Progress Studies

Our metrics of progress have continuously abstracted: from the tangible bushels of wheat in agricultural economies (with natural physical limits), to industrial-era efficiency metrics (units/hour, machine uptime), to the nebulous productivity measures of knowledge work. Each evolution has moved us further from human-scaled, naturally bounded... See more

Governments sporadically got things spectacularly wrong. In 1865, the rail and horse-drawn carriage lobbies in the U.K. drummed up enough outrage to pass the Locomotive Act, whose most notable feature was an absurd requirement that a man walk in front of any self-propelled vehicle waving a red flag and blowing a horn. It stunted the U.K. automobile... See more