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01 / 05
Malcom McLean: The Modern Intermodal Shipping Container | Heroes of Progress | Ep. 17

Video | Trade

Malcom McLean: The Modern Intermodal Shipping Container | Heroes of Progress | Ep. 17

Malcom McLean's "containerization" remains a vital pillar of our interconnected global economy today.

Alexander C. R. Hammond —

Read the full article about Malcom McLean here.

Blog Post | Human Development

1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

A necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.

Malcolm Cochran —

Reading the news can leave you depressed and misinformed. It’s partisan, shallow, and, above all, hopelessly negative. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University quipped, “The news is a nonrandom sample of the worst events happening on the planet on a given day.”

So, why does Human Progress feature so many news items? And why did I compile them in this giant list? Here are a few reasons:

  • Negative headlines get more clicks. Promoting positive stories provides a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.
  • Statistics are vital to a proper understanding of the world, but many find anecdotes more compelling.
  • Many people acknowledge humanity’s progress compared to the past but remain unreasonably pessimistic about the present—not to mention the future. Positive news can help improve their state of mind.
  • We have agency to make the world better. It is appropriate to recognize and be grateful for those who do.

Below is a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news we collected this year, separated by topic area. Please scroll, skim, and click. Or—to be even more enlightened—read this blog post and then look through our collection of long-term trends and datasets.

Agriculture

Aquaculture

Farming robots and drones

Food abundance

Genetic modification

Indoor farming

Lab-grown produce

Pollination

Other innovations

Conservation and Biodiversity

Big cats

Birds

Turtles

Whales

Other comebacks

Forests

Reefs

Rivers and lakes

Surveillance and discovery

Rewilding and conservation

De-extinction

Culture and tolerance

Gender equality

General wellbeing

LGBT

Treatment of animals

Energy and natural Resources

Fission

Fusion

Fossil fuels

Other energy

Recycling and resource efficiency

Resource abundance

Environment and pollution

Climate change

Disaster resilience

Air pollution

Water pollution

Growth and development

Education

Economic growth

Housing and urbanization

Labor and employment

Health

Cancer

Disability and assistive technology

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Diabetes

Heart disease and stroke

Other non-communicable diseases

HIV/AIDS

Malaria

Other communicable diseases

Maternal care

Fertility and birth control

Mental health and addiction

Weight and nutrition

Longevity and mortality 

Surgery and emergency medicine

Measurement and imaging

Health systems

Other innovations

Freedom

    Technology 

    Artificial intelligence

    Communications

    Computing

    Construction and manufacturing

    Drones

    Robotics and automation

    Autonomous vehicles

    Transportation

    Other innovations

    Science

    AI in science

    Biology

    Chemistry and materials

      Physics

      Space

      Violence

      Crime

      War

      Blog Post | Economics

      What Medieval China Teaches Us about Overregulating Innovation

      European powers established their dominance through the very technologies that China repressed.

      Eamon Passey —

      Summary: The advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT led to a wave of fear about AI risks, with a significant portion of business leaders expressing concerns about AI potentially harming humanity. Calls for government regulation of AI, even a temporary pause, have become a subject of debate. Drawing a cautionary lesson from China’s Ming Dynasty, this article highlights the potential drawbacks of stifling innovation and warns against overly restrictive measures that could hinder progress.

      The launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022 triggered a flurry of panic about the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, a recent CNN poll reveals that 42 percent of business leaders believe that AI could “destroy humanity” in 5–10 years. 

      Though pessimism about potentially transformative technologies is nothing new, what is truly concerning are the calls for government regulation of AI development and deployment. For example, in March, leading figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk, called for a temporary pause in the development of AI systems “more powerful than GPT-4.” Their open letter has received over 33,000 signatories. An April YouGov poll also disclosed that almost 70 percent of Americans endorsed a similar six-month pause on AI development. These polls ominously reveal that a non-negligible number of Americans, fearing threats to existing stability, not only desire ethical regulations of AI but also want suffocating restrictions on the entire industry.

      Why is this concerning? History reveals that a severe bias toward stability and the overreach of technological alarmists in the policy space can dangerously obstruct human progress. Look no further than Medieval China.

      In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Song Dynasty was the pinnacle of global civilization, destined to outpace the rest of the world. In the words of Harold B. Jones, “asked to pick from among the world’s nations the one with the best prospects for years ahead, an early fifteenth-century futurist would have bet on China.” Song China led the world in technological progress, inventing gunpowder, movable print, and the compass. It was home to the most advanced infrastructure and fleet of trading ships in the world, enriching China through overseas commerce with the coastal states of Africa. Moreover, by opening its society to foreign travelers, China benefited from the scientific knowledge and expertise of foreign innovators, making impressive strides in agriculture and astronomy. Some even say Song China was on the cusp of its own industrial revolution centuries before Great Britain. China simply had the materials and knowledge to dominate the world long before the West. Why didn’t it?

      Despite Song China’s vibrant society and thriving economy, it was constantly skirmishing with its northern neighbors, eventually succumbing to the military prowess of the invading Mongols in 1279. The subsequent Yuan Dynasty marked the first time in China’s thousand-year history that a foreign-ruled dynasty seized all of China, an embarrassing defeat for Chinese traditionalists. 

      The Yuan Dynasty was short-lived, as internal factionalism and corruption led to widespread rebellions, propping up the Ming Dynasty in 1368. However, still humiliated by the “barbarian” occupation, Ming leaders made it a priority to distinguish themselves from their Song predecessors. Blaming the collapse of the Song Dynasty on their embracement of a “disordered” open society, the Ming dynasty established a highly authoritarian and isolationist regime, significantly extending the Great Wall and, more significantly, unleashing an “anti-modern revolution” meant to reinvigorate China with traditional Confucian values and restrain destabilizing innovation.

