We lack a shared vision for the future.
While humanity inevitably shares a common future, we don’t have agreement on what that future should be.
Our institutions- including our religions, governments, and economies- are meant to get society on the same page. But as we get deeper into the information age, their associated tools- scripture, laws, and free markets- are not enabling humanity to reach an agreement around which future we all want. They are failing.
This failure causes individuals to feel a lack of clarity around their life’s purpose, and it reduces the probability that our species succeeds at our best future.
So how do we create a shared vision of a future that engages and excites humanity? How do we find our path forward?
Does a prophet write something in a new book?
Does a politician pass a new law to push a country towards a brighter tomorrow?
Does an entrepreneur find some untapped demand that unlocks humanity’s potential?
Or is there another option that falls outside the purview of our existing institutions?
Is there a new coordination strategy that we can create to highlight the path forward?
To See What’s Missing, Let’s Look at What’s Already There
Religions, governments, and economies are the big three institutions. They influence our daily lives and collective progress more than any other. Whichever paths forward they highlight are the ones that most of us walk.
While I focus on those three, there are other important coordination systems in our society that fall outside the scope of this writing. Some of those include our education systems, media, and prevailing family structures. While these other systems play critical roles, my view is that they are sub-institutions to our economies, governments, and religions. Happy to debate that another time.
Moving on.
How do religions, governments, and economies accomplish their goals? How do they actually coordinate us?
Each institution has its own symbol that acts as the user interface for engaging with it.
I’ll start with an economy since it’s the most straightforward. Economies use a symbol we call money to incentivize our behavior. Money is meant to symbolize value, and through the pursuit of money we are thereby generating value. Money represents valuable work by using market demand to say “this product or service is valuable and we want more of it because people are willing to pay for it.” I’ve explored how money often doesn’t equal value due to money’s “symbolic error” in a previous post, but for this post, just have in mind that economies use a symbol called money to represent valuable products or services.
Now let’s look to religion. Which symbol does religion use and what does that symbol represent? Religions use god as their symbol. Or nontheist belief systems like Buddhism use states their symbols, like the state of “nirvana.” Either way, these religious symbols represent the divine, or a state of ultimate existential value. There’s nothing beyond a god-like state or nirvana. And through the pursuit of these divine symbols, we lead a meaningful life.
Governments use laws. Laws are symbols that represent good behavior. By creating new laws and enforcing adherence to existing laws, governments have a vast symbolic library that helps society stick to a good path.
Before we look at what’s missing from these institutions and their symbols, it’s worth pointing out that they are highly interconnected entities. For example, religious scripture heavily influenced most governments original laws, and governments heavily influence the state of money (i.e. changing the amount of money in circulation).
Alright, so what’s missing from this picture?
Well, we’re missing a symbol that represents a good theoretical future.
Laws are put into place for “tried and true” behaviors that we “know” are good.
Scripture sets a divine symbol (i.e. god, nirvana) based on what a prophet or small group “knows” to be good.
Money assigns value based on demand, which requires the product or service to exist, or be near enough to existing that people will pay for it.
Our institutions are great for dealing with known quantities, but they do not deal with unknown quantities very well. Since the future is an unknown quantity, we need a different strategy for approaching it.
There are activities that would be good to incentivize for our future that:
Economies miss because people are not willing to pay for them
Governments can’t include in their laws because they don’t have precedence
Religions don’t include in their definition of the divine because they’re experimental
The key type of activity that our institutions fail to include is pursuing projects that could improve our collective future but just as likely could amount to nothing. In the context of our economy, people would call these “risky” projects because it’s likely they don’t return money invested.
VC and Philanthropy
Charitable giving has been part of civilization for thousands of years, and then VC has grown over the past century. We’ve come to rely on venture capital and philanthropy to fill the gap in our institutions by supporting potentially valuable projects that don’t fit within the bounds of what our institutions incentivize.
Venture capitalists fund projects that could improve our collective future but likely would amount to nothing. Through this financial risk taking, VC is a way that the economy has figured out to support collectively valuable work that doesn’t fit within the standard model of supply and demand. However, the VC industry is highly inefficient, leading to many projects not receiving the funding they should and many projects receiving funding that shouldn’t.
Similarly, philanthropy will fund specific not-for-profit projects that could improve our collective future but likely amount to nothing. However, also like VC, philanthropy is highly inefficient.
Part of what makes an economy based on supply and demand powerful is the number of demands being made. In the U.S. we have a diverse group of 330 million people making demands by spending around 14 trillion dollars a year. What a powerful voice that is! A demand base like the United States creates an efficient feedback loop for new products and services that are brought to market.
