Existential hope more is possible and now is the time

i’d like to share with you

a change of perspective that has been an

infinite action generator for me

i’d like to share with you what it would

mean to act from a place of existential

hope

about the future rather than from a

place of existential angst

did you ever have that experience at one

moment you’re still

deeply engaged in some mundane aspect of

everyday life

and in the next moment you suddenly zoom

out and you wonder how you got

there from when you were a child was it

just yesterday

when everything was magical anything

seemed possible

everything but the profanity of how

things actually turned out

ibel kamu calls us a moment of absurdity

in which we stand face to face with

irrational

in which we feel with us a longing for

happiness and for meaning

that stands in confrontation with the

unreasonable silence of the world

for me that moment is perhaps strongest

when i think about my own death

about the fact that in the not too

distant future i will painfully

and slowly disintegrate until i will

ultimately be a rip from everything and

everyone i care about

for a while i turn to philosophy in the

hope to find meaning

and answers to this absurd contrast

between my longing for life

and the certainty of death according to

existentialism for instance

the antidote to this existential angst

is to come to terms with the

irreconcilability of our needs with

reality

and yet to seek to create meaning within

those constraints

that’s not satisfactory meager’s short

lives are seen as a given

and the only changeable factor to it is

your attitude

but luckily i eventually discovered

futurist philosophy

and with that a different strategy

instead of lowering your expectation to

fit reality

it recommends raising reality to

meet your hope and dreams according to

nick boston for instance

given current scientific progress we may

eventually tackle the problem of aging

and in the face of that death is stories

and ideology

which counsel passive acceptance are no

longer harmless sources of consolation

they’re now fatal barriers to urgently

needed action

and it was thanks to writings like this

that i could swap my existential angst

out from optimistic problem-solving

attitude i started intermittent fasting

i preserved my stem cells and ultimately

i came to do

the work that i do at forsyth now and

you may think that’s a loony plan

and you may be right maybe it is maybe i

won’t get to live the long life i’m

striving for

but this perspective shift from lowering

my expectations to fit reality

toward changing reality to live up to my

hopes and dreams

has been an infinite action generator

for me it has turned fatalism into

motivation

so far so good but as i grew older i

gradually woke up to a much

bigger problem to the fact that there is

no guarantee that humanity will make it

through

the list of existential risks that could

wipe out humanity is long

our current covert 19 pandemic is really

just a mild version

of possible worst case scenarios for

man-made technologies

and natural disasters and realizing that

civilization isn’t safe

also made me realize that my own

existential angst is really just a

puberty version of a much more

fundamental fear

the lack of meaning of life in the

universe and the extinction of the

beautiful human project we have going on

and this was pretty sobering at first

after all there was really nothing i

could do about that

right or was there i wondered

is there a way to apply the same change

of perspective that kicked me out of my

own personal existential angst to this

more global fear

what would it mean to swap my own and to

swap this global existential angst for

existential hope

which is a term developed by toby orton

owen cotton barrett

what are possible alternatives to human

extinction what is available if we

extended the boundaries of scientific

knowledge

and stretched our imaginations a little

bit

so i set out to collect positive visions

for humanity

that provide an action-guiding change of

perspective

and you think that there must be a ton

right

well i have to tell you i’ve been

collecting now for five years on the

website existentialhope.com

and i must tell you the selection of

positive visions for humanity is rather

slim

for one there aren’t many to choose from

for a second just think about the piece

of optimistic

sci-fi movie or netflix documentary

does anything come to mind and if it

does

when was it produced that’s the second

problem

and perhaps the more fundamental one

most optimistic future

visions are dated the favor of the

dragon tyrant

that i read out to you from just now is

15 years old

and that’s already one of the more

recent visions

and why that is is a topic for another

talk but safe to say it’s a problem

for instance star trek while amazing and

cult

has outdated societal norms and clumsy

props but on the other hand

dystopias like ex machina or black

