Systems of Progress with Jason Crawford - [Idea Machines #22]

In this episode I talk to Jason Crawford about his work on the history of progress, funding and incentivizing inventions, ideas behind their time, and more. Jason is the author of the Roots of Progress blog, where he focuses on telling the story of human progress in an amazingly accessible way.

Key Takeaways

• Funding *structures* are understudied as a progress-enabling mechanism
• *Why* inventions happen is not so straightforward as we might think
• Culture may matter more than we think for building the future and there are concrete things we can do to build a culture of progress

Links

Roots of Progress Posts

• Smallpox - The history of smallpox & the origins of vaccines
• Charting progress
• Six threads of technology
• Arsenic as a pesticide

Other Jason Appearances

• Palladium Podcast with Jason that touches on the philosophy behind progress studies

Random

• Anki and memorizing - Augmenting Long-term Memory
• Ideas behind their time - Ideas Behind Their Time - Marginal REVOLUTION
• Tyler Cowen talking about bricks - My Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg and Patrick Collison - Marginal REVOLUTION