Endemic

Building next-gen education institutions and R&D ecosystems

The scarcest asset of the coming decades won’t be capital or compute. It will be talent that can work together, hold and defend a shared vision over years, and deliver outcomes.

Many people fear AI will leave us with nothing to do. We see the opposite: AI changes what a small, aligned team can accomplish, and the bottleneck shifts to discernment, leadership, coordination, and dedication.

That leaves a question we think matters more than any risk assessment: who is taking responsibility for building the worlds we actually want? Endemic’s answer is to build the institutions that produce that talent. We are working to establish our schools, labs, and R&D ecosystem as a public-private partnership with a host city, anchored by a physical campus.

Schools and labs

Each one runs its own programs and builds its own community. Endemic builds the shared institution around them.

The Divinity School

Biological intelligence, machine agency, and scientific institutional leadership.

Type: Master’s degree
Stage: In development

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The Uncontainability Project

Explore the knowable limits.

A curated index of formal proofs and impossibility results on the limits of AI alignment, containment, and verification.

agiuncontainability.org

Type: Field building
Stage: Active

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Endemic Culinary Institute

Chefs as Regenerative Agents

Training chefs who rebuild local food systems, reconnect communities, and create the infrastructure for ecological and cultural rejuvenation.

Type: School
Stage: To be confirmed

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Janu, a print by Kaljo Põllu: a face above a lake landscape, cupped hands letting seeds fall

/Belonging to place

Endemic

Written in 2022

Artwork: Janu, Kaljo Põllu

Summary

Our dominant cultures are based in the desire to transform complex nature into complicated objects for the sake of control. This, combined with the ever-increasing rate of change we are experiencing, is significantly hurting our ability to make sense of our worlds. The most fundamental life experience we have is the capacity to choose, but how do we choose well when we don't understand the contexts we live in and the objects we interact with every day? Endemic will never tell anyone what to choose, however we will support the development of participants' inner guidance and capacity to continually shift their paradigm to re-integrate their sensing, desires, and actions with the complex living world so that they can help grow a new, life-generating culture.

Introduction: a brief history of alienation

Many thousands of years ago, humans slowly transitioned from generally nomadic hunter-gatherer cultures to generally stationary agricultural societies. Although regional civilizations which shared culture and infrastructure existed before this transition¹, the change enabled the rise of highly stratified, specialized societies that prioritized groups' abilities to predict, control, record, and reason about their environments' natural cycles to a greater degree than ever before. Dams and irrigation were built to control the flood patterns of large rivers. Writing was put to use to record and collect taxes. Class hierarchies became more differentiated and rigid. Inequality expanded. Matriarchies became less common, while patriarchies became more common. Even the Divine was transformed, eventually from localized and multiple spiritual agents embedded in sensory experiences and landscapes to more abstract figures that represented generalized character traits and eventually again to paternal gods who ruled alone or far above all others.

Similarly, and increasingly over recent history, global monoculture became more and more dominant.

Time accelerated.

Technological innovation built on technological innovation, more and more quickly empowering humans to have more and more control of their environments. The agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and the cybernetic revolution all contributed to speed this process up even further. The future is coming faster and for 50 years it's already been cliche to say it's hard to handle.²

While many cultures from the far past until now do not demonstrate all of these characteristics, in terms of popularity and power, these did become the dominant features of cultures around the world.³

For the moment, let's hold off on judging these significant transitions as either good or bad (obviously the answer must be both, in different ways, at different times, for different people). Regardless of whether they ought to, some of the basic patterns underlying these transformations are now running their course. Our global civilization itself is coming to an end. Significantly, but not solely, this is due to the ongoing biodiversity loss and dangerously rising global temperatures caused by our recent habits of burning fossil fuels for energy and replacing mature ecosystems with cities and terraformed land. In addition to resource wars, mass migrations, and ecosystem collapse due to climate change, some of the potential proximate causes of the end of our current age may include social unrest due to unprecedented levels of inequality, the decline of institutional authority and effectiveness, increasingly easy access to increasingly dangerous weapons, and the accidental loss of control of automated systems that we come to rely on for more and more maintenance of our basic social and physical infrastructures.⁴

Major transformations, and even collapses, of complex societies are not new or uncommon events in human history (or in natural history). Almost all human cultures that have ever existed are now extinct, almost all species that have ever lived are as well. However, due to the deeply, globally entangled nature of complex societies today, the risks of anthropogenic planetary-scale collapse are profound and entirely unique.

We are clearly in a new transition out of the ways we have been human together in the relatively recent past. Yet this is not The End. There will almost certainly be a renewal, as there has been during every collapse and extinction event in the past. We aren't yet screwing up the world so badly that the bacterial basis of Gaia is irreparably damaged.

