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