I am donating half my net worth over the next few years towards efforts to make it more likely that we end up in one of the better futures (focusing on highly frugal people, as they are more neglected by major grantmakers and my funds will go further), alongside most of my productive energies.

If anyone wants to commit to joining the effort, please reach out. There are many low hanging fruit in the alignment ecosystem space.

I am not doing anything different from you, but I don't see any major tactical shifts that make much sense. The problem is that 401k and index funds already are the maximum-uncertain-future choices, for any future where the stock market succeeds as an institution. Residential real estate already is the lowest risk bet for any future where land is assessed according to price rather than according to use.

So mostly what I am trying to do is:

• Identify ways to make my property more useful. This is basic things, like growing a chunk of our food, increasing the amount of maintenance I can do myself by owning tools and practicing, etc.
• Try to identify triggers, which is to say things which clearly indicate it is time to dispose of a particular asset (or at least stop investing further in it). I am not successful in this so far, and the alternative remains "accumulate cash."

The core of my intuition about this problem: the less certainty there is, the higher the premium on options. On the other hand, the only real options are the ones we can actually execute. This causes me to believe that the best investments have more to do with skills and knowledge - particularly of coherent approaches to problems that you expect to crop up, or at least where to find out about them. This is to save time and resources spent on search when the circumstances change.

There is an entirely different approach which I probably invest more thinking in, though less money and physical effort (so far): opportunities to make a contribution. By this I mean pro-social business ideas. The most recent example was following the supply chain crunch, and after reading A Brief Introduction to Container Logistics and I considered a business which went around buying up these containers and leases from the various participants in the name of being able to agree to both sides of the impasse described in the article. Still might if we hit another major crunch.

There's some prior discussion here.

• I try to both [be useful] and [have a good life / don't burn out]
• I started thinking a few days ago about investments. Initial thoughts:
  • Given we're not all dead, what happens and how to get rich?
    • Guess 1: There was a world war or something similar that got to all AI labs worldwide
      • My brain: OMG that sounds really bad. Can I somehow avoid the cross fire?
    • Guess 2: One specific org can generate 100x more tech and science progress than the entire rest of the world combined
      • My brain: I hope they will be publicly tradable, still respect the stock market, and I can buy their stock in advance?
      • Problem: Everyone wants to invest in AI companies already. Do I have an advantage?
  • If there will be a few years of vast-strangeness before we'll probably all die, can I get very rich beforehand and maybe use that for something?
    • (Similar to Guess 2 above, and also doesn't seem promising)

This is just initial, I'm happy in anyone joining the brainstorm, it's easier together

TL;DR Watch this video ...

or read the list of summary points for the book here

https://medium.com/steveglaveski/book-summary-21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-by-yuval-noah-harari-73722006805a

If you don't know who this guy is he is a historian who writes about the future (among other things).  

I'm 68 and retired. I've seen some changes. Investing in companies like Xerox and Kodak would have made sense early in my career. Would have been a bad idea in the long run. The companies that would have made sense to invest in didn't exist yet. 

I started my IT career in 1980 running an IBM mainframe the size of a semi-trailer while its peripherals took up an entire floor. Almost no one but hobbyists owned a PC and the internet did not exist as far as the public was concerned. Cell phones only existed in science fiction. In less than twenty years, by 2000, it was a radically different world. 

All my life I've been interested in the human story, reading widely about evolution, civilization, the arts and sciences. Never before have I seen so many signs that things are about to change dramatically. 

It's only human to try to do so but I don't believe you are going to be able to "figure this out". I suggest an analogy like the difference between an expert system and AlphaGo. The latter wins by learning, not by knowing a bunch of facts and rules. That's why I suggest this video. He talks about how to think about the future. 

When I retired, I thought about what to do. I had a lifetime's worth of knowledge in my head so I decided to write hard science fiction about the near future, 2025-2325. It's very difficult. Will the idea of cell phones be laughable in 2125? How long will it take for an AI to do a comparative analysis of two genomes in 2075? How will a population of eleven billion by 2100 change the world? Forget about 2100 - how will AI, climate change and geopolitics change the world by 2030?

