From Existential Angst to Existential Hope

Existential Hope: Reasons for Optimism

• Existential Risk and Existential Hope - Owen Cotton-Barratt, Toby Ord. Introduces the concept of existential hope, the potential for large-scale positive outcomes, or "eucatastrophes." Drawing on Tolkien’s term, they contrast it with existential risk, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the upside potential for humanity’s future. Academic paper
• Hope is not optimism - Even when you know that prospects are grim, hope can help. It’s not just a feeling, but a way to step into the future. Article
• Rationality: From AI to Zombies - Eliezer Yudkowsky. In sequences like Meta Ethics Sequence, Existential Angst Factory, Mere Reality, and Joy in the Merely Real he addresses the emotional challenges of reductionism, urging readers to search for underlying causes of dissatisfaction rather than blaming the nature of the universe. Forum/blog-post 
• The Beginning of Infinity - David Deutsch. On the power of explanations to unlock futures of infinite potential. Chapter 8 and 9 are especially recommended. Book
• Why Will They Be Happy? - Paul Christiano. On why the future may be shaped by altruistic values to a higher degree than the present. Forum/blog-post 
• Anti-Natalism and the Future of Suffering - Magnus Vinding. On why, even from a negative utilitarian perspective, human extinction may not be an attractive goal. Forum/blog-post 
• Spreading Happiness To The Stars Seems Little Harder Than Just Spreading, Are Pain And Pleasure Equally Energy Efficient? - Carl Schulman. On why the future may favor beneficial states as evaluated from a utilitarian perspective. Forum/blog-post 
• A Nihilist’s Guide to Meaning - Kevin Simler. A rationalist approach to meaning. Forum/blog-post 
• The Goddess of Everything Else – Scott Alexander; and The Goddess of Everything Else animation, Rational Animations. An allegorical narrative engaging with the duality and paradox of creation and destruction, or the coexistence of "Good" and "Evil." Forum/blog-post / Video
• Pragmatic Optimism - Nell Watson. Quotes Petrarch who lived in 1343 CE: "My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age.” Forum/blog-post 
• Optimistic Nihilism, An Antidote to Dissatisfaction - Kurzgesagt. Illustrative explainer videos on optimism based in realism. Video
• The Human Project - Erika Ilves, Anna Stillwell: “It may sound like a tall order but we believe that for a learning species nothing should be impossible. To keep the human project going as an infinite game, each generation needs to know the game we are playing and learn to play their round well.” Book
• Existential Hope and Imagining Possible Futures - Scott D. Article remixing Existential Hope and related work to point to positive-sum worlds. Forum/blog-post ‍
• What is Meaningness? - David Chapman. A philosophical blog on meaning. Forum/blog-post

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Our Story: Uncovering a Long History

• The Story of Us, Putting Time into Perspective  - Tim Urban. A series of blog posts interpreting human history, and a post on the effects of our subjective understanding of time. Forum/blog-post 
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson. Bryson humorously explores the improbable series of events that led to human existence, emphasizing the fragility and chance of survival throughout history. He celebrates the scientific wonders of life and the universe while reminding us of the precariousness of our own existence. Book
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari. A detailed account of human evolution and more recent economic and technological developments. Book
• The History of Our World in 18 Minutes - David Christian. A visual TED talk summarizing our long-term history. Video
• The Vital Question - Nick Lane. Explores crucial dynamics that shaped our evolution. Book
• What Happened Before History?, How Evolution Works, Time - Kurzgesagt. Illustrative explainer videos on human origins. Video
• A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking. A physics-focused history of time. Book
• Asimov’s Chronology of the World - Isaac Asimov. A dated but well-written account of our long-term history. Forum/blog-post 
• The Fall of Civilizations - Podcast. Each episode focuses on one civilization at a time, exploring its history from its beginning to its end. Audio

Progress: Discovering How Far We’ve Come

• Stubborn Attachments - Tyler Cowen. On how economic growth helped civilization progress and which attachments we need to let go of to continue this trend. Book
• Rational Optimist - Matt Ridley. On how far we got through market dynamics and how to leverage them to solve outstanding problems. Book
• More from Less - Andrew McAfee. On how capitalism encourages technological innovation that gets humans more of what we want using less resources. Book
• The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker. On how civilization is on a positive trajectory overall and how to reclaim the principles of the enlightenment, in particular reason and science, to continue the trajectory. Nassim Taleb wrote a critique of Pinker's claim that violence declined, which Pinker replied to, and then Taleb replied to again. Book
• I, Pencil - Leonard E. Read. Illustrates the achievements possible by human cooperation by following the complex production of a pencil that no one individual contributor would know how to make. Book
• Superabundance - Maryan Tupy. On innovation over Malthus. Book
• The Birth of Plenty - William Bernstein. On the history of prosperity that we now often take for granted. Book
• It’s Getting Better all the Time - Stephen Moore. Shows how the US has seen more progress in the 20th Century than the world in all centuries combined. Book
• Jason Crawford Fireside Chat - Foresight Institute. A fireside chat on the history of progress and why we need a new philosophy to continue our ascent. Main ideas also as BigThink article. Video‍
• 23 charts and maps that show how the world is getting much, much better. - Vox. Graphs showing the positive trajectory of civilization. Article

