Meetup in San Francisco, May 10, with Adam Thierer

Join special guest Adam Thierer and the SF Progress Studies Meetup group for a conversation on where the progress studies movement might (and should) be heading.

Adam is an author and senior fellow at the Mercatus Center. He also serves on ​​the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Artificial Intelligence Commission. He is in town from Washington DC, and we’re using this as an opportunity to have this discussion in person. Everyone is welcome. This is a casual environment to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones and have some interesting discussions.

Schedule:

• 6PM – Light dinner
• 7PM – Remarks by Adam and Jason Crawford on
  • Current state of policy discussion in Washington surrounding innovation and progress
  • A new essay on the progress studies movement and where it may (or should) be heading.
• 8(ish) – more mingling

Details and RSVP on Meetup.com.

Why pessimism sounds smart

Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.
–Nat Friedman (quoted by Patrick)

I’ve realized a new reason why pessimism sounds smart: optimism often requires believing in unknown, unspecified future breakthroughs—which seems fanciful and naive. If you very soberly, wisely, prudently stick to the known and the proven, you will necessarily be pessimistic.

No proven resources or technologies can sustain economic growth. The status quo will plateau. To expect growth is to believe in future technologies. To expect very long-term growth is to believe in science fiction.

No known solutions can solve our hardest problems—that’s why they’re the hardest ones. And by the nature of problem-solving, we are aware of many problems before we are aware of their solutions. So there will always be a frontier of problems we don’t yet know how to solve.

Fears of Peak Oil and other resource shortages follow this pattern. Predictions of shortages are typically based on “proven reserves.” We are saved from shortage by the unproven and even the unknown reserves, and the new technologies that make them profitable to extract. Or, when certain resources really do run out, we are saved economically by new technologies that use different resources: Haber-Bosch saved us from the guano shortage; kerosene saved the sperm whales from extinction; plastic saved the elephants by replacing ivory.

In just the same way, it can seem that we’re running out of ideas—that all our technologies and industries are plateauing. Technologies do run a natural S-curve, just like oil fields. But when some breakthrough insight creates an entirely new field, it opens an entire new orchard of low-hanging fruit to pick. Focusing only on established sectors and proven fields thus naturally leads to pessimism. To be an optimist, you have to believe that at least some current wild-eyed speculation will come true.

Why is this style of pessimism repeatedly wrong? How can this optimism be justified? Not on the basis of specific future technologies—which, again, are unproven—but on the basis of philosophical premises about the nature of humans and of progress. The possibility of sustained progress is a consequence of the view of humans as “universal explainers” (cf. David Deutsch), and of progress as driven fundamentally by human choice and effort—that is, by human agency.

The opposite view is that progress is a matter of luck. If the progress of the last few centuries was a random windfall, then pessimism is logical: our luck is bound to run out. How could we get that lucky again? If the next century is an average one, it will see little progress.

But if progress is a primarily matter of agency, then whether it continues is up to us.

Original post: https://rootsofprogress.org/why-pessimism-sounds-smart

Is growth linear, not exponential?

Comments on a new working paper in economic growth theory

This week Thomas Philippon posted a paper (PDF) claiming that TFP growth is linear, not exponential. What does this mean, and what can we conclude from this?

A few people asked for my opinion. I’m not an economist, and I’m only modestly familiar with the growth theory literature, but here are some thoughts.…

This is a longer one with data graphics; read the full essay here: https://rootsofprogress.org/is-growth-linear-not-exponential

Why “progress studies” is interdisciplinary

When Cowen & Collison coined the term “progress studies” in 2019, some questioned why such a concept was needed, given the existence of economics, history, etc. They argued that an interdisciplinary approach was still useful: “Plenty of existing scholarship touches on these topics, but it takes place in a highly fragmented fashion….”

Recently I’ve been researching and outlining a chapter for my book on the topic of “Can Progress Continue?” I think the full answer to this question is an integration of history, philosophy, and economics. In particular, I’ve found it useful to incorporate:

• Economic growth theory, especially the work of Solow, Romer, and Jones
• The stagnation debate, including the work of Cowen and Gordon (and counterpoints by “techno-optimists” such as McAfee and Brynjolfsson)
• The broader history of economic thought going back to late 18th-century thinkers such as Malthus
• The economics of resources as per Julian Simon
• The history of predictions of resource depletion and concerns about overpopulation
• The economic history of technological shifts from one resource to another
• The philosophy of humans as problem-solvers vs. resource-creators articulated by Deutsch
• The philosophy of the concept of “sustainability”
• Long-term trends in and future predictions of world population growth
• Hard limits to very long-term growth based on physical law

I think integrating all of these puzzle pieces and perspectives results in the clearest possible answer to this important question, and I think this is true for many other questions of interest to the progress community.

Original post: https://rootsofprogress.org/why-progress-studies-is-interdisciplinary

The concluding session of The Story of Industrial Civilization

The final session of my salon series with Interintellect, “The Story of Industrial Civilization,” is Sunday, May 22, 10am Pacific.

It’s only open to series ticket holders. But you can still buy a (late) series ticket!

Topic: What Should We Do?

Progress is possible. Progress is desirable. How can we keep it going? Is progress slowing down, and why? What are the root causes of progress, anyway? In this final session of the series, we’ll explore the prescriptions implied by our study of progress so far. We’ll discuss the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of progress, including how society used to celebrate progress. We’ll sketch out the new philosophy of progress that we need, and the future of the progress movement that promotes it. And we’ll close with an inspirational message to scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs.

A series ticket, now available at a discounted price of $150, gets you access to past recordings as well, so you can catch up on what you missed before joining the final session live.