This is a very good article. In general, the author of this article is just very good and always brings joy.
Of course, there is a great irony in what people perceive as "progress" and what it actually is.
A society dominated demographically, culturally, and politically by white men with a capitalist economy and a combination of "economically free neoliberal" and "fascist dirigiste" economic policies (and, according to some studies, a right-wing government- https://x.com/UBERSOY1/status/1929663833997824430 ) it would be the most REALLY progressive - the most productive in terms of technological innovation, real economic growth, etc.it's like the USA of the 1920s or 1950s, or maybe Francoist Spain.
But the average person thinks that "progress" is living in a place like South Africa: lots of "coloreds," decolonization, feminism, immigration, homosexuality, lots of women with tattoos and promiscuous sex, high crime rates, and childlessness and divorce.
I think you are conflating the label "progressive" with the activity of progress. People who refer to themselves as progressives are communicating their identity, which is indeed a cluster of things like multiculturalism, pro-gay, pro-abortion etc.
Most people like that tend to have limited thoughts around the basis of progress itself. In my experience the path towards becoming a progressive is the tendency to take actual progress for granted, something that will always happen, and then abuse the conditions that created it to chase some abstract goal e.g. push gender equality in combat roles in the army while forgetting the enemy is 100% trained enemy males. That kind of thing.
Yes, so-called “progressives” do not really believe in progress (or they are at least skeptical of it). Unfortunately, they have adopted the term “progressives” as a branding device. This, unfortunately, tends to turn off non-progressive people towards the concept of “progressives” in general.
Progressives tend to worship authority, particularly credentialed experts. Their entire belief system is disdain for their inferiors who need to be ruled by their superiors for their own good.
This is progress to them. Not innovation or invention, just keeping the masses down.
I think that is true for some but not most of them. I think most of them truly believe that inequality is unfair and that government should take steps to address this problem. The problem is that government cannot achieve that objective so it requires large and larger interventions.
I think the disdain for the masses is more recent … after college-educated professionals shifts to the Left and working class shifted to the Right in the last 60 years. I see this disdain as traditional upper-class snobbishness, which is nothing new.
They clearly do not like any authority that disagrees with them.
No, the average person does not think "progress" is living in a place like South Africa. That is preposterous. Neither do many people in the Progress Studies movement. I have been researching progress for 10 years, and I use the following working definition of progress:
“the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.”
For people like Richard Hanania, this is probably ideological suicide: feminism, which he loves so much, or the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Indians, is the destruction of progress. And the power and dominance of conservative white men is pure progress, both in terms of AI and nuclear energy, etc.
It's important to place yourself correctly in relation to the powerful ruling families and understand where you are and they are.
Also, what happened to that very sane, rational, Christian virtue-values based Western society were old masculine standards of truth, justice, right-order, prudence, charity, courage, .. and almost every man and every mother was a blessing to all they interacted with, and raised us, mentored us, in those standards into adulthood .. that was early 1970s and before? When was sanity aborted?
--
1st: I researched some of this with a much wider scope. Since 1979 corp-gov coordinated to silence our political voice, destroy powerful middle-class, impoverish us all.
Worth the time - promise!
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2223:, 14th July 2025, State's Organized Planned Disempowerment of the American Citizen"
Sure - vote really really hard, I'm sure the land a singing unicorns, shining rainbows, dancing kitten-juggling Komes, .., is only next election away .. ruling families will not fear retards - (Not You!) - so, maybe they'll let you live to lick clean their bathrooms (or in Zionist Saudi ruling families style, they will make you watch someone torture your loved ones to death.)
Glad to see that the Progress Studies movement is getting some attention with Aporia. As someone who has been researching Progress Studies for 10 years and writing about it for 5 years, I have some knowledge on this topic.
You are absolutely correct in the following:
1) The Progress Studies movement is very concerned about the slowing or stagnation of economic growth since the early 1970s. One thing that I will point out is that the metric you choose really matters as to whether it continued progress, slowing progress, stagnation or decline.
2) The field is absolutely dominated by males. Given the interest in technology, I doubt that will change in the new future. Not many women seem to be interested in the topic, and those that are contribute must less to the research and discussion.
