Preserving Human Civilization Program
Preserving human civilization, for the future
PHCP, the Preserving Human Civilization Program, uses technology to preserve what human civilization has made: knowledge, social institutions and everything else worth keeping. Storing it is not enough — those who come later must be able to read it, use it and keep improving it.
Why preserve
Civilization does not keep itself. Again and again, knowledge and experience have vanished together with their media, their languages and their institutions.
Media decay
Paper rots, disks fail, websites close. Content kept in only one place can disappear at any time.
Formats age
What is stored may no longer be readable. File formats, software and languages go out of use, and the content loses its readers.
Lessons are forgotten
The designs and lessons of social institutions are rarely recorded and tested. The same mistakes repeat in different ages.
How we preserve
Every PHCP project follows the same four principles.
Long-term storage
Important content goes into permanent storage networks, not into one institution or one server.
Open formats
Simple, open formats such as Markdown and plain text come first, so the content stays readable decades from now.
Structured records
Content is recorded with structure that people and AI can search, cite and update — not as scattered files.
Test before adopting
Institutional designs are tested first, with public data and simulation. Conclusions are kept together with their assumptions.
Three projects
PHCP starts in three directions: build the tools, preserve knowledge, test institutions.
PHCP-01
Tools
- Status
- In development
Toolmaker Agent
The workbench that builds the tools of PHCP
Long-term engineering needs traceable development records. Toolmaker Agent is a software development management platform built for PHCP: people and AI coding agents share one set of structured records, so every step from requirement and design to test and defect can be traced.
- Products, features, requirements, UML designs, test cases and defects, all as structured records
- A web interface, LLM chat and MCP work on the same data
- One file that runs locally; the data stays on your own computer
PHCP-02
Knowledge
- Status
- In development
ZhiShi
Preserving human knowledge
ZhiShi (知识, "knowledge") is a platform for sharing domain knowledge. Authors write in Markdown; articles and images are stored on the Arweave permanent storage network — stored once, readable for the long term, independent of any one company staying in business.
- Articles and images are stored permanently on Arweave
- Knowledge is organized by domain: master a domain's knowledge and you can do its work
- Five levels of preserved knowledge: preservable, readable, usable, evolving, spreadable
PHCP-03
Institutions
- Status
- Research v1 completed
MEL Fund
Improving a social institution by simulation
Social institutions are hard to experiment on. MEL Fund uses computer simulation to study a county-level mutual-aid scheme: residents pay into education, medical and life funds by income and draw from them when needed. A model calibrated on public data runs 50 years to test whether the scheme can run on its own after one seed injection.
- An individual-level Monte Carlo simulation, calibrated on public data
- Research design, cases, method and results are published on its site
- A paper study: it raises no money and accepts no contributions
One program, three directions
Each project has its own task, and each supports the others.
PHCP-01 · Toolmaker Agent
Tools support the projects
PHCP projects keep their development records in Toolmaker Agent. The features and requirements of MEL Fund are recorded there.
PHCP-02 · ZhiShi
Knowledge is the core
ZhiShi preserves the knowledge humanity already has — the heart of what PHCP sets out to keep.
PHCP-03 · MEL Fund
Institutions are tested, then kept
MEL Fund does not only record an institution's design. It tests the design by simulation and keeps the assumptions, the process and the conclusions together.
About PHCP
PHCP (Preserving Human Civilization Program, 保存人类文明计划) was started and is run by PHCP Technologies.
It is a long-term program. We begin with tools, knowledge and institutions, and widen what we preserve step by step.
We preserve so that those who come later need not start from nothing.