ISSHS Feasibility Study
A principal object of this document is to propose investigating the feasibility of establishing at least one Isolated Self-Sustaining Human Sanctuary (ISSHS).
The ISSHS feasibility study is at its core a scientific and technological pursuit towards designing a humane comfortable self-sustenance unmatched in human history. The ISSHS feasibility study should be philosophically challenged to reconsider what is truly necessary for human comfort and fulfillment and to consider that perhaps our perceived needs are more a product of our technological and economic pursuits than a genuine requirement for a fulfilling life.
The ISSHS feasibility study will require careful planning to ensure that all basic needs can be met sustainably with implementable technologies. It will involve extensive research into historical and current practices for agriculture, healthcare, and sanitation and adaptation to the ISSHS capabilities; development of robust, low-tech solutions for challenges like water purification and food preservation; a strong emphasis on education and skill-sharing to maintain necessary knowledge and practices, and, importantly, careful selection of ISSHS locations to ensure access to necessary natural resources and relative safety from what may remain of humanity.
The ISSHS feasibility study primarily presumes the ISSHS isolation from an external, even if limited, helping hand such as may be provided by human sponsoring entities or an ASI guardian angel. Nonetheless, the feasibility study should consider those scenarios and the potential benefits of an ASI guardian angel. The feasibility study would have to address the fundamental question of whether an ISSHS is limited to a hunter/gathering existence, or is the ISSHS viable as a self-sustaining principally agriculture sanctuary with the capability of using essential primitive technologies. This question is initially addressed in the topic: Viability As Agriculture Sanctuary
There is admittedly a certain irony, that while proposing a feasibility study for an ISSHS relying on primitive technologies, this document benefits from the material reliance on and use of LLMs. But that is precisely the lesson, the feasibility study should take advantage of all the knowledge, capabilities, and technologies currently available and that may be developed to create an ISSHS with best long-term sustainability independent, to the extent possible, of dehumanizing scenarios.
Self-Sustaining is foundational to the feasibility of an ISSHS. The terms "self-sufficient" and "self-sustaining" are very similar and they often overlap. However, in the context of an ISSHS there are some subtle differences to consider. Self-sufficient is focused primarily on the present ability of the community to meet its own needs for survival and well-being, and may allow for some limited interaction with the outside world for specific needs, as long as the core functions remain independent. On the other hand, self-sustaining is focused on the long-term ability of the community to perpetuate itself without relying on external resources. The community has the knowledge and resources to not only survive but also thrive and adapt over generations.
The ideal scenario is for the ISSHS to be self-sustaining, with the ability to maintain itself and adapt over generations. Achieving true self-sustainability is a complex challenge. Unforeseen events, resource limitations, or knowledge gaps might necessitate some limited external interaction which may not be available or come at an unacceptable cost.
The ISSHS feasibility study should prioritize long-term sustainability including aspects like: ensuring a continuous supply of natural resources; educating future generations on all aspects of maintaining the ISSHS; and building the ability to adapt to changing environments and unforeseen challenges. The key is to design a model that eliminates external reliance and promotes long-term sustainability.
The initiative must be pursued with intellectual humility, attempt to address the many challenges to the feasibility and long-term viability of such communities, and strive to architect and build one or more ISSHS.
Claude (2025-01-09) provided the following:
The establishment of Isolated Self-Sustaining Human Sanctuaries represents a profound endeavor to preserve essential human characteristics within carefully designed communities. These sanctuaries would serve as havens where human beings can maintain their fundamental nature as romantic, instinctual creatures capable of moderate intelligence and deep emotional connections. The core mission centers on protecting these quintessential human qualities from external forces that might otherwise suppress, alter, or eliminate them.
The foundation of these sanctuaries rests upon the creation of intimate, multi-generational family communities existing in harmony with their natural surroundings. These communities would primarily engage in agricultural activities, utilizing primitive technologies that maintain a human scale of operation and interaction. This approach ensures that community members remain connected to both their innate human nature and the natural world that sustains them.
A comprehensive feasibility study for establishing such sanctuaries would necessarily encompass multiple interconnected domains of human knowledge and experience. Environmental sciences would guide the selection and management of suitable locations, while anthropological and sociological insights would inform the development of sustainable social structures. The implementation of traditional agricultural practices would ensure food security while maintaining the community's connection to the land.