3) There is absolutely a tendency for technophilia, libertarianism and rationalism. I think that you miss the diversity of viewpoints, however. I am a Technorealist, not a technophila, and I wrote why here:
I will point out that the Abundance movement is clearly Center-Left and they are very loosely affiliated with the Progress Studies movement. Many others in the Progress Studies movement appear to be Center-Left as well.
Now to the heart of your argument: I am skeptical of your apparent claim that the cause of slower progress is due to women entering the workforce and the field of ideas in the early 1970s. There are a huge number of cultural, demographic, political, economic and institutional changes that started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am skeptical that women entering the workforce was the most consequential.
I believe that far more consequential was the entry of Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies into respectability among the college-educated professional class and the gradual expansion of that class over the last 60 years. As Center-Left baby boomers worked their way up the institutional ladder as they aged, they gradually changed the values of the institutions. Then they educated Millenials in their ideology from birth, K-12 and university. Things got really crazy when that generation entered the workforce and got ahold of social media.
These Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies were overwhelmingly invented and propagated by men, and more specifically highly educated white men. Having lived through this period, those ideologies were at least as popular among men as women. It is only within the last 10 years that you saw a huge rise in young women supporting Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies. Most likely social media played a huge role in this.
So don't blame women for what a small group of men did.
I think the most important paragraph in this article is “The Great Stagnation began in 1973. Progress Studies wants to undo part of the 1963-73 cultural revolution to end it…. The whole thing’s got to go.”
The last sentence seems to be a critical add-in without really explaining what you mean.
What “whole thing” do you mean? Material Progress + Cultural Revolution has to go. Or the whole Cultural Revolution has to go? And if so, do you really mean going back to Jim Crow segregation?
Very few members of the Progress Studies movement think much about Cultural Revolution, so I disagree that they want "undo part" of it. I am more aware of the cultural destruction that has occurred from the Cultural Revolution, but I would be opposed to rolling back civil rights for blacks and employment for women. I have a hard time seeing how either would contribute to long-term economic growth.
I am willing to debate you, but first I need to know what you actually believe. Do you largely disagree with the article in my first link or disagree?
PS: Where did you get the idea that the Progress Studies movement wants to “undo just one part of the 1960s?” I have literally never heard anyone within the movement say anything like that. My guess is that the vast majority would disagree with that goal.
"Many others in the Progress Studies movement appear to be Center-Left as well." You can't be center-left and truly pro-markets, it's an oxymoron. You can't claim to be for growth if you're significantly against private property and markets.
I can’t speak for other members of the Progress Studies movement, but being “truly pro-market” is not a litmus test for participation. Progress Studies is a field of intellectual inquiry, not an ideological movement.
It is a litmus test if you want growth. One thing is intellectual inquiry, another thing is just discarding the 300+ years of evidence in favor of... what?
"An increase in the influence of women in public life has often been associated with national decline. The later Romans complained that, although Rome ruled the world, women ruled Rome.
In the tenth century, a similar tendency was observable in the Arab Empire, the women demanding admission to the professions hitherto monopolised by men. ‘What,’ wrote the contemporary historian, Ibn Bessam, ‘have the professions of clerk, tax-collector or preacher to do with women? These occupations have always been limited to men alone.’
Many women practised law, while others obtained posts as university professors. There was an agitation for the appointment of female judges, which, however, does not appear to have succeeded.
Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed."
This magazine focuses on sex and race realism, so I will be careful with my wording. I find the author's argument compelling but ultimately unpersuasive.
To summarize, the article claims:
1. Men are more willing to take risks than women.
2. Women tend to be more conformist than men.
3. Men, on average, are more supportive of funding for science.
4. Men, on average, are more supportive of scientific progress than women.
5. Culture is becoming more anti-progress because women's preferences now influence cultural norms more than before.
I believe all these claims are valid, but I do not think they are necessary or sufficient to explain the technological stagnation we are experiencing.
My counter-argument is that during the period from 1750 to 1950, people were much more religious, there was significant cultural opposition to science, and funding for science was limited. Nevertheless, progress still occurred. Before the rise of political correctness, there was a form of religious correctness—atheists struggled to find jobs at universities, as exemplified by the Bertrand Russell affair.
Any influence feminism has is significantly less than what religion used to have. Additionally, today there are many more college-educated men than ever before, yet progress is slower than before.
One last point: the author needed to compare personality differences between men and women working in STEM and engineering, as that would be more relevant than comparing the median man and the median woman.
