
We Need a New Science of Progress - telotortium
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/we-need-new-science-progress/594946/
======
superqwert
Without defining what "Progress" and "Good" are, the whole concept that there
is some sort of "Progress" is meaningless. If you can define those terms, you
can maybe start to study such a topic - but the definition of such terms
belongs to philosophy, not science. Technological advancement could certainly
studied, but what we do or don't do with it can only be "Good" or
"Progressing" to some idealistic goal if we have identified those.

~~~
dredmorbius
_By “progress,” we mean the combination of economic, technological,
scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement that has transformed our
lives and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries._

Given in TFA's third paragraph.

~~~
hacknat
Well I can definitely tear down this definition. “Advancement” doesn’t mean
anything. What does it mean to advance culturally or organizationally without
already having morality defined?

Also raising standards of living? Is that all we’re after? Slaves in slave
societies had rising standards of living, did that make slavery okay?

The scary thing about an article like this is the sheer ignorance and hubris
behind it. No credible philosopher will tell you that we can objectify
morality, it is a provable logical fallacy. That doesn’t seem to stop people
form thinking they can do it. The folks in history who thought they could do
it are some of the most reprehensible people in all of human history.

~~~
ziddoap
> _Slaves in slave societies had rising standards of living, did that make
> slavery okay?_

I doubt anyone is making the argument slavery is okay. At least try to argue
in good faith. This is a ridiculous example.

~~~
anongraddebt
One unclear example doesn't negate his/her argument. Even one bad example
doesn't do this. And neither does arguing in bad faith (if for some reason
they are doing so). The argument still stands. You can't coherently make
demands about 'progress' (whatever that could even mean) without having some
rational and already worked out framework for what determines 'progress' in
the first place.

And the commenter is right that failing this, such talk can be dangerous
because by a sleight of hand you can substitute - without argument - what is
supposedly rational with whatever you simply desire at that moment in time.

~~~
ziddoap
The example was very clear, and although it might not negate it, it certainly
undermines it. If contrived examples don't have bearing on the validity of an
argument, I don't know how we are supposed to move forward in a debate.

I agree with the spirit of the parent poster, but to claim the OP is arguing
slavery is okay because of raising standards of living is just as dangerous to
this discussion.

~~~
hacknat
I definitely wasn’t making the argument that anyone was arguing for slavery,
just that notional definitions of moral progress are much more complicated
than simple economic metrics. There is so much more that goes into what is
“right” and “wrong” than pure economic level, at a micro or macro level.

Now you might say I’m making a straw man of their argument, but then what are
they even arguing then? I can’t figure it out. What does “advancement” mean?
They alluded to social sciences having various measure of human happiness is
and that a “Progress Studies” department could synthesize these metrics
into... what exactly? Policy proposals? A religion? Metrics of human well
being assume an underlying framework of morale agreement to begin with.

You simply cannot philosophically convert an objective metric into an “ought”
without making a ton of morale assumptions. You cannot prove that your
morality and values are better than anyone else’s because you will infinitely
regress into definitions if what “good” means.

~~~
ziddoap
I agree with what you are saying, just that the way you originally went about
saying it by including a contrived hyperbolic example regarding slavery was a
poor way to frame your position, at least in my opinion, and made your
argument less likely to be received in good faith.

------
ArtWomb
This perfectly captures the zeitgeist and my current thinking. Globally, we
need a 10x basic research expenditure increase, with specific allocation to
long-term (life) grants for breakthrough investigations. Establishment of
geographic concentrations or hubs of interest (eg. WallStreet proximity to
fintech knowledge, DC corridor for cybersecurity experience, Boston biotech,
etc). As well as radical change in nurture and support for key talent. And re-
calibration of end focus on improving everyday lives and alleviating hardship.

The one feather in our cap is the distribution of new discovery. As the
original research mission behind the invention of the internet, it has
surpassed expectation. The black hole image at the center of the Milky Way
galaxy was captured, processed and released (via twitter) in under a news
cycle.

~~~
buboard
Thats the VC fallacy of believing that filling the tank with money will make
the car go faster. If anything , progress in recent decades is anticorrelated
with increase in funding

------
onion2k
_Progress itself is understudied._

Every historian in the world would dispute that.

~~~
ksdale
I suspect many historians also believe that people don't pay nearly enough
attention to history.

~~~
dredmorbius
Economists especially.

------
thedudeabides5
I dunno, sounds like a lot of words to describe a rebranding of classical
economics.

Before economics became all dynamic stochastic general equilibrium matters and
strategic games of imperfect information, it was about 'how does the machine
work.'

