Championing Progress in a Nihilistic World
#100! Thoughts from the 2nd annual Progress Conference
I recently had the pleasure of attending the Progress Conference - a gathering of scholars, entrepreneurs, and policymakers devoted to Progress Studies. Understanding the factors that enabled the last few hundred years of soaring living standards, and how to keep this process going.
In addition to meeting other progress writers I admire like Tomas Pueyo, Jerusalem Demsas, Ramez Naam, and others, I met people responsible for some of the wonderful feats I’ve covered in this newsletter:
Dr. Neil Buddy Shah, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative that made supplies of Lenacapavir, the new 100% effective HIV prevention medication, available in low-income countries.
Robert Yaman, CEO of Innovate Animal Ag who brought in-ovo sexing technology to US egg hatcheries, beginning the end of male chick culling in the US.
After digesting the conversations and sentiments of the conference, I’ve come away with my takeaways of what the Progress Studies movement/community excels at, and how it can benefit mainstream culture.
Progress scholars understand how far we’ve come
The single most important perspective shared by those in the progress movement is a clear-eyed understanding of how bleak the past was for the typical human.
It’s well-known that the window into the past is rose-colored, we consistently over-rate how good things used to be for a number of psychological reasons. This manifests strongly today on both the left (late-stage capitalism has ruined everything) and the right (make America great again).
What we’re not reminded of is just how brutal life has been for ~100 Billion of the ~109 Billion humans to have ever lived. Abject poverty has been the default state of humanity - the progress of the last few hundred years has enabled us to forget this fact.
Sometimes I think about this in the context of my home. My bathroom is far superior to those enjoyed by the wealthiest kings just a few hundred years ago - this piece from Jerusalem Demsas’ The Argument is a nice thought exercise:
An appreciation for how far we’ve come is a superpower of the Progress Movement. It not only grants gratitude for today (even in our troubled world), but also gives motivation to protect and accelerate this process of rising lifespans and living standards into the future.
Progress scholars accept the world as it is
Things have gotten better, but the world is still full of problems. Today’s internet constantly serves us reminders of existing problems, and new problems we didn’t even know we should worry about.
Amidst this torrent of concerns, how can we continue to make progress?
The Progress Movement takes a practical approach, understanding and accepting the world as it is while seeking solutions.
For example, we know we’re going to (or have already) crossed 1.5°C of global warming. This immediately imperils coral reefs. One response to this fact is to decry the history that got us here (burning fossil fuels) and advocate for an immediate halting of their use.
This is obviously impractical (and inhumane to poor countries who would see improved health and development outcomes from more abundant energy), which the progress movement accepts. Instead, given both the historical and current political realities, the movement asks what solutions do we have?
It is this solution-focused mindset that differentiates the Progress Movement from other camps. It is (sometimes uniquely) non-ideological about the source of solutions - genetic engineering, geoengineering, and other counterintuitive ideas are not off the table. One is unlikely to be castigated for suggesting a radical solution.
Progress has come from unlikely places in the past. Keeping this in mind provides an ideological flexibility that makes the movement more effective at solving problems.
Progress scholars believe progress is possible!
I think the rational optimism of the progress community could be one of its most important exports to society.
So much of today’s language is rooted in nihilism or declinism - that things will only get worse. Many progress scholars have written about this phenomena, which afflicts the developed Western world more than anywhere else!
If we believe the world is coming to an end, what reason do we have to work so hard to improve it? The ship is sinking anyways, might as well protect me and mine!
But it doesn’t have to be this way! The flywheel of knowledge will continue spinning, and life could be much better in the future than it ever has been. We only need to get the governance right.
Understanding the fortune that technology hands us (greater living standards, less work, longer, healthier lives, a declining environmental impact1) can bring Western culture more in-line with the triumphant optimism that can be seen in other parts of the world, namely in Chinese media, and make us more likely to pursue positive-sum policies rather than zero-sum out-group hatred.
Closing thoughts
After heaping this glowing praise on the community, part of me wonders if the Progress Agenda is ready for export to broader society.
For progressives, now is a particularly difficult time in history to take the reality of Human Progress on board. We are inoculated against it by our general narratives and the current administration’s unprecedentedly proud cruelty.
This is a shame, since these ideas can provide some much needed mental relief from the torrent of concerns our phones deliver us, and the energy to pursue solutions to them.
Maybe that is all the more reason to share it. The future is open, alterable, and ours to shape. An understanding of progress reminds us of our agency, and if we have agency, then the only coherent response is to build.
The future can be better than today. I’m still betting it will be.
Thanks for reading! This is my 100th newsletter. If you’ve been reading since the beginning or if you’ve joined this community more recently, thank you so much for being on this journey with me. The Progress Movement inspired the name for this newsletter, as the world may be Imperfect, but we cannot forget that things are still improving!
And thank you to the Roots of Progress team for an amazing experience!
As always, restacking and sharing this newsletter is the best way to support me, and help imperfect, but improving! grow.
Edited by my wife Minttu!
Regarding the claim that technology yields a declining environmental impact - I’m packing a lot in here, so I didn’t want to start going into the phenomena of the environmental Kuznets curve, where countries begin reforesting and generally doing more to prevent environmental destruction as they get richer, because they have the luxury of being able to care about it instead of simply feeding and schooling their children. Per capita emissions have decoupled from GDP growth in developed countries for decades now, and it is clear technological progress can enable humanity’s sustainable living on Earth.
Congrats on your 100th newsletter! Truly fascinating and informative. Greetings from Guyana