I could explain more, but this comment is getting too long. While I don’t agree with the author’s conclusion.
I found the article to be well written and certainly thought-provoking..
> "Any influence feminism has is significantly less than what religion used to have. Additionally, today there are many more college-educated men than ever before, yet progress is slower than before."
It's far from obvious to me that feminism has less influence today than religion used to, although I agree that factors beside feminism are probably hindering technological progress (e.g, dysgenics, low-hanging fruit being exhausted, etc.) Arcto's points about nuclear and TFR are no-brainers though.
"My counter-argument is that during the period from 1750 to 1950, people were much more religious, there was significant cultural opposition to science"
This is a common view but it isn't true, Christians didn't run universities because the they were opposed to science. They may have been resistant to some findings, but on the whole they were very pro-science (which is also why the modern scientific method developed in Europe).
The problem is not women, it is the men with authority who enabled them and allowed them to positions of power without fostering the importance of defendig truth and honesty before like they historicaly did with their male peers. Essentialy simping made that possible, women can be molded into supporting technological progress, just like young men who start out on the left have done before. Therefor any policy that discriminates based on gender to fix this issue isn’t only gonna be unpopular but unfair also. We have to filter out people who aren’t up to the task regardless of gender, and be comfortable if women’s participation drops in the process.
FWIW, I think there's a lot in what you're saying.
This currently held idea that women are born fearful and anxious, seeking safety above all else, is very simplistic. As you say, females, like males, are culturally malleable to a degree. While it may be statistically true that women, as a group, evolved to needing more help and protection than men, as a group--and I'd say that childbirth and rearing are the main precondition--they can still support the sort of progress that the author identifies, rather than recoil from it in anxiety as is happening more since 1970, apparently.
I do think, however, that an intrinsic part of this supportive attitude toward male-driven progress in females requires the acceptance of practical gender roles. Of course, this means modern feminized men would need to be open to adopting some male roles that are based in reality and practicality, as well.
I wish we had current-or-former partners position level data on these poll questions. The gaps actually seem smaller than I'd expect. But I think I've maybe once met a non-lesbian woman who was more 'pro-progress' on any particular issue than her spouse or current long-term boyfriend.
This makes the repeal feminization case a whole lot stronger.
Seriously, I think that the only way to reverse the trend toward civilizational feminization, especially in the industrialized nations and the west in particular, would be a protracted and imminent existential threat.
It's the middle of the night and you're upstairs asleep with your wife or girlfriend. If you have neither, that simply tells us how bad the problem is: game over.
But let's say you do have a wife or girlfriend in bed, and you both have been asleep for a while. Suddenly there's a suspicious and threatening noise downstairs. You both wait fearfully, but the noise continues.
Who goes downstairs with the Louisville Slugger? If it's her, this means that all is lost already and we can just forget this discussion: again, game over. But if you go down and she's genuinely relieved that you do, THIS is the sort of *imminent* existential threat I'm talking about; it's not rhetorical and down the road. Both of your noses are right in it, right *now*, it's not going away on its own, and typically the man will be expected--and will himself expect--to remove this level of threat.
But this is not a *protracted* threat; the modern feminist can later, after the problem is resolved, tell herself that she *would* have gone, and *could* have gone, but... Lie to herself, in short. And she'll get away with it.
But if this level of constant threat recur--maybe going to the mailbox becomes scary--and becomes near routine, the actual true nature of gender roles, and the rationale behind them, becomes undeniable. In my opinion, that's what it would take to begin to reverse the cultural feminization we find dominating contemporary western sensibilities.
Arctotherium is a frequently brilliant writer, but this article exposes a blind spot in his approach.
The idea of progress is a late-stage rationalist artifact of the Faustian West, and the form that generated it is approaching exhaustion. To speak of restarting progress is like asking a tree in winter to reason itself back into bloom.
The paradigm this essay adopts has already expired. And when the myth of progress no longer commands belief, survival demands a different myth.
The ascent of material wealth and human freedom has resulted in a lot of lazy people with too much time on their hands and too much dissatisfied navel gazing.
You obviously did not read the linked articles. You are just obsessing over one word that you dislike (progress).
The concept of "material progress" is not based on "mythos." It is based on observable and documented changes in the material standard of living for the masses.
There is overwhelming evidence for the increased material standard of living of the masses. That makes it a fact. It is not just a "story" or "mythos."
