We Live Like Royalty and Don't Know It
February 20, 2025 • #Charles Mann on the unseen, unappreciated wonders of modern infrastructure.
Charles Mann on the unseen, unappreciated wonders of modern infrastructure.
Annotating Marc Andreessen's manifesto on the e/acc movement.
We can imagine distant futures, but when we get there, they'll look wildly different (and we'll be glad they do).
Kevin Kelly's concept of Protopia.
BigThink's complete issue dedicated to progress studies.
Jason Crawford sets out a theory on technocracy.
The rise of non-experts, innovation and linearity, and our history as builders.
Vannevar Bush's seminal report.
Roots of Progress's list of inventions and why they were discovered when they were.
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.
Anton Howes on the initial developments of state capacity in 16c Britain.
Ben Southwood on what happened with the corporate research centers of the mid-20th century.
Venture Stories interview with Jose Luis Ricon.
Gurri on private vs. public emotions, McCloskey on the boom of modern progress, and Facebook's work on OpenStreetMap data.
Tanner Greer's analysis of what we've lost to be a culture of builders.
Video interview with Tyler Cowen on human progress.
Roots of Progress launching a program for high school students.
Some brief thoughts in innovation, whether or not it's in our nature, and how mimetics might play a role.
American industrial production, why we bikeshed, and an app for glyphs.
Did Christensen and Kuhn get it wrong in describing scientific innovation in such a binary way?
Martin Gurri responds to Marc Andreessen's recent essay.
Daniel Gross discusses things that change in a post-covid world.
What's driving the massive multiplicative increases in costs and time-to-completion for large infrastructure projects?
A look at the positive side of the news, using data and visualization.
Using space and microgravity as a new center of manufacturing.
Comparing baseball broadcast graphics, a review of The Mind Illuminated, and thinking about the most likely sites for the Industrial Revolution.
A newsletter on innovation and the history of technological progress.
Roots of Progress on the history of cement and concrete.
On the budding subject of Progress Studies, to understand better how society makes advances in science and technology.
Do we see more progress during the hard times or the good? Speculation on what generates inventions.
nvULTRA notes editor, creating a science of progress, and George Hotz on Comma.ai.