A blog
10/18/2023
Yes, last year I was ripping off Asimov, sue me and enjoy the short story.
You have now finished your time at the foundation. Continue your life as a child of progress.
Let me tell you a story about progress, technology, and ideology. Inspired by Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, or at least a story how we can create it today.
If you need a song to listen to this while you read, here you go. Sit back and enjoy.
In the Atlantic Ocean, not too far from Miami, there exists a massive platform. To the unforeseen eye, it looks much like an oil rig. This is a place without regulation, a place based on consent.
Experiments that would not be allowed anywhere else are conducted there, humans are being genetically altered. Superhumans are being created and failures often occur. Despite this, 2 years ago it cured cancer. The humans who are experimented on have insurance and are legally required to sign consent forms before each experiment. Some die, that’s the way it is.
Technology is accelerated here. AI has been heavily regulated in the United States and EU, this is the refuge. Last year it solved AGI. The place is filled with drones, wires, microchips, and self-driving vehicles. Some technology malfunctions, but the majority does not.
The people who live here are young and without kids, they work 24/7 on building what they believe is creating tomorrow. They are the best in the world at what they do and are pressured heavily to work harder. Leaving this job and going back to the mainland is heavily rewarded, and most of them stay.
This is the foundation, it is a beacon of progress. It builds the future, it accelerates the betterment of the human condition. The majority do not see it, the majority do not visit. A small pseudo religion (or cult as some call it) is formed around the foundation, people who leave the foundation are designated a child of progress.
If the foundation should resolve is a hot-button political issue, depending on who you asked it could either be utopia or dystopia.
The foundation is completely privately funded. Every young startup dreams of becoming part of the foundation. These are the best of the best they say. They create the future. The foundation is ruled by an aristocratic class, as a matter of fact, it is a company. If this company does not create a culture of progress, they die, as well as the progress they help muster.
The president of the foundation is well known. Who is on the board is a mystery. What political ideology they subscribe to is unknown, some are thought to be libertarians, trans-humanists, globalists, and post-Marxists.
The right and left run rampant with conspiracy theories. The foundation gives a playground for the companies, all breakthroughs happen there, trillions are invested each year, and a mysterious class runs it. The only thing they disagree on is the race of the leaders of the foundation.
Nonetheless, each year the foundation selects 20 companies to work on the platform every five years. Those who do not perform in the eyes of the board get kicked out, and new startups take their place.
Every engineer and researcher who leaves is easily given high positions in companies and institutions. Many of them miss the drive and energy of the foundation. The sleepless nights, the night out with friends, the feeling of purpose. Many of them see it as the best years of their life.
The majority of engineers wish they could work for the foundation, the bar is very high. It is easier to become the president of the United States than it is to work for the foundation.
What the foundation gives them is hope. The foundation drives people to work harder, to innovate. For all the breakthroughs the foundation has given it has done more to inspire companies outside of it than inside. The drive to build creates a domino effect around society. It has created a better standard of living for everyone.
With an AI mentor and partner by your side, you are able to help yourself motivate, you balance life better, you work harder, and you are happier.
With your new printer, you are able to live in a post-consumerist world. You can easily print a phone and a new car part, right in your garage.
With the open-source genes, you can cure whatever occurs to you. Last month your kid got cancer, the only troubling part was the 15-minute drive to collect the gene to cure it.
You live in a society very different from that of 15 years ago, back when the foundation started. You are not an engineer, you could barely tell how any of it works. And to be frank much of this was not built on the foundation, many of the small incremental improvements occurred elsewhere. The only thing the foundation was designed to do, the only thing it ever wanted to do was accelerate. This is what it had achieved, acceleration of prosperity. Accelerate progress.
May the foundation live long and prosper.