Your insistence proves my point. You reduce the discussion to material standards of living and then demand this be interpreted as ‘progress.’ The change is the fact; progress is your interpretation. That leap from measurement to meaning is precisely what I mean by mythos. You don’t have the facts instead of a myth — you have facts inside an obsolete myth, and you can’t see the difference.
No, my insistence comes from being obviously correct.
You are just giving me Post-Modernist bullshit. They reduce everything to "myths," "narratives," and "stories." That is a central intellectual foundation of Post-Modernism.
This is particularly odd from coming someone who apparently wants to defend the West. The dramatic increase in material standard of living for the masses is one of the finest achievements of Western Civilization. But for some reason, you want to hand-wave it away by calling it a "myth" without being willing to take a look at the evidence.
I am not “reducing the discussion” to material standards of living. Nor am I "demanding" anything.
I am explaining to you what Progress Studies is about (the topic of this article). All fields of intellectual inquiry focus on certain domains while not on others. That is the only way to understand a subject.
If you are interested in other types of progress, then fine, go research it.
Show me an interpretation of the data in the linked article that does not include an immense increase of the material standard of living.
If you do not care about material standard of living, then fine, don’t critique Progress Studies.
My guess is that if your own material standard of living were radically reduced, you would be crying like a baby, so do not pretend that other people’s material standard of living does not matter and it is just a myth.
It is telling that the the only way you can defend your position is by retreating into incivility. Nobody denies changes in material standards of living. I am challenging your claim that such changes must be interpreted according to a paradigm of 'progress.' To assume that is to collapse measurement into meaning. You call this approach 'obviously correct' - that assumption is exactly what makes it a mythic frame.
A parsimonious explanation as to why progress has collapsed is to understand that a) the explosion in civil rights legislation and b) the size/scope of administrative state. Feminism and the feminization of society are merely a byproduct of those 2.
As a female, I fit the pattern re GMO's and housing (at least as regards 15 minute city-type housing, which looks more like caging to me), but not nuclear energy.
Thinking about it however, my caution has arisen mostly due to the sterling work of men. Maybe women are just better at common-sense, being risk-averse.
Maybe men's and women's average innate predispositions balance each other out, discouraging the harmful extremes that either might incline towards unchecked?
Essentially1960s Civil rights legislation were enacted to address the inequalities between whites and blacks when the make up of the US was 85 %white, 11%black and 4 %all other racial minorities.In the US of 2024 whites are now 58 %,blacks 13 %Hispanics 20 %.
Eric Kaufmann has chronicled how in the succeeding decades vast numbers of other groups proceeded to claim victimhood status too-Hispanics, Muslims, Asians,homosexuals etc with white women being the biggest beneficiaries in sheer numerical terms. No surprise that white women are Intersectional feminists no matter how many apparent contradictions can be present.
A 2014 statistic revealed that the average black American costs their government $760k over their lifetime, Hispanics$ 588k.Inflation would bring those figures to over 1 million and 750k correspondingly.
With those 2 racial minorities combined making up 33 %of the population >100million people that makes for an incredible cost to the taxpayer.
This is a very good article. In general, the author of this article is just very good and always brings joy.
Of course, there is a great irony in what people perceive as "progress" and what it actually is.
A society dominated demographically, culturally, and politically by white men with a capitalist economy and a combination of "economically free neoliberal" and "fascist dirigiste" economic policies (and, according to some studies, a right-wing government- https://x.com/UBERSOY1/status/1929663833997824430 ) it would be the most REALLY progressive - the most productive in terms of technological innovation, real economic growth, etc.it's like the USA of the 1920s or 1950s, or maybe Francoist Spain.
But the average person thinks that "progress" is living in a place like South Africa: lots of "coloreds," decolonization, feminism, immigration, homosexuality, lots of women with tattoos and promiscuous sex, high crime rates, and childlessness and divorce.
I think you are conflating the label "progressive" with the activity of progress. People who refer to themselves as progressives are communicating their identity, which is indeed a cluster of things like multiculturalism, pro-gay, pro-abortion etc.
Most people like that tend to have limited thoughts around the basis of progress itself. In my experience the path towards becoming a progressive is the tendency to take actual progress for granted, something that will always happen, and then abuse the conditions that created it to chase some abstract goal e.g. push gender equality in combat roles in the army while forgetting the enemy is 100% trained enemy males. That kind of thing.
