What causes progress? And how can we stop it from slowing? (with Jason Crawford)
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Jason Crawford about progress studies, exploring how to define, measure, and sustain human progress. They discuss historical periods of advancement, the causes of the Industrial Revolution, and hypotheses for the recent slowdown in technological breakthroughs, including regulation and scientific funding models.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Introduction to Progress Studies and its Core Questions
Defining Progress: Human Well-being as the Standard
Historical Context: The Malthusian Trap and Per Capita Wealth
Key Questions in Progress Studies
Intertwined Revolutions: Scientific, Industrial, and Democratic
Feedback Loops Driving Accelerated Progress
Why Progress Was Slow Before the Industrial Revolution
Sustained vs. Temporary Periods of Progress in History
The Evolution of the Idea of Progress and its Impact
The Stagnation Hypothesis: A Recent Slowdown in Progress
Quantifying the Slowdown: GDP and Total Factor Productivity
Hypotheses for Progress Slowdown: Regulation and Bureaucracy
Case Study: The Demise and Stagnation of Nuclear Power
The Bureaucratization of Science Funding and its Risks
The Role of Culture and Belief in Progress
Defending Progress: Material Advancement and Human Well-being
Strategies for Fostering Future Progress
The Roots of Progress: A New Non-Profit Initiative
6 Key Concepts
Progress
Progress is defined as anything that helps humans live better lives, encompassing longer, happier, healthier lives with more choice, opportunity, and ultimately greater happiness. It focuses on human well-being rather than solely on economic metrics like money or GDP.
Malthusian Trap
This describes a historical period where any increase in productivity or wealth quickly led to higher population levels and density, rather than higher per capita wealth. Population growth would consume any gains, resulting in cycles of famine, war, and disease, preventing significant individual improvement.
Stagnation Hypothesis
This is the idea that the pace of fundamental technological breakthroughs and new inventions at the cutting edge has slowed over the last 50 years compared to the preceding 100 years. This phenomenon is observed both qualitatively and quantitatively through metrics like GDP growth and Total Factor Productivity.
E-Room's Law
This term, Moore spelled backward, describes the trend where the cost of developing new drugs has exponentially increased over time. One major hypothesis for this phenomenon is the cautious regulatory approach, which adds significant overhead and expense to bringing new pharmaceuticals to market.
Horns Effect
Also referred to as an 'evil halo' or 'dark aura,' this describes a psychological phenomenon where a negative perception uniquely surrounds a technology, such as nuclear power. It causes people to view its risks as mystically or uniquely dangerous, often disproportionately to objective safety data.
Supply-Side Progressivism
This concept, originating from the political left, advocates for focusing on the creation of wealth and increasing supply (e.g., energy abundance) as a necessary foundation. The argument is that if progressives want to distribute wealth and improve society, the wealth must first be created.
10 Questions Answered
Progress is defined as anything that helps humans live longer, happier, healthier lives, offering more choice, opportunity, and ultimately greater happiness and well-being.
For thousands of years, humanity was caught in a 'Malthusian trap' where any gains in productivity were quickly consumed by population growth, preventing per capita wealth from increasing significantly until the Industrial Revolution.
A combination of technological feedback loops (inventions enabling further inventions), cultural shifts (the belief in progress and a scientific/engineering mindset), capitalistic feedback loops (profitability driving expansion), and the reciprocal relationship between science and technology (better science enabling better tools, and vice-versa).
These three revolutions are intertwined and were products of a broader change in the West, stemming from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, underpinned by evolving social systems, legal/financial infrastructure, and a new philosophical approach to understanding and improving the world.
Qualitatively and quantitatively, there is evidence for a 'stagnation hypothesis,' suggesting a slower pace of fundamental technological breakthroughs and new inventions at the cutting edge over the last 50 years compared to the preceding 100 years, reflected in metrics like GDP growth and Total Factor Productivity.
Three primary hypotheses are: the growing burden of regulation and bureaucracy, the centralization and bureaucratization of science and research funding, and a cultural shift away from an unreserved belief in the possibility and desirability of progress.
A significant factor was a rapidly escalating and turbulent regulatory environment, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, driven by public fear (partly due to its wartime origins and anti-war/environmentalist movements) and leading to 'safety theater' that made nuclear energy uneconomic.
The consolidation of science funding into a few large federal agencies (like NIH) creates a monoculture with blind spots, and committee-based peer review processes risk over-focusing on consensus, making it difficult for maverick or status-quo-challenging ideas to get funded.
If society views material progress as a 'destructive engine,' fewer people will dedicate resources to it, and more will actively fight against it through regulation and opposition. Conversely, a belief in progress as beneficial generates more energy, people, enthusiasm, and resources for its pursuit.
