Quotes About Progress

so the gains in life expectancy are more societal than from the result of scientific advance.

the project managers incur only small errors and can adapt to them.

The story of the wheel itself is even more humbling than that of the suitcase:

While I accept the notion of epistemic base, what I question is the role it has really played in the history of technology.

But it took the Industrial Revolution for us to discover this earlier discovery.

If you are a Stone Age historical thinker called on to predict the future in a comprehensive report for your chief tribal planner, you must project the invention of the wheel or you will miss pretty much all of the action. Now, if you can prophesy the invention of the wheel, you already know what a wheel looks like, and thus you already know how to build a wheel, so you are already on your way. The Black Swan needs to be predicted!

and unappreciated upon their discovery, and remained unappreciated well after their initial use.

There is no evolution without skin in the game.

In fact the rest are already benefiting from the contribution of the minority.

Systems learn by removing parts, via negativa.

Ricordate questa massima: non sto dicendo che le tecnologie non invecchiano, ma solo che le tecnologie che tendevano a invecchiare sono già morte.

On the day when we are able to foresee inventions we will be living in a state where everything conceivable has been invented. Our

But the technology is only trivial retrospectively—not prospectively.

So we are a little better than animals, after all—but perhaps not by much.

The world is getting less and less predictable, and we rely more and more on technologies that have errors and interactions that are harder to estimate, let alone predict.

To value a person consider the difference between how he or she was impressive at the first encounter and the most recent one.

and, although it was a less ambitious version than initially envisioned

all we need is the ability to accept that what we have on our hands is better than what we had before

Le processus de la découverte (ou de l'innovation, ou du progrès technologique) dépend lui-même d'un bricolage antifragile, d'une brusque prise de risques plutôt que d'une culture formelle.

take advantage of a valuable alternative that is superior to what precedes it

the time difference between formal discovery and first implementation

Even trial and error are a form of barbell.

in the long term, social and economic evolution nastily takes place by surprises, discontinuities, and jumps.

In fact, economic growth comes from such risk taking.