FYI: I just updated this article to include links to articles that I have written on the topics listed above. I think that it really improves the article for new subscribers.
Should have done that before posting, but I guess that you live and learn. : (
This series is valuable in that, as Marx famously pointed out (and later, Lenski), the material causes of social change are the primary drivers of human-cultural evolution, not metaphysical, supernatural forces as pre-modern, pre-liberal mythic culture and religion held.
But, it is also important to study evolutionary psychology and brain science (McGilchrist) to complete the picture of how humans evolved to seek meaning and purpose (intense social cooperation as a survival strategy). The classic critique of materialism, including Marxism, is that by ignoring meaning, purpose and spirituality evil and sin will flourish and high social trust and cooperation diminish.
This AI scientist, futurist and (western) Aro/tantric Buddhist explains the problem of materialist progress, meaning and high social trust:
I try to combine together many different theories into one multi-causal intellectual framework. Glad that you mentioned Lenski, as he had a huge impact on me. When I read his books, all the pieces bouncing around my brain all came together.
But I also believe that evolutionary psychology are important to integrate. As I was wrapping up my first book, I realized that there is the reality of material progress and how people perceive that reality, which is structured by human psychology.
By coincidence, I just finished writing an article on where I agree Marx and disagree with him. It will be published Dec 4.
I don't "ignore meaning, purpose and spirituality." It is just not a focus on my work. As I see it, Progress Studies is not a philosophy, religion, or ideology, nor should it be. Otherwise, it will inevitably be corrupted by ideology.
Also see: John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on the role of techno-economic disruption on spiritual, psychological and social regression, as per Systems Theory (Koestler's "Ghost in the Machine"), punctuated dynamic equilibrium and evolutionary adaptation.
Vervaeke has a specific plan for psychological development to get past the postmodern-relativist pothole on the road of cultural evolution.
Indeed, Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen article allowed me to crystallize and describe what it is that I am interested in. No doubt that article has an impact on many others.
Is there any formal coursework for “Progress studies” out there?
I envision something "entry level," that could be taught at libraries for fun (is that a thing?) or community colleges. The goal would not be inundate students with facts and data, but to just establish that 1) Progress is real 2) Here is how it happened/works 3) Why this matters to you, what it means for the future if we cannot keep the effloresce going.
My goal is to progressively condense this information. Newsletter-->Curated essays-->A book-->A course.
The problem is, I cannot devote myself to this full time, I have about 1.5 hours a day to spare.
2. Study and document conditions and patterns that make progress more likely as opposed to those that interfere or obstruct it.
3. Apply that knowledge to develop theories, policies, and practices that promote future progress.
4. Build coalitions and spread this knowledge as needed to implement those policies and practices in the real world.
The last two are pretty much the same, but on the first two I have broadened them. You imply that progress has to be human and has to be material. These may or not be true (let’s assume they are, for arguments sake) but neither should be assumed as we research a topic with an open mind. IOW, you have already framed parts of the answer (an answer?) in your goals.
Yes, Systems Theory and Evolutionary Psychology/Sociobiology have been attempting to provide a meta-narrative to provide such insights for several decades.
I guess the problem with trying to define this as non ideological is that it won't last. For one, you start by defining the field as focused on material progress, excluding moral progress. That's completely correct of course but people on the left will automatically consider that an ideological stance because they're primarily interested in their idea of social/moral progress. Mere materialism will be to them simply capitalist apologetics.
The second problem is that material progress outcomes are clearly linked with ideology. Libertarianism creates material progress and leftism destroys it. There's no way to avoid this conclusion and so trying to be neutral seems like a dead end. Anyone who cares about maximizing material progress must be libertarian and thus anti-leftist. Indeed, your blog went on to contain many excellent essays on that exact theme. So maybe it's worth revisiting that part of the progress studies idea.
I agree with much of the above, however, I disagree with how you see ideology and progress interacting.
