How long can we sustain economic growth?

This past weekend I went to a conference hosted by the Roots of Progress Institute. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to an event where the ideals and ideas of the other attendees so closely aligned with my own. Pretty much everyone there was a techno-optimist like myself. Everyone was thinking and talking about how we could accelerate economic growth.

How progress creates its own obstacles

I spent last weekend at a fascinating two-day conference put on by the Roots of Progress Institute in Berkeley, California. Founded and led by Jason Crawford, a writer and thinker (and past Future Perfect 50 honoree), Roots of Progress aims to build the intellectual foundation of what Crawford has called “a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century.” The conference was a chance for a few hundred people in the movement to meet, mingle, and plot how to create a future that would presumably look like this [image in blog post].

Future Perfect was founded in part to counter those tendencies. It doesn’t mean we put a big happy face on all of our coverage; rather, we try to identify the problems that are truly important, which includes substantial problems the media too often ignores because they don’t make for good headlines (like the millions of people in the Global South who still die because of preventable diseases or our failure to learn the lessons of past pandemics). But we do try to recognize, and even celebrate, progress when it happens. It’s still an uphill battle in the media overall, however.

Notes From The Progress Studies Conference

Tyler Cowen is an economics professor and blogger at Marginal Revolution. Patrick Collison is the billionaire founder of the online payments company Stripe. In 2019, they wrote an article calling for a discipline of Progress Studies, which would figure out what progress was and how to increase it. Later that year, tech entrepreneur Jason Crawford stepped up to spearhead the effort.

The immediate reaction was mostly negative. There were the usual gripes that “progress” was problematic because it could imply that some cultures/times/places/ideas were better than others. But there were also more specific objections: weren’t historians already studying progress? Wasn’t business academia already studying innovation? Are you really allowed to just invent a new field every time you think of something it would be cool to study? 

It seems like you are. Five years later, Progress Studies has grown enough to hold its first conference. I got to attend, and it was great. 

The objections failed because Progress Studies is the same type of field as Gender Studies: the Studying serves as the nucleus of a network of scientists, activists, entrepreneurs and journalists working to produce radical change. [...]

It’s popular to blame environmentalists and government regulators for this, and they do deserve part of the blame, but the speakers at the conference urged us to also blame existing nuclear companies, who lobby the government to add more and more burdensome safety regulations so they can charge more and keep out competitors. Again, this isn’t a war between economy-boosters and sympathetic activists who want some other good. It’s just dumb laws and regulatory capture hurting everybody. [...]

You might expect Progress Studies conference-goers to be natural accelerationists, but the mood was more subdued. Most of the people I talked to (again, maybe there was an unintentional bias) were worried about safety, understood intelligence explosion dynamics, and didn’t really know where this whole thing was going. Most continued to awkwardly support AI anyway, out of some generic loyalty to Progress. “Within ten years, AI progress could threaten the future of the human race - and if we fight really hard, we can bring that down to five!” I mock them, but I have a little of this impulse in me too, and will always be a little suspicious of anyone who doesn’t. [...]

Most of the victories discussed at the conference have nothing to do with Progress Studies. The solar industry, the self-driving car industry, etc, don’t even know it exists. Even the YIMBYs, whose leading representatives did attend, predate the field. 

My theory is that it all came from the same wellspring. Silicon Valley gathered all the pro-tech people together in one place, a lot of them became rich, and some of them spent their wealth reflecting on the nature of technological advance. This created a critical mass of people who were all talking to each other and motivated to see things that other people were missing. This isn’t the whole story: non-Silicon-Valley economists like Paul Krugman and Larry Summers helped build the foundational narrative. But it’s the story that makes the most sense for “why now”. 

I mocked the people in 2019 who thought a conference could affect the Gods Of Straight Lines. But it seems like maybe there was something - an idealized spiritual conference in 1971 between Ralph Nader, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, hippies, protectionists, and all those people - that knocked them off their thrones once. So who knows? 

I’m definitely making the same mistake of which I half-accused Tyler Cowen - going off vibes in a notoriously difficult field. But at least at this conference, the vibes were good.

What Do You Do With an Idea??

Happy Wednesday! I’m sending a day late because I spent the weekend at the Roots of Progress Institute’s Progress Conference and the last couple of days in San Francisco. As much of a New Yorker as I am, I gotta say, it feels like SF is back. People are turning ideas into products, and at the right price point, products turn into progress. This is an essay based on conversations from the past week on how to do that. Let’s get to it.

I spent the weekend at Progress Conference 2024, hosted by Jason Crawford, Heike Larson, and the team at the Roots of Progress Institute. It was awesome. A group of my favorite progress thinkers and doers from the internet came to Lighthaven in Berkeley to discuss the question: how do we make more progress?

