Since then, the “third Industrial Revolution”, starting in the mid-1900s, has mostly seen fundamental advances in a single area: electronic computing and communications. If you date it from 1970, there has really been nothing comparable in manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transportation, or medicine—again, not that these areas have seen zero progress, simply that they’ve seen less-than-revolutionary progress. Computers have completely transformed all of information processing and communications, while there have been no new types of materials, vehicles, fuels, engines, etc.
One of the challenges here is defining what counts as a “new” category of innovation as opposed to an incremental improvement on an “old” category.
I expect many people would count the invention of Bakelite as a “new”material. Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic, invented in 1909. But all plastics are polymers, and Bakelite mainly just replaced these natural polymers with a cheaper, better alternative. It is chemically distinct from the natural polymers it replaced, and its synthetic nature was truly revolutionary.
But that’s just the problem. What makes a material “revolutionary” depends less on how physically distinct it is from other machines and materials, and more on what economic possibilities it unlocks. The compound bow, invented in 1966, might have been “revolutionary” if it had been invented in 10,000 BC. Because it was invented centuries into the gunpowder era, it was not.
So “stagnation” really ought to mean that we are creating economic demand at a lower rate than in the past. The airplane created economic demand for flight, and improvements to the airplane in terms of safety, speed, cost, and destinations increased that demand. Now, the airline industry is a poster child for stagnation. It’s not that people don’t want to fly. It’s just that there’s no economically tractable way to make them want to fly more.
A structural feature of medicine that promotes “stagnancy” in the sense of economic demand is the fact that people take most medicines only because they get a disease. No matter how good a statin is, patients won’t take it unless they’re at risk for something like a heart attack or stroke, and they usually will take it if they are at risk. Only medications for entirely new diseases can create demand where there was none before, and these medicines are mainly (though not exclusively) in the category of rare diseases, which limits the economic impact that any one of them can have. So “stagnancy” in the field of medicine merely means “we have at least one go-to treatment for almost every common illness.”
Note that this isn’t 100% true. In HIV, we have PrEP, which is a new category of medication that people use to prevent acquiring HIV, and thus attacks HIV from a whole new angle, creating a whole new type of demand. COVID vaccines and medications also have this attribute. We had nothing, and now we have something.
This structural feature of “stagnation” is almost, but not quite, an inevitability. Some technologies are “generative,” in the sense that they make further new products possible that would have been meaningless before. iPhones are “generative” because they are not only in demand, but they create demand for many other products and services to improve and exploit them: waterproof and decorated cases, magnetic stands for use in cars, bluetooth headphones, etc. Air travel is “generative” because it creates demand for things like tourist resorts, travel guides, gift shops, neck pillows, and wheeled luggage.
While “stagnation” ought to set in within any given product category for the purely structural reason that we naturally wind up creating at least one product to satisfy each form of demand, I see no reason why we would a priori expect to see a decline in these “generative” technologies that create knock-on forms of demand. But I do accept that a decline in GDP is empirical evidence for such a decline.
There are certain categories of progress that I think we neglect in these discussions.
I’d tentatively count Ukraine’s so far successful repulsion of Russian invasion, using innovative arms and intelligence supplied by other countries, as an example of progress. As is the ability to punish Russian aggression with international sanctions. In the past, my guess is that the difference in manpower would have counted for a lot more, and it would have been much more difficult to weaponize the global economy against Russia. Who knows what the knock-on effects will be if Ukraine is able to win the war?
Note that many of these definitions of “progress” and “stagnation,” including the ones I’m offering here, are specifically about progress for the global rich. The global poor have seen massive progress since the 1970s, and I don’t think anybody seriously denies that.
Another example of “progress” in atoms is the rise of polyamory, gay marriage, greater permissiveness around divorce and contraception, and other forms of social and sexual advancement. These forms of progress aren’t machine-based, but they do seem heavily facilitated by the internet, which makes it much easier for minority interests to connect, form community, and share information. Cultural progress of this kind must somehow be relevant as a form of economic progress, but I have no idea how it would be counted in traditional measures of GDP. It seems to me that this might ultimately prove to be economically generative over time as these communities have a chance to mature. After overcoming a material bottleneck, people turn their attention to social bottlenecks. Maybe eventually they turn their attention back to material bottlenecks, or to something else.
All that said, there’s still something compelling to the question “where’s my X?”
If I could list some things that I really want, and for which it seems no technology exists, I might wish for:
A better way to collate various DNA precipitation protocols, ensure they work with the materials and equipment in my lab, and train me to execute the protocol successfully.
Much better couple’s therapy than presently exists. Being able to have a therapist experience in which both members of the couple feel the therapist has the capacity to simultaneously be “exclusively” their individual therapist while also being able to act fully as a therapist for the couple.
Effective, non-addictive, and legal nootropics.
VR-controlled robots with fine manual dexterity.
