Topic / progress

We Live Like Royalty and Don't Know It

Charles Mann on the unseen, unappreciated wonders of modern infrastructure.

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, Annotated

Annotating Marc Andreessen's manifesto on the e/acc movement.

Outcomes Don't Look Like We Predict

We can imagine distant futures, but when we get there, they'll look wildly different (and we'll be glad they do).

Protopia

Kevin Kelly's concept of Protopia.

BigThink's Progress Issue

BigThink's complete issue dedicated to progress studies.

The Lure of Technocracy

Jason Crawford sets out a theory on technocracy.

Weekend Reading: Non-Experts, Non-Linear Innovation, and We Were Builders

The rise of non-experts, innovation and linearity, and our history as builders.

Science: The Endless Frontier

Vannevar Bush's seminal report.

Why Did It Take So Long to Invent X?

Roots of Progress's list of inventions and why they were discovered when they were.

Progress is Not Automatic

Innovation doesn't happen while we wait around, it's something that we choose to pursue, even if it doesn't always look that way.

Building a State

Anton Howes on the initial developments of state capacity in 16c Britain.

The Rise and Fall of the R&D Lab

Ben Southwood on what happened with the corporate research centers of the mid-20th century.

Science, Innovation, and Longevity

Venture Stories interview with Jose Luis Ricon.

Weekend Reading: Looking Glass Politics, Enrichment, and OSM Datasets

Gurri on private vs. public emotions, McCloskey on the boom of modern progress, and Facebook's work on OpenStreetMap data.

Cultures That Build

Tanner Greer's analysis of what we've lost to be a culture of builders.

The Torch of Progress with Tyler Cowen

Video interview with Tyler Cowen on human progress.

Progress Studies for Young Scholars

Roots of Progress launching a program for high school students.

Innovation and Human Nature

Some brief thoughts in innovation, whether or not it's in our nature, and how mimetics might play a role.

Weekend Reading: American Production, On Bikeshedding, and Glyphfinder

American industrial production, why we bikeshed, and an app for glyphs.

The Distribution of Scientific Discoveries

Did Christensen and Kuhn get it wrong in describing scientific innovation in such a binary way?

The Great Reset

Martin Gurri responds to Marc Andreessen's recent essay.

Funding Models for Science

Building in World 2.0

Daniel Gross discusses things that change in a post-covid world.

Why Don't We Know More About the Subway Cost Disease?

What's driving the massive multiplicative increases in costs and time-to-completion for large infrastructure projects?

Beautiful News

A look at the positive side of the news, using data and visualization.

Microgravity Will Change How We Make Everything

Using space and microgravity as a new center of manufacturing.

Weekend Reading: Baseball Graphics, the Mind Illuminated, and the Crucial Century

Comparing baseball broadcast graphics, a review of The Mind Illuminated, and thinking about the most likely sites for the Industrial Revolution.

Why New Technology is Such a Hard Sell

Age of Invention

A newsletter on innovation and the history of technological progress.

Instant Stone

Roots of Progress on the history of cement and concrete.

Progress Studies

On the budding subject of Progress Studies, to understand better how society makes advances in science and technology.

Does Invention Come from Deprivation or Plenty?

Do we see more progress during the hard times or the good? Speculation on what generates inventions.

Weekend Reading: nvUltra, Progress, and Comma.ai

nvULTRA notes editor, creating a science of progress, and George Hotz on Comma.ai.