I went on Giuliano Giacaglia’s podcast to discuss stagnation, how progress happens, progress in energy, nuclear energy, progress in agriculture, and where inventions are created.

I think what really made me come around to this point of view is studying the history of progress and basically deciding that it’s not about bits versus atoms. It’s about the fact that we’ve had progress in only bits when we really should have had progress in both bits and atoms at the same time bits, atoms, cells and joules…

We actually can make progress on all fronts at once. And the proof of this is really the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 50 years from 1870 to 1920, just to pick a relatively arbitrary time period, we had, by my count, approximately five major revolutions or big breakthroughs on five fronts.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Instead of flying cars, we got 140 characters
• 06:30 Bursts of progress
• 09:47 Progress in energy
• 19:42 Nuclear energy and lack of progress
• 27:57 Progress in agriculture
• 37:50 Food prices
• 44:34 Where are inventions created?
• 1:02:17 The Roots of Progress Fellowship