mirror and even most panic making news

right now are pretty up to date

no wonder we’re pessimistic if the few

positive visions for humanity are dated

and meanwhile we have a plethora of

dystopian fiction and non-fiction to

choose from

this must screw our imaginations and the

worry here is that

we can’t build what we can’t imagine

perhaps it’s unsurprising that

negativity dominates

fear is a natural human driver and

criticizing is much

easier than coming up with a

constructive plan

but if we have no alternative to offer

to human extinction

then we’re making it a bit easier on

ourselves

so if you’re with me that affirmative

goals for the future are essential

and if you’re with me that the selection

is slim what to do

well let’s come up with better ones and

let’s do it now

together all right we already said

that a positive life could entail a much

much longer life

so what would it mean to think this

further instead of more quantity

we could ask for a different quality and

granted in our current default world

that rather looks slightly optimal

there’s lots of psychological pain

that’s bubbling up in increasingly

radicalized ways left and right

but let’s go back to first principles in

principle at least

the range of thoughts feelings and

motivations that are accessible to us

right now may only constitute a slight

tiny sliver of what’s possible

david pierce for example another

futurist philosopher

has a few ideas for men to paradises

that we could build

using biotechnology such as genetic

engineering to fine-tune our own

personality

for instance a musician may wish that

those of her functional modules

which mediate musical appreciation may

receive

especially rich innovation for my

freshly and

up pleasure systems to hear and have the

chance to play

music that’s more exhilarating and

numinously beautiful

than anything her ancestors has ever

dreamt of now it’s your turn

think about an activity or an experience

that you thoroughly enjoy

how would that sensation be improved and

magnified

if you had new ways to interpret that

sensory input

and are there other things to enjoy than

your current human pleasures

what else would we want intelligence a

feature that has given us most of the

things we care about

and again currently most discussions of

ai are pretty risk focused

from enhancing social fragmentations on

social media platforms

all the way to super intelligent

takeover but

in principle at least intelligence is

something beautiful

imagine the problems that you could

solve with perfect understanding of

wikipedia

that’s pretty good already right but we

could go a step further

because currently we may even lack the

brainpower to understand

that the playing field of a truly

intelligent society

just like chimpanzees may lack the

brainpower to understand

the playing field of human society

rather than asking yourselves

what questions you’d like the answer to

ask yourself

what questions would you like to ask

with enhanced intelligence

let’s move to the physical world we’ve

already come a long way in solving

poverty

but imagine how much further we could go

there’s still a lot of people out there

right now who struggle having their

basic needs met

but in principle at least there’s no

physical reason why we have to have

scarcity of anything

according to richard feynman the

principles of physics as far as he could

see

do not speak against the possibilities

of maneuvering things atom by atom

building stuff bottom up atom by atom

it allows you to make literally anything

from technologies to blood cells

and you can do so incredibly precise

wasteless and cheap

according to eric draxler the father of

nanotechnology

imagining what autonomy precise

manufacturing can do with materials

is much like asking what computers can

do with information

so what would you build if resources

costs and externalities were not an

issue

how would a truly abundant future look

like

and what would it feel like to inhabit

it and we shouldn’t just stop benefiting

humans

health should be available for our

planet as well not lastly because we

depend on it

because any materials that harm

molecular machinery of life

can themselves be reached by other forms

of molecular machinery

in principles of these we could make

machinery

that could clean up the mess left by

20th century civilization

so what would a world look like in which

we’re not positive to nature

in which we contribute more than we take

what would it mean to think this further

do we have to stay on this planet

we shouldn’t we have historical evidence

that life on this planet is vulnerable

the dinosaurs are gone if we don’t kill

ourselves before

latest when the sun boils away all life

on earth will have problems

so let’s not be as complacent with the

dinosaurs let’s back up life and let’s

take the next step

at least into this solar system martial

savage lures us that

if we take up the sacred fire and stride

