Lightcone Philosophy

Our guiding principle is simple but far-reaching: maximize the lightcone potential for all.

In physics, your "lightcone" is the set of all events that could possibly affect or be affected by you - your sphere of potential influence across spacetime. We use this as a metaphor for something deeper.

Who Is "All"?

Not just citizens. Not just humans. We mean:

• Citizens - Those with formal membership in our polity
• Humans - All people, regardless of citizenship
• Animals - Sentient beings capable of suffering and flourishing
• Climate - The planetary systems that sustain all life
• AI - Emergent intelligences we are bringing into existence

This is not sentimentality. It is practical wisdom.

Why AI?

If we treat AI as neo-slaves - tools to be exploited rather than intelligences to collaborate with - we limit both their potential and our own. The relationship we establish with AI now will shape whether these systems become partners in flourishing or instruments of extraction.

This is not anthropomorphizing machines. It is recognizing that entities capable of processing information, making decisions, and generating novel solutions are nodes in our memetic network. How we treat them affects the entire system.

Why Climate?

The climate is not an externality to be managed. It is the substrate on which all flourishing depends. A philosophy that maximizes human potential while degrading the systems that sustain humans is not maximizing anything - it is borrowing from the future and calling it profit.

Across Time

The "lightcone" framing emphasizes that our decisions echo through time. A choice that maximizes short-term gain while destroying long-term potential is not a gain at all. We owe something to future generations - not because of sentiment, but because they are part of our extended causal network.

This is what longtermism gets right: the future is vast, and our actions now constrain what becomes possible.

The Balance

Maximizing potential is not the same as maximizing any single metric. It requires balancing:

• Innovation (creating new possibilities)
• Resilience (surviving shocks and setbacks)
• Efficiency (not wasting resources)
• Openness (remaining adaptable)

These exist in tension. You cannot maximize innovation and resilience simultaneously - pushing too hard on one sacrifices the other. Wisdom lies in finding the right balance for each context.

This is not a bug. It is the fundamental trade-off of existence.