Not sure why we need a New Field to study that.

~~~
jkingsbery
That's what I was thinking while reading: the author is just describing
economics while ignoring the fact that

> The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they
> really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that
> can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may
> seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown,
> can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a
> division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order.
> Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken
> into account (FA Hayek, The Fatal Conceit)

I agree that we don't need a new field, but it seems also that the idea of
designing progress is a fool's errand.

~~~
antepodius
I like to think of it as a matter of scale. At a very low scale, a human mind
designing a process can be efficient (a specific part of an assembly line, a
function, etc.) As you scale, you quickly reach a point where one mind is
worse than many, even if those minds are communicating mostly through such
apparently low-bandwidth measures as observing the flow of money.

------
bumbledraven
The physicist David Deutsch wrote a superb book about the kinds of ideas that
lead to progress and those that lead to regress. It's called _The Beginning of
Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World_ (2011).
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DXR5ZC](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DXR5ZC)

------
buboard
> When anthropologists look at scientists, they’re trying to understand the
> species. But when viewed through the lens of Progress Studies, the implicit
> question is how scientists (or funders or evaluators of scientists) should
> be acting.

I have had a few recent exchanges with anthropologists and it doesn't seem
they are interested in moralistic claims apart from defending the current
academic framework. For example they were highly skeptical of science when it
doesn't support the "nurture" side on the nature vs nurture debate, discarding
scientific evidence as invalid using weak arguments. It was surprising to me
how prevalent and an orthodoxy this is, and it seems they have contracted the
relativistic disease that is prevalent in the social sciences for decades. I
suppose most agree that progress is not an implied good (Plenty of comments
here express that view). Pity because anthropology is IMO the most interesting
social science.

As for measuring progress in science, the problem is that the vast majority of
scientists are content with the current system of small unambitious steps, low
risks and easy content-free papers, so you won't easily find many supporters
there.

------
CptFribble
We don't need a field of study, just a new definition of the word.

Right now progress is More Jobs and More GDP. A lot of people wind up getting
left out in the cold because progress jobs and GDP growth don't require
helping everyone who needs it.

Maybe progress should mean ensuring every human is healthy, fed, housed, and
has access to education and the global network.

~~~
dgzl
> Maybe progress should mean ensuring every human is healthy, fed, housed, and
> has access to education and the global network.

I don't think that's an attainable goal, or at the very least it's not a
realistic short or long term goal. There are so many other things we have to
fix before that goal makes sense.

~~~
DrOctagon
I'm curious, what do you think those 'things we have to fix' first are? Why
they are a higher priority?

~~~
dgzl
These are contentious so please don't downvote for an idea...

To start, I think a severe underlying problem America is facing is just that
there isn't much community here, compared to other first world countries. How
long have our families been living in the same place? Not long for most of us.
I think this is causing some turmoil in the trust department.

Also, we really need to work on our regulations. We have a bad habit of
legislating from the heart, but end up producing side effects that hurt us.
For instance, laws preventing giving food to the homeless. Over-regulating
also drives cost up for business, causing them to raise prices.

Another is minimum wage. Americans have a hard time admitting that increasing
minimum wage has negative side effects, especially on small business. We can
address the homeless problem pretty easily if we could decrease the minimum
wage for them. And before you get angry at this one, what kind of smartphone
are you using? There's a reason our jobs go over seas.

Jobs that would pay very low wage wouldn't be difficult jobs, but they also
wouldn't care if the person is only half mentally there. Small pay, small
work, you can be promoted and given raise. A factory for instance could even
build a campground with facilities. How many homeless folks would love to have
that opportunity? How many more potential employers does that produce?

We should also consider decreasing the federal budget and start paying off our
debt, no? I would think that's a pretty important thing to keep in mind also.

These things are needed in order to achieve a more universal happiness.

~~~
dbspin
>We can address the homeless problem pretty easily if we could decrease the
minimum wage for them... Jobs that would pay very low wage wouldn't be
difficult jobs, but they also wouldn't care if the person is only half
mentally there. Small pay, small work, you can be promoted and given raise. A
factory for instance could even build a campground with facilities."

Congratulations, you've just reinvented fuedalism, complete with the keep. Not
trying to be flippant, but this is a perfect example of how 'rational' geeks
can trivially rationalise literally anything, by ignoring context and history.
Protections like minimum wage, safe working conditions, minimum work age etc
didn't arise de novo. They exist (all be it in a much more limited form in the
US than elsewhere in the developed world), because of repeated public outrage
at the abuses their lack engendered. Repealing them to 'create jobs' as though
that were in itself a nebulous good is the same logic that has prisoners in
chain gangs (universally from poor, and overwhelmingly black) recreating the
era of slavery in Texas.

~~~
bubble_talk
>>because of repeated public outrage at the abuses their lack engendered.

I recommend anyone who holds this view to read at least one book written by
Thomas Sowell.

Example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed#Criticisms...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed#Criticisms_of_the_book)

Repeated public outrage: cars are becoming less safe.

Economist: There is a tradeoff between safety and affordability, and making
cars safer means less poor people can actually afford to buy them. In turn,
this makes transportation even harder for them, which in turn means they will
have fewer chances to improve their lives.

Repeated public outrage: lack of minimum wage will cause more exploitation.

Economist: Minimum wage destroys job opportunities for low skilled workers,
who are already heavily marginalized in society. And once they are out of the
job market, it becomes even harder for them to return to it.

