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

https://medium.com/paradoxology/achilles-the-tortoise-and-the-hotel-exploring-the-infinite-b1f268edf1d3?sk=90423e3d17d75c40e49d6c61f65fb57b

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.