A long-term effort is needed, starting with a new, accessible telling of the history of progress, promoting optimistic sci-fi, teaching the history of technology in schools, and supporting a diverse range of research and creative projects through initiatives like grants.
16 Actionable Insights
1. Define Progress by Well-being
Focus on progress as anything that helps humans live longer, happier, healthier lives with more choice and opportunity, rather than solely economic metrics like GDP.
2. Understand Progress to Sustain
Deeply understand how historical progress occurred to ensure it continues and doesn’t reverse, learning from past civilizational collapses and identifying key drivers.
3. Evaluate Regulatory Burden
Regularly assess and reduce regulatory burdens, especially those that are “safety theater” or demonstrably pointless, to prevent choking off innovation and increasing costs in critical industries.
4. Diversify Science Funding
Decentralize science funding to avoid monocultures, blind spots, and groupthink, allowing a greater diversity of approaches and supporting maverick ideas that challenge the status quo.
5. Re-embrace Pro-Progress Mindset
Shift away from an overly cautious or anti-progress sentiment by acknowledging the benefits of material progress for human well-being, fostering enthusiasm and resources for innovation while addressing specific risks thoughtfully.
6. Accelerate Invention Rate
To increase per capita wealth and individual well-being, strive for a rate of major inventions that outpaces population growth, aiming for significant breakthroughs more frequently.
7. Invest Surplus Capital Wisely
Allocate accumulated surplus capital into experimentation, invention, and business creation to drive further progress and generate more surplus for future investment.
8. Adopt Systematic Methods
Apply systematic, methodical, and quantitative approaches, characteristic of modern science, to tinkering, invention, and problem-solving to sustain and accelerate progress.
9. Advance Science, Technology Interdependently
Recognize and leverage the reciprocal relationship where scientific advancements enable better technology, and improved technology provides superior instruments for scientific discovery.
10. Develop Mass Production Innovations
Focus on inventions that enable mass production and profitable businesses, as these create economic feedback loops that sustain further progress and wealth accumulation.
11. Educate Through Progress History
Tell the story of progress and technology history in an accessible way to a general audience to build a foundational understanding and appreciation for progress.
12. Fund Progress-Oriented Projects
Establish and support grant programs for writers, intellectuals, artists, and other creatives to produce work that promotes and explores the history and philosophy of progress.
13. Promote Optimistic Sci-Fi
Encourage and create optimistic science fiction that presents desirable visions of the future, counteracting the prevalence of dystopian narratives and inspiring positive progress.
14. Dramatize Scientific Discovery
Create documentaries and biopics that realistically portray the technical problems, struggles, and processes of discovery and invention by scientists and inventors, inspiring and educating the public.
15. Teach Technology History in Schools
Implement basic history of technology courses in schools (high school and undergraduate levels) to educate students about the origins and impact of technological advancements.
16. Streamline Building Processes
Reform environmental review laws and other regulations that allow obstructionists to indefinitely hold up development projects, enabling faster and cheaper construction.
10 Key Quotes
Progress, and I just mean very simply that which helps us to live better lives.
Jason Crawford
The Industrial Revolution would never have been sustained without science.
Jason Crawford
Tech trees are a very real thing.
Jason Crawford
For most of human history in most times and places, people didn't think of progress as a thing that was happening or could happen or should happen.
Jason Crawford
If people believe in it, then they're going to actually go out and, you know, try to do more of it. And when they see progress happening, then that reinforces the belief.
Jason Crawford
The biggest thing I don't know is, like, if it was such a much better lifestyle, why did it go away in most parts of the world?
Jason Crawford
Nuclear power was born in wartime and made its introduction to the world as the most horrifically destructive weapon that anyone had ever seen.
Jason Crawford
If you want to save the planet for the use and enjoyment of humans, then you tend to be for nuclear power and not if it's the reverse.
Jason Crawford
We shouldn't just categorically deny or exclude an entire area of technology just because there is a hazard or a risk.
Jason Crawford
If material progress is fundamentally seen as something that's going to make the world better and make our lives better, then you just get, you get more energy, more people, more enthusiasm, more resources flowing into it and much less trying to fundamentally stop it or slow it down.
Jason Crawford
1 Protocols
Fostering Future Progress
Jason Crawford- Tell a new, accessible story of progress through books, podcasts, and blogs, focusing on the history of technology and its philosophical implications.
- Create documentaries and biopics that dramatize the process of scientific discovery and invention, showing the technical problems and how they were overcome.
- Promote more optimistic science fiction that paints a vision of a desirable future, rather than focusing solely on dystopias.
- Integrate the basic history of technology into school curricula at both high school and undergraduate university levels.
- Establish grant programs for writers, intellectuals, artists, and other creatives who want to undertake projects aligned with these goals, fostering a diverse range of approaches.