Cheap miniature heat-and-humidity-resistant stick-on microscope cameras that could be accessed over the internet.
An affordable laptop with 3-4x the screen space.
A much easier way to try on clothes and other products.
Technology that could automatically and reliably find the highest-quality local services that fit your price range and schedule.
But mostly, what I want are things that already exist, but cost more money than I’m willing to pay. I want my own house, access to better lab equipment, more money to buy better-quality food, a Maine Coon cat, a really nice bike, etc. etc. etc. I have a lot of room for material progress in my own life without requiring any new technologies in order to get it. Over time, I fully anticipate that I will realize these forms of material progress.
Unfortunately, material progress will come with declining health and fewer years of life remaining. Eventually, longevity will become my bottleneck to progress, and this is true for every human.
Based on all this, I think that a progress agenda that focuses on increasing the supply and quality of goods and services that already exist, while working toward longevity technology, would address the two areas that I think are most relevant for making material improvements in my own life.
Longevity among the global rich currently appears to be slowing down, but I would not be surprised if that trend changes in my lifetime, and I think it’s mostly a consequence of the time it takes for the science and engineering community to master the suite of new technologies we’ve developed over the last 20 years.
I’m not sure if sheer material abundance is decelerating. Global meat production was accelerating from 1980-2018, but suddenly flatlined in that year. World car production was pretty linear from 2001-2016 and has fallen off a cliff since then. World PC shipments have been fairly steady since 2006. World energy consumption flatlined in 2019, but was visibly decelerating after about 1980. These make me weakly update to “yes,” material progress is decelerating.
As Cowen and Southwood point out, these decelerations are happening in a context of massively increased scientific research. This suggests that scientific innovation is not the driver of economic production that it once was. If I had to guess, I’d blame a combination of coordination problems, regulatory slowdowns, philosophical differences, and underinvestment in public infrastructure. We should have had full nuclear power a long time ago. The way we regulate medicine is onerous. Insane laws like the Foreign Dredge Act accumulate obstacles and linger far too long because it’s so hard in a democratic context to coordinate to repeal them. How is it that fission scientists have been so underfunded for so long? We have the miracle of CRISPR-Cas9, and every article on the topic prefaces it by stating that it’s wildly controversial.
From a bird’s eye view, humanity rarely knows what it wants most, feels embarrassed about those desires it has identified, and even when it’s not too confused or timid to pursue its objects, often has no clear idea of how to cooperate in order to get it. Humanity needs therapy.
From that perspective, a “philosophy of progress” seems like it’s pointing in the right direction. “Have you considered that what you might want is material abundance, longer lives, a community you enjoy, and the technology that allows you to get these things without constantly producing catastrophic side effects?”
One of the challenges here is defining what counts as a “new” category of innovation as opposed to an incremental improvement on an “old” category.
I expect many people would count the invention of Bakelite as a “new”material. Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic, invented in 1909. But all plastics are polymers, and Bakelite mainly just replaced these natural polymers with a cheaper, better alternative. It is chemically distinct from the natural polymers it replaced, and its synthetic nature was truly revolutionary.
But that’s just the problem. What makes a material “revolutionary” depends less on how physically distinct it is from other machines and materials, and more on what economic possibilities it unlocks. The compound bow, invented in 1966, might have been “revolutionary” if it had been invented in 10,000 BC. Because it was invented centuries into the gunpowder era, it was not.
So “stagnation” really ought to mean that we are creating economic demand at a lower rate than in the past. The airplane created economic demand for flight, and improvements to the airplane in terms of safety, speed, cost, and destinations increased that demand. Now, the airline industry is a poster child for stagnation. It’s not that people don’t want to fly. It’s just that there’s no economically tractable way to make them want to fly more.
A structural feature of medicine that promotes “stagnancy” in the sense of economic demand is the fact that people take most medicines only because they get a disease. No matter how good a statin is, patients won’t take it unless they’re at risk for something like a heart attack or stroke, and they usually will take it if they are at risk. Only medications for entirely new diseases can create demand where there was none before, and these medicines are mainly (though not exclusively) in the category of rare diseases, which limits the economic impact that any one of them can have. So “stagnancy” in the field of medicine merely means “we have at least one go-to treatment for almost every common illness.”
Note that this isn’t 100% true. In HIV, we have PrEP, which is a new category of medication that people use to prevent acquiring HIV, and thus attacks HIV from a whole new angle, creating a whole new type of demand. COVID vaccines and medications also have this attribute. We had nothing, and now we have something.
This structural feature of “stagnation” is almost, but not quite, an inevitability. Some technologies are “generative,” in the sense that they make further new products possible that would have been meaningless before. iPhones are “generative” because they are not only in demand, but they create demand for many other products and services to improve and exploit them: waterproof and decorated cases, magnetic stands for use in cars, bluetooth headphones, etc. Air travel is “generative” because it creates demand for things like tourist resorts, travel guides, gift shops, neck pillows, and wheeled luggage.
