All of ErikSchmidt's Comments + Replies

"Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as they do not cause economic inefficiency, and reduce inequality.^[2] A land value tax is a progressive tax, in that the tax burden falls on land owners, because land ownership is correlated with wealth and income.^[3][4] The land value tax has been referred to as "the perfect tax" and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been accepted since the eighteenth century.^[1][5][6] Economists since Adam Smith and David Ricardo have advocated this tax because it does not hurt economic activity, and enc

"My theoretical challenge is: Progress Studies ought to be able to explain why two communities can view progress differently, and do so in its own terms; that is, in a theory that adequately defines what progress is..."

These are interesting questions, but, in my opinion, on the periphery of what "Progress Studies" is. Progress Studies generally pre-supposes that industrial, scientific, and economic development are good things. Most discussion seems to focus on better understanding how and why these things come about. At least, that's what attracted me to t... (read more)

My first instinct is Frank Herbert. But that seems too obvious, and your note that you brought it up to date makes me think it might be earlier. 

Yes. I recommend this article which has some helpful data pulled from the World Bank and Our World in Data, and explains the trends. 

https://www.ft.com/content/967e1d77-8d3c-4256-9339-6ea7025cd5d3

But to summarize, as economic development advances, more people can spend more time inventing cleaner and better ways to do things, and industrial and economic development makes clean energy cheaper to deploy. 

Also, if GPT-4 raises the "productivity" of environmental impact statement, my guess is that they could only increase productivity so long as there is not broad awareness and acceptance of the technology in writing the statements. If GPT-4 becomes the standard in writing statements, then expectations for the length and breadth of the statements have the potential to rise as well. 

I think I'm probably just not the target audience for your project, so I didn't "get it". I apologize for calling your stuff a cult and interpreting it through that lens.

A lot of what I was saying was an attempt to boil down your points to get to the meat of what the project is trying to say, but perhaps that kinda defeats the purpose of the artistic aspect of it. While I could argue about the numbered responses, or give suggestions on how to streamline the ideas you're proposing, if the point is in large part artistic I see how that's barking up the wrong tree. 

While I don't think this is for me, I apologize again for my critical tone and for calling it a cult. Best of luck.

This may be a faux pass of the community rules about disagreement, but I don't think you've created anything interesting here. Your "new movement" comes across a lot more like a cult than a concrete way to find meaning.

You describe a crisis of modernity in very vague terms in this piece. You point to things that are bad, gesture that our emotions might not be positive, and suggest that we need to develop a new way of living and finding meaning. To find meaning, you recommend watching a video you made.

This is generally how your video comes across too. You d... (read more)

The inventor of the cell phone was inspired by the TOS communicator. There's a lot of examples of this in engineering, I think.

I think you hit the mark with a lot of us having an underlying belief in progress independent of progress studies, and that a lot of that excitement/belief was inspired by media or culture. When I worked in sales, one of the team mottos we had was that people make decisions with emotions first, and then rationalize them later. Regardless of whether that's how people "should" make decisions, I think it's reasonably accurate. Creatin... (read more)

Thank you! I'll have to check these out

Just arrived! We have a table in the way back but since it's restaurant week (which I did not realize) we may move to the bar, since they're not doing happy hour at tables.

We're set for tomorrow - table has been reserved

I think to get to the "agenda" stage of the idea machine, a key is making sure that we're acting in the real world. We can wish upon every star that zoning laws were reformed to make it easier to build housing, or that ALARA was repealed and more sensible nuclear regulation put in its place, but those items might not be the best fits for the agenda if we're not able to realistically achieve them. They're hard political problems to solve that will require a lot of resources, political savvy, and likely a large coalition! And others (such as YIMBY, for housi... (read more)

"Would want to keep any agenda specific enough to drive outcomes, but not too specific as to turn people off from petty disagreements."

I think unfortunately, this is the equivalent of eating your cake and having it too. Progress studies, if it's actionable, largely is going to impact into the political world (because we want to do xyz things, which government has some presence in, to accelerate the pace of progress), so disagreement is going to exist. 

For instance, you mention regulations that "if removed or revisited" would increase progress. Two are... (read more)

Hi Gary, what's your relationship to the "Foundational Tech Ecosystem"? I have a startup project that seems like it would fit into this bucket (making land use codes/zoning easier to navigate for developers & RE professionals) and would be interested in connecting with others in this ecosystem. Thanks!

Great post. Seems like things in New York are turning in the right direction, and I'm impressed by your optimism. Hochul quoting Hseih and Moretti is pretty great!

Do you have any recommendations for low investment, high impact ways of reducing NIMBY power that many people might not be aware of? Either in New York, or generally in American cities. In my experience with YIMBY groups, it's difficult to get more than a a few people to show up for an event.  If those people don't feel like they're accomplishing much, they tend to get bored and do something... (read more)

I don't think it makes sense to compare America's growth vs China or India's growth over this period.

Yes, the countries were adopting similar technologies, but when America was adopting them, they were adopting those technologies at the technological frontier. When China and India were adopting them, they were not. It's easier to grow by adopting already invented technologies than by inventing new ones. This is essentially the logic behind Solow-Swan convergence between rich and poor countries, which as an economic model has held up pretty well to what we ... (read more)

Hey folks, I'm Erik. I heard about Progress Studies through an interest in economic history. I've always been very interested in the Industrial Revolution, why development occurs or why it doesn't, and what we could do to accelerate the rate of technological progress. Progress Studies appealed to me because it's a group of people very interested in those same questions through a modern lens - what works and what doesn't to increase industrial and technological advancement in the modern day? 

As some might guess from my earlier comment, my background is... (read more)