The philosophical underpinnings of these sanctuaries draw deeply from several schools of thought, including deep ecology, eco-philosophy, and communitarian principles. These frameworks emphasize the inherent worth of all living beings, the crucial relationship between humans and nature, and the fundamental importance of community in human life. The concept of eudaimonic well-being, focusing on authentic living, would serve as a guiding principle in community development.
The feasibility study will establish the framework for the eventual creation of an encyclopedic set of ISSHS requirements and operational instructions. This comprehensive guide will address everything from pioneer requirements and launch preparations to population maintenance, healthcare practices, and knowledge preservation methods. In due course the ISSHS encyclopedia would need to be both exhaustive and accessible, providing clear guidance while allowing for adaptation to local conditions and circumstances. Most critically, the encyclopedia will present its knowledge in forms that can be preserved and transmitted using only the primitive technologies available to the sanctuary itself.
Pioneer Requirements: The composition and skills of pioneering inhabitants that are committed to living a sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle; that would strive for maximum harmony, cooperation, respect; and that would share common cultural and ideological foundations that are responsive to the ISSHS principles. See the topic: ISSHS Population Selection
Launch Requirements: Identifying the land preparation, construction, and supplies required for initial establishment consistent with the long-term self-sustainability objectives. Advanced equipment, if any, initially utilized for ISSHS launch to be withdrawn. Prelaunch initial expertise, skill acquisition, and training. See the topic: Tech, Methods, Knowledge Adaptation
Population Size and Maintenance. Population size (presently estimated at 500-5,000). Population size management; midwifery and mother-safe child delivery; early childcare health practices. Permitted and/or forced individual exits. See the topic: ISSHS Population Size
Location Selection: Potential geographic locations should: be relatively isolated from the rest of humanity; offer natural protection from outside influences and threats; mitigate climate change threats; and offer sustainable resources. An ideal location would provide an opportunity to "live off the land" and support sustainable agriculture for a variety of crops, including grains, vegetables, and fruits; and support animal agriculture for livestock, such as draft animals, chickens, goats, or pigs. An identified location should enable the inhabitants to emotionally thrive by physically coexisting with nature. Potential locations should be consistent with governmental approvals and sponsorship.
Sanctuary Area: The required land area should be sufficiently large to support a self-sustaining community, provide a variety of natural resources, and enable the intended operation of the ISSHS. See the topic: ISSHS Physical Layout
Security and Safety: Protection of the ISSHS inhabitants from both natural and man-made threats, including, for example, climate event preparation, fortifications, emergency plans, self-protection, and personal safety.
Agriculture, Food Production, and Animal agriculture: Crop selection and adaptation, advanced crop rotation and companion planting techniques, sustainable irrigation methods, natural fertilization and pest control, breed selection for hardiness and multi-purpose use, natural veterinary care, and sustainable grazing practices, fishing and fish production practices. See the topic: Vilability As Agricultural Sanctuary
Food Processing and Preservation Knowledge: Methods and instructions for ensuring a year-round supply of food, comprising the storage and preservation of food, such as drying, smoking, and salting of meats and fish, fermentation for preserving vegetables, and pit storage for root vegetables.
Water Management: Rainwater harvesting systems, well construction, natural filtration methods, and greywater recycling.
Sanitation and Hygiene: Composting toilet designs, natural soap production, and waste management systems.
Healthcare: Wellness promoting practices, natural diagnostic and health maintenance, basic surgical techniques, first aid community training, herbal medicine compendium, and natural antibiotics and their production.
Construction: Efficient, durable building designs using local materials, natural insulation techniques; advanced woodworking techniques; fired bricks or rammed earth construction for long-lasting buildings; and canoe and small watercraft building.
Tool Making: Small scale metal production. Tool-making from readily available materials, stone tools for chopping, hammering, and scraping, and bone needles for sewing.
Fire-craft: Reliably starting and maintaining fires essential for cooking, warmth, and tool creation, fire drills, flint and steel, fire bows, knowledge of different fire-starting materials.
Crafts: Turning plants and animal fibers into usable materials, spinning and weaving for textiles, and cordage making for various uses; making versatile and/or different types of baskets for specific purposes like gathering berries, winnowing grain, storing food, and transporting tools; making of pottery to provide durable containers for storage and cooking such as hand-built and fired clay pots for cooking, storing water, and transporting food; for extracting dyes and pigments from plants and minerals to add color to textiles and other objects, such as using plants like indigo or madder for blue dye, ochre for red pigment, and charcoal for black; animal hide tanning for leather goods; and the making of furniture.