~~~
TuringTest
> Minimum wage destroys job opportunities for low skilled workers, who are
> already heavily marginalized in society. And once they are out of the job
> market, it becomes even harder for them to return to it.

That's why you create unemployment benefit, preferably in a way that does not
discourage going back to work.

This way, works with starvation wages don't exist, and low-skilled workers
have a chance to prepare for their next job (and even to be a bit picky). In
my view this improves the job market much better than a race to the bottom in
working conditions and salaries.

~~~
barry-cotter
> That's why you create unemployment benefit, preferably in a way that does
> not discourage going back to work.

Alternatively you could subsidise low wage employment via a wage subsidy like
the earned income tax credit. That way you get more people in work as opposed
to fewer and those people develop skills and professional networks which will
allow the recipients to escape low wage work in time.

------
skmurphy
I have seen a lot of push back in various forums and whenever this link is
tweeted but a lot of it seems to conflate "materials science" and "civil
engineering" or "mechanical engineering." There is a very big difference
between understanding historical trends--which is very important--and
designing viable positive sum technology ecosystems. That being said, here are
six technology historians I have found very insightful:

Donald Cardwell in "Turning Points in Western Technology"

Joel Mokyr in "Lever of Riches" and "Gifts of Athena"

Edward Hutchinson in "Cognition in the Wild"

James Utterback "Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation"

David A. Mindell "Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing
before Cybernetics"

Stephen B. Johnson "The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and
European Space Programs"

------
killjoywashere
This stuff exists. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
(broker), DARPA (demand), every company (demand) and every company's R&D
division (supply). The problem is there's 7 billion people, and fully half of
them are above average. The demand signalers are constantly hunting for
supply, while the suppliers are constantly hunting for buyers. It takes
radical amounts of cross-training to have any hope of comprehending the
available possibilities.

------
marcus_holmes
I'm about 2/3 of the way through AntiFragile, and so scoffing at the whole
idea that academic institutions or scholarly study produce or contribute to
progress at all. What we need is not more academics, but the reinstatement of
the apprenticeship system.

~~~
mattkrause
You know how academia works, right? It and the trades are the only apprentice
systems going…

~~~
pmyteh
This is true. A PhD is very close to an apprenticeship model: study at the
feet of an expert doing simple work, prove your competence (master's
degree/prelims) to start working on your own account under supervision,
finally submit masterwork (PhD thesis) to be counted as an expert yourself.

------
telotortium
Authors: Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen

------
libraryofbabel
> Why did Silicon Valley happen in California rather than Japan or Boston? Why
> was early-20th-century science in Germany and Central Europe so strong?

In which the authors conveniently ignore the existence of a number of
disciplines, like the history of science and technology, addressing precisely
the questions that they're asking.

~~~
bobcostas55
They don't ignore them at all, they explain why having this stuff spread over
a large number of non-communicating disciplines is bad.

------
mbay
an extremely Software Dude take: "This hasn't been systematized the way I'm
imagining it so it doesn't exist yet."

------
carapace
This is the program of the Bavarian Illuminati.

~~~
dang
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
carapace
Sorry. While partially meant as an in-joke for Robert Anton Wilson fans, I'm
actually serious: the is no mention of religion or spirituality in the program
outlined. To me it seems relevant (or at least interesting) both that this is
a purely secular or materialist concept of progress; and that it's hardly
"New".

------
aylmao
Isn't this what philosophy in government and economics are? I took a Critical
Theory course in college. We read Kant, Hagel, Marx, Marcuse and Adorno, and
that's what their writing is all about— what all this we call "progress" is
even progressing towards and what that means for the world, for individuals,
etc.

I feel like the United States has just forsaken philosophy, especially as it
relates to economics, in favour of their Chicago School theories of free
markets. Now that the markets have been let to run free, and they're running
towards nothing good in particular, perhaps it's time to just look back at all
the literature written elsewhere on these matters.

~~~
jkingsbery
Many free-market oriented people would disagree that we've let the free market
run amok, as measured by the percentage of the economy that the government
spends directly or controls through price controls.

