Could you say a bit more about what specific niche you think this book would fill, why already existing books do not meet that need, and who the specific target audience is?
1
Write and publish an e-book advocating for longtermism and sentientism.
Not fundedImpact certificate
$0raised
$48,000valuation
Longer description of your proposed project
"How can we build an awesome civilization for all sentient life, and ensure it will be (even more) awesome in the future?" This book will look at the big problem we face - e.g. poverty, climate change, AI takeover, the threat of nuclear war, but also the exploitation of animals - and look at ambitious ideas on how to solve them, including UBI, futarchy and promoting a plant-based diet. The abolishment of slavery will be discussed too: what can we learn from this moral victory today? I will discuss how Game Theory and Decision Theory lie at the core of many of our problems, and argue that theoretical solutions can be found in these fields (superrationality/Functional Decision Theory). Interesting problems like Newcomb's Problem, Parfit's Hitchhiker and others will play a role here. I will also speculate on what the future of sentient life could be: we might spread to the stars, and the book will discuss ideas (like Project Orion and space tethers) on how we might achieve this. This raises the question of whether space settlement is a good idea, as it could increase the probability of S-risks. Furthermore, we'll look at what each of us can do - individually and together - to build a better world for (future) sentient life.
None of this is grounded without a discussion on what morality is. Why is human extinction bad? Why is the exploitation of animals bad? The book will dive into these questions as well, and discuss problems like the Repugnant Conclusion and the Survival Lottery.
The idea here is to inspire. I believe we as a civilization can do much better: we can lower poverty rates, we can abolish animal abuse (or at least strongly diminish it), we can fight climate change, lower the odds of nuclear war, etc. Much of our problems are a choice - by civilization(s) as a whole. As it is individuals that make up these civilization(s), I aim to inspire them to make decisions that benefit civilization.
As a side note, I plan to create drawings for this ebook myself, as I have some experience there as well.
Describe why you think you're qualified to work on this
In 2021, while working as a software developer, I realized I wanted do be closer to AI Research. I started blogging about MIRI's research (specifically Functional Decision Theory), which has led MIRI to give me a $100,000 grant to pursue this activity full-time. As such, I have blogged a lot about FDT and math/science in general. As a result, my knowledge in these areas has expanded, but perhaps more importantly, my ability to explain complicated subjects has grown a lot.
Other ways I can learn about you
You can find my blog here: https://medium.com/@heindehaan.Much of it is currently behind a paywall, but I can share specific posts on request. This long post about (Functional) Decision Theory (one of my best in my opinion) is free to read: https://medium.com/p/79eade5e084a.
How much money do you need?
$48000 - $96000. Ideally, I would like to work on this ebook for 2 years ($96000), to produce a long, detailed work on longtermism and sentientism. But in 1 year ($48000), I could also write something good - it would just be less long and detailed.
Links to any supporting documents or information
Estimate your probability of succeeding if you get the amount of money you asked for
Pretty high, I'd say 90%. There's always a chance this project fails, but given my blogging history I should be able to write this ebook.
Hein de Haan
8 months ago
Hi @Jason,
Thanks for your question!
This book is targeted at people who are looking for purpose from a scientific perspective, and as such, will focus on morality from a (suffering-focused) perspective of sentient well-being: this gives many important problems (such as climate change or the suffering in factory farming) many of us can help alleviate. This isn't new, but I believe the combination of sentientism and longtermism with ideas like Functional Decision Theory is unique. Furthermore, the focus on S-risk over X-risk (though both are incredibly important) puts a different perspective on space colonization than the one that's usually popularized by e.g. Elon Musk (where space colonization is seen as an obviously good thing given that it can reduce X-risk).
Does this answer your questions?
Jason
8 months ago
@Hein Thanks, I think it does. After some further reflection, I don't think I have enough background and expertise about what's out there to evaluate the chances this would fill an important void, including the extent to which the specific combination here would improve over someone reading other materials on sentientism, longtermism, FDT, and S-risks (some of which incorporates 2 or maybe even 3 of them, even if the combo of all four in one book would be unique). So I'll leave this one for others. Thanks again for the response!
🐶
Jacy Reese Anthis
8 months ago
I'm quite uncertain about this project, in part because there are so many ways in which a book like this could be written, produced, and shared. However, while I have no prior knowledge of de Haan's work, their MIRI grant and presentation of the proposal passes my gut check for a high-variance creative project like a book.
I appreciate that the author is focused on longtermism and sentientism and that they have an interest in FDT. I wouldn't be too excited about a more generic pitch for such a wide-ranging book, but I think with particular angles like these, it could be more unique and promising. On the other hand, I expect a successful book to usually have a clearer vision and pitch for that uniqueness at the current stage of this project.
I don't have a good sense of what sort of publication is being targeted, and my prior for the success of a self-published book without a significant author platform or exceptionally creative marketing strategy is quite low. I also think two years (even one year) is a long time to write a successful book like this, at least unless there is a lot of original research (e.g., travel, interviews).
I'd be more excited about a smaller grant to develop the idea further and explore alternative strategies like a highly targeted and themed blog, newsletter, forum post sequence, or social media presence. I see my tiny impact certificate offer primarily as a skin-in-the-game upvote for this direction.
Hein de Haan
8 months ago
Hi @Jacy,
First of all, thanks so much for your offer! I also want to thank you explicitly for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment. I'll try to reply to your thoughts below.
"I appreciate that the author is focused on longtermism and sentientism and that they have an interest in FDT. I wouldn't be too excited about a more generic pitch for such a wide-ranging book, but I think with particular angles like these, it could be more unique and promising. On the other hand, I expect a successful book to usually have a clearer vision and pitch for that uniqueness at the current stage of this project."
Thank you. Part of the goal of this book is to teach subjects that are little known and yet important. One of these subjects is FDT, another is S-risks. I believe discussing S-risks is particularly important as it seems many people believe colonizing space is a good idea as it lowers X-risk without considering it could increase S-risk. Humanity needs to get clear on how to build a moral civilization first (and act on that), and then colonize space. That's where sentientism and longtermism (and effective altruism, even though I didn't mention it in the pitch) come in, and they form the main theme of this book. Everything else flows from there. I hope this makes my vision a bit more clear, and believe the uniqueness of this book will come from the combination of sentientism, longtermism (including X-risk and S-risk) and FDT.
"I don't have a good sense of what sort of publication is being targeted, and my prior for the success of a self-published book without a significant author platform or exceptionally creative marketing strategy is quite low. I also think two years (even one year) is a long time to write a successful book like this, at least unless there is a lot of original research (e.g., travel, interviews)."
One good way to publish this book would simply be on Medium, either as one long post or multiple chapters in one publication: I have a following on Medium (>800 at the moment), and Medium curators may even "boost" the post (or some of the chapters) to reach more people. Additionally, publishing this as an ebook could be useful as well, as it would have a bit more credibility.
"I'd be more excited about a smaller grant to develop the idea further and explore alternative strategies like a highly targeted and themed blog, newsletter, forum post sequence, or social media presence. I see my tiny impact certificate offer primarily as a skin-in-the-game upvote for this direction."
I get this, but I do see this as one large, unified project: all concepts - sentientism, longtermism, FDT - come together in one philosophy which I like to call Timeless sentientism.
I hope I've made things a bit more clear with this reaction. Obviously, feel free to ask me anything!