Yes, so-called “progressives” do not really believe in progress (or they are at least skeptical of it). Unfortunately, they have adopted the term “progressives” as a branding device. This, unfortunately, tends to turn off non-progressive people towards the concept of “progressives” in general.
Progressives tend to worship authority, particularly credentialed experts. Their entire belief system is disdain for their inferiors who need to be ruled by their superiors for their own good.
This is progress to them. Not innovation or invention, just keeping the masses down.
I think that is true for some but not most of them. I think most of them truly believe that inequality is unfair and that government should take steps to address this problem. The problem is that government cannot achieve that objective so it requires large and larger interventions.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-central-moral-dilemma-of-the
I think the disdain for the masses is more recent … after college-educated professionals shifts to the Left and working class shifted to the Right in the last 60 years. I see this disdain as traditional upper-class snobbishness, which is nothing new.
They clearly do not like any authority that disagrees with them.
No, the average person does not think "progress" is living in a place like South Africa. That is preposterous. Neither do many people in the Progress Studies movement. I have been researching progress for 10 years, and I use the following working definition of progress:
“the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.”
That is certainly not South Africa.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/what-is-progress-ea7
For people like Richard Hanania, this is probably ideological suicide: feminism, which he loves so much, or the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Indians, is the destruction of progress. And the power and dominance of conservative white men is pure progress, both in terms of AI and nuclear energy, etc.
It's important to place yourself correctly in relation to the powerful ruling families and understand where you are and they are.
Also, what happened to that very sane, rational, Christian virtue-values based Western society were old masculine standards of truth, justice, right-order, prudence, charity, courage, .. and almost every man and every mother was a blessing to all they interacted with, and raised us, mentored us, in those standards into adulthood .. that was early 1970s and before? When was sanity aborted?
--
1st: I researched some of this with a much wider scope. Since 1979 corp-gov coordinated to silence our political voice, destroy powerful middle-class, impoverish us all.
Worth the time - promise!
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2223:, 14th July 2025, State's Organized Planned Disempowerment of the American Citizen"
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2223
--
2nd: What was the Key-Log that dropped us in ever deeper levels of Hell - can you guess?
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2225:, 21st July 2025, The Profound Sickness: An Anti-Abortion Apologetic"
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2225
--
Sure - vote really really hard, I'm sure the land a singing unicorns, shining rainbows, dancing kitten-juggling Komes, .., is only next election away .. ruling families will not fear retards - (Not You!) - so, maybe they'll let you live to lick clean their bathrooms (or in Zionist Saudi ruling families style, they will make you watch someone torture your loved ones to death.)
Feed-back welcome.
God Bless., Steve
Glad to see that the Progress Studies movement is getting some attention with Aporia. As someone who has been researching Progress Studies for 10 years and writing about it for 5 years, I have some knowledge on this topic.
You are absolutely correct in the following:
1) The Progress Studies movement is very concerned about the slowing or stagnation of economic growth since the early 1970s. One thing that I will point out is that the metric you choose really matters as to whether it continued progress, slowing progress, stagnation or decline.
2) The field is absolutely dominated by males. Given the interest in technology, I doubt that will change in the new future. Not many women seem to be interested in the topic, and those that are contribute must less to the research and discussion.
3) There is absolutely a tendency for technophilia, libertarianism and rationalism. I think that you miss the diversity of viewpoints, however. I am a Technorealist, not a technophila, and I wrote why here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-i-am-a-techno-realist
I will point out that the Abundance movement is clearly Center-Left and they are very loosely affiliated with the Progress Studies movement. Many others in the Progress Studies movement appear to be Center-Left as well.
Now to the heart of your argument: I am skeptical of your apparent claim that the cause of slower progress is due to women entering the workforce and the field of ideas in the early 1970s. There are a huge number of cultural, demographic, political, economic and institutional changes that started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am skeptical that women entering the workforce was the most consequential.
I believe that far more consequential was the entry of Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies into respectability among the college-educated professional class and the gradual expansion of that class over the last 60 years. As Center-Left baby boomers worked their way up the institutional ladder as they aged, they gradually changed the values of the institutions. Then they educated Millenials in their ideology from birth, K-12 and university. Things got really crazy when that generation entered the workforce and got ahold of social media.
These Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies were overwhelmingly invented and propagated by men, and more specifically highly educated white men. Having lived through this period, those ideologies were at least as popular among men as women. It is only within the last 10 years that you saw a huge rise in young women supporting Post-Modern Left-of-Center ideologies. Most likely social media played a huge role in this.
So don't blame women for what a small group of men did.
I say more here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/three-mega-trends-of-the-last-60
I explain more here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-great-realignment-in-american
I think the most important paragraph in this article is “The Great Stagnation began in 1973. Progress Studies wants to undo part of the 1963-73 cultural revolution to end it…. The whole thing’s got to go.”
The last sentence seems to be a critical add-in without really explaining what you mean.
What “whole thing” do you mean? Material Progress + Cultural Revolution has to go. Or the whole Cultural Revolution has to go? And if so, do you really mean going back to Jim Crow segregation?
Very few members of the Progress Studies movement think much about Cultural Revolution, so I disagree that they want "undo part" of it. I am more aware of the cultural destruction that has occurred from the Cultural Revolution, but I would be opposed to rolling back civil rights for blacks and employment for women. I have a hard time seeing how either would contribute to long-term economic growth.
I am willing to debate you, but first I need to know what you actually believe. Do you largely disagree with the article in my first link or disagree?
PS: Where did you get the idea that the Progress Studies movement wants to “undo just one part of the 1960s?” I have literally never heard anyone within the movement say anything like that. My guess is that the vast majority would disagree with that goal.
"Many others in the Progress Studies movement appear to be Center-Left as well." You can't be center-left and truly pro-markets, it's an oxymoron. You can't claim to be for growth if you're significantly against private property and markets.
I can’t speak for other members of the Progress Studies movement, but being “truly pro-market” is not a litmus test for participation. Progress Studies is a field of intellectual inquiry, not an ideological movement.
It is a litmus test if you want growth. One thing is intellectual inquiry, another thing is just discarding the 300+ years of evidence in favor of... what?
Empirical evidence + logical coherence.*
Not the first time this has happened...
"An increase in the influence of women in public life has often been associated with national decline. The later Romans complained that, although Rome ruled the world, women ruled Rome.
In the tenth century, a similar tendency was observable in the Arab Empire, the women demanding admission to the professions hitherto monopolised by men. ‘What,’ wrote the contemporary historian, Ibn Bessam, ‘have the professions of clerk, tax-collector or preacher to do with women? These occupations have always been limited to men alone.’
Many women practised law, while others obtained posts as university professors. There was an agitation for the appointment of female judges, which, however, does not appear to have succeeded.
Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed."
John Glubb, "The Fate of Empires"
Very interesting quote
—NC
Would love to read a piece on this. Sounds fascinating.
This magazine focuses on sex and race realism, so I will be careful with my wording. I find the author's argument compelling but ultimately unpersuasive.
To summarize, the article claims:
1. Men are more willing to take risks than women.
2. Women tend to be more conformist than men.
3. Men, on average, are more supportive of funding for science.
4. Men, on average, are more supportive of scientific progress than women.
5. Culture is becoming more anti-progress because women's preferences now influence cultural norms more than before.
I believe all these claims are valid, but I do not think they are necessary or sufficient to explain the technological stagnation we are experiencing.
My counter-argument is that during the period from 1750 to 1950, people were much more religious, there was significant cultural opposition to science, and funding for science was limited. Nevertheless, progress still occurred. Before the rise of political correctness, there was a form of religious correctness—atheists struggled to find jobs at universities, as exemplified by the Bertrand Russell affair.
Any influence feminism has is significantly less than what religion used to have. Additionally, today there are many more college-educated men than ever before, yet progress is slower than before.
One last point: the author needed to compare personality differences between men and women working in STEM and engineering, as that would be more relevant than comparing the median man and the median woman.
I could explain more, but this comment is getting too long. While I don’t agree with the author’s conclusion.
I found the article to be well written and certainly thought-provoking..
> "Any influence feminism has is significantly less than what religion used to have. Additionally, today there are many more college-educated men than ever before, yet progress is slower than before."
It's far from obvious to me that feminism has less influence today than religion used to, although I agree that factors beside feminism are probably hindering technological progress (e.g, dysgenics, low-hanging fruit being exhausted, etc.) Arcto's points about nuclear and TFR are no-brainers though.