Long-termism: Exploring A Long Road Ahead

• The Last Human, The Final Border - Kurzgesagt. Explainer videos on the long-term future. Video
• Long-term Trajectories of Human Civilization - Seth Baum. Explores various scenarios of human evolution shaped by technological progress. Academic paper
• Astronomical Waste - Nick Bostrom. On what we give up with each minute we delay exploring the universe. Academic paper
• What is At Stake - Robin Hanson. On how much of the future universe humans can influence. Forum/blog-post 
• Why The Long-run Future Matters More Than Anything Else - Robert Wiblin. An easy-to-grasp case for caring about the long-term future of humanity. Forum/blog-post 
• The Case for Long-termism - Hilary Greaves, William MacAskill. A longer philosophical case for long-termism. Academic paper
• How to Help People Millions of Years From Now - Dylan Matthews. On what we can possibly do now that may have a positive impact on the distant future. Forum/blog-post 
• Taking the Long View - Stewart Brand. Essay on the advantages of the long-term view. Forum/blog-post  
• Long-termism: Potential Research Priorities - Forethought Foundation. Overview of long-termist research priorities. Forum/blog-post 
• Roadmap for the Most Important Century - Holden Karnofksy. On why this century is exceptionally important for the long-term future and how to navigate this crucial time. Forum/blog-post 
• Starships and Tokens: The Map - Trent McConaghy. Blog post on building a tokenizable roadmap to drive long-term technological progress. Forum/blog-post 
• Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur. Youtube channel. Especially the playlists "Becoming an Interplanetary Species", "Generation Ships & Interstellar Colonization", "Post Scarcity Civilizations" and "Civilizations at the End of Time". Video
• Cosmological Koans - Anthony Aguirre. Zen-style vignettes about the cosmos and our life within it. Book‍
• The Index - Google doc. Indexes long-termist science-heavy ideas and resources. Forum/blog-post

Utopias: Dreaming Big

• World-building Contest - Future of Life Institute. Contest on building positive future scenarios enabled by AI, including timelines, short stories and media pieces. Website/Blog
• Deep Utopia - Nick Bostrom. Examines life and meaning in a solved, utopian world. Book
• Existential Hope Worldbuilding program - Explore worldbuilds showcasing innovative and positive visions of a world with advanced AI in 2045 designed to inspire a hopeful future. Website/Blog.
• Value Drift & Paretotropia | Robin Hanson & Mark Miller - Foresight Institute. On how, in the face of value diversity, it is desirable to strengthen civilization’s tendency to enable pareto-preferred interactions. Video
• Paretotopian Goal Alignment - Eric Drexler. On how radical economic growth enabled by technological progress may increasingly support pareto-preferred cooperation and goal alignment in the future. Forum/blog-post 
• Posts on Raikoth, Archipelago & Atomic Communitarianism - Scott Alexander. A series of blog posts on a rationalist, AI-enabled utopia, and a post on a fictional society defined by a diversity of value-aligned communities that co-exist peacefully. Forum/blog-post 
• The Adventure: A New Utopia Story - Stuart Armstrong. A longer blog post novella on a utopia where people would actually like to live. Sci-fi content
• Protopia - Kevin Kelly. Kelly introduces the concept of protopia, a state of incremental progress where small, continuous improvements—like advances in civil rights, democracy, and human welfare—collectively shape a better future. He contrasts this with utopian ideals, emphasizing slow, steady advancements over time. Forum/blog-post 
• Future Imperfect - David Friedman. A realistic future scenario informed by economics, law, and history that is defined by things gradually improving. Forum/blog-post 
• Post-Scarcity Civilizations & Cognitive Enhancement | Anders Sandberg - Foresight Institute. On a future step for civilization that is defined by technology-enabled post-scarcity. Video
• The Fun Sequence, especially Why Eutopia is Scary, Building Weirdtopia - Eliezer Yudkowsky. “This world was ridiculous, and it was going to wake up the neighbors.” Forum/blog-post 
• Letter from Utopia - Nick Bostrom. Bostrom imagines a future Utopia where concepts like tragedy, suffering, and death persist in subtle, redefined forms, reflecting the remnants of a pre-utopian world. Through poetic contrasts, he explores the philosophical nuances of an ideal society and humanity’s responsibility for its delayed creation. Sci-fi content
• Characterizing Utopia - Richard Ngo. Characterized utopia according to factors affecting individual lives, relationship with others, humanity over all, and contentious changes. Forum/blog-post 
• Utopia Links, Visualizing Utopia - Holden Karnofsky. Selected links and visualizations on utopia. Content list
• Dear Alice - The Line. Solarpunk yogurt commercial clip. Video
• Utopia - Tyler Alterman. Pinterest board on utopias. Website/Blog
• Floating Worlds - Robert McCall. Oldie but goldie space opera art. Visuals/Art
• Why Beautiful Things Make Us Happy - Kurzgesagt. Explainer video on the role of beauty in human lives. Video‍
• Imaginary Worlds tweet - Edgar Dubourg. Tweet thread on why humans recently started enjoying imaginary utopian worlds. Misc.

