That’s me, uh, Guardian of Humanity
Last week, out of the blue, I was invited to join the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation. I’m quite flattered to be asked — there are a lot of big names on that list. The Lifeboat Foundation charges itself with the task of safeguarding humanity from existential risks.
I was struck by the number of familiar names on the list of advisors. It really is a small community of global citizens, shock-level-3+, looking to the problems and solutions of the future of humanity. It’s really a largely overlapping list of names from all the other future-oriented organizations like the Methuselah Foundation, the Immortality Institute, the Extropy Institute, the World Transhumanist Association, the Foresight Institute, and the Singularity Institute.
I guess my name popped up in a few of these future-tech places, hence the invitation. I’ve always been fascinated with these big picture concepts. I don’t believe the future is set in stone. The future doesn’t just happen to us — we create it. We have to proactively engineer the future we want. That’s why I’ll be happy to join this group of people in keeping an eye on our existential risks, and helping to develop programs that will concretely address them.
I especially like Anders Sandberg’s creative series of Warning Signs for tomorrow.
I can’t think of a better place for you. Do your thing.
Wow! Congratulations, Aaron. Being Canadian, it’s a double honour. JD 🙂