I think to get to the “agenda” stage of the idea machine, a key is making sure that we’re acting in the real world. We can wish upon every star that zoning laws were reformed to make it easier to build housing, or that ALARA was repealed and more sensible nuclear regulation put in its place, but those items might not be the best fits for the agenda if we’re not able to realistically achieve them. They’re hard political problems to solve that will require a lot of resources, political savvy, and likely a large coalition! And others (such as YIMBY, for housing) are likely better equipped to lead the change on them.
I think our asset, or our “brand”, is that we’re a group of people that really like technological & economic progress, and we’re interested in why it happened, how it can be replicated, and what we could do to accelerate it. That’s the kind of people that this group is going to attract. So what can we do to help these people push for a progress agenda?
I really like the idea of a career guide. That’s something actionable that we can achieve. I guess I’m biased because I’m hosting the Philly meetup tomorrow, but I also think doing those kinds of networking events are valuable ways to grow the “Progress Studies” offering and see who is invested enough in it to get it into the real world. Who shows up to these sorts of things, what they’re interested in doing, etc. informs what might be possible agenda wise—in addition to everybody present making connections that could help for scientific, entrepreneurial, or career opportunities.
I also like this forum as a way for generating ideas, exploring possibilities, and learning new things. I agree with you and Jason there as well. One of these days I’m going to do a post on Precisionism, but I haven’t made it to the Demuth museum out in Lancaster yet and want to visit before I do.
I think another value we could offer would be if we wanted to organize a bookshare of some kind. I find that the local library doesn’t have a great selection of economic history or technical books, so if that’s something that we could organize, I think people might find it valuable. I often see a book mentioned by Jason or another columnist/blogger and will buy it to read it, but then I’d be happy to loan that book out to people once I finish it. On the borrowing side, I recently had to do an interlibrary loan from Tennessee to borrow a copy of a planning standards guide I needed for a project. There’s probably other directions we could take this concept for having a library or directory of resources as well. I know some groups do things with tool shares, and it might be nice to have a “who’s who in progress studies directory” for connecting people with each other as well?
I think to get to the “agenda” stage of the idea machine, a key is making sure that we’re acting in the real world. We can wish upon every star that zoning laws were reformed to make it easier to build housing, or that ALARA was repealed and more sensible nuclear regulation put in its place, but those items might not be the best fits for the agenda if we’re not able to realistically achieve them. They’re hard political problems to solve that will require a lot of resources, political savvy, and likely a large coalition! And others (such as YIMBY, for housing) are likely better equipped to lead the change on them.
I think our asset, or our “brand”, is that we’re a group of people that really like technological & economic progress, and we’re interested in why it happened, how it can be replicated, and what we could do to accelerate it. That’s the kind of people that this group is going to attract. So what can we do to help these people push for a progress agenda?
I really like the idea of a career guide. That’s something actionable that we can achieve. I guess I’m biased because I’m hosting the Philly meetup tomorrow, but I also think doing those kinds of networking events are valuable ways to grow the “Progress Studies” offering and see who is invested enough in it to get it into the real world. Who shows up to these sorts of things, what they’re interested in doing, etc. informs what might be possible agenda wise—in addition to everybody present making connections that could help for scientific, entrepreneurial, or career opportunities.
I also like this forum as a way for generating ideas, exploring possibilities, and learning new things. I agree with you and Jason there as well. One of these days I’m going to do a post on Precisionism, but I haven’t made it to the Demuth museum out in Lancaster yet and want to visit before I do.
I think another value we could offer would be if we wanted to organize a bookshare of some kind. I find that the local library doesn’t have a great selection of economic history or technical books, so if that’s something that we could organize, I think people might find it valuable. I often see a book mentioned by Jason or another columnist/blogger and will buy it to read it, but then I’d be happy to loan that book out to people once I finish it. On the borrowing side, I recently had to do an interlibrary loan from Tennessee to borrow a copy of a planning standards guide I needed for a project. There’s probably other directions we could take this concept for having a library or directory of resources as well. I know some groups do things with tool shares, and it might be nice to have a “who’s who in progress studies directory” for connecting people with each other as well?