Latest Res Extensa , on our natural genetic wiring to explore, and its biological benefits of asymmetric bets:
Topic / innovation
14 postsHow Shellac is Made
April 18, 2024 • #The weird backstory of a common substance.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, Annotated
October 16, 2023 • #Annotating Marc Andreessen's manifesto on the e/acc movement.
Outcomes Don't Look Like We Predict
October 12, 2023 • #We can imagine distant futures, but when we get there, they'll look wildly different (and we'll be glad they do).
Monthly Reading, August 2023
August 29, 2023 • #The 'improving mentality', how learning works, making decisions, the virtue of speed, and pattern languages
Lessons from the Invention of the Thermometer
November 10, 2022 • #Invention requires the right combination of environment, timing, and purpose.
BigThink's Progress Issue
September 23, 2022 • #BigThink's complete issue dedicated to progress studies.
Steve Jobs on Ideas vs. Products
September 19, 2022 • #From an interview with Steve Jobs, on the importance of execution over ideas.
Exapting Technologies
September 9, 2021 • #Embracing, reusing, and remixing existing technologies to build new ones.
Software and Entropy
June 28, 2021 • #Through manipulating bits, we can rearrange atoms.
Weekend Reading: Non-Experts, Non-Linear Innovation, and We Were Builders
October 24, 2020 • #The rise of non-experts, innovation and linearity, and our history as builders.
Why Did It Take So Long to Invent X?
October 5, 2020 • #Roots of Progress's list of inventions and why they were discovered when they were.
Cultures That Build
June 24, 2020 • #Tanner Greer's analysis of what we've lost to be a culture of builders.
Innovation and Human Nature
May 10, 2020 • #Some brief thoughts in innovation, whether or not it's in our nature, and how mimetics might play a role.