(ongoing) The Philosophy and Ideas of Roots of Progress

A collection of main ideas we understood while reading roots of progress. Still ongoing.

• Sympathy, reason and morality came with progress. Governments and the freedom to “think” without worrying about the next meal made people sane.
• Scientific revolution was important for industrial revolution. Scientific method and the awareness that we could understand things, apply and advance knowledge, and science and math were powerful tools helped steer the civilisation.
• Monetary incentives maybe increase the number of inventions. Patent Act in the USA might have inspired Eli Whitney’s Invention’s the the cotton gin. (capitalism)
• Freedom of speech is great but i can freedom of thought precedes it. Just the fact that the world is not at its best state and we can improve it opens the room for imaginative thinking. Contrary to what most of history has been like, dominated by anti-rational memes that destroys the critical faculties and innovative force of people.
• Disobedience and originality is what drives innovation.
• Why isn’t that the case where everyone (those who can) works towards building new tech and increasing our repertoire of magic?
• Means and methods of financing (and incentives) are crucial to research and development. The idea of patents and exclusive rights is very old. I wonder the balance between open source vs closed source in this context.
• The idea of complacency, and being satisfied with the narratives we tell ourselves, the certainties about the nature of reality - is inherently bad. There cannot be the attainment of all knowledge possible and an utopian environment. There will always be possibilities of improvement.
• It seems the awareness about progress and the things most people take for granted might be important to increase the importance of a subject like progress studies. Most people just don’t care.
• Is education - shaping young’s minds early on, optimized for their thinking faculties, a curiosity for creativity and solving problems one of the most important aspects a successful civilisation?
• The idea of abstraction, and how the modern technology has alienated most people from the old ways of doing things, the primitive skills. Learning (and even doing) such things might give us some perspective of where it is that we have come from, and give an idea of where can we go.
• Understanding of the fundamental systems and things that make the modern world run is crucial.
• The idea that better forms of social cooperation and organization is also as important as technology. Soviet union had good scientists and technology but ultimately collapsed.
• Contrary to 19th century’s meaning of sustainability which was to avoid degrowth and sustain the increasing population with new innovations, today it is synonymous with degrowth and protecting the environment.
• Universe is so big, and physics doesn’t prohibit physical transformations to fit unsuitable environments for our needs. Why remain shackled to this planet?
• History is a good reference for what can happen and how things happen.