As I see it, we need to identify what works in the past and present and implement more of the same in the real world. The biggest impediment to doing so are preconceived notions that blind us to reality, and ideology is the Mother of All preconceived views.
Therefore, Progress Studies must 100% be non-ideological and all people within it should be willing to toss out their preconceived ideological views if they conflict with promoting progress. Of course, I do not mean that we should abandon all human decency and constitutionality.
But turning Progress Studies into an ideological movement will kill it.
As I have written in many articles, ideologies of the Left-of-Center fundamentally undermine material progress and also in many cases moral progress (though it professes the opposite).
I think more "thoughtful" people on the Left-of-Center realize that the ideas that I am proposing fundamentally destroy the assumptions that their entire world view is composed. So I force them to choose Promoting Progress or maintaining anti-Progress world view. That is why most ignore me or attack me.
Fine. I can handle it.
I also agree that Libertarianism is correct in its fundamental insight that government policies undermine the foundations of material progress far more often than it helps it. But I think that Libertarians take that insight way too far.
As I see it, Libertarianism is about maximizing individual Liberty above all else. I also think that material progress is important goal. So that means Progress and individual Liberty are two fundamentally different goals and sometimes we must choose between those two goals.
There are, in fact, many Libertarianish thinkers in the Progress Studies movement, but it is a minority. I do not expect that those in the Progress Studies movement have no ideological views. That would be absurd. But I think that it is important for all of us to view history and the results as objectively as possible, and not turn Progress Studies into an ideological movement.
I disagree that Libertarianism creates material progress. No ideology creates material progress. It stems from material conditions that evolved long before Libertarianism even existed.
I believe that there are, in fact, government policies that strengthen the foundations of material progress and a Libertarian with conviction will oppose them.
Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model* is a pretty good basic explanation of how modernist, Enlightenment, classically liberal ("libertarian"), AGENTIC values emerged historically as a result of the early Church's ban on cousin marriage, eventually overturning human tribalism and clannish social forms (COMMUNION).
Modernism, and thus progress, was dependent on a more genetically variable, outbred gene pool in NW Europe, and the ban on cousin marriage (unintentionally?) created that outbred, classically liberal gene pool.
Historically, almost everywhere outside of NW Europe was clannish and inbred, and thus stayed in pre-liberal social forms dominated by "communion" values.
Modernism is the dominance AGENTIC values (individual achievement), driven by techno-economic disruption and feedback loops between the elements of the W.E.I.R.D. model:
Western high-social-trust/classic liberalism in a outbred gene pool
Education: the expansion of literacy/numeracy in the expanding urban commoner economy in NW Europe, such as river and sea trade
Innovation and Industrialization
Rich: expansion of middle class wealth in the urban commoner economy
Democracy: expanding political participation in the decentralized politics of early modern Europe. (temporarily marginalized for several hundred years after 1492 by a return to Oriental Despotism and Imperialism/Colonialism).
I disagree with his conclusions in "The Wierdest people in the world". I am not so interested in describing WIERD psychologies as explain the origins and cause of material progress. I think what distinguishes Northwest Europe is the rise of Commercial societies.
WEIRD describes a bunch of interconnecting feedback loops, one of which was the expansion of Commercial society. Without the ban on cousin marriage (intended to break the power of "pagan" clans), the gene pool would not have become variable and populated with higher percentages of classically liberal genes. The nuclear family would not have replaced clans and arranged marriages.
Without the expansion of markets and the urban commoner classes, and increases in literacy, the evolutionary selection for liberal personality traits would not have happened, and the increase in Commerce would have been slowed.
Not accounting for psychology and cultural evolution is a basic error.
The relevant general model in human evolutionary theory is "gene-culture co-evolution" (also known as dual inheritance theory). Again, feedback loops between biological evolution and cultural evolution. (Boyd and Richerson* and many others, building on E.O. Wilson's sociobiology, 1970s.)