Some think this transition will lead to a new mode of economics or governance (equivalent to the move from feudalism to capitalism or the move from monarchies to parliamentary republics). Some think the transition will be deeper, transforming our basic modes of production, i.e. from hunter-gatherer to farmer to industrial worker to knowledge worker.⁵ There are even some, and we are in this camp, who think the transition we are in may be deeper still than that, at the scale of our identity as "humans," the relative eminence of language, and our understandings of the natures of time, change, and causality.⁶

The transformations Endemic is enabling

It is not only that we expect these things to change; it is also that we wish to shape the ways they change to create a more beautiful world. Perhaps, and why shouldn't we aspire to this, one that is even more beautiful for more beings than the world has ever been. One that has more life, both literally in that there are more, and more diverse, living beings, but also that these beings experience more vitality, more depth and intimacy, more creativity than has been possible before. Endemic is fundamentally a learning culture, and our mission is to create a new culture of learning that prioritizes specific values that we think support humans in making this transition.

Let's bring the judgment back in. While societies from early agricultural to our contemporary digital world have brought many benefits, we believe that they have also accelerated negative characteristics that we now may have an opportunity to reform.

At the highest level, we aim to contribute to a transition from

Alienated Societies Sacred Societies

Over the past several thousand years we have increasingly dissociated ourselves from the basic cycles and relationships with "Nature," including our bodies and physical senses, out of which we grew and upon which we still depend. Widespread shame, depression and loneliness are the results of this loss of connection with our wild nature in a civilized society. Instead, we aim to encourage the transition to societies that, by coming back into deeper, mutually generative relationship with all natural organisms and rhythms, will once again feel like we are "at home," that we belong here, and that this place is ours to care for as we would a member of our family.⁷

As a learning culture, Endemic aims to influence several other contributing transformations directly:

Transforming the ideal of maturity and trustability from

Abstracted Rationality Intuition + Reasoning

Transforming education’s purpose from the regeneration of

Meaningless Jobs Relevant Contributions & Empowered Makers

Transforming cultures’ highest value from

Generating safety on the basis of control Optimizing for the generation of Life

Conclusion: civilization renewal

Things are falling apart, and that's a good thing. Whereas others may set for themselves the goal of preventing large scale collapse, our intention is rather to simultaneously 1) facilitate as harmonious a collapse as possible and 2) steward a culture that can contribute to the renewal of a healthier civilization that integrates the virtues of both intrinsic participation in the life-generative patterns of nature and their intelligent, conscious stewardship for even more life.

Endemic is a developmental community that aims to curate a smooth path from our current superficial culture, through collapse, to a more authentic, more practical, healthier, more experimental culture on the other side, and that honors where people are on that path and encourages them to continue deepening into it.

The Endemic team, 2022

References

Mann, C. C. (2011, June). The Birth of Religion. National Geographic. Retrieved February 15, 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/gobeki-tepe.
Toffler, A. (1970). Future Shock. Random House US.
Eisler, R. T. (2019). The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, our Future. New York: Harper & Row.; Lent, J. R. (2017). The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.; McGilchrist, I. (2019). The Master and his Emissary the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western world. New Haven: Yale University Press.
A growing field of researchers are grappling with the histories and possible features of this civilizational collapse. Scholars generally fall into rough camps, including those who 1) do not think collapse is happening, 2) that it might happen in the future, 3) that it will happen but that we are not there yet, 4) that it is happening and we are in the early stages, and 5) that it is happening and we are significantly into the process, but that we have not yet seen the worst effects and do not know how deep it's going to go. cf. Diamond, J. M. (2011). Collapse how societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Penguin.; Turchin, P. (2018). Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton University Press.; Tainter, J. A. (1990). The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press.; Ord, T. (2020). The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. Hachette Books.; Bendell, J. (2018). "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy." IFLAS Occasional Paper 2.; Orlowski, J. (Director). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Film]. Exposure Labs.; Russell, S. (2020). Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Penguin Books.
Karatani, K., & Bourdaghs, M. K. (2014). The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange. Duke University Press Books.
Roy, B. (unpublished essay). "Time, Change, Causality: Notes Toward a Metamorphosis of Mind."
Anderson, K. M. (2013). Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. University of California Press.

Work with us

We partner with funders and institutions to build schools and labs that inform the kinds of futures we can envision and create.

Ways to partner

Funders. Support Endemic’s shared infrastructure, or underwrite a specific school or lab.

Institutions. Universities, research groups, and companies that want to co-develop programs, share faculty, or place talent.

Open roles

Growth and impact · First hire

Brand and Growth Lead

Lead marketing for The Divinity School’s Anthology and The Uncontainability Project’s lecture series. Build the brand and the funnels that turn our content into book sales, lecture signups, and a growing audience.

Starts: November 2026
Hours: About 12/week, remote
Pay: $2,000/month + bonuses
Reports to: Corey Cleland, Executive Director
Funding and path: Funded for 8 months, through June 2027. We’re raising to make this a full-time role.