To compare this 330 million person and $14 trillion demand side of the economy to VC and philanthropy: in the U.S. there are approximately 1,300 VC firms investing $156 billion per year. Then there are 100,000 grantmaking organizations donating around $470 billion per year. That’s $626 billion spent on “risky” projects each year, or roughly 4% of annual consumer spending.
And that number goes down if you take out the $50 billion spent on religious donations each year in the U.S., since religions aren’t typically risky projects aimed at improving the future. It also goes down if you take out the VC investments that go towards copycat products chasing a proven market. Regardless, the U.S. spends a very small percentage of its money and therefore its energy working on improving the future, somewhere in the 2-4% range.
When I think about that number, it feels low. To be clear, we can’t spend 100% of our time working on risky projects for the future because then there’d be no one focused on maintaining the present and all that we’ve already built. However, I suspect that the split between present work and future work should be less skewed than the ~97/3 it currently is.
Accepting that premise, let’s explore how we might be able to shift more of society’s energy towards creating the future and less towards maintaining the present.
What Gets Symbolized Gets Our Attention
It’s easier to symbolize stuff that already exists. If we can clearly see and experience a product, service, type of behavior, or anything really, then turning that thing into a symbol- whether a price, a law, or scripture- is easier.
It’s trickier to symbolize things that don’t exist. Future-focused VCs and philanthropists who support risky projects have to primarily rely on a vision for the outcome they are investing in. It’s that skill of working off of a vision that provides top VCs with huge returns and successful philanthropists with notoriety. Our society heavily values those who can successfully work off of a vision and symbolize it into a price, a law, or scripture.
However, the small amount spent each year on supporting visions demonstrates that either 1) the number of visions that are actually worth spending on is only ~3% of overall spending or 2) we don’t have a scaled system for investing in visions.
While it’s possible that #1 is true, we as a civilization owe it to ourselves to prove that through experimentation, because if there’s even a slim chance we are underinvesting in visions of a better future, we can’t leave that stone unturned. For what it’s worth, I suspect the answer is #2 and we would invest in visions more if we had a better system for doing so.
So what might a system that enables more investment into visions looks like?
Using Simulations to Symbolize the Future
VCs and philanthropists go through similar processes to make a new investment or grant:
Searching to identify opportunities
Conducting due diligence
Making a decision
Structuring the deal/grant
Monitoring post-deal/grant
Currently, these processes are run by people. People search, people diligence, people decide, people negotiate. Once the VC people or the philanthropy people write a check, they’ve turned the project’s vision into a symbol…in this case fiat currency. It’s an awesome and creative process that they are able to create conviction based solely on a vision.
As these VCs and philanthropists run through their investment processes, they are simulating the future using the project at hand as the variable. The difficulty of their job is running that simulation. It’s a skill.
If there was a way to run simulations that brought a project’s vision to life for people who lacked that special skill, would it become possible to help more people gain conviction that a project is worth supporting? The devil is in the details, but if the answer to that question is yes, project simulations might be a path towards allocating a larger percentage of GDP towards visions, creating a better future in the process.
A Simulation Example
Let’s explore what running a simulation of a project vision might actually look like.
To make sure we’re still on the same page: the goal of simulating a vision is to create a symbol that many people can interact with, since the simulation’s run inside the heads of VCs and philanthropists are not scalable UIs.
Alright, so let’s say someone named Hoppity Hope has a vision for a project that could improve our collective future. Let’s say this vision is to create “voice-enabled kitchen appliance add-ons'' that turn your everyday kitchen appliances like ovens, fridges, and dishwashers into personal health aids. We’ll call the product “health kitch.” Hoppity’s vision includes add-ons that are capable of personalizing their interactions to each user. An example interaction could be, “Hello Sam, it looks like you have more packaged items in your fridge this week than produce, maybe next week you can buy some carrots and grapes instead of pre-packaged meals that are high in sodium.”
Alright, so there’s a rough vision. I personally would probably not be an adopter of that vision, but who knows.
To create a better simulation of Hoppity’s vision than the rough words above, let’s turn to AI.
Here’s a prompt for chatgpt: Can you take this vision for a product and make a pitch that a VC would find compelling? [I copy pasted the rough vision from above]
Here’s the response:
Subject: Revolutionizing Health Consciousness with Hoppity's Health Kitch
Dear Esteemed Investor,
I am thrilled to introduce you to a groundbreaking opportunity to invest in Hoppity, an industry trailblazer transforming the landscape of personal health aids through cutting-edge technology.
