Recent Discussion
I was wondering if anyone has a good response to Toby Ord's reservations about progress studies.
In summary, Ord argues that it's far from obvious that advancing progress is inherently good or bad, since this depends on whether it also accelerates humanity's extinction, undermining standard economic arguments for progress.
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- The 150-year history of d/acc
- We’re hiring a Developmental Editor
- Open Philanthropy Abundance & Growth Fund
- Jobs
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- “I didn’t think it was that unlikely”
- Oldie but goodie
- Bio links
- Short notes
- You’d give the Devil benefit of law!
- Architecture
The 150-year history of d/acc
I spoke at “d/acc Day” alongside Vitalik Buterin, Juan Benet, Mary Lou Jepsen, Allison Duettmann, and others.
If you haven’t heard of d/acc, I recommend reading Vitalik’s post “My Techno-Optimism” where he coined the term, and his followup “d/acc: One Year Later.” In short: d/acc embraces progress; it recognizes that progress has risks and we need to address them; and it advocates doing so in decentralized ways that don’t lead to authoritarian control...
1. What are non-deterministic elections?
Voting is at the heart of democracy—it's how we collectively decide who will lead us and shape public policy. Traditionally, most democratic elections rely on deterministic voting systems. These are the systems where the outcome is based on a clear majority, and the winner is the one who secures the most votes.
This approach has its objections, for example the problem of the "tyranny of the majority", where the minority's voice is often silenced, and the concentration of power is in the hands of just over half the voters.[1]
In response to these concerns, recent research has started exploring non-deterministic voting systems. Unlike deterministic systems, these introduce an element of chance, beyond just using randomness to break ties.
It might be best if I first give...
Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Notes, Farcaster, Bluesky, or Threads.
Contents
- d/acc Day
- My writing (ICYMI)
- Praise for Progress Conference 2024
- Job opportunities
- Writing opportunities
- Other opportunities
- Events
- AI announcements
- Writing announcements
- Queries
For paid subscribers:
- A visible sonic boom
- Some observations from me on AI products
- Aaron Levie on AI in SaaS
- More on AI in SaaS
- Short notes on AI
- Other short notes
- It’s time to build
- The closing of the frontier
- Rousseau and Kant vs. the Age of Reason
- San Francisco, city of historic laundromats
- Maria Montessori on “peace”
- Rudyard Kipling on “peace”
- Charts and tables
- Art
d/acc Day
- I’ll be speaking at “d/acc Day” on Thursday in Berkeley, alongside Vitalik, Juan Benet, Mary Lou Jepsen, Allison Duettmann, and others. My talk: “d/acc: The first 150 years.” A whirlwind tour of how society has thought about progress, decentralization and defense over
Picture a computer that surpasses human intelligence on every level and can interact with the real world. Should you be terrified of such a machine? To answer that question, there's one crucial detail to consider: did this computer evolve through natural selection?
The reason is simple: natural selection is a brutally competitive process, which tends to produce creatures that are selfish and aggressive. While it is true that altruism can evolve under certain conditions (like kin selection or reciprocal altruism), the default mode is cutthroat competition. If they can get away with it, most organisms will destroy rivals in a heartbeat. Given that all of us are products of evolution, there's an ever-present temptation to project our own Darwinian demons onto future AI systems. Many folks today worry...
We're excited to announce our February book discussion featuring Joel Mokyr's A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy.
Pathways to Progress is a community of individuals committed to understanding and contributing to human prosperity. Through our discussions, we examine technological and scientific innovation, economic development, and their role in advancing human prosperity. Each month, we read selected book(s), followed by a Q&A event with the author. Previous books include Starved for Science by Robert Paarlberg, Where's My Flying Car? by J. Storrs Hall, and Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen. We also host speaker events with guests such as Jason Crawford, Matt Clancy, and Casey Handmer. Most speaker events are recorded and available on our YouTube channel.
Here's our schedule:
- Discussion Meetings: We'll have two discussion sessions to discuss A Culture of
Really enjoyed this book, it inspired me to start Roots of Progress! https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/the-idea-of-progress
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To those who already donate, thank you for making this possible! We now return you to your regularly scheduled links digest…
Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Notes, Farcaster, Bluesky, or Threads.
Contents
- Progress Conference 2025
- Are you teaching progress at university?
- A progress talk for high schoolers
- Job opportunities
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- AI news
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- A positive supply shock for truth
- Elon is perpetually in wartime mode
- The hinge of history
- More quotes
- AI doing things
- RPI
Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Notes, Farcaster, Bluesky, or Threads.
Contents
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- Boom goes supersonic
For paying subscribers:
- The Ballad of the Semiconductor
- The Gods of Straight Lines
- Quotes
- Karpathy on AI
- Other people on AI
- More from social media
- Politics
- OpenAI’s “Intelligence Age” ad
- Charts
- Rocketscapes
My writing (ICYMI)
- The future of humanity is in management. Here I start to lay out a vision for human agency in the AI future
- Solutionism, part 1 (Chapter 5 of The Techno-Humanist Manifesto). Optimism vs. pessimism can be a false dichotomy. We need to fully acknowledge problems, while vigorously pursuing solutions
Job opportunities
- Boom Supersonic is hiring—see about their historic test flight below. “A small band of extremely talented and dedicated men and women made today happen.
Companies are wealthier than nation-states. With a market cap of $2.1 trillion, there are only seven countries in the world with a wealthier GDP than Apple—if it were a country, it would be part of the G7. Microsoft isn’t far behind—with a market cap of $1.9 trillion, it would be the 10th richest country in the world. Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco has a market cap more than double its country’s GDP.1
Companies don’t have borders. Multinational corporations like Amazon, Netflix, Mitsubishi, Airbus, and BP operate around the world, with offices in many countries and employees who can easily move between them thanks to relocation packages and work visas. Though nation-states remain gridlocked against refugees and NGOs struggle to relocate them, after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, companies like...
Yes, that's correct. Ord's writes this about discount rates:
... (read more)