Jason Crawford - The Roots of Progress & the History of Technology

Core Mission and Scope of Progress Studies

• Jason Crawford's work at the Roots of Progress focuses on the history of technology, the philosophy of progress, and the "root causes" of the unprecedented standard of living gains over the last 200–250 years compared to millennia of stagnation.
• The field seeks to identify the mechanisms that drive progress, understand why it slowed in the last 50 years (the "stagnation hypothesis"), and determine how to accelerate it in the future.
• Progress is viewed as non-inevitable and non-automatic; it requires active maintenance, protection, and acceleration through specific policy levers and cultural shifts.

The "S-Curve" Model of Technological Maturation

• Individual technologies follow an "S-curve" (sigmoid) trajectory: slow initial development, rapid acceleration, and eventual saturation where gains level off.
• Historical example: Electricity moved from experimentation in the 1830s to rapid expansion in the 1880s (light bulbs, grid), becoming a mature utility by the 1920s–40s.
• Sustained exponential progress occurs only when new S-curves (e.g., computing, biotech, chemistry) are discovered and launched just as older ones saturate.
• Recent stagnation may be explained by a lack of overlapping, maturing S-curves or a slower rate of discovery for new technological frontiers.

Hypotheses for Recent Progress Stagnation

• Cultural Shifts: Following WWII, rising anti-technology sentiment driven by the atomic bomb, nuclear fears, the 1960s–70s environmental movement, and the oil shocks may have reduced young talent motivation to enter science and industry.
• Bureaucratic Friction: "Creeping regulation" and accumulated bureaucratic overhead in corporations, universities, and legal systems may have added friction to the innovative process, trading efficiency for safety without a clear cost-benefit analysis of individual rules.
• Talent Allocation: Uncertainty exists regarding whether human talent is being diverted away from technological fields due to these cultural and institutional factors.

Progress Studies as a School of Thought

• Progress studies is not intended to replace existing disciplines like economics or history but rather to serve as a "school of thought" that conditions what questions are asked and what data is valued.
• Core Premises: Progress is real and profoundly beneficial; it is not inevitable; and therefore, it must be actively studied, protected, and accelerated.
• The movement seeks to unify fragmented work by academic economists (e.g., Joel Mokyr, Peter Temin, Pierre Azoulay) and historians into a cohesive framework.
• Education is identified as a critical gap; students often lack foundational knowledge of how industrial civilization functions, leading to uninformed policy debates.

Curriculum Development for Young Scholars

• Crawford launched "Progress Studies for Young Scholars," an online program in partnership with Higher Ground Education (operators of Montessori schools), now continuing as an after-school/homeschool course via the Academy of Thought and Industry (ATI).
• The curriculum aims to teach high schoolers the history of technology and the mechanisms behind modern standards of living to foster informed citizenship regarding industrial policy.
• The goal is to ensure future leaders understand the tangible benefits of progress (e.g., refrigeration, transportation, infrastructure) to avoid policies that could degrade global quality of life.

The Relationship Between Science, Technology, and Morality

• Interconnection: Scientific, technological, and moral/progress (democratic governance) revolutions occurred concurrently in the 17th–18th centuries, suggesting deep mutual reinforcement (e.g., the dissolution of guilds aided both business and technology).
• Non-Linear Innovation: The "linear model" (basic science → applied engineering → business) is an oversimplification.
  • Invention often precedes scientific explanation (e.g., the steam engine existed for a century before thermodynamics was formalized).
  • The transistor required engineers to refine theories after initial experiments failed, creating a cyclical feedback loop between invention and theory.
• Technological Prerequisites: Scientific progress often relies on prior technological advancements, specifically measurement instruments like microscopes and thermometers.

Resilience, Risk, and the "Optimization" Argument

• Interdependence vs. Vulnerability: Progress increases specialization and interdependence, which heightens vulnerability to "black swan" events like pandemics, but humans have always been interdependent.
• Solution via Engineering: Vulnerability should be mitigated not by slowing progress, but by applying engineering principles to build resilience, buffers, and slack into economic and societal systems.
• Portfolio Allocation: The correct response to risk is not to "slow down" progress but to reallocate resources to balance "bigger/faster" goals with "safety/resilience" goals.

Philosophical Framework: Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Optimism

• Descriptive Optimism: A prediction of future outcomes based on current trends; this can be pessimistic (e.g., acknowledging risks of civilizational collapse within 800 years as suggested by Tyler Cowen).
• Prescriptive Optimism: A commitment to act to create a better future regardless of the odds; this is a "fighting spirit" that refuses to give up even when descriptive analysis suggests grim possibilities.
• Crawford argues that while descriptive optimism is not always rational, prescriptive optimism is essential; it combines a clear-eyed view of risks (e.g., existential threats from nuclear or biological weapons) with the determination to use applied intelligence to solve them.
• The synthesis of these views rejects "Panglossian" denial of risk while avoiding nihilistic inaction, focusing instead on active problem-solving and resource allocation to prevent negative outcomes.