A study a few years ago of genetic tolerance of a poor tribe to lack of water in some drought ravaged part of Africa showed that genes in that population could measurably change within a few generations.
"Unlike Karl Marx, Progress Studies researchers do not have an ideological agenda (or at least they should not)."
I agree, but does not the disclaimer to having an"idealogy" just asking for a definicional distraction? If someone want to call the aims of Progress Studies and "idealogy," let's not waste time arguing with them.
No, this article would get very tedious if I had to define every term used in the article. They can consult a dictionary if they are confused by my terminology.
Agree. Not my point. I meant tht maybe the word "ideaology" would attract unneeded controversy. "I have an analytic framewoke; _he_ has an ideaology." :)
Democracy is usually considered to be the result of "progress", along with expanding economic equality and "social justice", so while being impartial in the left-vs-right narrative wars is a good scientific and rationalist standpoint, some basic clarity is required.
I'm not a leftist, but there are neo-reactionary, "far-right" ideologies (Yarvin) that reject the ideology of democracy and "progressive" ideology entirely. Ironically, Yarvin is a tech bro., and arguably one of the most successful at exploiting the ideology of "agentic", "libertarian" (corporate) values.
FYI: I just updated this article to include links to articles that I have written on the topics listed above. I think that it really improves the article for new subscribers.
Should have done that before posting, but I guess that you live and learn. : (
This series is valuable in that, as Marx famously pointed out (and later, Lenski), the material causes of social change are the primary drivers of human-cultural evolution, not metaphysical, supernatural forces as pre-modern, pre-liberal mythic culture and religion held.
But, it is also important to study evolutionary psychology and brain science (McGilchrist) to complete the picture of how humans evolved to seek meaning and purpose (intense social cooperation as a survival strategy). The classic critique of materialism, including Marxism, is that by ignoring meaning, purpose and spirituality evil and sin will flourish and high social trust and cooperation diminish.
This AI scientist, futurist and (western) Aro/tantric Buddhist explains the problem of materialist progress, meaning and high social trust:
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
Thanks for the comment.
I try to combine together many different theories into one multi-causal intellectual framework. Glad that you mentioned Lenski, as he had a huge impact on me. When I read his books, all the pieces bouncing around my brain all came together.
This is where I ended up:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-five-keys-to-progress
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/understanding-how-humans-create-progress
But I also believe that evolutionary psychology are important to integrate. As I was wrapping up my first book, I realized that there is the reality of material progress and how people perceive that reality, which is structured by human psychology.
By coincidence, I just finished writing an article on where I agree Marx and disagree with him. It will be published Dec 4.
I don't "ignore meaning, purpose and spirituality." It is just not a focus on my work. As I see it, Progress Studies is not a philosophy, religion, or ideology, nor should it be. Otherwise, it will inevitably be corrupted by ideology.
Also see: John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on the role of techno-economic disruption on spiritual, psychological and social regression, as per Systems Theory (Koestler's "Ghost in the Machine"), punctuated dynamic equilibrium and evolutionary adaptation.
Vervaeke has a specific plan for psychological development to get past the postmodern-relativist pothole on the road of cultural evolution.
https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/john-vervaeke-and-jordan-hall/
You have at most seven tiles on your rack in a Scrabble game.
So does that mean that I am winning or losing?
I have not played Scrabble in a long time…
Indeed, Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen article allowed me to crystallize and describe what it is that I am interested in. No doubt that article has an impact on many others.
Is there any formal coursework for “Progress studies” out there?
Not that I know of. I am trying to help create a framework for how we create one with this series of posts.
If I were still a professor, however, I would be teaching it.
Long term, it's my goal to create some kind of overview course.
I would love to work with you on that one. A little too busy now though.
What age group were you thinking?
I envision something "entry level," that could be taught at libraries for fun (is that a thing?) or community colleges. The goal would not be inundate students with facts and data, but to just establish that 1) Progress is real 2) Here is how it happened/works 3) Why this matters to you, what it means for the future if we cannot keep the effloresce going.