forth into space this universe will be a

warning

a whole frozen universe with thorn

transmogrify

from howling desolation to blossom in

paradise

dust into life the very alchemy of god

this is a beautiful vision but dated so

i want to know from you

what could it look like to see the

universe with life

how far would you venture out where

would you settle

and what would you build so i think this

should do

for preview to tickle the imagination

of what’s physically possible for us if

we don’t wipe ourselves out before

i think realizing this upside risk is

really powerful

it opens up the space to think bigger

thoughts and make bigger plans

and if we aim for them we’re much more

likely to hit them than if we don’t

there’s no guarantee we’ll ever make it

but if we don’t try we cannot

succeed yet

even if you think those features are

exciting they may seem impossibly

far away you may wonder what you and i

can do to save the future

maybe we shouldn’t take ourselves too

seriously

what if we spend our whole life trying

to make a difference and then

some event hits that we couldn’t predict

and wipes us out anyways

well i want to ask you to consider one

more change of perspective

imagine the opposite scenario we didn’t

try and when catastrophe hits

it turns out that with a bit of

foresight we could have made a

difference

i think if we knew that there was a safe

extinction scenario

that would inevitably evade us in 100

years

maybe we could succumb to hedonism in

the here and now

right but it’s not impossible that we

make it through

so why not try and if you opt in then

there’s

no space anymore to focus on how

terrible everything is

we’ve just confessed that despite the

fact the chances are small we’re still

going to go ahead and try

so let’s take that bundle of existential

angst and put it to the side

just for a second let’s look at the

facts in a more constructive way

this doesn’t mean ignoring the risk but

it means not getting upset at them

anymore

it means seeing them now is your

personal challenge

and here’s the best part even if we fail

we have one

i wasn’t quite true for the beginning

you don’t

have to choose between living a meaning

for life and saving the future

we can have it both ways

that’s because working toward positive

futures is work that’s intrinsically

rewarding

it comes with incredible friends along

the way and compassion and curiosity for

everything that comes with life nihilism

is solving the wrong problems albert

camus

couldn’t see the technological progress

of our time he couldn’t tap

in to the types of communities that you

can but look around you at the people in

this vr

room thanks to the internet wherever you

are you earn the extreme

fortune of being surrounded by people

who care about the same things

you in particular everyone in this tedx

experience

are some of the most promising gifted

and empowered members of the next

generation

who will soon have to make some crucial

decisions about our long-term future

if anyone will make a difference you

will

no pressure what luck that you found

each other

and are able to do this meaningful work

together

know that there aren’t many of you that

the stakes are high and that the time

window is shortening

the current coveted pandemic demands

urgency

again on the surface it seems that in

2020

we’re yet further away from the ground

futures that many of us can openly and

secretly

are dreaming of but if a catastrophe is

an event that eradicates most expected

value for life

then a eu catastrophe is an event that

will create

much more expected value after the event

than before

and currently there may be a few unique

opportunities

to steer the current covert 19 crisis

away from catastrophe

toward you catastrophe the many changes

that we see in the world right now

many of them are undesirable but they

also must mean

that there’s room for upside risk for

existential hope for something extremely

good

happening as the cards of civilization

get reshuffled

much is at stake and so much more is

possible

and that’s terrifying yet so empowering

the current crisis has shown that the

emperor has no clothes on

that there’s no world homunculus in the

global control tower

and that there are no adults in the room

we have never had that much agency

and we won’t for a long time after with

a start of shelter in place

the forsake community met up to twice a

day to review our options

i won’t review all of them right now but

safe to say that

every area that we just discussed from

human health to planetary health

is undergoing profound changes right now

and you could be the one

turning them from catastrophe into your

catastrophe

what’s at stake ultimately is nothing

less than the consolation of fairy

stories

the joy of the happy ending or rather in

tolkien’s words

the good catastrophe the sudden joyous

turn

for there’s no true end to any fairy

tale

thank you so much