In this video, Roman Krznaric, philosopher and author of the book ‘The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long Term Thinking’, explains the two parts of the human brain that are driving our decisions and, ultimately, determining what kind of legacy we leave behind for future generations.

Short-term thinking happens in the marshmallow brain (named after the famous Stanford marshmallow test on delaying gratification), while long-term thinking and strategising occurs in the acorn brain.

By retraining ourselves to use the acorn brain more often, we can ensure that trillions of people – including our grandchildren and their grandchildren – aren’t inheriting a depleted world and the worst traits that humankind has to offer.

“At the moment we’re using, on average, 1.6 planet earths each year in terms of our ecological footprint,” says Krznaric, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too late to turn things around. Thinking long-term about things like politics and education can help “rebuild our imaginations of what a civilization could be”.

View the original video here.

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