My goal is to progressively condense this information. Newsletter-->Curated essays-->A book-->A course.
The problem is, I cannot devote myself to this full time, I have about 1.5 hours a day to spare.
What about developing a "summer course" for journalsits.
If a number of journalists asked for that course, I would be happy to develop it. But my guess is that few of them would be interested.
I think reading my Substack and JKs is a better solution for those who actually are interested.
Here is how I would suggest amending your goals:
The goals of the Progress Studies are to:
1. Research, define and understand progress.
2. Study and document conditions and patterns that make progress more likely as opposed to those that interfere or obstruct it.
3. Apply that knowledge to develop theories, policies, and practices that promote future progress.
4. Build coalitions and spread this knowledge as needed to implement those policies and practices in the real world.
The last two are pretty much the same, but on the first two I have broadened them. You imply that progress has to be human and has to be material. These may or not be true (let’s assume they are, for arguments sake) but neither should be assumed as we research a topic with an open mind. IOW, you have already framed parts of the answer (an answer?) in your goals.
Yes, Systems Theory and Evolutionary Psychology/Sociobiology have been attempting to provide a meta-narrative to provide such insights for several decades.
ooops! just looked at the publication date: January 2024.
Yes, because I have gotten so many new readers over this last year, I am cross-posting my most important articles so new readers can catch up.
Comments and restacks are always welcome!
I guess the problem with trying to define this as non ideological is that it won't last. For one, you start by defining the field as focused on material progress, excluding moral progress. That's completely correct of course but people on the left will automatically consider that an ideological stance because they're primarily interested in their idea of social/moral progress. Mere materialism will be to them simply capitalist apologetics.
The second problem is that material progress outcomes are clearly linked with ideology. Libertarianism creates material progress and leftism destroys it. There's no way to avoid this conclusion and so trying to be neutral seems like a dead end. Anyone who cares about maximizing material progress must be libertarian and thus anti-leftist. Indeed, your blog went on to contain many excellent essays on that exact theme. So maybe it's worth revisiting that part of the progress studies idea.
Thanks for the comment.
I agree with much of the above, however, I disagree with how you see ideology and progress interacting.
As I see it, we need to identify what works in the past and present and implement more of the same in the real world. The biggest impediment to doing so are preconceived notions that blind us to reality, and ideology is the Mother of All preconceived views.
Therefore, Progress Studies must 100% be non-ideological and all people within it should be willing to toss out their preconceived ideological views if they conflict with promoting progress. Of course, I do not mean that we should abandon all human decency and constitutionality.
But turning Progress Studies into an ideological movement will kill it.
As I have written in many articles, ideologies of the Left-of-Center fundamentally undermine material progress and also in many cases moral progress (though it professes the opposite).
I think more "thoughtful" people on the Left-of-Center realize that the ideas that I am proposing fundamentally destroy the assumptions that their entire world view is composed. So I force them to choose Promoting Progress or maintaining anti-Progress world view. That is why most ignore me or attack me.
Fine. I can handle it.
I also agree that Libertarianism is correct in its fundamental insight that government policies undermine the foundations of material progress far more often than it helps it. But I think that Libertarians take that insight way too far.
As I see it, Libertarianism is about maximizing individual Liberty above all else. I also think that material progress is important goal. So that means Progress and individual Liberty are two fundamentally different goals and sometimes we must choose between those two goals.
There are, in fact, many Libertarianish thinkers in the Progress Studies movement, but it is a minority. I do not expect that those in the Progress Studies movement have no ideological views. That would be absurd. But I think that it is important for all of us to view history and the results as objectively as possible, and not turn Progress Studies into an ideological movement.