Currently I'm writing a story about two students in a Masters Of Futures Studies program. They get a wild idea and the story follows their escapades. Futures Studies is not a mature science (if it even is a science) but it is a methodology used by major corporations and governments to plan for the future. Organizations like Shell Oil (Futures Studies aka Foresight was known as Scenario Planning there), the US military and the country of Finland among others use it and the stakes are pretty high for them. 

As I write hard science fiction, I have to do a ton of research on whatever I'm writing about be it genetics, human values, AI or what have you. So I am aware that unfortunately if you investigate Futures Studies you will encounter a lot of consultants who sound very woo-woo. But once you sort the wheat from the chaff there is a solid methodology underlying the discipline. It's not perfect (who can predict the future?) but it's as close to rigorous as you'll get. 

Here is a easily understandable explanation of the process by the person whom I have found to be the best communicator in the business. 

Here's the Wikipedia page about Futures Studies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies 

And here's a PDF explaining the methodology as it is generally applied

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/674209/futures-toolkit-edition-1.pdf

It's a lot I admit but is it worth your time? Think of it as an investment. 

It is a highly collaborative process so maybe get a group of like minded friends together and try it. There's no peer review process in Futures Studies. That issue is dealt with by the number of people you have involved.

Best of luck.

One way to plan for the future is to slow down the machinery taking us there to reduce the uncertainty about what is coming to some degree.

Another way to plan for the future is to do what I've done, which is to get old (70) so that you have far less chips on the table in the face of the uncertainty.  Ok, sorry, not very helpful.  But on the other hand, it's most likely going to happen whether you plan it or not, and some comfort might be taken from knowing that sooner or later we all earn a "get out of jail free" card.

For today, one of the things we have some hope of being able to control is our relationship with risk, living, dying etc.   In an era characterized by historic uncertainty, such a pursuit seems a good investment.

The world could be in the same state it is in now in 200 years (highly unlikely), but you could get run over by a bus tomorrow.

We could achieve biological immortality with the benefit of obsequious AI servants catering cheaply to our every whim. And, at the dawn of this new age, as you are lost in reverie contemplating the coming joys of you terrestrial eternity, an AI driver could direct its bus into you at 200mph, to avoid endangering the riders on the bus according to a calculus of minimizing harm. You would never know what hit you.

People who lived in more “predictable” times (did they?) could be less certain of their medical future or, indeed, of subsistence. I enjoy walks through old cemeteries. The markers often tell the stories of young families whose children were wiped out in a couple years, or young husbands who, already having suffered the loss of several children, lost their wives and her nearly newborns suddenly. And all kinds of other tragedy.

Those with appreciation of the larger forces at play easily perceive the precarious situation our society is. The less foresighted man on the street, born in the modern West into a relative Goldilocks zone of health, sustenance, and relatively peaceful predictability, is probably more confident of security and changelessness than people at any time or place, with the exception of members of tribes living traditional lifestyles of immemorial provenance.

My wife recently received a somewhat devastating diagnosis at a very young age. It is an interesting study to observe how folks react to it — the average response is, “you’re too young for such-and-such,” or, “you shouldn’t have to go through that”. Are such responses even imaginable for someone in 1873? We are implicitly certain of boundless health, limitless bounty, livable incomes or subsidies, and so forth. 

In a way, you just have to take it as it comes. Your dreams will be crushed, your plans ruined, in all likelihood, even without major change in society. Embrace that a little bit. Set manageable goals, particularly about how you wish to be living each day. Regularly prune what no longer contributes. Make your desired daily life a goal and try to achieve stability in that, riding the wave of change like a surfer, making adjustments to stay “put”. If you have a clear idea of daily life, you can often weather storms with it — think like a monk carving out a way of life in 1100, 1500, 1700, 1900, and 2022, living by the very same monastic rule. They’re masters at adjusting whilst maintaining an equilibrium built around a stable rule of life and a fixed goal for their lives.

Know the warning signs you are looking for to make major changes in a timely and responsive way. Is this inflation the signal to pull out of your 401k? Will energy price points signal the need to relocate where a vehicle is less necessary? What supply chain issues will you need to see to plant a Victory Garden, or to invest in land? But have a bias towards status quo in your daily life and seek equilibrium on your terms through all changes.