Instead of harder-to-find ideas, we might have an abundance of great ideas for those with the skill and entrepreneurial vigor to bring to life. That would imply that we don’t necessarily need more researchers; we just need more people putting the ideas the researchers come up with to work. In addition to making new Einsteins  - genius researchers will always be important – we need to make new Vanderbilts and Fords and Wrights. Tinkerers who can pluck from the pile of withered ideas and combine them in new ways. We might also need new Librarians, who can help surface those great old ideas, and track which technologies and costs might make them economically viable after all of these years. Maybe that’s where AI can be most helpful.

In Praise of Progress

I just got back from a conference in Berkeley sponsored by the Roots of Progress Institute, an organization dedicated to developing a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century. It is one of a panoply of relatively new groups forming a self-anointed “Progress Movement,” which the organization I created, The Progress Network, is also part of. No one leads this movement. And to be fair, it is not yet clear if this even is a movement rather than the aspiration to be one. It remains to be seen if these atoms in motion ever coalesce into something more focused and more culturally potent. All we know now is that there is a set of voices, people, institutions loosely aligned around the idea that human progress is real and magnificent and that we are selling ourselves and our culture short by over-emphasizing the harbingers of doom and underestimating the forces of progress.

One of the more notable aspects of two days of progress studies was what wasn’t said. Twelve hours each day, countless side conversations and panels and discussions, and I didn’t hear the words “Trump, Harris, Israel or Gaza.” Not one. Aside from how refreshing that was, it also spoke to a larger truth frequently forgotten in the haze of our dystopian media landscape. The U.S. election is important, but it isn’t nearly as important as the attention it receives would suggest. There are things going on with nuclear energy or AI or land use or education that will shape our near future profoundly and have precious little to do with who occupies the oval office. For sure, the regulatory framework here matters greatly, but that is often less about the party in power than the years of rules and bureaucracy that have accreted. Maybe one party will be better at reforming those, but few would argue that reform isn’t needed.

There is something infectious, contagious about optimism, about several hundred people jazzed at the idea of what is possible, and hard-nosed about what it takes to make it real. There is something heady about discussions of AI that don’t begin with The Terminator and end with the Matrix. There is something energizing about reflecting on the material progress humans have made even while recognizing that it’s neither complete nor encompasses the non-material needs of the spirit and family and communities. And above all, we all need frequent reminders that golden ages are not just myths of the past but aspirations, and that often, the greatest obstacles are the ones we create. Two days of progress talk was that reminder for me. This column is my reminder for you.

Making progress on metascience

This was a genuinely generative and intellectually stimulating conference. The progress studies community has retained a healthy level of debate and quibbling. That is a good thing! Embracing and leaning into disagreement is necessary for a successful intellectual community and a cultural movement with broad attraction. I have observed something similar in the Ecomodernist movement. For example, at the annual Dialogue conference series—which concluded this year after over a decade and was the flagship Ecomodernist conference put on by the Breakthrough Institute where I have a non-resident appointment—one was likely to find full-fledged socialists, free-market evangelists, and milk toast centrists. In both cases, intellectual diversity is not a gimmick; folks really do have clashes of ideas. It is much more fun this way.

Benjamin Parry, proprietor of the Skillful Notes Substack, recently summarized his thoughts on the event. He observed that the formal academic discipline of progress studies originally intended by Collison and Cowen has not quite materialized but has emerged as “a vibe.” Instead, it is a sort of mood or cultural moment that is unabashedly pro-human and keen on technological advancement. I think that is right. But from the academic perspective, I think it is good that progress studies has not become a formal academic discipline of its own and one can only hope it will not become one. There is a sense in which formalizing too much and erecting the fences endemic to fields of academia means that progress studies would inevitably consolidate, rigidify, and stagnate. It would cease to be a dynamic melting pot of dozens of academic disciplines from the humanities to physical and social science departments, along with startup technologists, think tank policy wonks, essayists, filmmakers, and the works.The progress studies movement needs to focus on the tail of the distribution of science. If metascience is left to the scientometricians or science and technology studies departments, there is little hope for progress of the same order as the breakthroughs made in the 20th century. It is as important as ever for the progress studies community to fund truly ambitious scientific work, which conventional institutions such as the National Science Foundation will likely never have the risk appetite to support. This requires continued experimentation with different research models, some of which will be better suited for different types of science. Progress studies should also lean into the qualitative study of discovery, recognizing the social dynamics very much at play in the history and present of science.