Hoppity presents a novel product named "Health Kitch" - a collection of voice-enabled kitchen appliance add-ons designed to turn everyday kitchen appliances into personalized health coaches.
Imagine a world where your oven cautions against high sugar intake, a refrigerator that promotes balanced nutrition by nudging you towards fresher produce, or a dishwasher that highlights hygiene's importance for overall well-being. Health Kitch is not just an add-on; it's an evolution of the home environment, primed to usher in a new era of health consciousness.
What sets Health Kitch apart is its ability to personalize interactions for each user, adapting and learning from individual lifestyle patterns. For example, Health Kitch can gently advise a user, let's say Sam, who tends to favor processed meals, to incorporate healthier alternatives into his diet. By providing proactive insights based on the user's dietary habits and lifestyle, these appliances become more than just functional assets - they transform into personal health consultants residing right in your kitchen.
The market potential for Health Kitch is expansive and promising. Standing at the intersection of the burgeoning $135.9 billion smart home industry and the $189.6 billion health and wellness food sector, Health Kitch offers a unique and compelling value proposition.
Investing in Health Kitch is a chance to capitalize on the current surge in health consciousness, preventative healthcare, and the fast-paced adoption of IoT. Our product fills a unique market gap, providing a seamless, user-friendly solution to proactive health management at home.
Our target audience encompasses health-conscious individuals, families pursuing healthier lifestyles, and those with specific dietary requirements. With the escalating demand for healthier living, Health Kitch aims to be the leading choice for households seeking a proactive approach to maintaining a balanced diet.
Your investment will fuel our product development, secure necessary certifications, and bolster our market entry strategy, all aimed at making Health Kitch a household name.
Investing in Hoppity's Health Kitch is more than a financial decision—it’s a commitment to promoting a healthier, smarter future. A future where our kitchens don’t just facilitate food preparation but guide us to healthier lifestyle choices.
Join us in transforming kitchens worldwide into personal health hubs, empowering individuals to make conscious and informed decisions about their health. Together, let's reinvent home cooking and pave the way for a healthier future.
Thank you for considering this opportunity. We welcome the chance to provide additional information and discuss further at your convenience.
Best Regards,
Hoppity
The tone is a little over eager for my taste, but regardless it paints a clearer picture than my original rough outline of the vision.
To continue creating a higher resolution simulation, we then take chatgpt’s description and plug it into midjourney:
While it doesn’t quite nail it since it created an entirely new product vs add-ons, it still gives you a better glimpse into Hoppity’s vision.
Then we can go to RunwayML to generate a video showing Hoppity’s vision. I included the picture above for the AI to work off of along with the prompt “This woman is interacting with the product to eat healthier in her kitchen.”
All of this took me about 15 minutes to create a simulation of Hoppity’s vision that is much easier to visualize. And now that we have a simulation of the vision in hand, we can use it to gain support from a larger audience of people than just the VCs and philanthropists who possess the special skill of creating their own simulations.
Keep in mind that this rough demonstration is made with generative AI tools in their early days. As gen AI tools develop over the next few years, it will become even easier to create way more compelling and accurate simulations of even more complex visions.
For example, imagine creating an engaging feature length film that brings to life a project vision just by using a combination of LLMs and video generators to create the story, dialogue, characters, and the film itself. Then after the audience watches this film, they not only enjoyed 2 hours of entertainment but can now choose to support the vision promoted in the film with their wallets or attention.
Or imagine creating a 3D rendering of a physical product just by prompting a generative AI tool.
Or imagine creating an entire virtual world that includes the new vision to let people experience it in a digital environment. It would be like The Sims for experiencing possible futures.
These are just a few ways that simulations will bring visions to life.
A Marketplace of Simulations
This not-too-distant future where almost every vision can be cheaply turned into a realistic and easy to comprehend simulation means visions can be consumed by a wide audience, not just the small group of VCs and philanthropists who are able to generate their own simulations.
In this world, we would unlock visions of the future that die inside peoples’ heads and allow a much wider audience to support our future.
A marketplace of simulations would let people browse various additions to the future, support them, provide feedback, and ultimately enable a wider audience to become an active participant in our shared story. Perhaps we would even find a shared vision for the future along the way.
This was a fun read. LTSE another means of financing long-term bets. In general, the "future" is unevenly distributed for a number of reasons. AI may help make ideas for the future more realistic, yet unclear if that's really a root systemic problem to progress.
In general, progress is hard for all the reasons you mentioned - venture capital wins when non-obvious futures that end up being right. Philanthropy wins when lives are improved by whichever standard.