The Foundation

To help humanity recover from existential risks.

Never before in human history has there been time as prosperous and full of potential as the present. And never before has there been so much peril for humanity and civilization as a whole. While existential risks like total nuclear war and catastrophic climate change may appear relatively small in any given year, those small risks add up to a disturbingly significant chance of civilizational collapse within the next 100 or 200 years. While it seems probable that humanity and modern civilization would eventually recover from all but the most extreme and improbable events (such as an massive asteroid collision), unfortunately there remains a significant risk that, after a extreme disruption to civilization, humanity could fall into an unrecoverable downward spiral in progress, possibly ending in complete extinction. Of course we should do everything we can to prevent existential risks from materializing, but given how much is at stake —the entire future of humanity-–it seems prudent to prepare in advance for worst case scenarios, and help ensure the recovery of humanity and its progress. Think of it as "insurance for humanity". Even if the overall risk of these scenarios seems small, we believe it's worth paying a very high premium to ensure our survival.

The primary mission of The Foundation for Life, aka "The Foundation" is to prepare for worst case scenarios. We do this through research, development, strategic investment, as well as encouraging and participating in the stockpiling of critical technology, materials, and knowledge in centers that will increase the chances of, and ideally nearly fully ensure, the recovery of humanity from all but the most extreme disruptions to modern civilization. Specifically, we envision helping to build multiple redundant caches of key resources, thereby enabling the development of self-sufficient communities of people that are resilient enough to withstand major disruptions such as nuclear war. Furthermore, we will work to ensure that these communities are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to rebuild civilization.

The Foundation has a secondary mission which is closely related to its primary one. In the long run, the only way to truly ensure the future of humanity is to expand beyond planet Earth, as only then will humans as a species have the redundancy necessary to withstand even extreme events like asteroid collisions. Note also that many people believe that a future in which humans colonize space is inherently better than one in which it is left potentially devoid of life. It turns out that many of the same technologies, resources, and strategies that are needed to rebuild civilization are the same ones that are needed to colonize the solar system and the galaxy. Therefore, in the happy future in which no existential risks materialize before we have the technology to successfully colonize space, our work still serves a very positive purpose. It allows for the ultimate solution to our peril, which in turn unleashes the awesome potential of humanity throughout the solar system and beyond.