I would agree that a stress on philosophy in economics would be helpful, but
people like Hayek wrote in a philosophical way having seen the societies that
adopted ideas of Marx and found even further dysfunction.

~~~
aylmao
Glad to see someone actually comment and not just downvote haha.

> Many free-market oriented people would disagree that we've let the free
> market run amok, as measured by the percentage of the economy that the
> government spends directly or controls through price controls.

I agree with this actually. The federal government does move the pieces quite
a bit and there's definitely people who think it could be even more free.
Though to be fair, I'm thinking about this in relation to other countries like
some in Europe, for example. In that context, I get the sense the US is more
scared of regulation and in general prefers letting the market decide.

For example, plastic bags. The UK has introduced a charge on them, and is
going to enforce a ban soon. In the US you see less action in this direction,
and the general trend I see to fight the issue is "lets educate the population
so they crate demand for alternative options".

IMO, what the UK is doing is progress— they've identified the moral obligation
to take better care of the environment and through policy they're altering the
market to work towards it. The US seems to prefer to "progress" according to
market demand. If this idea is to be made policy, first it has to be demanded
by the market. I could be wrong though ¯\\\\\\_(ツ)\\_/¯

This is of course at a Federal level, because at a state and municipal level I
do hear of more independent action taken in the US.

> I would agree that a stress on philosophy in economics would be helpful, but
> people like Hayek wrote in a philosophical way having seen the societies
> that adopted ideas of Marx and found even further dysfunction.

That's true. I'm not arguing for the adoption of societies modeled after the
ideas of Marx, which are notoriously vague. I'm more just making the case that
there's previous literature reflecting on what "progress" is, and arguing that
perhaps it's not just increasing GDP without bounds.

------
zemo
It's literally only the tech community that thinks that "Progress itself is
understudied". People who work in the humanities have been studying these
topics since antiquity, and they have been desperately trying to get people in
the STEM fields to listen, only to be ignored.

read the responses to The Atlantic tweeting this out.
[https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1156260396317253632](https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1156260396317253632)

> there is no broad-based intellectual movement focused on understanding the
> dynamics of progress

The major difference between what they're saying and existing fields (history,
sociology, STS, economics, urbanism) is that the authors are only talking
about looking at successes, not failures. That is juvenile at best,
catastrophic at worst. Studying progress without studying failure is
incredibly ill-defined, because you have to start by defining progress, and
you can't actually guarantee progress without studying failure and studying
how to avoid failure. I'm sure we can all come together and agree on a single
definition of progress, right? Seems so straightforward.

This article is embarrassingly dismissive of other fields.

~~~
lvoudour
_The major difference between what they 're saying and existing fields
(history, sociology, STS, economics, urbanism) is that the authors are only
talking about looking at successes, not failures. That is juvenile at best,
catastrophic at worst. Studying progress without studying failure is
incredibly ill-defined, because you have to start by defining progress, and
you can't actually guarantee progress without studying failure and studying
how to avoid failure._

You perfectly articulated what I wanted to write but couldn't find the right
words. Reinventing the wheel is one thing, but reinventing it and adding
corners to it is just embarrassing.

------
julienreszka
Progress is an illusion. No such thing as progress. According to the second
law of thermodynamics things can only get worse we can only conserve what is
good already before its inevitable decay. Progress is snake oil, eternal
yough, perpetual machines, ideal cities and so on : Utopias, scams, wishful
thinking at best. All this has the fear of death as a root cause.

~~~
coldtea
You're not allowed to say these things in tech circles or imply that a person
from an older era might prefer it over ours (or god forbid that a modern
person might prefer to live an older or less tech-ey lifestyle), or limits to
growth...

~~~
wsy
Of course you are allowed: you just did it here, and nobody prohibited it.

What you seem to request is that nobody is criticizing your stance. But why
would you be entitled to that?

~~~
coldtea
> _Of course you are allowed: you just did it here, and nobody prohibited it._

Yeah, it was a turn of phrase, didn't mean its literally banned.

You're not banned, you're just not welcome to say it, you will be treated as
pariah for saying it, you will get downvoted to death, and if a discussion
happens to grow around such a viewpoint, it will be in all probability marked
"dead".

> _What you seem to request is that nobody is criticizing your stance._

No, what I request is that people give thought to such propositions and argue
with counter-arguments as opposed to facile dismissals and outrage...

~~~
wsy
Already the parent didn't make a big effort to argue, it was more like
literature ("progress is an illusion"), paired with a very far-fetched
conclusion from the second law of thermodynamics. On the latter, a proper
counter argument was given.

You didn't argue at all yet, so it is not really a surprise that nobody gives
counter-arguments.