"My counter-argument is that during the period from 1750 to 1950, people were much more religious, there was significant cultural opposition to science"
This is a common view but it isn't true, Christians didn't run universities because the they were opposed to science. They may have been resistant to some findings, but on the whole they were very pro-science (which is also why the modern scientific method developed in Europe).
The problem is not women, it is the men with authority who enabled them and allowed them to positions of power without fostering the importance of defendig truth and honesty before like they historicaly did with their male peers. Essentialy simping made that possible, women can be molded into supporting technological progress, just like young men who start out on the left have done before. Therefor any policy that discriminates based on gender to fix this issue isn’t only gonna be unpopular but unfair also. We have to filter out people who aren’t up to the task regardless of gender, and be comfortable if women’s participation drops in the process.
FWIW, I think there's a lot in what you're saying.
This currently held idea that women are born fearful and anxious, seeking safety above all else, is very simplistic. As you say, females, like males, are culturally malleable to a degree. While it may be statistically true that women, as a group, evolved to needing more help and protection than men, as a group--and I'd say that childbirth and rearing are the main precondition--they can still support the sort of progress that the author identifies, rather than recoil from it in anxiety as is happening more since 1970, apparently.
I do think, however, that an intrinsic part of this supportive attitude toward male-driven progress in females requires the acceptance of practical gender roles. Of course, this means modern feminized men would need to be open to adopting some male roles that are based in reality and practicality, as well.
oh, well!...
I wish we had current-or-former partners position level data on these poll questions. The gaps actually seem smaller than I'd expect. But I think I've maybe once met a non-lesbian woman who was more 'pro-progress' on any particular issue than her spouse or current long-term boyfriend.
This makes the repeal feminization case a whole lot stronger.
Seriously, I think that the only way to reverse the trend toward civilizational feminization, especially in the industrialized nations and the west in particular, would be a protracted and imminent existential threat.
Collapsing TFR *is* a protracted and imminent existential threat, but who knows, maybe the reaction is finally kicking in.
Let me make it clearer...
It's the middle of the night and you're upstairs asleep with your wife or girlfriend. If you have neither, that simply tells us how bad the problem is: game over.
But let's say you do have a wife or girlfriend in bed, and you both have been asleep for a while. Suddenly there's a suspicious and threatening noise downstairs. You both wait fearfully, but the noise continues.
Who goes downstairs with the Louisville Slugger? If it's her, this means that all is lost already and we can just forget this discussion: again, game over. But if you go down and she's genuinely relieved that you do, THIS is the sort of *imminent* existential threat I'm talking about; it's not rhetorical and down the road. Both of your noses are right in it, right *now*, it's not going away on its own, and typically the man will be expected--and will himself expect--to remove this level of threat.
But this is not a *protracted* threat; the modern feminist can later, after the problem is resolved, tell herself that she *would* have gone, and *could* have gone, but... Lie to herself, in short. And she'll get away with it.
But if this level of constant threat recur--maybe going to the mailbox becomes scary--and becomes near routine, the actual true nature of gender roles, and the rationale behind them, becomes undeniable. In my opinion, that's what it would take to begin to reverse the cultural feminization we find dominating contemporary western sensibilities.
Arctotherium is a frequently brilliant writer, but this article exposes a blind spot in his approach.
The idea of progress is a late-stage rationalist artifact of the Faustian West, and the form that generated it is approaching exhaustion. To speak of restarting progress is like asking a tree in winter to reason itself back into bloom.
The paradigm this essay adopts has already expired. And when the myth of progress no longer commands belief, survival demands a different myth.
I'm not sure I follow. No cures for cancer? No colonizing Mars? No flying cars?
What do you mean by the myth of progress?
I mean the teleological notion of linear ascent in material wealth and human freedom.
The West doesn't need progress. It needs resurrection.
The ascent of material wealth and human freedom has resulted in a lot of lazy people with too much time on their hands and too much dissatisfied navel gazing.
LOL 😆
Yes, and social media has given everyone else the pleasure of hearing from them!
Yes, “the teleological notion of linear ascent” is incorrect, but that does not mean that material progress does not exist.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/does-progress-always-move-in-a-straight
And I noticed that you completely ignored this link.
