# Progress links and tweets, 2022-11-01

**Announcements**
-----------------

*   [The Reef Starter Innovation Challenge, to identify startups that could benefit from operations in Low Earth Orbit](https://reefstarterchallenge.techconnectventures.com/)
*   [AI startup Generally Intelligent has launched and open-sourced their research environment](https://generallyintelligent.com/launch/) (via [@kanjun](https://twitter.com/kanjun/status/1583158039988695041))
*   [Deep Science Ventures is launching a doctorate to put venture creation at the heart of the PhD](https://landing.deepscienceventures.com/vsd-preregister) (via [@isabel_thomp](https://twitter.com/isabel_thomp/status/1583430348104294400))
*   [Interintellect launches a fellowship/microgrant program](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGsGWMPu88T24KOEgRfR6ZRmaobo2dZ6UhkzvW8evjdFPzLQ/viewform) (via [@TheAnnaGat](https://twitter.com/TheAnnaGat/status/1583602712326725632))
*   [At Story Summit, founders will come together to communicate the futures they see in three immersive days of writing](https://story.alexandrialabs.xyz/) (via [@AlexandriaLabs](https://twitter.com/AlexandriaLabs/status/1574438340039950337))
*   [Ben Reinhardt seeking help to build a website for his private ARPA project](https://twitter.com/Ben_Reinhardt/status/1585315838701105153) (@Ben_Reinhardt)
*   [The Foresight Institute is hiring an executive assistant](https://foresight.org/executive-assistant/) (via [@allisondman](https://twitter.com/allisondman/status/1583507208490258432))
*   [Prediction market Metaculus launches a “Forecasting Our World In Data” tournament](https://www.metaculus.com/tournament/forecasting-Our-World-in-Data/) (via [@metaculus](https://twitter.com/metaculus/status/1580234863038586880))

**Links**
---------

*   [Progress is driven by impatient optimists](https://bigthink.com/progress/pessimism-is-a-barrier-to-progress/) by Hannah Ritchie (via [@BillGates](https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1579238173833834496)!)
*   [How to escape scientific stagnation](https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/10/26/how-to-escape-scientific-stagnation) in *The Economist,* Matt Clancy is quoted (h/t [@heidilwilliams_](https://twitter.com/heidilwilliams_/status/1585478281402408960))
*   [*Works in Progress* special issue on abundance and the technological frontier](https://www.worksinprogress.co/#special-issue-01)
*   [A proposed agenda for the “abundance movement”](https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/unblocking-abundance) (by [@s\_r\_constantin](https://twitter.com/s_r_constantin/status/1579542461785182209)). See also her [follow up list of policy organizations](https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/unblocking-abundance-2-organizations)
*   [Why wasn’t the steam engine invented earlier?](https://antonhowes.substack.com/p/age-of-invention-why-wasnt-the-steam-76c) (by [@antonhowes](https://twitter.com/antonhowes/status/1580830761493868546))
*   [Improving the culture and social processes of science](https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html) (by [@michael_nielsen](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1582489651603861504) and @kanjun)
*   [For the first time ever, humans changed the motion of a celestial object](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-dart-mission-impact-changed-asteroid-s-motion-in-space/) (via [@NASA](https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1579902808970649600))
*   [The Long Now republishes my essay “Can Growth Continue?”, based on my 5-minute Ignite talk](https://longnow.org/ideas/02022/10/07/can-economic-growth-continue-over-the-long-term/) (via [@longnow](https://twitter.com/longnow/status/1585773756580265985))
*   [The breast cancer treatment that got funding from the billionaire owner of Revlon](https://vpostrel.substack.com/p/how-to-honor-breast-cancer-awareness) (Virginia Postrel)
*   [A NEPA explainer](https://www.thecgo.org/benchmark/much-more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-nepa/) from [@elidourado](https://twitter.com/elidourado/status/1583162855410798593). Related, [3 years and $1.7M to build a single public toilet in SF](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/san-francisco-fact-of-the-day-3.html)
*   [Exposure to markets makes people behave more cooperatively and in less self-interested ways](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/the-invisible-hand-increases-trust-cooperation-and-universal-moral-action.html) (Alex Tabarrok)
*   [22nd cohort Emergent Ventures includes Jackson Oswalt, who achieved nuclear fusion at age 12](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/emergent-ventures-22nd-cohort.html) (yes, [this is a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor))
*   [Vox announced the Future Perfect 50 list of people building a better future.](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23399287/future-perfect-50-change-agents) I’m [on it](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23380621/future-perfect-50-jason-crawford-roots-of-progress) (via [@voxdotcom](https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/1583066518656782336) and [@bryanrwalsh](https://twitter.com/bryanrwalsh/status/1583156099540303882))

