Many foundational ideas in contemporary longtermist thinking originated in early online communities like the Extropians listserv, but these discussions remain buried in lengthy, unstructured archives. This makes it difficult for current thinkers to discover prior insights and for newcomers to trace the intellectual history of the field. A project could systematically mine these historical forums to bridge this gap.

What the Project Would Achieve

One approach could involve analyzing discussions from forums like Extropians to identify and annotate early ideas that align with modern longtermist concepts. The output might include:

• A curated collection of key excerpts, grouped by themes like AI risk or bioengineering ethics,
• Light annotations explaining their relevance to current thinking, and
• A structured document or resource that makes these insights accessible.

An initial version could be as simple as a categorized Google Doc, while a more refined version might resemble a polished "Ideas from the Early Days of Longtermism" compilation.

How It Could Be Executed

A phased execution plan might involve:

1. Discovery Phase: Identify prominent contributors and search archives using keywords related to modern longtermism.
2. Selection & Annotation: Extract the most relevant discussions and add brief contextual explanations.
3. Organization & Feedback: Group findings by theme, draft introductory summaries, and share with the community for refinement.

The process could be made more robust by cross-referencing with modern citations to surface influential posts and explicitly flagging potential selection biases.

Why It Would Matter

This could benefit multiple stakeholders:

• Junior researchers could contribute while learning the field's history,
• Newcomers could gain an engaging entry point beyond academic papers,
• Established researchers could quickly reference prior discussions,
• Historians could preserve valuable digital discourse.

Unlike existing resources like the LessWrong Sequences or academic papers, this approach would highlight the raw, evolving discussions behind longtermist ideas—offering both historical insight and practical utility.