Mission

UP QUOTES

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.”

EO Wilson

We didn’t evolve to flourish

Human hardware and software isn’t designed for flourishing, especially in 21st century society. We evolved to hunt and gather and socialize in small tribes. We didn’t evolve to skillfully handle the thousands of interconnected tasks necessary to thrive today. Our ancient biology can’t keep up.

As a consequence, we all misuse an extraordinarily large fraction of our finite time and resources. We procrastinate, we self-deceive, we take bad bets, we focus on unimportant things, etc. The list goes on. Meanwhile billions around the world suffer unnecessarily and we have put ourselves at risk of extinction.

We need to change this.

Advancing human flourishing

As a society we have yet to invent a solution to human flourishing. We don’t have a scientific understanding of how to help all people live the lives they most want to live.

This a very active research question, with millions of researchers, entrepreneurs, and practitioners working on parts of the incredibly complex puzzle.

We expect this work to collectively take billions or trillions of person-hours. If you’re interesting in helping, please reach out. Time, capital, connections, insights, feedback–anything you are willing to share is welcome.

Our approach

We tackle human flourishing from a unique synthesis of technology, science, and rationality. We are, in essence, attempting to systematize self-development. In practice, we focus on measurably increasing life goal attainment. The more effective you are, the more you can flourish and help others flourish as well.

We also must pay homage to the unmentioned pioneers who brought us the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and many other transformative movements. Everyone alive today stands on the shoulders of giants. Note we acknowledge these influences on our work, but we certainly do not endorse everything they stand for or advocate. Several we actively criticize.