0. START HERE: The Book & Book Club

The Book 

Welcome to this living book and book club about technologies for intelligent voluntary cooperation by Allison Duettmann, Mark S. Miller, and Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute.

Gaming the Future: Technologies for Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

Opportunities for bright futures enabled by bio, nano, and computing technologies are now within our reach. Their proliferation also comes with risks and authoritarian attempts at control. We explore how technologies of intelligent voluntary cooperation can help us navigate the traps. Cryptocommerce enables decentralized, secure cooperation across humans – and AIs. This unlocks Paretotropian futures of high technology in which valuing entities can pursue their highest function through iterative play.

Short-cuts to the chapters in this book:

1. FOREWORD | What's at Stake in This Game?

2. OVERVIEW | What to Expect From This Game

3. MEET THE PLAYERS | Value Diversity

4. SKIM THE MANUAL | Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation

5. IMPROVE COOPERATION | New Info, Money, Rights, Contracts, Privacy

6. GENETIC TAKEOVER | Cryptocommerce

7. DEFEND AGAINST PHYSICAL THREATS | Multipolar Active Shields

8. DEFEND AGAINST CYBER THREATS | Computer Security

9. WELCOME NEW PLAYERS | Artificial Intelligences

10. ITERATE THE GAME | Racing Where?

We hope you find interest in critiquing and augmenting the ideas by commenting. This book, like a good game, is here to be iterated and improved for the next round.

The Book Club: Schedule and Guests

As a free subscriber, you’ll receive a free digital book. We look forward to your comments to breathe life into it, like contributing to our Gitcoin bounties!

As a paid subscriber, you receive invitations to Gaming the Future Book Club meetings, running weekly throughout May and June on Sundays, 11 am PT. (Except for May 14, which meets on a Saturday). In the Book Club, we’ll discuss the ideas in the book, chapter by chapter, live with the authors and other like minds. Below is a list of the exciting keynote guests you’ll be meeting, whose talks are featured throughout the digital book:

Sunday, May 1: Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute, Mark S. Miller, Agoric, Allison Duettmann, Foresight Institute

Sunday, May 8: Robin Hanson, George Mason University

Saturday, May 14: David Friedman, Author of Legal Systems Very Different from Ours

Sunday, May 22: Kate Sills, Independent Software Engineer, Paul Gebheim, Forecast Foundation

Sunday, May 29: Primavera De Filippi, Koala, Arthur Breitman, Tezos

Sunday, June 5: David Brin, Author of Transparent Society

Sunday, June 12: Gernot Heiser, SeL4

Sunday, June 19: Trent McConaghy, Ocean Protocol

Sunday, June 26: Stuart Armstrong, Future of Humanity Institute

Founding members will receive a special edition physical version of the book, in addition to book club membership.

We look forward to being in touch in the coming weeks, and to hosting a lively exchange with our readers and the community!

Thank you!

We would like to thank members of our Foresight’s Intelligent Cooperation Group for shaping this book into what it is through our 2021 seminars:

• Robin Hanson, George Mason University | Value Drift

• Balaji S. Srinivasan, 1729 | The Network State

• Vernon Smith, Chapman University | Theory of Price Discovery in Markets 

• Andrew McAfee, MIT | Civilizational Progress 

• Tyler Cowen, George Mason University | Stubborn Attachments

• Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Digital Minister | Tools for Openness

• Chris Hibbert, Anthony Aguirre, Martin Koeppelmann, Paul Gebheim, Robin Hanson | Prediction & Replication Markets

• Christine Lemmer-Webber, and Randy Farmer | Re-Decentralizing Networked Communities

• Kate Sills, Independent Software Engineer | NFTs and Engineering Property Rights

• Arthur Breitman, Tezos | Blockchain Governance 

• Marc Stiegler, Sci-Fi author | The Digital Path

• Chip Morningstar, Meng Weng, Federico Ast | Split Contracts, Computational Law & Decentralized Arbitration 

• Matan Field, Esteban Ordano, Jazear Brooks, Tyler Golato, Patrick Joyce | DAOs

• Glen Weyl, RadicalxChange | Social Technology for a Political Economy of Increasing Returns 

• Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University | Dominant Assurance Contracts 

• Zooko Wilcox, and Howard Wu | Zero-knowledge-enabled Cooperation

• Jim Epstein, Primavera De Filippi, and Brewster Kahle | A Peaceful Transition into Cryptocommerce? 

• Daniel Ellsberg, DoomsDay Machine | Nuclear Risks: Doomsday (Still) Hiding in Plain Sight 

• David Brin, The Transparent Society | Transparent Society & Sousveillance 

• Gernot Heiser, University of New South Wales| SeL4: Formal Proofs for Real-World Cybersecurity

• David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute | Collective Computing

• Gillian Hadfield, University of Toronto | Incomplete Contracts & AI Alignment

• Richard Craib, NumerAI | Techniques for Intelligence Coordination
  Peter Norvig, Google | AI: A Modern Approach

• Anders Sandberg, Oxford University | Game Theory of Cooperating with Alien Minds

• Robin Hanson, George Mason University | A Simple Model of Grabby Aliens

The seminars are now incorporated into the text as deep dives.

We would especially like to thank Keith Mansfield, Tom Galloway, Terry Stanley, Chris Hibbert, Alan Karp, Jazear Brooks, David Manheim, Kate Sills, Chip Morningstar, Gillian Hadfield, Robin Hanson, David Friedman, Jim Bennett, Micah Zoltu, and Dan Finlay for extensive comments on the book draft. The key ideas of Paretotopia (at the time) were originally worked out by Mark S. Miller in collaboration with Eric Drexler. We learned a lot and all remaining errors are our own. We hope you, as a reader, find interest in critiquing and augmenting the ideas.

Join Us!

Follow Foresight Institute on Twitter and apply to join our Discord.

Next up: FOREWORD | What’s at Stake in This Game?