Why progress was so slow, for so long

Photos (clockwise): Convair employee using computer equipment. NEH and the San Diego Air and Space Museum. SDASM Archives via Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. / Army and Society Gallery – National Museum of the United States Army – May 29, 2020. Duane Lempke via Flickr. Public domain. / Millville Manufacturing Co. [Woman pulling thread.], 1936 U.S. National Archives – Photographer: Hine, Lewis via Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. / National Railway Museum – November 14, 2010 – Chrysler Restorers SA via Flickr. Public domain. Article by Jason Crawford. Freethink – April 22, 2025.

The following is Chapter 6 from the book The Techno-Humanist Manifesto by Jason Crawford, Founder of the Roots of Progress Institute. The entirety of the book will be published on Freethink, one week at a time. For more from Jason, subscribe to his Substack.

Chapter 6: The Flywheel

If the dramatic progress of the last few centuries is the great boon of history, then the great tragedy of history is in all the centuries prior, when that progress didn’t happen. For tens of thousands of years, people toiled, starved, suffered, and died until we finally achieved modern economic growth. […]

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