Longtermism Sustainability Unconference Invite

Invite: UnConference, How best for humans to thrive and survive over the long-term

I am co-hosting this Sustainability /​ Long-termism UnConference with Chatham House on Sep 16. I’d love some more EA minded thinkers to come along.

I think most EA minded folk would enjoy coming along. We want to hear your ideas for how humanity and the planet can thrive over the long term – this might be on the link between sustainability and opportunities from innovation; possible new forms of governance and decision making; how to enact change for generations of the future; as well as risks and opportunities from AI, the financial system, education, design – and more.

This should appeal to

  • long-termists, those concerned for the next 10 years as well as next 1000+

  • Progress thinkers

  • Innovation, governance, AI people

  • Sustainability…

  • X-risks, S-risks...

  • Anything which might be good for the future of humanity and the world


In essence anyone who has an interested in the future of humans or the planets….should really like this conference.

So what is our style of UnConference? Think of EAG, but where the people in the room set the agenda.

On the day, participants self-organise to create their own agenda, allowing a dynamic and immediate response to the issues at hand. Any participant can timetable a topic on something that they want to work on. Nothing is out of bounds. Once all the topics are timetabled, participants move into smaller, flexible break-out groups. People work on the things that they feel most passionate about.


We will use OpenSpace with Improbable. At traditional conferences, some of the best conversations happen in the corridors and the audience have just as many ideas as the panel. You can find out more about Improbable and the way in which they use Open Space here.


Open Space was used by Audrey Tang in Taiwan (if you heard them on Rob Wiblin’s podcast[1]. I think Open Space is a much better way of having an ideas conference.

(I tentatively think that this whole way of idea generating, before policy making, could along with a tool such as Polis could unblock wider governance and decision making problems. But that’s an aside.)

We will also be publishing a write up of people’s ideas and conversations (if you give them to us). Think of all those great conversations at EAG, but you get to share them with the world.

Any questions feel free to message me or comment.

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