Human material progress is a fact, not a myth. Its existence is backed by a massive amount of evidence:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/evidence-of-progress-the-series
Technological change is a fact. 'Progress' is a story we tell which interprets change according to a particular (now moribund) mythos.
You obviously did not read the linked articles. You are just obsessing over one word that you dislike (progress).
The concept of "material progress" is not based on "mythos." It is based on observable and documented changes in the material standard of living for the masses.
There is overwhelming evidence for the increased material standard of living of the masses. That makes it a fact. It is not just a "story" or "mythos."
Your insistence proves my point. You reduce the discussion to material standards of living and then demand this be interpreted as ‘progress.’ The change is the fact; progress is your interpretation. That leap from measurement to meaning is precisely what I mean by mythos. You don’t have the facts instead of a myth — you have facts inside an obsolete myth, and you can’t see the difference.
No, my insistence comes from being obviously correct.
You are just giving me Post-Modernist bullshit. They reduce everything to "myths," "narratives," and "stories." That is a central intellectual foundation of Post-Modernism.
This is particularly odd from coming someone who apparently wants to defend the West. The dramatic increase in material standard of living for the masses is one of the finest achievements of Western Civilization. But for some reason, you want to hand-wave it away by calling it a "myth" without being willing to take a look at the evidence.
I am not “reducing the discussion” to material standards of living. Nor am I "demanding" anything.
I am explaining to you what Progress Studies is about (the topic of this article). All fields of intellectual inquiry focus on certain domains while not on others. That is the only way to understand a subject.
If you are interested in other types of progress, then fine, go research it.
Show me an interpretation of the data in the linked article that does not include an immense increase of the material standard of living.
If you do not care about material standard of living, then fine, don’t critique Progress Studies.
My guess is that if your own material standard of living were radically reduced, you would be crying like a baby, so do not pretend that other people’s material standard of living does not matter and it is just a myth.
It is telling that the the only way you can defend your position is by retreating into incivility. Nobody denies changes in material standards of living. I am challenging your claim that such changes must be interpreted according to a paradigm of 'progress.' To assume that is to collapse measurement into meaning. You call this approach 'obviously correct' - that assumption is exactly what makes it a mythic frame.
So women are holding us back from our robot overlord future
A parsimonious explanation as to why progress has collapsed is to understand that a) the explosion in civil rights legislation and b) the size/scope of administrative state. Feminism and the feminization of society are merely a byproduct of those 2.
Interesting data I hadn't seen before regarding male/female support for nuclear, space, etc.
Curious though, as to two things that produce progress which were left out, which likely pull in the other direction:
1. support for government science research grants
2. support for higher education and research facilities in general.
Tangentially related:
https://activisms.substack.com/p/how-to-cure-fiat-financialization
What a quote!
"The most reproductively successful man of the second millennium was Genghis Khan. The most reproductively successful woman was his mother".
Around 1971, you say? Around the time we fully left the gold standard, changing fully to fiat currency which can be infinitely printed?
Correlation is not causation, but it does wink, nudge, and say "Hey, look over there".
Alright, I'll continue reading...
As a female, I fit the pattern re GMO's and housing (at least as regards 15 minute city-type housing, which looks more like caging to me), but not nuclear energy.
Thinking about it however, my caution has arisen mostly due to the sterling work of men. Maybe women are just better at common-sense, being risk-averse.
Maybe men's and women's average innate predispositions balance each other out, discouraging the harmful extremes that either might incline towards unchecked?
There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. We must go forward _through_ our difficulties.
Essentially1960s Civil rights legislation were enacted to address the inequalities between whites and blacks when the make up of the US was 85 %white, 11%black and 4 %all other racial minorities.In the US of 2024 whites are now 58 %,blacks 13 %Hispanics 20 %.
Eric Kaufmann has chronicled how in the succeeding decades vast numbers of other groups proceeded to claim victimhood status too-Hispanics, Muslims, Asians,homosexuals etc with white women being the biggest beneficiaries in sheer numerical terms. No surprise that white women are Intersectional feminists no matter how many apparent contradictions can be present.
A 2014 statistic revealed that the average black American costs their government $760k over their lifetime, Hispanics$ 588k.Inflation would bring those figures to over 1 million and 750k correspondingly.
With those 2 racial minorities combined making up 33 %of the population >100million people that makes for an incredible cost to the taxpayer.