We're writing this in our personal capacity. While our work at the Future of Life Foundation has recently focused on this topic and informs our thinking here, this specific presentation of our views are our own.

Knowledge is integral to living life well, at all scales:

Individuals manage their life choices: health, career, investment, and others on the basis of what they understand about themselves and their environments.
Institutions and governments (ideally) regulate economies, provide security, and uphold the conditions for flourishing under their jurisdictions, only if they can make requisite sense of the systems involved.
Technologists and scientists push the boundaries of the known, generating insights and techniques judged valuable by combining a vision for what is possible with a conception of what is desirable (or as proxy, demanded).
More broadly, societies negotiate their paths forward through discourse which rests on some reliable, broadly shared access to a body of knowledge and situational awareness about the biggest stakes, people's varied interests in them, and our shared prospects.
- (We’re especially interested in how societies and humanity as a whole can navigate the many challenges of the 21st century, most immediately AI [...]

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Outline:

(03:08) A full what?

(06:03) Layers of a foundational protocol

(07:06) Ingestion: observations, data, and identity

(08:47) Structure: inference and discourse

(09:05) Inference structure: genealogy of claims and supporting evidence (Structure I)

(11:16) Discourse: refinement, counterargument, refutation (Structure II)

(13:56) Assessment: credence, endorsement, and trust

(16:04) Beyond foundations: UX and integrations

(19:16) How? Why now?

(22:08) Takeaways

The original text contained 13 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
December 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DMswzhPQqkqx2XAma/a-full-epistemic-stack-knowledge-commons-for-the-21st-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Diagram showing three-layered epistemic infrastructure stack with connected Wikipedia-like systems, community notes, and AI advisors.

Three-panel illustration showing evolution of human communication from prehistoric to digital age.

Diagram showing data sources flowing through transformation process to create structured, tagged information.

Nanopublication diagram showing assertion, provenance, and publication info components.

Diagram showing data flow from structured sources to global temperature claim through 2024 report.

Diagram showing hierarchical evidence structure transforming into circular argument analysis wheel.

Multi-level circular chart showing data distribution leading to four analysis categories.

Illustration of a man in business attire above

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“A Full Epistemic Stack: Knowledge Commons for the 21st Century” by Oliver Sourbut, Ben Goldhaber

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“A Full Epistemic Stack: Knowledge Commons for the 21st Century” by Oliver Sourbut, Ben Goldhaber