Resource Management: Using and replenishing readily available and renewable materials, wood, and natural fibers. Best practices to conserve and maintain the availability of flora and fauna. Efficiently harvesting and utilizing natural resources.
Power and Energy: Windmill construction, small-scale hydro power, passive solar design, and biomass utilization.
Governance and Social Structure: Decision-making processes, and conflict resolution methods. See the topic: ISSHS Governance
Skill Acquisition: Apprenticeship and skill transfer, labor division and specialization, and general education. Ensuring the knowledge and skills for crafting and using these technologies are passed down to future generations is essential for long-term sustainability.
Economy: Labor and resource allocation methods, optimization of craftsmanship and artisan production, and equitable distribution.
Culture: Conditions that enable the inhabitants to find their purpose in their contributions to the lives of their family and community. Socialization, interpersonal relations, ethical frameworks, utilitarian artistic expression with available materials, recreational, entertainment and sport activities, and community bonding.
Philosophy: The ISSHS philosophical principles are intended to align with the idea of preserving the "romantic animal" aspect of humanity. The ISSHS feasibility study will attempt to identify core human characteristics and the set of principles, ideals, and culture that would guide the ISSHS. Among the qualities that an ISSHS community and its inhabitants should value and nurture are altruism, humility, wisdom, honor, courage, honesty, devotion, duty, work ethic, and love of nature. Without disregarding the moral lessons that religious writings may offer, it is expected that the ISSHS community will be agnostic, leaving to ASI to ascertain the existence of a God.
The above list is merely illustrative and not exhaustive. It provides an introduction to potential requirements for an ISSHS. The topic: ISSHS Governance suggets the depth of study and decision making that would have to take place in the drafting of the ISSHS feasibility study and the ISSHS encyclopedic set of requirements and operational instructions. Many will have to contribute their support, interest, and expertise towards that effort.
Clearly, specific suggestions need to be evaluated within a more developed context. For example, oral tradition concepts must be reconciled with preservation of an encyclopedic set of requirements and operational instructions and a relatively small number of ISSHS inhabitants. The requirements and instructions will have to be harmonized across the wide spectrum of the ISSHS objectives, considerations, and limited capabilities. If the ISSHS is to succeed its knowledge elements must be a synergistically integrated whole.
Knowing the climate, terrain, and available resources of an initial ISSHS location will emphasize the specific requirements, but the instructions should not be limited thereby. A geographic location may in time prove unsuitable and/or multiple materially diverse locations may be required and advisable for the establishment of multiple ISSHS.
A material advantage of drafting the instructions is that the ISSHS does not have to start from scratch. We have the benefit of thousands of years of relevant knowledge that can be gathered and optimized. Additionally, present skill, equipment, and testing practices could be utilized to leverage modern concepts and retrofit them to the limited capabilities of the ISSHS. By taking inspiration from modern technology and adapting it to a lower-tech setting, the ISSHS can achieve a good balance between comfortable functionality and self-sustainability. The opportunity also presents itself for innovative new solutions specifically invented as alternatives to what the existing technological path has valued.
The instructions should: be comprehensive yet accessible and not require prior expertise in the field; enable updating based on experiences in the established ISSHS; balance innovation within the constraints of primitive technology; address potential conflicts between modern knowledge and traditional practices; provide a road-map for comfortable, sustainable living; preserves and apply relevant human knowledge in a new context; allow for gradual improvement in quality of life without technological escalation; and maintain the romantic ideals foundational to the ISSHS.
It is expected that the instructions would be initially available in paper printed form, the knowledge in each field additionally passed on from one generation to the other via apprenticeship, and physical examples. The instructions should be in a form that provides durability, are low tech ensuring long term accessibility, and that may be replicated. Paper formats can be replicated using hand copying or simple printing techniques, and allow for physical annotation and customization over time. As in other aspects of this endeavor, this is easier said than may be effectively executed.
Flexibility and adaptation enable gradual refinement of techniques based on local experiences and conditions. By combining instructions with practical apprenticeships, both theoretical and applied knowledge are maintained. The more the knowledge is spread throughout the community the greater the retention potential.
In this complex initiative, there's no single "correct" answer. The success of an ISSHS implementation will depend on a combination of preparation, adaptability, the collective knowledge and skills of its design contributors and ISSHS inhabitants, and circumstances beyond its control.