Read the full role

Who you’d be working with

Endemic is a fiscally sponsored 501(c)(3) nonprofit that builds next-generation education institutions and the R&D ecosystems around them. We’re a startup, working with a small budget to start. We’ve spent years building foundations: a scholarly community, research, an ecosystem of collaborating organizations, and a library of content. Now we’re ready to scale, with the same rigor and care for our brands that got us here. This role serves two of our projects.

The Divinity School is Endemic’s flagship program: a research institution and future graduate school building two new fields. Horizons of Biological Intelligence studies how intelligence works across living systems, from cells to ecosystems. Naturalizing Machine Agency asks how to design machine agency that supports life rather than undermining it. The School is launching an accredited MA in Scientific Institutional Leadership. Its founding publication is the Anthology, Horizons of Biological Intelligence & Naturalizing Machine Agency (New Science Series, Volume 1), with chapters from ~18 scholars across biology, cognitive science, AI, philosophy, and governance.

The Uncontainability Project asks whether advanced AI can be controlled and aligned at all, and whether the limits can be proven formally. The Project maintains a curated index of that research, organized for researchers, policymakers, and funders. It also organizes collaborations and workshops, helps researchers secure funding, translates results into policy recommendations, and is developing a lecture series and educational materials for new audiences. That lecture series is one of the two things you’d market. The Project has been supported by a grant from the Survival and Flourishing Fund.

The role

You’ll lead marketing for the Anthology and The Uncontainability Project’s lecture series. Your job is to build the brand and the funnels that turn our content into book sales, lecture signups, and a growing audience.

You’d be the first hire on our growth and impact team. New fields develop when the right researchers, funders, and institutions find the work and start building on it. That’s this job. If it works, we raise the money to build the team around you.

The role starts in November 2026 at about 12 hours per week, remote, reporting to Corey Cleland, Executive Director. Funding is committed for the first 8 months, through June 2027, and we’re raising to make it a full-time role.

What you’ll work with

We have many hours of material: recorded talks and lectures, interviews, event footage, and essays from the Anthology’s 18 contributors. You can also interview any contributor. You won’t start from scratch. Most of the job might be packaging and distributing what already exists.

What you’ll do

Implementing your draft plan becomes your first month’s work. Finalists in our interview process write a draft growth plan as part of the interview (see How to apply). In your first 15 days, you refine it with Corey into the final plan and run it.

Ongoing:

Grow the email list as our core channel.
Build presence on the social channels your plan prioritizes.
Make the most of our partners’ channels and audiences: give them ready-to-use material and coordinate campaigns so sharing our work is easy and effective for them.
Plan and run the Anthology launch campaign.
Fill the lecture series: advise on registration so it captures who’s signing up. Promote each lecture, and turn recordings into clips that drive the next signup.
Manage your tools within a monthly budget.
Report results quarterly.

We prioritize organic and partner channels over paid promotion.

How you’ll be measured

Outcome	Measure	Target
Anthology sales	Copies sold	Set in your plan
Lecture signups	Qualified signups: a researcher in one of the target fields below who attends at least one live lecture	50 is a strong result and triggers a performance bonus
Email list	Net new subscribers and engagement	Set in your plan
Partnerships	Organizations sharing or co-promoting the work	Set in your plan

Target audience

The Anthology aims to influence the strategic priorities of institutional leaders, especially those who make decisions regarding science and technology R&D funding, including leaders of private philanthropies and government agencies. Key organizations we would like to influence include Renaissance Philanthropy, Astera Institute, ARIA, Institute for Progress, Boston Consulting Group, RAND, and NIST.

The Uncontainability Project lecture series initially aims to attract researchers who could be motivated to work on proofs of AGI uncontainability. Target fields are control engineering and control theory, computability theory, computational complexity, formal methods, neural-network verification, measure theory, information theory, mathematical logic, dynamical and complex systems, decision theory, learning theory, evolutionary biology and ecology, distributed systems, multi-agent systems, AI systems security, and governance and law. As we build momentum we will direct research that will be useful for policymakers, with a focus on formally assessing safe vs dangerous AI.

Pay

Stipend	$2,000/month
Tool budget	~$200/month start, for tools you choose
Sales bonus	15% of Anthology sales after payment fees, paid quarterly (about $6.50 per $45 copy)
Signup bonus	$75 per qualified lecture signup (contingent on a pending matching grant)

At 500 copies and 50 qualified signups, pay for this part-time role over the 8 months comes to about $23,000. If we build the brands well together and our fundraising succeeds, the role is likely to evolve, and more funding may become available for it.

