<aside> 🔥 This is a list of types of rabbitholes that we're interested in funding. Regardless of what's on this list, it's important to note that we won't discount other interesting rabbitholes.

We believe the best rabbitholes are often hard to define, perhaps counter-intuitive at first, and may not appear immediately useful. So, let this list serve as a template of inspiration, but not a source of limitation.

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How To Choose A Rabbit Hole:

We're open to any topic. It can be as absurd or bog-standard as you'd like it to be. At times we're inclined to be inspired by this Anne Dillard quote on noticing gaps that beg to be explored:

“Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.”

Yet we also believe in the re-mystification of the mundane. In other words:

'to see everything that has already been seen, and to observe it as if I were looking at it for the first time.'

Giving you a blank canvas can be helpful, but also daunting. There are certain things that a Learning Offering will not be well designed for, so here are a few ways to think about the Learning Offering framework and the work you'll be taking on:

• It's a living literature review. You'll be a walking library, the community will be your second brain, the class you're continually leading, and your thesis adviser, all at once.
• It's a pop-up learning group, led by you, to go deep into a topic, or to synthesise a lot of topics.
• It's an independent inquiry, with a group of supporters and backers. You don't need to know a thing about the topic prior to going down the rabbithole, you just need to be curious and nosey. The inquiry will yield what you put into it.

9 General Themes:

Here are a few of the Rabbithole categories that we are excited to help fund.

Mapping a Problem Space

Most modern discourse around problems that face us is fragmented, interest group driven, ideologically possessed and based on advertising cosmetic pre-selected solutions. We believe there is value in high-integrity individuals, with no previous background in a problem-space approaching that problem with a beginners' mindset, trying to map it out and come to their own judgement and build their own theses on it.

• Climate Solutions Channel
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Problem Finding - Michael Nielsen
• Longevity FAQ by Laura Deming
• World's Hardest Problems - Jay Saveri

Mapping a Possibility Space

Quintessential examples: Exploring a premise, prompt, emerging technology, emerging social technology, emerging field. Four sources which do a good job of pointing towards this notion: