Are we alone in the universe? What could a future for humans in space look like? And what would Creon Levit’s advise to Elon Musk be if he wants to start a self-sufficient mass colony there?
This Hope Drop features Creon Levit, chief technologist and director of R&D at Planet Labs, and it includes a podcast episode, NFT artwork and a storytelling X-Hope bounty.
Creon Levit is chief technologist at Planet Labs, where he works to move the world toward existential hope via novel satellite technologies. He also hosts Foresight Institute’s Space Group.
That is the vision of a positive future as envisioned by Creon Levit, which is the basis for this art piece. It shows a positive future that is highly technological, in which all people have access to community and adventure. To hear Creon expand on his vision, and tell more about his work at Planet Labs, listen to his interview in the Existential Hope podcast.
About the artist
This piece was made by Anosh. Anosh is a leading creative at BETC and a member of the Existential Hope Gallery. In this piece, he is working with AI-based tools to create a dialogue between the vision of a super machine and an artist.
About the gallery
Visualizing concepts can help us make what seems abstract become real and clear in our minds. The Existential Hope Gallery is on a mission to help us visualize more positive futures.
Creon’s vision:
Telling stories can help us make what seems abstract become real and clear in our minds. Therefore we have created a storytelling bounty based on Creon’s vision of a positive future imagining a world where we have had a shift in the human nature that makes it possible for all to have flourishing lives.
Creon’s vision:
Imagine a shift in human nature where we could all have love, community, technology, and adventure, as well as a lack of severe hardship or fear. This pivot of humanity depends on a pivot on the individual level to make it happen.
To some extent, things are already pivoting towards the kind of future we could all have with love, community, technology, and adventure, as well as a lack of severe hardship or fear. Experiences such as community gatherings and collaboration are prime examples of what everybody could have in the fantastic future.
While it may feel less obvious that the collective world is shifting in that direction, things are still seemingly getting better for most people. Of course, there is suffering and danger, but it does not bode well to go invading another country anymore. In a way, these are hopeful signs of progress. We have been learning a lot over the last few years. Now we need to continue learning at a rapid rate.
People have to fall in love with their lives, fellow humans, civilization, and the future. On the one hand, some might say, “You are proposing a change in human nature and that will never happen.” I am not so sure though. I think humans are changing, not uniformly or quickly, but in a positive direction. Things like slavery, brutal combat, and warfare used to be commonplace and they are now anomalies on the way out. So the pivot of humanity depends on this pivot on the individual level to make it happen.
Use this event as a story-device to show us the picture of a day in a life where this happens. How would this make us feel? How would we react? What hope can people get from this?
Submit your bounty-response for a chance to be rewarded $250.
Before he wrote The Lord of the Rings, the author JRR Tolkien coined a word – “eucatastrophe” – that scholars would still be writing about 70 years later. What did he mean, and why could it relate to the very real story of humanity?
Metaculus is launching Forecasting Our World In Data, a tournament that will deliver predictions on technological advancement, global development, and social progress on time horizons ranging from one to 100 years, with close collaboration from the Our World In Data (OWID) team. Join the tournament now!
Sentience Institute is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary think tank working towards a flourishing future for all human and nonhuman sentient life. Their focus is building the small but growing field of digital minds research. Recent work includes:
Simon Institute’s mission is to increase the capacity of policy networks to mitigate global catastrophic risks and build resilience for civilization to flourish. In its first 1.5 years, SI has developed significant opportunities to boost the safe development of emerging technologies.They are now looking for highly dedicated colleagues to build an extraordinary team with.
We always want to know about what resources, projects and organizations in the ecosystem across future-positive organizations you would like to see on the Focus Areas.
The future is for everyone to create together, so please, if you have any thoughts or ideas on what to feature, please let us know via our Contribute-page!
