Substacks recommended by Jason Crawford

Recommended by Jason Crawford

Long-form essays, commentaries, and reviews that set out to unsettle the many unexamined assumptions upon which contemporary environmental thought is predicated.

The Breakthrough Institute is the home of ecomodernism and produces some of the best research on environmental concerns from a pro-human, pro-technology view.

- Jason Crawford

Antheros

By Malcolm Cochran

Exploring a heroic environmentalism.

Kinetic Reviews

By Madeline Zimmerman

Exploring the history and future of defense technology and its relationship to humanity's upwards trajectory.

City of Yes

By Ryan Puzycki

Writings about livable cities, urbanism, and local government, often but not exclusively through an Austin lens.

Stewart Brand

Writer. WHOLE EARTH CATALOG through MAINTENANCE: OF EVERYTHING (in progress).

Ben Landau-Taylor

Investigating power, society, and industry.

Charting Progress

By Jeremy Côté

Navigating towards a brighter future for all.

Statecraft

By Santi Ruiz

How policymakers actually get things done

Reaction Wheel

By Jerry Neumann

armchair epistemology as a service

Liveware

By Alex Telford

I write about the science and business of living things: the biotech industry, drug discovery, biology, medicine, consciousness, intelligence (artificial and natural), and natural philosophy. Mostly I write about the biotech industry.

HIGH MODERNISM

By Nick Whitaker

I'm Nick Whitaker. I'm writing here about grand schemes to improve the human condition.

Depth + Distance

By The CGO Team

Meeting the environmental challenges before us requires innovation.

Gordian Knot News

By Jack Devanney

Real and unreal solutions to the Gordian Knot.

Jack is one of the best writers I know on nuclear power, I learn a lot from his work

- Jason Crawford

Stripe Press

Ideas for progress in economics, science, and technology. Subscribe for updates about Poor Charlie's Almanack and other forthcoming Stripe Press books and events.

The Good Science Project

By Stuart Buck

Improving the funding and practice of science

Erik Examines

By Erik Engheim

History, economics and politics with a Nordic perspective

Maximum Progress

By Maxwell Tabarrok

Maximum Progress is a blog by Max Tabarrok on economics, mathematics, philosophy, and progress.

Words to the WHYs on Healthcare

By Tina Marsh Dalton

Illuminating the "WHYs" of health care, the pandemic, and the economics behind it all- maybe even with optimism and humor!

Foresight Institute

By Allison Duettmann

Someone has to keep alive a bold, ambitious vision of the technological future. The Foresight Institute has been doing this for over 30 years.

- Jason Crawford

Regions

By Connor O'Brien

A blog on regional competition, renewal, and progress.

Institute for Progress

Accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress

The only policy institute I know of dedicated to progress studies and the abundance agenda.

- Jason Crawford

Virginia's Newsletter

By Virginia Postrel

Commerce, culture, and curiosity

Don't Worry About the Vase

By Zvi Mowshowitz

A world made of gears. Doing both speed premium short term updates and long term world model building. Currently focused on weekly AI updates. Explorations include AI, policy, rationality, medicine and fertility, education and games.

Adjacent Possible

By Steven Johnson

A newsletter from author Steven Johnson exploring where good ideas come from—and how to keep them from turning against us.

One of the top writers on the history of technology and innovation. I always learn interesting facts and stories from reading Steven's work.

- Jason Crawford

Rough Diamonds

By Sarah Constantin

Underrated opportunities in science, technology, and society

Extremely well-researched and clearly written technical posts—that combination is hard to find!

- Jason Crawford

New Science

By Alexey Guzey

We are building 21st century institutions of science.

Uncharted Territories

By Tomas Pueyo

Understand the world of today to prepare for the world of tomorrow: AI, tech; the future of democracy, energy, education, and more

Clear, incisive, and entertaining essays that explore a variety of big questions about how the world works.

