[wnkrshm]

I think the entire longtermism thing is at the heart something that Camus discusses in the Myth of Sisyphos: We will ultimately all die and be forgotten, what good is struggling, working and living?

That is the absurd condition every human being finds themselves in. Camus sees two solutions that have been suggested so far in philosophy:

Suicide (which he rejects outright as too easy and lazy) and a "leap of faith". The "leap of faith" consists in finding by passion some irrational, maybe larger purpose outside of what can personally be known or experienced, a belief that negates this absurd condition. Historically, this is the domain of religion and spiritualism.

Longtermism seems to me just that: an existentialist escape from nihilism by the promise of some kind of vague purpose with vague metrics and an unknown, irrational payoff you will never know (at least for those subscribing to it without motives of profit).