World Op­ti­miza­tion is the full use of our agency. It is ex­tend­ing the reach of hu­man civ­i­liza­tion. It is build­ing cities and democ­ra­cies and eco­nomic sys­tems and com­put­ers and flight and sci­ence and space rock­ets and the in­ter­net. World op­ti­miza­tion is about adding to that list.

But it’s not just about growth, it’s also about preser­va­tion. We are still in the dawn of civ­i­liza­tion, with most of civ­i­liza­tion in the billions of years ahead. We mustn’t let this light go out.

World Op­ti­miza­tion Sub-Topics

Con­tent which de­scribes how the world is that di­rectly bears upon choices one makes to op­ti­mize the world fall un­der this tag. Ex­am­ples in­clude dis­cus­sion of the moral pa­tient­hood of differ­ent an­i­mals, the po­ten­tial of hu­man civ­i­liza­tion, and the most effec­tive in­ter­ven­tions against a global health threat.

Some ma­te­rial has both im­me­di­ate rele­vance to world op­ti­miza­tion de­ci­sions but also can in­form broader world mod­els. This ma­te­rial might be in­cluded un­der both World Model­ing tag and this tag.