Working with Corey

Corey has been a CMO and growth lead for product brands, managing more than $5 million in ad spend and building quarter-million-dollar brand campaigns. Here, he has chosen not to run marketing. You lead; he’s a collaborator and sounding board while he focuses on the org’s mission, brand quality, fundraising, partnerships, and strategy.

Who we’re looking for

You care about the work itself. Our content is technical and visionary. You don’t need to be a scientist, but you should want to read it, argue with it, and have a real stake in whether these projects succeed. You can’t market this well from a distance. Ideally:

You’ve sold a book, course, or program and can show the numbers.
You’ve built funnels from first touch to purchase and measured them.
You make your own assets: you edit video and write copy.
You can talk to scientists, policy people and funders about AI and biology without hype.
You work independently and want pay tied to results.

A background in science communication, independent publishing, newsletter or podcast growth, or nonprofit programs is a plus.

How to apply

Send a short note on why this work interests you, plus examples of a launch or funnel you’ve built and the results.

Finalists will write a draft growth plan of two pages or less covering email, social and partnerships: which channels you’d prioritize, which assets from our library you’d use first, your cadence, and the targets you’d set for the first 5 months. We’ll give you access to a sample of our content to work from. The plan is the center of the final interview, where we’ll talk it through together.

Apply by email

Write to corey@endemic.org with a short note and examples of a launch or funnel you’ve built.

Start a conversation

Donate

The opportunity and responsibility we share.

Give now

Private philanthropy has the capacity and responsibility to make high-intuition, high-risk, long-term bets that are less influenced by technology and market drivers, and decoupled from popularity contests and elite politics. This positions philanthropists as actors in futures that others cannot yet see and enables them to work upstream of the agendas of investors, markets, media, and even governments, bringing opportunities forward that otherwise would not have been feasible to maximize beauty and intelligence, reduce injustices, and enrich humanity.

This takes incredible courage, insight, sensitivity, and commitment. It requires Belief.

Four hundred years ago, education underwent a transformation. “New technological and economic changes were outpacing the thinking of the [political] leaders.” Traditional worldviews that once unified all knowledge and belief were fragmenting under emerging methods of knowledge production. The revolutionary technology was the printing press, the emerging economic system was capitalism, and the new methodology for producing knowledge was empirical science.

Unfortunately, the opportunity for an integrative “education-centric social system… that would place human development and the free flow of information at the center of social life on a global scale” was coopted by “capital and the nation state upgrading and expanding school bureaucracies and improving the reach of public education as part of building national economies.”

All of this is happening again with a similar revolution in technology, economic system, and knowledge production. If individuals and institutions continue to make easy, safe, known choices, if we continue to build on top of the legacy system, the resulting transformations will involve increasingly general, but superficial “AI” used to enforce a global techno-feudalism, and that, when applied to scientific research, will produce empirically validated knowledge, while reducing humans’ cognitive capacity and prioritizing economic consolidation over the creative discovery of novel paradigms.

We need novel education institutions working to integrate “new sciences, as well as religious aspects of human culture… for the design of educational configurations capable of catalyzing a universal reform of all human institutions.” Endemic builds them. Our schools and labs, The Divinity School, The Uncontainability Project, and Endemic Culinary Institute, are early examples of this new kind of institution: each forms people who can see deeper into reality, make decisions that benefit the whole, and hold a shared vision long enough to deliver on it.

If they succeed, instead of the technocracy described above, the resulting civilization will be undergirded by an increasing sensitivity to relationship. The key technological innovation will be systems that better surface, coordinate, and develop the perceptions and insights of individuals and communities. The economy will dramatically increase innovation contextualized to local environments and values, and knowledge production will deepen our intuitive capacities and embodied, sensory integration with the world around us.

Endemic builds these institutions from the ground up. We look for what a thriving social, spiritual, and ecological order is missing, then design the school or lab to supply it: its concept, its mission and strategy, its faculty and team. Our long-term goal is a shared campus, established in partnership with a host city. The people working across our schools and labs are already piercing existing paradigms with tools and policies that guide us toward life-affirming futures.

There are great and terrible opportunities ahead. In the coming years, fundamental questions will be reconsidered: What is life? What place do feeling and emotion hold in decision-making? How will religion, community, and spiritual life thrive amid radical technological change? What is humanity for? The answers that gain prominence will shape everything.

When the first benefactors endowed Oxford or MIT, they could never have foreseen antibiotics, silicon chips, or space telescopes. Likewise, we cannot predict every breakthrough that will emerge from Endemic’s institutions. What we can promise is that our work will guide institutions toward technologies, policies, and infrastructure that should be built in every conceivable future.

All gifts are stewarded through Better Giving, our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, and are tax-deductible in the United States. To direct your gift to a specific school or lab, note it with your gift. Contact us to learn more about our plan for the next four hundred years.

Reference: Stein, Z. (2022). Education must make history again: Remembering Comenius in a time between worlds. Perspectiva Press.