I disagree that Libertarianism creates material progress. No ideology creates material progress. It stems from material conditions that evolved long before Libertarianism even existed.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-five-keys-to-progress
I believe that there are, in fact, government policies that strengthen the foundations of material progress and a Libertarian with conviction will oppose them.
Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model* is a pretty good basic explanation of how modernist, Enlightenment, classically liberal ("libertarian"), AGENTIC values emerged historically as a result of the early Church's ban on cousin marriage, eventually overturning human tribalism and clannish social forms (COMMUNION).
Modernism, and thus progress, was dependent on a more genetically variable, outbred gene pool in NW Europe, and the ban on cousin marriage (unintentionally?) created that outbred, classically liberal gene pool.
Historically, almost everywhere outside of NW Europe was clannish and inbred, and thus stayed in pre-liberal social forms dominated by "communion" values.
Modernism is the dominance AGENTIC values (individual achievement), driven by techno-economic disruption and feedback loops between the elements of the W.E.I.R.D. model:
Western high-social-trust/classic liberalism in a outbred gene pool
Education: the expansion of literacy/numeracy in the expanding urban commoner economy in NW Europe, such as river and sea trade
Innovation and Industrialization
Rich: expansion of middle class wealth in the urban commoner economy
Democracy: expanding political participation in the decentralized politics of early modern Europe. (temporarily marginalized for several hundred years after 1492 by a return to Oriental Despotism and Imperialism/Colonialism).
https://mindandmatter.substack.com/p/cultural-evolution-religion-and-the
I love Henrich's books and have many of his books and articles on online library of book summaries:
https://techratchet.com/?s=Henrich
I disagree with his conclusions in "The Wierdest people in the world". I am not so interested in describing WIERD psychologies as explain the origins and cause of material progress. I think what distinguishes Northwest Europe is the rise of Commercial societies.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/commercial-societies
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/understanding-commercial-societies
I believe that genetic differences are an RESULT of the evolution of more complex societies, not a CAUSE of it:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-our-deep-history-explains-global
WEIRD describes a bunch of interconnecting feedback loops, one of which was the expansion of Commercial society. Without the ban on cousin marriage (intended to break the power of "pagan" clans), the gene pool would not have become variable and populated with higher percentages of classically liberal genes. The nuclear family would not have replaced clans and arranged marriages.
Without the expansion of markets and the urban commoner classes, and increases in literacy, the evolutionary selection for liberal personality traits would not have happened, and the increase in Commerce would have been slowed.
Not accounting for psychology and cultural evolution is a basic error.
The relevant general model in human evolutionary theory is "gene-culture co-evolution" (also known as dual inheritance theory). Again, feedback loops between biological evolution and cultural evolution. (Boyd and Richerson* and many others, building on E.O. Wilson's sociobiology, 1970s.)
A study a few years ago of genetic tolerance of a poor tribe to lack of water in some drought ravaged part of Africa showed that genes in that population could measurably change within a few generations.
---
* https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3615170.html
"Unlike Karl Marx, Progress Studies researchers do not have an ideological agenda (or at least they should not)."
I agree, but does not the disclaimer to having an"idealogy" just asking for a definicional distraction? If someone want to call the aims of Progress Studies and "idealogy," let's not waste time arguing with them.
No, this article would get very tedious if I had to define every term used in the article. They can consult a dictionary if they are confused by my terminology.
Agree. Not my point. I meant tht maybe the word "ideaology" would attract unneeded controversy. "I have an analytic framewoke; _he_ has an ideaology." :)
Democracy is usually considered to be the result of "progress", along with expanding economic equality and "social justice", so while being impartial in the left-vs-right narrative wars is a good scientific and rationalist standpoint, some basic clarity is required.
I'm not a leftist, but there are neo-reactionary, "far-right" ideologies (Yarvin) that reject the ideology of democracy and "progressive" ideology entirely. Ironically, Yarvin is a tech bro., and arguably one of the most successful at exploiting the ideology of "agentic", "libertarian" (corporate) values.