oucomes compared to those available to today's policymakers. 

For example: world peace. Today that simply means an absence of war or civil war - violent political conflict. So the current definition of peace can (and does) allow for: piling up of all sorts of weaponry; including weapons of mass destruction; and hateful and provocative propaganda in the media, schools, and religious institutions. These increase the probability of deadly conflict in the long run, but would still technically be defined as 'peace' today. Rewards under this short-term vision accrue to arms merchants and others intent on fomenting conflict to take place some time beyond the horizons of today's politicians. Today's incentives then do little to prevent conflict. 

World Peace Bonds would be different. They would be issued with a very long time horizon: perhaps five decades. Any outbreak of large-scale violence would see investors in the bonds the prospect of losing money. But if they are effective in ensuring world peace, then they stand to benefit - as does everyone else on Earth. World Peace Bonds, with sufficient backing, would outweigh today's incentives. With such a long-term view, it would be in the interests of bondholders to eliminate the hateful indoctrination of schoolchildren and everyone else, and to control the sales and lethality of armaments. Bondholders would have incentives also to research, experiment and implement new approaches to conflict reduction, concentrating on those that are most promising and efficient. 

The goal of 'world peace' is readily categorised as unrealistic, utopian, idealistic and, of course, impossible. That's partly because we have only to look at human history in confirmation. But incentives have unleashed such human ingenuity that the quantity (population and longevity) and quality (standard of living) of billions of our species have risen spectacularly in recent decades. Long-term challenges threaten our achievements. We urgently need to supply incentives commensurate with the magnitude and long-term nature of those threats.