These posts, and your whole blog, seem predicated on the assumption that progress is inherently desirable as an end in itself. Since this post is my first exposure to your work, it seems better to ask you where you explain that assumption, rather than attempting to dig through everything else you’ve ever written and find it myself. I would like to better understand what exactly you mean by “progress”, because the systems and beliefs that I attach that term to are not something that it’s obviously good to maximize for its own sake.
My resistance to the implication that constant progress would be inherently good is shaped in part like this: For an innovation to improve the world, it has to meet a certain baseline of “try not to make things worse than they were before”. When everything is really “bad”, by whatever standard of quality you happen to choose for the exercise, there are a vast scope of possible innovations that will have an end state that’s “better” than the starting conditions. But from a starting condition that’s actually pretty “good”, in the sense that almost everyone is fed and housed and clothed and entertained with more options and excess than any of their ancestors enjoyed, fewer of those same possible innovations will pass the same test of “do the likely improvements to society outweigh the possible detriments of its drawbacks?”.
So it seems to me that for each time “progress” succeeds at raising society’s expectations in a particular area, it inherently makes future progress in that area more difficult by imposing additional constraints for future innovations. For instance, a rolling car just has to outperform a horse-drawn carriage by a certain amount to be worth adopting; they hypothetical flying car would have to outperform the rolling car rather than the carriage for it to improve society. The early electrical grid had to beat oil lamps that smoked up the wallpaper and stank and had to be lit by hand, so burning down houses occasionally was not substantially worse than the former status quo; the home nuclear reactor now has to outperform a power distribution system in which having electricity does not increase the risk of a small nuclear accident at your house.
This line of reasoning does have the problem that it implies an asymptote of “good enough” at which further innovations are entirely unneeded, which is so inconsistent with my understanding of humans and society that I suspect I’ve probably missed something.
I agree that the bar keeps getting raised, and therefore progress gets more difficult. I don’t see why that implies any asymptote. (I wrote in a previous post why exponential growth should be our baseline, even as we pick off low-hanging fruit.)
The lights that most people use today have the same color all day. That results in people getting too much blue light at night which is bad for sleep. They are also too low in intensity so that people get depressed in the winter.
A more modern solution switches to red light in the evening which results in better sleep and gives generally more brightness during the day. Lightbulb also have to change a lot less then previously.
There are many problems that can be solved with result in increased quality of life.
The average American spends 6 hours per week cleaning. If that would be automated by robots it would free up 6 hours that can be spent on more enjoyful activities. Besides time-investment there’s also a lot of interpersonal conflict that comes when things are not as clean as people who cohabit want.
Fast, cheap, nonpoluting and relatively silent robotaxis could increase life quality in a city.
Can’t speak for Jason but maybe I can change your mind. IMO, the a case for progress can be made pretty simply to anyone who cares about the welfare of people living today and their future welfare. Assuming that, I’ll make two observations.
Life before the modern age was bad. Fanciful stories of kings and queens leave out the abject poverty, disease, and filth the average person lived in. Based on your post, I assume you’ll agree with this assessment.
Society’s present “good enough” is not sustainable. If all technological progress were to halt tomorrow, we would not remain in some kind of steady-state economy forever. With the climate disaster only getting worse with time and fossil fuel extraction costs ever increasing, conditions will deteriorate. If more of the developing world were to also reach this “good enough” standard these consequences will only be magnified. In fact, with current technology, it would be impossible to provide the world’s 7 billion with first world living conditions.
“Try not to make things worse than they were before” has been a classic argument made against nuclear power for decades. Maybe with fewer regulatory constraints, nuclear power could provide more energy for a lower cost than fossil fuels, but is it really worth the tail risk of nuclear proliferation or catastrophic meltdowns? Society decided it wasn’t and now we find ourselves in a slow motion global catastrophe while “good enough” living standards remain fundamentally out of reach for most of the world. Perhaps renewables will save us from this mess, but surely not if technological progress were to end today.
That’s not to say that all technological progress is good. Asbestos having some really cool insulating properties doesn’t mean it was a net benefit. But technological progress in general is desirable if you wish to avoid present “good enough” living conditions from deteriorating and want to make such standards attainable for the whole world.
Technological progress isn’t just a chance to do more, it’s also often a chance to pivot from one resource to another so as to avoid depletion. Ultimately, freezing it won’t insulate present society from the risk of things getting worse. On the contrary, halting progress condemns our society to a slow rot.
