Recently, my regular contributions to the Lifeboat Foundation surpassed $1,000. I am the 11th highest contributor to the organization as of September 2007, tied together with fellow members Philippe Van Nevervelde and Michael Dickey. I’m a member of the LF500, committing $1,000 each year to the Lifeboat Foundation.

Consider the amount of delicious food and electronic gadgets one might buy with $1,000. Since a shrimp, my favorite food, goes for about 25 cents, I could’ve bought approximately 4,000 shrimp with that money, and cooked them in a variety of ways.

But yet, I contributed to the Lifeboat Foundation instead. This is because I see a significant probability that humanity will wipe itself out in the next few decades, through abuse or misuse of advanced technologies such as genetic engineering, molecular manufacturing, and AI, and actually want to do something about it. I doubt that world governments or NGOs are going to put serious work towards alleviating the risks before it’s too late, so therefore we must found our own organization, and put our own resources, knowledge, and contacts into it. And there is a convenient organization already established for this purpose — the Lifeboat Foundation.

Last year, at Boston.com, in “An urgent cause for philanthropy”, Ralph Kaplan and Harvey Silverglate wrote:

“American philanthropy, in the news lately due to huge donations to wealthy foundations devoted to worthy causes, is nonetheless missing a critical opportunity to turn the private sector’s attention to the most urgent threat to human life. As the pace of scientific and technological developments continues to accelerate, the potential for enormous benefits is coupled with the potential for far more severe — indeed, lethal — costs.

While eradicating disease, creating humanlike robots, and harnessing the uses of nanotechnology could all lessen human suffering, their development could also lead to our demise, something that the leaders of American philanthropy seem not to fully appreciate.

The focus of American philanthropy should shift to reflect the severity of this threat.”

I am not wealthy enough to be what they call a “philanthropist”, but I believe that organizations can get off the ground through donations by middle-class people, which is presumably what most of you are. If we all give a little bit, substantial progress can be made. 100 people giving $1000 a year, approximately 1-3% of the salary of a typical full-time worker in the developed world, results in $100,000 a year for an organization, which is enough to do a tremendous amount of good — funding studies and grants, distributing thousands of pamphlets and papers on x-risks, organizing conferences and dinners, attracting hundreds of thousands of website visitors, contributing to multimedia productions… it might not be at the level of Amnesty International (which only has a $55 million budget, by the way), but it’s the seed for further growth and attention. Humanity needs an organization devoted to fighting existential risk, and now that we have one, our responsibility is to grow it.

A couple days ago, Tom McCabe wrote, “I propose that every transhumanist organization which relies upon donations should put some percentage of the money, say 10%, towards something which is near-term, simple, and obviously beneficial. Some sort of easily understood benefit is necessary to get non-transhumanists to donate, and even experienced transhumanists would probably donate more if the money went to something concrete. After all, even if transhumanism is the best thing since sliced bread, there’s no guarantee any particular organization is actually helping the Cause ™.”

Although the Lifeboat Foundation is not really a transhumanist organization, its main base of donors and contributors does seem to be primarily transhumanists, who take the risks of advanced technology more seriously than the mainstream. I’m proud to say that the LF is doing something that is near-term, simple, and pretty obviously beneficial — we’re sponsoring an electromagnetic launch competition at the upcoming Wirefly X-Prize Cup, at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, being held October 26-28. This is to encourage massively cheaper launch technology, for the purpose of getting serious orbital colonies up as soon as possible. A self-sustaining space colony would be able to dodge many of the planetary disasters which could befall our fledgling Earthbound civilization.

The Lifeboat Foundation’s goal for the future is not to be primarily an insular organization, using in-house talent, but a grant-issuing agency that can delegate funds to those researchers doing work most valuable to lowering a particular form of human extinction risk. For example, a goal is to issue grants to Robert Freitas, who is doing studies of the possibility of using “thermal censorship” to combat future risks involving self-replicating robotics. Anyone can submit a grant proposal here.

Several high-profile people have either joined the LF500 or donated $10,000 and over: Ray Kurzweil, who needs no introduction, Jaan Tallinn, a co-founder of Skype, Jack Halpern, CEO of the CJK Dictionary Institute, one of world’s prime sources for CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) dictionaries, and Jason Matheny, a founder of New Harvest, an organization devoted to creating meat substitutes.

The Lifeboat Foundation is humanity’s personal shield against human extinction risk. If we make it through this century alive, the LF will be able to claim some of the credit. In the last year, our reports have been linked to or posted by outlets such as Instapundit, KurzweilAI.net, and the front page of Digg. People actually care about what the LF has to say. As the organization evolves, it’ll be publishing more reports, of the highest quality possible, and using them as conversation pieces in our engagement with scientists, policymakers, and the media.

Here is an overview of some of the Foundation’s recent accomplishments/plans:

  • Lifeboat Foundation NanoShield published on KurzweilAI.net
  • Sponsoring an electromagnetic launch competition at the upcoming X-Prize Cup in New Mexico
  • Producing a professional-quality documentary on existential risk, tentatively titled “Safeguarding Humanity”.
  • Giving presentations and distributing literature at relevant conferences, such as Transvision 2007, where our Spokesperson gave a well-received talk.
  • David Brin, award-winning science fiction and non-fiction author, has announced that the Lifeboat Foundation will be the topic of his next book.
  • Numerous traffic spikes in the last year, due to links from Digg and Instapundit, among others.
  • A steadily growing collection of well-trafficked reports by Lifeboat Foundation staff and advisors
  • Interviews with leaders in nanotechnology, synthetic biology and more.
  • Raised $23,000 in contributions in the last four months alone.
  • Our current fund plans are available here.

The Lifeboat Foundation has been doing great in the past few months. Help it maintain momentum! Become a member today, and join the fight against existential risk! As a membership-based organization, everyone’s input and suggestions are valued. By donating any amount at all, you are sending a statement to the community that you care about this effort and want to see it succeed. All donors are listed on the donor pages.