While “stagnation” ought to set in within any given product category for the purely structural reason that we naturally wind up creating at least one product to satisfy each form of demand, I see no reason why we would a priori expect to see a decline in these “generative” technologies that create knock-on forms of demand. But I do accept that a decline in GDP is empirical evidence for such a decline.
There are certain categories of progress that I think we neglect in these discussions.
I’d tentatively count Ukraine’s so far successful repulsion of Russian invasion, using innovative arms and intelligence supplied by other countries, as an example of progress. As is the ability to punish Russian aggression with international sanctions. In the past, my guess is that the difference in manpower would have counted for a lot more, and it would have been much more difficult to weaponize the global economy against Russia. Who knows what the knock-on effects will be if Ukraine is able to win the war?
Note that many of these definitions of “progress” and “stagnation,” including the ones I’m offering here, are specifically about progress for the global rich. The global poor have seen massive progress since the 1970s, and I don’t think anybody seriously denies that.
Another example of “progress” in atoms is the rise of polyamory, gay marriage, greater permissiveness around divorce and contraception, and other forms of social and sexual advancement. These forms of progress aren’t machine-based, but they do seem heavily facilitated by the internet, which makes it much easier for minority interests to connect, form community, and share information. Cultural progress of this kind must somehow be relevant as a form of economic progress, but I have no idea how it would be counted in traditional measures of GDP. It seems to me that this might ultimately prove to be economically generative over time as these communities have a chance to mature. After overcoming a material bottleneck, people turn their attention to social bottlenecks. Maybe eventually they turn their attention back to material bottlenecks, or to something else.
All that said, there’s still something compelling to the question “where’s my X?”
If I could list some things that I really want, and for which it seems no technology exists, I might wish for:
A better way to collate various DNA precipitation protocols, ensure they work with the materials and equipment in my lab, and train me to execute the protocol successfully.
Much better couple’s therapy than presently exists. Being able to have a therapist experience in which both members of the couple feel the therapist has the capacity to simultaneously be “exclusively” their individual therapist while also being able to act fully as a therapist for the couple.
Effective, non-addictive, and legal nootropics.
VR-controlled robots with fine manual dexterity.
Cheap miniature heat-and-humidity-resistant stick-on microscope cameras that could be accessed over the internet.
An affordable laptop with 3-4x the screen space.
A much easier way to try on clothes and other products.
Technology that could automatically and reliably find the highest-quality local services that fit your price range and schedule.
But mostly, what I want are things that already exist, but cost more money than I’m willing to pay. I want my own house, access to better lab equipment, more money to buy better-quality food, a Maine Coon cat, a really nice bike, etc. etc. etc. I have a lot of room for material progress in my own life without requiring any new technologies in order to get it. Over time, I fully anticipate that I will realize these forms of material progress.
Unfortunately, material progress will come with declining health and fewer years of life remaining. Eventually, longevity will become my bottleneck to progress, and this is true for every human.
Based on all this, I think that a progress agenda that focuses on increasing the supply and quality of goods and services that already exist, while working toward longevity technology, would address the two areas that I think are most relevant for making material improvements in my own life.
Longevity among the global rich currently appears to be slowing down, but I would not be surprised if that trend changes in my lifetime, and I think it’s mostly a consequence of the time it takes for the science and engineering community to master the suite of new technologies we’ve developed over the last 20 years.
I’m not sure if sheer material abundance is decelerating. Global meat production was accelerating from 1980-2018, but suddenly flatlined in that year. World car production was pretty linear from 2001-2016 and has fallen off a cliff since then. World PC shipments have been fairly steady since 2006. World energy consumption flatlined in 2019, but was visibly decelerating after about 1980. These make me weakly update to “yes,” material progress is decelerating.
As Cowen and Southwood point out, these decelerations are happening in a context of massively increased scientific research. This suggests that scientific innovation is not the driver of economic production that it once was. If I had to guess, I’d blame a combination of coordination problems, regulatory slowdowns, philosophical differences, and underinvestment in public infrastructure. We should have had full nuclear power a long time ago. The way we regulate medicine is onerous. Insane laws like the Foreign Dredge Act accumulate obstacles and linger far too long because it’s so hard in a democratic context to coordinate to repeal them. How is it that fission scientists have been so underfunded for so long? We have the miracle of CRISPR-Cas9, and every article on the topic prefaces it by stating that it’s wildly controversial.
From a bird’s eye view, humanity rarely knows what it wants most, feels embarrassed about those desires it has identified, and even when it’s not too confused or timid to pursue its objects, often has no clear idea of how to cooperate in order to get it. Humanity needs therapy.
From that perspective, a “philosophy of progress” seems like it’s pointing in the right direction. “Have you considered that what you might want is material abundance, longer lives, a community you enjoy, and the technology that allows you to get these things without constantly producing catastrophic side effects?”