Transhumanism & Cosmism: Diving into Futurisms

• My techno-optimism - Vitalik Buterin. On defense accelerationism and differential technology development. Forum/blog-post 
• Transhumanist Values - Nick Bostrom. On global security, technological progress, wide access and derivative values required to explore the posthuman realm. Forum/blog-post 
• Transhumanist Resources - Anders Sandberg. Introducing transhumanism through the individual, global, cultural, technological, and organizational spheres. Forum/blog-post 
• An Anarchist-Transhumanist Declaration - Kris Notaro. Google doc that combines the principles of anarchism with the principles of transhumanism. Forum/blog-post  
• The Extropian Principles - Max More. On boundless expansion, self-transformation, dynamic optimism, intelligent technology, and spontaneous order as defining pillars of the extropian mission. Forum/blog-post 
• Extropy Magazine - Archive containing digital versions of all extropian magazine editions. Website/Blog
• How the Extropian Quest for Digital Cash Secured Our Tips to the Stars - Aaron van Wirdum. Revisits the role of the extropian community in building the cryptocommerce of today. Article
• An Archaeological Dig Through The Extropian Archives – Maxwell Tabarrok. Explores the intellectual roots and ideas of the Extropians, a group influential in forming online communities around several conceptual domains like AI, existential risk, and cryptocurrencies. Forum/blog-post 
• The Russian Cosmists - George Young. History of ideas and key thinkers in cosmism. Book
• A Cosmist Manifesto - Ben Goertzel. Inspired by the Russian cosmists, this manifesto covers exotic futures defined by AI, nanotechnology, uploading, immortality, and other developments. Manifesto
• The Terrapunk Manifesto - Nasjaq. From steampunk to cyberpunk to solarpunk to terrapunk. Manifesto
• Cosmism Foundation - Cosmism Foundation Youtube channel. Recordings of talks from the cosmism conference. Video
• Panel with Peter Thiel, Aubrey De Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky - Singularity Summit Youtube channel. Conference recording focused on the role of individual proactivity in shaping the singularity. Video
• The Singularity is Near, Singularity Q&A - Ray Kurzweil. Early classic on an AI-fueled singularity, and a shorter Q&A on main themes in the book. Book
• Hopepunk and Solarpunk - Alyssa Hull. An intro to hopepunk and solarpunk. Forum/blog-post 
• Nine Subgenres to Help You Understand the Future - Jay Owens. Reviews alternative futurisms, including Chinese Sci-Fi, Afrofuturism, Gulf Futurism, Climate Fiction, Solarpunk, Water Crisis Thrillers, Kitchen Sink Dystopia, Woke Space Opera, The New Weird. Forum/blog-post 
• Flame Wars - Mark Dery. A historical account of cyberpunk futures. Forum/blog-post ‍
• The World’s Fair Gallery - Art riffing off previous world fairs to create world fair posters about the future. Visuals/Art

Sci-Fi: Fuelled by Imagination

• Hieroglyph - Ed Finn, Kathryn Cramer. A collection of distinctively positive sci-fi stories authored by major sci-fi writers. Sci-fi content 
• Better Worlds - The Verge. Animated sci-fi video stories focused on positive futures. Video
• Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang. A beautifully written collection of surrealist, wonder-inducing sci-fi stories, especially the story “Understand”. Sci-fi content 
• The Last Question - Isaac Asimov. A hopeful novella about solving the final problem we must face. Sci-fi content 
• The Gentle Seduction - Marc Stiegler. On love and identity across time. Sci-fi content 
• The Finale of the Ultra Multi Mega Crossover - Eliezer Yudkowsky. A rationalist sci-fi novel focusing on the very far-future. Sci-fi content 
• The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov. Asimov’s seven book-strong sci-fi collection. Sci-fi content 
• Accelerando - Charles Stross. On post-singularitarian life shaped by AI and molecular nanotechnology. Sci-fi content 
• The Culture Series - Ian Banks. A seven book-strong series. “The Player of Games” is especially good. Sci-fi content 
• Eight Unusual Science Fiction Plots - Paul Christiano. Summarizes interesting sci-fi story devices. Forum/blog-post
• Sci-fi Stories that Imagine a Future Africa - Nnedi Okorafor. One of Afrofuturism’s most popular authors discusses the genre. Sci-fi content ‍
• The Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition - Ed Regis. Early sci-fi book on artificial life, space engineering, and mind-uploading. Sci-fi content