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Why “progress studies” is interdisciplinary

2 pointsby jasoncrawfordabout 3 years ago

1 comment

hendlerabout 3 years ago
Bravo on an interesting area and a disciplined approach.<p>I feel like I can relate to this effort.<p>In 1999 was really curious about the question what is progress? I own and used to write at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;whatisprogress.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;whatisprogress.com&#x2F;</a> (most recent stuff focuses on AI, but writing and academia not my strength). I spend my time at startups on in &quot;social impact&quot;. It&#x27;s an easy story to tell about why mental health, ed tech and climate can contribute to humanity&#x27;s progress.<p>I&#x27;ve been looking for a definition that&#x27;s outside capitalism, but more rigorous and quantitative than social science&#x27;s. Generally, I like Musks&#x27; and others definition of progress around maximizing the size and distribution of consciousness and survivable outcomes for humanity.<p>A lot of startups that &quot;simply&quot; improve transaction efficiency at scale contribute to abundance but get trapped straddling the world of capital and separately social impact efforts. A more wholistic set of principles than a B-Corp or foundation would be good. I like social impact investing as a lever, but the framework for evaluating success much harder than capitalism.