- Jason Crawford

In My Tribe

By Arnold Kling

improving social epistemology, rewarding reasoned discourse

The Elysian

By Elle Griffin

Imagining a better future (and writing a utopian novel about it). Join our community of worldbuilders!

Of All Trades

By Connor Tabarrok

A newsletter by Connor Tabarrok, centered around Engineering, Economics, Effective Altruism, and the Environment.

FreakTakes

By Eric Gilliam

Historical analyses for those building a new generation of research orgs

Great historical research around the history of science and R&D. This is the most Roots-of-Progress-like blog other than The Roots of Progress.

- Jason Crawford

Pessimists Archive Newsletter

Fears about old things when they were new

Lots of great historical material that always puts today's problems and concerns in perspective.

- Jason Crawford

Faster, Please!

By James Pethokoukis

Discovering, creating, and inventing a better world through technological innovation, economic growth, and pro-progress culture.

Jim has consumed an enormous amount of material about progress and he filters for the best stuff. I have gotten a bunch of great pointers to books and other blogs from Faster, Please!

- Jason Crawford

Seeking Tribe

By Grant Dever 🌄

High energy optimism in an era of nihilism—connecting with the ideas, people, and institutions that will create our beautiful future.

Laura's Blog

By Laura London

interested in the cause of California's decline | western civilization, culture and the individual | fellow @ roots of progress

Slow Boring

By Matthew Yglesias

Start your day with pragmatic takes on politics and public policy.

Matt is one of the top proponents of the abundance agenda.

- Jason Crawford

Construction Physics

By Brian Potter

Essays about buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology.

Best analysis of the construction industry and its progress/stagnation that I have seen anywhere.

- Jason Crawford

The Works in Progress Newsletter

By Works in Progress

Get the latest updates on our magazine, featuring new and underrated ideas to improve the world. Visit our website: worksinprogress.co

The premiere magazine of progress—a must-read.

- Jason Crawford

Astral Codex Ten

By Scott Alexander

P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary.

ACX is my favorite blog. Scott writes with a rare combination of insight, humor, incisive clarity, relentless questioning, and (often) exhaustive data analysis. Highly recommended.

- Jason Crawford

Asimov Press

Making sense of progress in biotechnology. Visit our website: press.asimov.com

Some of the best biotech writing I have read. Niko understands the science but also communicates the big picture and why it matters.

- Jason Crawford

Dwarkesh Podcast

By Dwarkesh Patel

Deeply researched interviews

Consumer Surplus

By Sam Bowman

A newsletter by Sam Bowman

Noahpinion

By Noah Smith

Economics and other interesting stuff

The Palladium Letter

By Palladium Magazine

Palladium Magazine's weekly updates and articles exploring the future of governance and society.

What's New Under the Sun

By Matt Clancy

What academia knows* about innovation

The best source of clear, readable summaries of the literature on progress and innovation from academic economics.

- Jason Crawford

Eli Dourado

Trying to end the Great Stagnation 🚀

Eli looks to the biggest near-future technological opportunities and figures out what policy we need to unblock them. I've learned a lot from him about the amazing things we could see in our lifetimes, from geothermal energy to cargo airships.

- Jason Crawford

Age of Invention, by Anton Howes

Tales from the history of innovation.

Anton digs deep and finds fascinating material on the history of invention that no one else has surfaced. His scholarship is impeccable and his writing is crystal clear.

- Jason Crawford

Not Boring by Packy McCormick

Making the world more optimistic, one ambitious tech company at a time.

Perspectives: Past, Present, and Future, by Patrick Wyman

By Patrick Wyman: Perspectives

The biggest ideas shaping our world - its past, present, and future.

Fascinating stories of ancient history and prehistory. Patrick makes the material engaging and accessible without oversimplifying or dumbing it down—a rare skill.

- Jason Crawford

Cabinet of Wonders

By Samuel Arbesman

Be prepared for radical interdisciplinarity: science + technology + complexity + humanities + wonder.