Americans are from Musk, Europeans are from Greta

Europeans care a lot about recycling. The European Union has banned regular single-use plastics in straws and mandated that lids of plastic bottles remain attached to marginally decrease the already low likelihood of plastic bottle lids in Europe ending up in the ocean. Surely then, recycling 200-ton rockets rather than letting them fall into the ocean is a no brainer. Not just due to an ideological commitment to recycling but because it makes economic sense, allowing for significant cost savings. Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent the first recycled rocket into space in 2017. Yet, surprisingly, the CEO of ArianeGroup the leading European space launch provider, has remained dismissive of the potential of re-usable rockets for Europe as recent as [July 2024](https://europeanspaceflight.com/arianegroup-ceo-reusable-ariane-6-not-economically-interesting/#:~:text=ArianeGroup CEO Martin Sion said,when the programme was created.). In contrast, SpaceX has just successfully landed and recaptured a rocket the size of a skyscraper. The juxtaposition of the plastic bottle lid attachment and the Starship recycling is one mental picture that I take away from the first annual progress conference in Berkeley, which I have attended as a Roots of Progress blog-building fellow. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but there is a kernel of truth to it and that should give us Europeans sufficient reason to reflect. The need for European progress is one of four brief notes that I have jotted down as a post-digest to the conference.

Europe needs a progress movement that pushes for things from simplifying requirements for start-ups through EU Inc. to unlocking more housing to ensuring that environmental impact assessments that take forever don’t keep slowing down the energy transition (counter-intuitively Texas of all places is the Western champion of building renewables…). European progress is not just a copy-paste of American progress. For example, I don’t think we should copy American car-centric cities with ridiculously broad roads & walkways but mediocre public transport. In terms of accessibility, density and transport a city like Barcelona is objectively superior to Los Angeles. The European progress aesthetic does not have to be “Metropolis” with skyscrapers, automated driving, and lots of concrete. It can be green, clean, safe, and walkable cities with skyscrapers, air conditioning as well as restaurants and trees on the streets. Europe can define its own way of doing things, however, for this to work, we also need to remain competitive.

I went to Berkeley, and All I Got Was a Vibe

Last Friday and Saturday, I attended the 2024 Progress Conference in Berkeley, California. I agree with Dean Ball: It was the best event of its kind that I have been to. The people assembled were excellent, the ideas that were brought to the space were fascinating, and the 'machines' (i.e., the handling of logistics) was top-tier. All credit is due to Jason Crawford, Heike Larson, and Emma McAleavy, they put on an amazing show.

This conference was an opportunity, 5 years after this initial suggestion, to take stock of what has emerged so far. There was a lot of energy. Many people from all over the world have been doing interesting and impactful work. Those associated with Progress Studies have learned a great deal. It felt like a moment to commemorate some of the successes the ‘movement’ has achieved. But the closest thing to a one-line summary came from a keynote discussion between Dwarkesh Patel and Patrick Collison. In this discussion, Collison suggested that today he sees Progress Studies less as an academic discipline or even a gentleman’s science and more as an aesthetic. “A vibe.”

There is no parking on site, and parking in the neighborhood streets is limited. We recommend either Ride Share services or taking public transport: Ashby BART is 0.9 miles from Lighthaven and Downtown Berkeley BART 1.2 miles.

Once you purchase your ticket, you'll be able to see the exact address on the Luma registration page & we'll email it to you. Lighthaven is just south of downtown Berkeley/UC Berkeley. 

There is no parking on site, and parking in the neighborhood streets is limited. We recommend either Ride Share services or taking public transport: Ashby BART is 0.9 miles from Lighthaven and Downtown Berkeley BART 1.2 miles, a nice walk past UC Berkeley and through residential neighborhoods.

If you drive, you can park at the Telegraph Channing Parking Garage (15 min walk). from campus). 

The dress code is nice casual. Make sure to bring layers: some of the events, including keynotes and fireside chats, will be in the outdoor auditorium, weather permitting. Plus, we’ll be hanging out in the nice outdoor spaces late on Friday night. Bring fleece or down layers to stay comfy as you chat!

Yes: Lighthaven offers a strong wifi throughout the venue, indoors and outside. There are also extension cords galore, so you can recharge your devices.

We don't want cost preventing people from attending the event. If you need financial support, please complete the open application here. There's a section that asks for what kind of financial support you need, and a "what else?" question where you can provide additional info to help us decide on the level of support we can provide. 

Later this summer, we'll invite all registered attendees to private Slack channels, including one on travel & logistics, where you can post to find roommates.

Yes

We’ll put together an attendee directory this summer. You’ll receive a link to a survey, where you can share your interests, goals for the conference, topics you’d like to discuss, etc. We’ll pull all that together into a searchable database to help you discover people you want to make sure you meet at the conference.

Yes, we have some basic terms and conditions, which include general waivers, photo and video policies, and code of conduct around sharing what you learn at the event. You'll need to agree to these terms and conditions when you register for the event. 

Join the Progress Studies Slack! We’re setting up dedicated channels for the conference, so people can chat with each other and we can share quick updates with everyone.

Tickets are non-refundable; the ticket price only covers a part of the cost of putting on this conference. If you must cancel and would like your money back, rather than donating it to our organization and supporting the conference, email us at progress-conference@rootsofprogress.org.