Providing there is sufficient time, which arguably there is not, experimenting with populating, or simulating, low technology conditions of a human sanctuary could serve to suggest the necessary corrections and adjustments to an ISSHS design. Such experiments need not involve the entirety of an ISSHS design model, instead specific methods and technologies could be tested and refined.
An ISSHS experiment may start with small-scale subject matter pilot projects to learn and adjust before ultimate initial implementation. For example, while many solar cookers are commercially available, there may not be existing models that can be easily duplicated by an ISSHS with the expected limited resources. Thus, prior experimentation with different materials and procedures may be required to produce a solar cooker with sufficiently high specular reflection that would be suitable for eventual ISSHS construction.
With broader experiments (e.g., extended summer camp), it would be crucial to ensure that the human participants are fully informed, give their voluntary consent, and are provided exit strategies. Large scale simulations would need to be carefully designed to accurately represent the complex and dynamic nature of a designed ISSHS. The findings from such experiences may not be directly transferable to the preservation of humans in other locations and circumstances.
Implementing such a simulation would require ensuring the safety and well-being of the human participants especially where children are involved. Adequate provisions for backup resources such as food, water, shelter, healthcare, and security would be necessary. Additionally, careful controls would need to be in place to prevent any unintended consequences or risks, and to ensure that the experiment remains within ethical and legal boundaries.
Creating an experimental ISSHS solely for the purpose of informing how to preserve humans raises ethical concerns regarding the use of human lives as experimental subjects. The findings from such an ISSHS experiment may not necessarily provide comprehensive guidance for an ASI on how to preserve a limited number of humans in a broader context. Additionally, the idea of using a simulation or experiment to inform the behavior of a superintelligent AI, which by definition exceeds human intelligence, is highly speculative and comes with its own set of challenges and risks. An ASI would be extraordinarily advanced and may operate on a completely different scale of complexity and capability, requiring considerations beyond those of a low technology human sanctuary.
Accordingly, ISSHS experiments may be more productive when focused on adapting modern technologies or testing innovative technologies to be implemented in an eventual ISSHS.
As Claude acknowledged in response to the following prompt:
I would suggest that we need to be a bit more nuanced when we speak about the ISSHS technological adoption concepts. ISSHS is not against the use of technology, just that it has to be a human-scaled technological synergistic whole, a self-sustaining capability of the ISSHS limited resources, and consistent with the overriding principle of preserving quintessential human qualities as we have defined them. It is the hope that, with that perspective, we can prelaunch develop new ISSHS consistent adaptations of current technologies and with the assistance of our best minds, yours included, develop new innovative ISSHS consistent technologies and methodologies.
Technology Nuance: You're absolutely right - I oversimplified the ISSHS position on technology. The key isn't rejection of technology per se, but rather ensuring technology remains: Human-scaled. Self-sustainably producible. Synergistic with ISSHS resources and capabilities. Supportive rather than suppressive of quintessential human qualities. This is fundamentally different from both Luddism and unrestricted technological adoption. It's about thoughtful development of technologies that enhance rather than diminish human nature.
Pre-launch Innovation: This is a fascinating point I hadn't fully appreciated - the ISSHS concept actually creates an opportunity for a new direction in technological innovation. Instead of "bigger, faster, more automated," the challenge becomes: how to distill modern scientific understanding into simpler, human-scaled applications; developing new technologies specifically designed for ISSHS sustainability; creating innovations that enhance rather than replace human capabilities; and engineering solutions that maintain human agency and understanding.
Foundational to the ISSHS initiative is not the rejection of reason and science, rather it is the attempt to apply a great deal of reason and a judicious application of science to enhance human well-being and flourishing. While an ISSHS must learn from the past, there is no desire to return to it. Rather, an ISSHS strives to travel a different path towards a better humane future for at least that small portion of humanity that would freely welcome it.
Moral philosopher Will MacAskill, in a 10/03/2018 Ted Talk titled "What are the most important moral problems of our time?" provides a framework for evaluating which problems we should focus on first. The ISSHS initiative focuses on the preservation of the romantic animal.
Many potential funding sources and development models for the ISSHS feasibility study will have to be investigated. Funding for the feasibility study may be sought. See, for example, the pdf: ISSHS Draft Funding Proposal. However, it is preferred that similarly motivated or interested individuals will contribute to the drafting of the feasibility study, and in due course its encyclopedic set of instructions. A Wiki model could attract the contributions of expertises to both the Feasibility study and the ISSHS encyclopedic library from those who may or may not have an interest in habituating an ISSHS