These posts, and your whole blog, seem predicated on the assumption that progress is inherently desirable as an end in itself. Since this post is my first exposure to your work, it seems better to ask you where you explain that assumption, rather than attempting to dig through everything else you’ve ever written and find it myself. I would like to better understand what exactly you mean by “progress”, because the systems and beliefs that I attach that term to are not something that it’s obviously good to maximize for its own sake.
My resistance to the implication that constant progress would be inherently good is shaped in part like this: For an innovation to improve the world, it has to meet a certain baseline of “try not to make things worse than they were before”. When everything is really “bad”, by whatever standard of quality you happen to choose for the exercise, there are a vast scope of possible innovations that will have an end state that’s “better” than the starting conditions. But from a starting condition that’s actually pretty “good”, in the sense that almost everyone is fed and housed and clothed and entertained with more options and excess than any of their ancestors enjoyed, fewer of those same possible innovations will pass the same test of “do the likely improvements to society outweigh the possible detriments of its drawbacks?”.
So it seems to me that for each time “progress” succeeds at raising society’s expectations in a particular area, it inherently makes future progress in that area more difficult by imposing additional constraints for future innovations. For instance, a rolling car just has to outperform a horse-drawn carriage by a certain amount to be worth adopting; they hypothetical flying car would have to outperform the rolling car rather than the carriage for it to improve society. The early electrical grid had to beat oil lamps that smoked up the wallpaper and stank and had to be lit by hand, so burning down houses occasionally was not substantially worse than the former status quo; the home nuclear reactor now has to outperform a power distribution system in which having electricity does not increase the risk of a small nuclear accident at your house.
This line of reasoning does have the problem that it implies an asymptote of “good enough” at which further innovations are entirely unneeded, which is so inconsistent with my understanding of humans and society that I suspect I’ve probably missed something.
Here are some introductory posts that explain why progress matters:
Smart, rich & free
Progress studies as a moral imperative
I agree that the bar keeps getting raised, and therefore progress gets more difficult. I don’t see why that implies any asymptote. (I wrote in a previous post why exponential growth should be our baseline, even as we pick off low-hanging fruit.)
The lights that most people use today have the same color all day. That results in people getting too much blue light at night which is bad for sleep. They are also too low in intensity so that people get depressed in the winter.
A more modern solution switches to red light in the evening which results in better sleep and gives generally more brightness during the day. Lightbulb also have to change a lot less then previously.
There are many problems that can be solved with result in increased quality of life.
The average American spends 6 hours per week cleaning. If that would be automated by robots it would free up 6 hours that can be spent on more enjoyful activities. Besides time-investment there’s also a lot of interpersonal conflict that comes when things are not as clean as people who cohabit want.
Fast, cheap, nonpoluting and relatively silent robotaxis could increase life quality in a city.
Can’t speak for Jason but maybe I can change your mind. IMO, the a case for progress can be made pretty simply to anyone who cares about the welfare of people living today and their future welfare. Assuming that, I’ll make two observations.
Life before the modern age was bad. Fanciful stories of kings and queens leave out the abject poverty, disease, and filth the average person lived in. Based on your post, I assume you’ll agree with this assessment.
Society’s present “good enough” is not sustainable. If all technological progress were to halt tomorrow, we would not remain in some kind of steady-state economy forever. With the climate disaster only getting worse with time and fossil fuel extraction costs ever increasing, conditions will deteriorate. If more of the developing world were to also reach this “good enough” standard these consequences will only be magnified. In fact, with current technology, it would be impossible to provide the world’s 7 billion with first world living conditions.
“Try not to make things worse than they were before” has been a classic argument made against nuclear power for decades. Maybe with fewer regulatory constraints, nuclear power could provide more energy for a lower cost than fossil fuels, but is it really worth the tail risk of nuclear proliferation or catastrophic meltdowns? Society decided it wasn’t and now we find ourselves in a slow motion global catastrophe while “good enough” living standards remain fundamentally out of reach for most of the world. Perhaps renewables will save us from this mess, but surely not if technological progress were to end today.
That’s not to say that all technological progress is good. Asbestos having some really cool insulating properties doesn’t mean it was a net benefit. But technological progress in general is desirable if you wish to avoid present “good enough” living conditions from deteriorating and want to make such standards attainable for the whole world.
Technological progress isn’t just a chance to do more, it’s also often a chance to pivot from one resource to another so as to avoid depletion. Ultimately, freezing it won’t insulate present society from the risk of things getting worse. On the contrary, halting progress condemns our society to a slow rot.