The Roots of Progress

Beyond the moment of invention

Derek Thompson has a feature in The Atlantic this week on “Why the Age of American Progress Ended”—thoughtful and worth reading. Some comments and reactions.

One of the ideas explored in the article is that what matters for progress is not just the moment of invention, but what happens after that. I generally agree. Some ways I think this is true:

On another note, I thought this paragraph near the end of the piece was spot-on:

When you add the anti-science bias of the Republican Party to the anti-build skepticism of liberal urbanites and the environmentalist left, the U.S. seems to have accidentally assembled a kind of bipartisan coalition against some of the most important drivers of human progress. To correct this, we need more than improvements in our laws and rules; we need a new culture of progress.

Amen.

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