What Jason Crawford thinks about innovation
Founder of the Roots of Progress Institute, who left a software career to write full time about the history and philosophy of technological progress — how it happened, why it took so long, and whether it has slowed.
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4 dated positions, 2019 to 2021, in their own words. Our reading of what Jason Crawford has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Our reading · no longer heldThe case for a technological slowdown since about 1970 is not convincing.
Recalls holdingWhen I first heard the stagnation hypothesis, I was skeptical. The arguments weren’t convincing to me.
SaidBut as I studied the history of progress (and looked at the numbers), I slowly came around, and now I’m fairly convinced.
↗Technological stagnationrootsofprogress.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsStagnation just means slower progress. And not even slower than that pre-industrial era, but slower than, roughly, the late 1800s to mid-1900s, when growth rates are said to have peaked.
↗Technological stagnationrootsofprogress.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIt’s that we went from five simultaneous technology revolutions to one.
↗Technological stagnationrootsofprogress.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 17 months earlier
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Their wordsSo if progress is a moral imperative, it is also a moral imperative to understand its causes, so that we can protect them and reinforce them.