**Queries**
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*   [How should creatives respond to the advance of AI?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579518399172202496)
*   [Best thinkers/writing on how we can evolve the NRC to help us build more nuclear?](https://twitter.com/juliadewahl/status/1580987927818952706) (@juliadewahl)
*   [Good blog or Twitter feed of Notion power user tips?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1581058875469352960)
*   [Books that examine the drivers and limits of technological innovation?](https://twitter.com/brunoswerneck/status/1578778756465905664) (@brunoswerneck)
*   [Good histories of how governments figured out how to run stuff?](https://twitter.com/F_McCullough/status/1582127773338202112) (@F_McCullough)
*   [What should Dwarkesh Patel ask Kenneth Jackson about Robert Moses?](https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp/status/1583503508363677697) (@dwarkesh_sp)
*   [Anybody working on habitation domes?](https://twitter.com/Ben_Reinhardt/status/1585997483833950209) (@Ben_Reinhardt)

**Quotes**
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*   [Isambard K. Brunel refused to participate in lowest-price bids](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579162434061103105). ([Dominic Cummings approves](https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1579187413074599936))
*   [Bacon: whatever exists deserves to be known](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1578850344674594816)
*   [The Greeks’ unique view on geometry](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579151785381416960)
*   [Montessori appreciated progress and knew it should be celebrated](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1584636612499030016)
*   [DDT was credited with controlling an epidemic of typhus](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579211146321887234)
*   [The counterculture “embraced decentralized and appropriate technology to counter large-scale technology”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579552996152991748)
*   [The stock ticker machine was to the 19th century what social media is to today](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579163006616760321)
*   [How people today take the modern standard of living for granted](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1582581122869112832)
*   [Alexis De Tocqueville on social media cancellation](https://twitter.com/curiouswavefn/status/1581725146368262144) (@curiouswavefn)

**Tweets & threads**
--------------------

*   [Fuel synthesis as an alternative to batteries for energy storage](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1583252977665523712)
*   [Controversy over vaccines is not just about technology, but about *technocracy*](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1583546388050104322)
*   [*Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis* – He seized the lightning from the heavens and the scepter from the tyrants (epigram for Benjamin Franklin)](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579525035664240642)
*   [“Why don’t more tech billionaires try to improve SF city governance?”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1578780463920910337)
*   [Why don’t we paint cooling towers at power plants?](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1579156188222042112) (via [Virginia Postrel](https://rootsofprogress.org/(https://vpostrel.substack.com/p/ai-images-status-and-culture-and)))

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FepKEXqVUAEgik1.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FepKEXqVUAEgik1.jpg)

**Retweets**
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*   [We should teach the history of progress in public health as part of a standard curriculum](https://twitter.com/stevenbjohnson/status/1579886558026481665) (@stevenbjohnson). [I agree](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1580260422376050690)
*   [Energy superabundance versus our current path of permanent scarcity](https://twitter.com/PatrickJBlum/status/1582776386170675204) (@PatrickJBlum)
*   [Sow complacency, reap a crisis; sow hustle and grit, reap abundance](https://twitter.com/elidourado/status/1579848621994184705) (@elidourado)
*   [It’s been a great year for vaccine discovery](https://twitter.com/salonium/status/1581398645198319617) (@salonium)
*   [GPT-3 versus Google Search](https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1580676295444217857) (@dweekly). As I commented, [one thing LLMs might be useful for now/soon is as a kind of search engine](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1581344761855692805)
*   [BioNTech founders expect a cancer vaccine “before 2030”](https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1582039666613981186) (@therecount via [@jmhorp](https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1582131216454934528))
*   [The product culture that ignores fatal flaws](https://twitter.com/warren_craddock/status/1579532951624175616) (@warren_craddock)
*   [Peer review is a mechanism for political legitimacy, not scientific quality](https://twitter.com/calebwatney/status/1583475323223478272) (@calebwatney)
*   [Autocracies promote developments in tech that don’t matter, but dazzle people](https://twitter.com/ZachWeiner/status/1583069955783655424) (@ZachWeiner)
*   [How much old stuff gets dragged along into the first versions of new things](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1580174713656995840) (@paulg)
*   [The astronaut as the visual successor to the cowboy, 1959](https://twitter.com/ChasingMoonBk/status/1583541426889326592) (@ChasingMoonBk)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FfneiOFXgAYw2XD.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FfneiOFXgAYw2XD.jpg)

**Charts**
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*   [The space race vs a Seattle bus/bike lane](https://twitter.com/pushtheneedle/status/1584937148872261632) (@pushtheneedle)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff7T5ycaUAA0E8g.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff7T5ycaUAA0E8g.jpg)