Disclaimer: My views constantly change as I learn more about the world and I will be periodically updating this piece.
While I haven’t done much in my life thus far, at the moment I feel very privileged to dream and to try and manifest my vision of the future with my own blood, sweat, and tears over the course of my life. It might be incredibly naive or stupid to believe that this is at all possible, but I am willing to dedicate my life to that proposition. As of 2023, the average Chinese American male will live to approximately 87 years old. So barring any breakthroughs in longevity science, apocalyptic nuclear holocausts, and a broken heart, I will die around the year 2090. Setting aside discussions of technique and method to achieve my goals, this paper will serve as a personal record of my vision.
What is your personal vision of the future? What would you like to see exist?
I would like to see everyone be awesome.
I strongly desire a world full of beautiful builders. Of dreamers. Of scientists. Of creatives. As of this moment, I see AI, along with a slew of other magic, as a great multiplier of our creativity and ability to problem solve and new knowledge creation as the final frontier for human development.
“But Zeke, most people aren’t problem-solvers or creatives. Those only exist on X or Corners of the Internet or on the Joe Rogan Podcast” I hear you say.
I don’t see any reason why this must be the case.
- Culture is downstream of technology. I have seen a generation of minds ruined by consuming passive, inundating content from screens, this can change. Also the medium is the message.
- We were all kids once and were certainly capable of the intrinsic curiosity and disobedience required for creativity.
- If caring is a superpower and nothing is intrinsically difficult , then given the right systems design and technological advancements, everyone is fully capable of realizing their individual genius. If the 20th century was about lifting people out of poverty, then the 21st will be about liberating souls mired in poorly designed systems and burdened by overwhelming physical and mental costs of living.
Technologies
I think of myself less of a technological optimist and more of a human optimist. Here are a few, very broad questions I’m going to explore (not all at once) over the course of my life:
- why are healthcare systems and medicine in general slow to innovate? can we do better and cause less needless suffering?
- COVID almost just reset civilization and exposed our institutional incompetence, we were incredibly lucky it wasn’t more fatal among younger adults, how are we going to improve our biodefense so that it never happens again?
- can we enhance our biology (polygenic gene editing, iterative mitosis, bioelectricity, BCIs, etc.)?
- why can’t anyone be a scientist/builder/artist/creative?
- why isn’t the cost of energy zero dollars?
- why isn’t the cost of intelligence zero dollars?
- how do we cultivate and maintain freedom? of speech? of mind?
- what would an idealized world of energy abundance look like?
- what can we do when the cost of energy shoots to zero?
- what does decentralization of atoms actually mean/imply?
Miscellaneous Goals
- build a public laboratory (Thomas Edison style) / modern incarnation of a library / free compute/hardware makerspace that everyone can use. This would require me to get quite rich…
- find a wife. This would require me to get quite rich…
- have at least 4 children
- learn to draw
- learn to create my own melodies
- find/make good friends
Am I too old?
ehh, maybe. Most of the people I see who have an impact on the world start quite young. Worst case scenario I will have kids and raise them to be great (this is not a joke).
Am I going to try?
fuck yes.