Reality is a dangerous place. From the dawn of humanity we have faced the hazards of nature: fire, flood, disease, famine. Better technology and infrastructure have made us safer from many of these risks—but have also created new risks, from boiler explosions to carcinogens to ozone depletion, and exacerbated old ones.

Safety, security, and resilience against these hazards is not the default state of humanity. It is an achievement, and in each case it came about deliberately.

A striking theme from the history of such achievements is that there is rarely if ever a silver bullet for risk. Safety is achieved through defense in depth, and through the orchestration of a wide variety of solutions, all working in concert.

Recently, in a private talk, I gave a historical example: the...

Everyone loves writing annual letters these days. It’s the thing. (I blame Dan Wang.)

So here’s mine. At least I can say I’ve been doing it for as long as Dan: nine years running (proof: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024). As usual, this is more of a personal essay/reflection, and not so much of an organizational annual report, although I will start with some comments on…

RPI

Over the last three years, the Roots of Progress Institute has gone from “a guy and his blog” to a full-fledged cultural institute. This year we:

• Held our second annual Progress Conference, featuring speakers including Sam Altman, Blake Scholl, Tyler Cowen, and Michael Kratsios (Director, OSTP). The conference has become the central, must-attend event for the progress community: it is sold

My essay series The Techno-Humanist Manifesto concluded in October. You can read the whole thing here.

“Techno-humanism” is my philosophy of progress, and THM is my statement of it. It consolidates and restates material I’ve used in previous essays and talks, in a more unified and coherent form. Still, even for my biggest fans, almost every chapter should have something new, including:

• The culture of progress we once had (pre-WW1), and the decline of the idea of progress in the 20th century
• The story of progress as a story of the expansion of human agency (despite seeming counterexamples like the poor nutrition of early agriculturalists or the inadvertent creation of new health and environmental hazards)
• The nature of human well-being, including my response to the paradox of stagnant happiness metrics
• My argument

The links digest is back, baby!

I got so busy writing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto this year that after May I stopped doing the links digest and my monthly reading updates. I’m bringing them back now (although we’ll see what frequency I can keep up). This one covers the last two or three weeks. But first…

A year-end call to support our work

I write this newsletter as part of my job running the Roots of Progress Institute (RPI). RPI is a nonprofit, supported by your subscriptions and donations. If you enjoy my writing, or appreciate programs like our conference, writer’s fellowship, and high school program, consider making a donation:

• If you can give $100, subscribe to our paid Substack
• If you can give $500, make it a founder subscription
• If you can give

“Slop” is Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year:

We define slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” … The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up. … “AI Slop is Everywhere,” warned The Wall Street Journal, while admitting to enjoying some of those cats.

Slop touches a nerve today. When Meta announced a product to create massive amounts of AI-generated short-form video, presumably with no goal other than entertainment to capture clicks and eyeballs, even my generally pro-technology circles exploded in disgust and...

Starting today, high school students can apply to Progress in Medicine, a new program by the Roots of Progress Institute.

What the Progress in Medicine program offers

In this summer program, high school students will explore careers in in medicine, biotech, health policy, and longevity. We will inspire them with stories of historical progress and future opportunities in medicine, help them think about a wider range of careers, and raise their aspirations about how they can contribute to progress in medicine. The program centers on this central question:

People today live longer, healthier, and less painful lives than ever before. Why? Who made those changes possible? Can we keep this going? And could you play a part?

Teens will:

• Learn about and be inspired by the heroes of the past—the people who

Ben Norman, Max Maton, Jian Xin Lim and I are working on a Progress Studies Society in London for students/professionals. Our initial experiment is an 8-week in-person project-based fellowship, aimed at helping talented individuals start working on concrete problems relevant to progress studies.

We're looking for lists of relevant project ideas -- similar to what people have done in AI safety (e.g. here and here). The people working on these would be lower context, but dedicated/smart. We would be very grateful if anyone has suggestions :)