Pathways of Progress

An Anthology of Human Progress: From Singularity to Sorcery

Pathways of Progress is a living anthology featuring curated essays that distill the sharpest insights from over 200 sources—six years in the making. It tells the extraordinary story of human progress through the lens of physics’ first principles, tracing our species’ most remarkable achievements, from the invention of agriculture to the supercomputers we now carry in our pockets.

Remember to come back often—the anthology will keep growing, deepening, and improving as fresh research emerges and new essays are added.

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Progress: An Introduction

• What is Progress?

• Human Progress in 9 Charts

• Reality, Distorted

A History of Progress

• Dethroned by Discovery

• Bits of Being

• Negantropic Beings

• Deafening Silence

• The Fortuitous Planet

• Lifeless to Living

• Evolution’s Algorithm

• Rise of the Sapiens

• Harvesting Sunlight

• Smokestack Singularity (Part 1)

• Smokestack Singularity (Part 2)

• Homefront Liberation

• Bombs and Bananas

• Defying Malthus

• Sapien Sorcerers

How Progress Works

• Harnessing Heat

• Time Travelers

• People Power and Progress

• The Social Supercomputer (New version coming soon)

• Igniting Ideas

• Experience Curves

• Billionaire Planet

• Pollution’s Peak

• Stone to Silicon (Coming soon)

• Lens and Light (Part 1)

• Lens and Light (Part 2)

• Pillars of Progress (Coming soon)

• Measurement Maladies

• Scaling Kardashev

• Protopia’s Precipice

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Wait…what happened to Part 2?

Do not worry, the essays are still here! Pathways of Progress was getting a little long and unwieldy, so I moved my discussion of the perils of progress and how to address them to its own standalone anthology, Perils and Promise.