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I’ve had this history of iron and steel open in a tab for long enough that I forgot where it came from. I found it very engaging, and I have no knowledge that risks contradicting it, so I’m sure it’s all correct.
Other things this person has written about include AC power and natural resources.
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I’ve really enjoyed Roots of Progress’s recent series on disease (1, 2, 3, 4), but some of my favorite learnings were etymology:
of the word “quarantine,” which you can see if you speak a Romance language [ctrl-f "arriving ships”]
of the word “vaccination,” which you can maybe see if you speak Latin [ctrl-f “known as vaccination“]
of the name “Listerine,” which you can see if you, uh, already know the answer [ctrl-f “carbolic acid“]
What did the Industrial Revolution do to the human soul?
Nuclear is expensive, but it should be cheap
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The founder of The Roots of Progress explains his philosophy of technology and society
The amazing advances in vaccines and renewable energy have spurred hope that the 2020s will be a decade of accelerating technological progress. A lot of people are talking about what to expect from the new technological age, which technologies will be key, how to accelerate and sustain the progress, and what the dangers and challenges will be. Jason Crawford is one of those people. He left a lucrative career in the software industry in order to pursue his intellectual interests, recently founding a nonprofit called The Roots of Progress. Its goal, inspired partly by a manifesto by Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen, is to create optimism around the idea of progress, and hold up “a positive vision of the future”.
In the interview that follows, Jason lays out his basic worldview, including his philosophy of technology and progress, his assessment of why progress has slowed down, ideas for speeding it up again, predictions for where we might be headed, and various thoughts about public attitudes toward progress. Although we find much to agree on, I find myself disagreeing fairly substantially with Jason when it comes to the role of government in pushing forward the development of science and engineering. In any case, I like Jason’s positive message that technology is generally a force for empowerment and enrichment of the human condition, and I hope he’s successful in spreading that idea. [...]
When you know these facts of history, you understand what “industrial civilization” is and why it is the benefactor of everyone who is lucky enough to live in it
I was only four years old when I saw my mother load a washing machine for the very first time in her life.
That was a great day for my mother. My mother and father had been saving money for years to be able to buy that machine, and the first day it was going to be used, even Grandma was invited to see the machine.
And Grandma was even more excited. Throughout her life she had been heating water with firewood, and she had hand washed laundry for seven children. And now she was going to watch electricity do that work.
My mother carefully opened the door, and she loaded the laundry into the machine, like this.
And then, when she closed the door, Grandma said, "No, no, no, no. Let me, let me push the button."
And Grandma pushed the button, and she said, "Oh, fantastic! I want to see this! Give me a chair! Give me a chair! I want to see it," and she sat down in front of the machine, and she watched the entire washing program.
She was mesmerized. To my grandmother, the washing machine was a miracle. [...] And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you, industrialization. Thank you, steel mill. Thank you, power station. And thank you, chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books."
