Eventually, they form an agenda, which articulates how the ideology will be brought into the world. (Communities need agendas to become idea machines; otherwise, they’re just a group of likeminded people, without a directed purpose.)
This is my small attempt to give concrete ideas that can build an agenda for Progress Studies.
Things I am confident about
Making the idea more legible: specifying out cause areas (nuclear technology, longevity, nanotech etc.) and means of working on it (scientist, founding companies, working on metascience, regulatory reform)
It would good to have a career guide written by people familiar with this. Not only would it be a concrete step towards encouraging more people in the field, but it could open our eyes to things we had not thought of as well
Again making the idea more legible: having a directory of progress related institutions and ideas. There are some like this, but I would suggest a few changes to any future project
More sector specific lists. Specifically about
writers (links to explainers on nuclear technology, explainers on longevity, explainers on the history of technology)
Science institutions (“what’s going on in X field” post where you list out all the cool research going on with names of labs and researchers. Also add new science experiments like the Arc Institute and New Science)
Startups that work in those fields (eg lists of nuclear energy startups, longevity startups etc.) I don’t endorse any of these lists specifically, but I think having lists makes it clear to people who want to enter the field where they might want to go
Think tanks that focus on progress related issues. (Institute for Progress is a great one, Environmental Progress for nuclear energy issues, I can’t find any for science funding but both IFP and New Science do work on this)
Many more explainers
The overwhelmingly positive response to Jason’s blog, Matt Clancy’s newsletter and Brian Potter’s one shows that there is an underserved market in converting things insiders know (like historians of science, economists studying meta science, or structural engineers) to popular understanding. A lot of knowledge that is common inside an industry is not outside. This is especially true for progress related fields! So, one concrete step is to write more blogs about it or to encourage more blogs to come out of it
What I am less sure about
Community sourced cause prioritisation: I think it is valuable to weakly triage sectors based on how easy it would be to make progress in them. The entire framework isn’t useful given talent isn’t fungible, and it’s hard to get direct $ numbers for impact. But even then it is useful to have public discussion on this
Politics focused blogs. Many people do this eg. Eli Dourado or Alex Tabarrok. These ideas are still not part of mainstream public discourse though! One or two people writing about this is not enough to push ideas forward. It would be much better if there was a whole community of politics focused bloggers, which could drive the discourse. And it is easier to build direct impact (eg. talking with congressional staff or others in positions of power), if you have blogs and think tanks pushing across the idea space.
Revving up the Progress Studies Idea Machine
Nadia Asparouhova wrote an essay about Idea Machines last year, and Jason Crawford had a post on the forum about it. Step 3 of the Idea Machine process is
This is my small attempt to give concrete ideas that can build an agenda for Progress Studies.
Things I am confident about
Making the idea more legible: specifying out cause areas (nuclear technology, longevity, nanotech etc.) and means of working on it (scientist, founding companies, working on metascience, regulatory reform)
It would good to have a career guide written by people familiar with this. Not only would it be a concrete step towards encouraging more people in the field, but it could open our eyes to things we had not thought of as well
Again making the idea more legible: having a directory of progress related institutions and ideas. There are some like this, but I would suggest a few changes to any future project
More sector specific lists. Specifically about
writers (links to explainers on nuclear technology, explainers on longevity, explainers on the history of technology)
Science institutions (“what’s going on in X field” post where you list out all the cool research going on with names of labs and researchers. Also add new science experiments like the Arc Institute and New Science)
Startups that work in those fields (eg lists of nuclear energy startups, longevity startups etc.) I don’t endorse any of these lists specifically, but I think having lists makes it clear to people who want to enter the field where they might want to go
Think tanks that focus on progress related issues. (Institute for Progress is a great one, Environmental Progress for nuclear energy issues, I can’t find any for science funding but both IFP and New Science do work on this)
Many more explainers
The overwhelmingly positive response to Jason’s blog, Matt Clancy’s newsletter and Brian Potter’s one shows that there is an underserved market in converting things insiders know (like historians of science, economists studying meta science, or structural engineers) to popular understanding. A lot of knowledge that is common inside an industry is not outside. This is especially true for progress related fields! So, one concrete step is to write more blogs about it or to encourage more blogs to come out of it
What I am less sure about
Community sourced cause prioritisation: I think it is valuable to weakly triage sectors based on how easy it would be to make progress in them. The entire framework isn’t useful given talent isn’t fungible, and it’s hard to get direct $ numbers for impact. But even then it is useful to have public discussion on this
Politics focused blogs. Many people do this eg. Eli Dourado or Alex Tabarrok. These ideas are still not part of mainstream public discourse though! One or two people writing about this is not enough to push ideas forward. It would be much better if there was a whole community of politics focused bloggers, which could drive the discourse. And it is easier to build direct impact (eg. talking with congressional staff or others in positions of power), if you have blogs and think tanks pushing across the idea space.