Elon Musk says that soon, builders “will be free to build” in America. If that promise is to be fulfilled, we have work to do.

Here’s my wishlist of policy goals to advance scientific, technological, and economic progress. I’m far from a policy wonk, so I’m mostly going to be referencing folks I trust, such as the RPI fellows, the Institute for Progress (IFP), or Eli Dourado at the Abundance Institute. (I’m sympathetic to most of what is linked below, and consider all of it interesting and worthwhile, but don’t assume I agree with anything 100%.)

AI

AI has enormous potential to create prosperity and security for America and the world. It also introduces new risks and enhances old ones. However, I think it would be a mistake to create...

A while back, I wrote a quick update on the EA forum about my work with a Belgian animal advocacy group and how the Belgian Senate voted to enshrine animal welfare in the Constitution.

It's been a journey. I work for GAIA, a Belgian animal advocacy group that for years has tried to get animal welfare added to the constitution. Today we were present as a supermajority of the senate came out in favor of our proposed constitutional amendment. [...]

It's a very good day for Belgian animals but I do want to note that:

1. This does not mean an effective shutdown of the meat industry, merely that all future pro-animal welfare laws and lawsuits will have an easier time.  And,
2. It still needs to pass the Chamber of Representatives.

If there's

Much of this content originated on social media. To follow news and announcements in a more timely fashion, follow me on Twitter, Threads, Bluesky, or Farcaster.

Contents

• Jobs & fellowships
• Looking for writers?
• People doing interesting things
• Events
• DARPA wants input
• Other announcements
• Progress on the curriculum
• The growth of the progress movement
• AI will allow the average person to navigate The System
• I have questions
• Other people have questions
• Links
• 100 years ago
• Humboldt on progress
• Progress news with cool pics
• Anti-elite elites
• Politics links and short notes
• BBC doesn’t know what “nominal” means
• Charts
• Fun

Jobs & fellowships

• We’re hiring an Event Manager to run Progress Conference 2025 and other events. Best to get your application in before the holidays!
• “The Kothari Fellowship provides grant and mentorship to young Indians (<25 years) who want to build, empowering them to turn ideas into reality, instead of being held back by societal norms.” Provides up to ₹1 lakh per month

A new article in Science Policy Forum voices concern about a particular line of biological research which, if successful in the long term, could eventually create a grave threat to humanity and to most life on Earth.

Fortunately, the threat is distant, and avoidable—but only if we have common knowledge of it.

What follows is an explanation of the threat, what we can do about it, and my comments.

Background: chirality

Glucose, a building block of sugars and starches, looks like this:

But there is also a molecule that is the exact mirror-image of glucose. It is called simply L-glucose (in contrast, the glucose in our food and bodies is sometimes called D-glucose):

This is not just the same molecule flipped around,...

The Roots of Progress Institute is hiring a full-time, in-house event manager to run our annual Progress Conference and other events. See the job ad below, crossposted in full from the link above.

Event Manager

Fully remote, full-time

The Role

We’re looking for a super-organized self-starter who loves bringing people together in person around a shared set of ideas and who is great at creating magical experiences.

The Roots of Progress Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to establishing a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century. We’re part of a larger progress and abundance movement, and one key role we play within this movement is to develop talent and to build community.

As the Event Manager, you’ll be in charge of our annual progress conference, which brings together 200-300 thinkers and doers...

We believe in progress. For many kinds of mobility, we can see what progress is going to be. For long-range air travel, it is the return of supersonic flight. For short-range air travel, it's electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing flight (eVTOL), known colloquially as 'air taxi'. For personal vehicles and for ridehail, it's driving automation. 

What would progress in public transit be? 

I've written a series of posts on my Substack to answer this question on my Substack. It's in four parts and the sum is ~10K words. The short version is: 

Firstly, we need to understand the problem. In my view, the problem is 'the Endless Emergency': a bad equilibrium where transit agencies rely on public subsidy to operate, but that reliance leads to raft of warped incentives. The result is local...

We're excited to announce our December book discussion featuring Robert Paarlberg's Starved for Science as part of our ongoing book series dedicated to exploring the ideas of Progress Studies.

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 The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce by Deirdre McCloskey, 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 Heidi Williams. Most speaker events are recorded and available on...