H1 is a nonpartisan research foundation. We study technology, economics, political structures, and geopolitical agreements — then package what we learn into policy that's actually ready for a legislator to enact. Our only agenda is a species that can survive its own success.
Read our founding letter below ↓
Every civilization has reached a point in history that could easily have gone the other way. A missile officer who chose to wait. A pathogen that didn't quite spread fast enough. A financial system that was rescued, not because it was built to survive, but because enough people scrambled hard enough in the moment.
None of that is a criticism of the people who did the scrambling. It's an observation about the system they were operating in — one that has, so far, rewarded improvisation over design.
We don't think that's a strategy a species can rely on indefinitely. The tools available to us keep growing in power, and the margin for error that improvisation depends on keeps shrinking. At some point, "we got lucky again" stops being a plausible outcome.
H1 exists to shrink our dependence on luck. Not through slogans, and not by picking a political side and pushing it harder — but by doing the actual research, building the actual models, and handing policymakers something they can use: a complete, evidence-backed package, ready to enact, on the areas we believe matter most to a durable civilization.
We named the foundation after the Kardashev scale's Type I threshold — a civilization that has mastered the energy and coordination challenges of its own planet. We're not there. We think we can be, but only if we choose to be. That's the whole premise.
This isn't marketing language — they're constraints we design our research process around.
We don't start with a conclusion and go looking for supporting evidence. Research questions are chosen before we know which political direction the answer will point.
Every recommendation traces back to human historical evidence, not to a philosophical starting point about how the world ought to work.
Findings go in the public library whether or not they're flattering to our own priors — including work that contradicts an earlier H1 publication.
Handing ready-made policy to lawmakers is a futile exercise if the public doesn't have buy-in. We want to make the process as easy as possible for our lawmakers. This means educating the public, communicating the nuances so that they can both understand and support the ideas before they're brought to vote.
Every gift funds research hours, data access, and the policy-development work that turns findings into something a legislator can actually sign.