Institutions, Infrastructure, and Incentives
December 6-8, 2024
Too often we're distracted by work and life to set aside time for curiosity-driven exploration. As technologists we organize "hackathons" to build our most ambitious ideas, but rarely do we get together to ask and discuss the most interesting and pressing questions.
That's what Rabbitholeathon is for: taking the time to understand the world and ourselves better, and then integrating that broadened perspective into the things we build.
We're excited to announce that we're running our fifth(!!) rendition of Rabbitholeathon this winter: an intimate retreat where young technologists can study, explore, and learn together. And for the first time, we're centering all the explorations on a specific theme: Institutions, Infrastructure, Incentives.
Institutions, Infrastructure, and Incentives
With the world changing fast and progress zooming by, it’s worth taking a second to pause and think…are we going in the right direction? How did we end up here, and how can we go from here to the future we want?
We’re excited to launch our very first themed Rabbitholeathon, where we’ll spend a weekend envisioning vignettes of the future and mapping out tactical paths to get there. We’ll focus on the role of institutions, infrastructure, and incentives in shaping our collective future. Institutions, from governments to educational systems all the way to religious institutions, play a crucial role in steering the future of society.
Join us this December in Salt Lake City to explore questions on this theme. Some examples of rabbitholes:
- What are the institutional incentive structures (e.g. profit, power, status) that shape our world today, and how might they be reshaped? Should they?
- Education systems in the US today are largely modeled off of the needs of the 19th century, and the pressures of the industrial revolution. How have educational institutions in different parts of the world evolved to meet modern challenges?
- Similarly, our current form of governance is based off this document from the the 18th century, and ideas from even before. Given the world today, how might we govern ourselves better (and to be mindful of Chesterton's fence, what should we keep the same?)
- How has the rise of social media and the attention economy reshaped our social fabric and information ecosystem? How can we foster healthier online communities and more productive discourse?
- Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to our social, economic, and energy infrastructure. How might we reimagine our cities, transportation, and industry to create a more sustainable and resilient society?
- Given the rapid advancement of AI, how can we prepare our economic systems to ensure equitable distribution of AI's benefits and mitigate its potential harms?
This list is not at all exhaustive (considering the breadth of the topic, far from it), we’re excited to see all the different perspectives that y’all can bring.
p.s - if you’re impatient biased towards action like us and want to start diving into the topic already, here are some links that inspired us:
- Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers
- (warning, a whole book) Radical Markets
- Vitalik's Institutions - What even is an institution?
- Almost anything from Palladium
Retreat and Applying
To maintain an intimate atmosphere conducive to meaningful discussion, we plan to accept ~20 folks across a broad range of disciplines and interests. Applications are open now and close on Sep 27, 2024 11:59pm ET.
In particular, we're looking for curious, agentic and ambitious technologists who think critically about the world around them, and are excited to explore and learn about these topics with a like-minded community. Being a good builder, a good founder, a good researcher, etc. is all downstream of being a clear thinker; thinking is a muscle that needs to be continually exercised. And we want to provide the space for this.
Accommodation and food is provided for attendees, and we provide need-based travel grants. We want rabbitholeathon to be accessible to all, and are committed to ensuring that finances aren’t a barrier for anyone to attend.
If this sounds exciting to you, we welcome you to apply here: rabbitholeathon.com/join. We also encourage you share this opportunity with any and all values-aligned folks who may be interested. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and will close on Sep 27, 2024 11:59pm ET.
More information can be found here on our full manifesto and our values. If you have any questions, please contact us at team@rabbitholeathon.com!
