If you were in charge tomorrow, what concrete, measurable milestone would you have the most the talented scientists and 0.4% of GDP go to solving?

creating and destroying; built flying cars & autonomous vehicles, now building /faust, more here: /july, web: july.rocks

It has to be something that has no free market incentive, and a specific 
+ visually compelling achievement. I like @july's space elevator suggestion.

Another way to think about it is: what are we racing towards? What is the next frontier? Answer categories could space, AGI, synthetic organisms

making /obsidian • writing stephango.com

Of course I’m biased towards the frontier (that it should be space) and that it should be evolving as a species and becoming more than what we are today on one planet only

But I do think physically expanding our horizon brings is a tide that lifts all boats imo

Human species evolving

survive -> strive -> thrive 

- First we survive as a species on earth, make living on earth sustainable (that may be artificially through geoengineering)
- Then we build the infrastructure to get off earth easily so we can strive to become interplanetary 
- thrive on other planets, orbitals etc