      Part of this anti-modern revolution was cultural, stifling innovation by stressing conformity and suppressing individualism. For example, one of the first actions of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding Ming emperor, was to institute a strict dress code. He banned foreign fashion and dictated standards for each social position, reinforcing a neo-Confucian hierarchy. Technological progress and commercial prosperity brought about choice, fostering unsettling social disorderliness that could manifest itself through clothing. Thus, for fear of disrupting the existing order, the Ming emperor banned expressive clothing. 

      In a similar vein, the Ming Dynasty reinstituted the controversial imperial examination system. The Ming education system generally prioritized the regurgitation of Confucian philosophy, overlooking scientific and technical skills. Though science was still taught, the subject matter was to be accepted as canonical wisdom rather than questioned and improved. The general environment created by the examination culture de-emphasized contributions from creative individuals—if you wrote about new ideas on an exam, you were simply marked wrong. Individualism had no place in the Ming Dynasty.

      However, the costliest aspect of this revolution concerned destabilizing technological innovations. Most significantly, the Ming Dynasty severely restricted innovation regarding exploration and oceanic shipping, famously (or infamously) enacting the Edict of Haijin. This policy severely restricted private maritime trading and exploration, leading to the destruction of many private ocean vessels and the imprisonment of hundreds of merchants. The sentiments of this policy were most notably manifested through the destruction of Admiral Zheng He’s fleet.

      Everyone knows the famous rhyme, “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”; however, what many people do not realize is that several decades before Christopher Columbus, a Chinese admiral named Zheng He made larger and more ambitious voyages with a fleet 300 times larger than Columbus’s. Yet, rather than opening the world to trade as Columbus did, the Ming government burned his great fleet, stifling a critical source of economic advancement. Why did they hinder such progress? Though the official reasoning concerned piracy, many scholars point to a general fear of foreign interaction and the rise of a powerful merchant class, all of which would have disrupted the post-Mongol order—the Ming emperor appeared to prefer stagnation over progress, for stagnation weakened threats to his power.

      As China fostered a long period of cultural and technological stagnation, Europe entered a great age of individualism and innovation. By embracing scientific progress and overseas commerce during the Renaissance, Europeans made remarkable economic and technological strides, overtaking China as the global economic and technological epicenter. In fact, European powers used the very innovations that China repressed to establish their dominance—namely, maritime and naval technologies. As the Ming Dynasty burned ships and oppressed merchants, Europeans were establishing enriching trade routes and colonizing the globe with their powerful navies. The British even used these tools to later humiliate China during the Opium Wars. Thus, the Ming Dynasty’s “anti-modernism” significantly contributed to the “Great Divergence,” subjecting China to a centuries-long game of catch-up with the West.

      Therefore, as we consider a temporary termination of the deployment of AI, the legacy of the Ming Dynasty provides a cautionary tale. Through unregulated data collection and short-term jolts to the labor market, AI certainly has the potential to disrupt existing stability. However, there is something to be said about the potential upsides of AI development. From automating monotonous tasks to revolutionizing modern medicine, many benefits would be delayed by a pause in development, delays that, like what happened in China, could set the United States back for decades. Though techno-optimism has its own concerns, we must also be wary of the over-implementation of the precautionary principle, for, as the Ming Dynasty shows, ill-advised and overcautious social policy meant to preserve stability can and often does foster costly stagnation.

      Blog Post | Health & Medical Care

      Modernization and the Loss of Japan’s Samurai Culture Benefited the Japanese People

      Economic, technological, industrial, and other progress radically improved the life of the ordinary Japanese citizen.

      Harry Backhouse —

      Summary: In the mid-19th century, Japan’s feudal society underwent a profound transformation during the Meiji Restoration, embracing Westernization and modernization. The shift from isolationism to openness resulted in rapid industrialization and technological advancements, improving living standards, education, and social mobility for ordinary citizens. This article examines Japan’s journey from a closed society to a prosperous nation, dispelling romanticized notions of the “good old days” and highlighting the benefits of progress and innovation.

      Imagine you’re a farmer in Japan in 1850. You pay homage to your feudal lord, wear clothes of plain cotton, eat rice and fish, and are mostly preoccupied with surviving the occasional famine and outbreaks of disease. You likely have no education. Fifty years later, life has changed beyond recognition. Farmers now have an education, have fertilizer to farm with, have access to vaccination, and can use the telegraph and the postal service. They have more money to spend, more leisure time, and access to mass media.

      The 2003 movie The Last Samurai portrays Japan during this period of modernization. The film laments the loss of traditional samurai culture amid rising Westernization. The film is inspired by the Satsuma Rebellion, a revolt from disaffected samurai amid the loss of their privileged position in society.

      Longing for a privileged past is not unique to Japan; many in Europe romanticize the medieval era as one of knightly chivalry. However, such portrayals usually look at history through rose-tinted glasses. The “good old days” is a common fallacy, with facts becoming more distorted the further one looks back in history.

      What really happened in the era of The Last Samurai?

      The period takes places after the Meiji Restoration, showcasing the Westernization of Japan. Before this period, Japan was ruled by Tokugawa shogunate, a military dictatorship that had dominated the island for over 260 years. It imposed the foreign policy of Sakoku—that is, one of extreme isolationism. Aiming to reduce the spread of Christianity and cement the power of the shogun, the islands of Japan became closed to foreigners. No one was allowed to enter or leave Japan, and foreign trade was virtually nonexistent. (There was some trade allowed from the Dutch through the island of Kyushu, notably in porcelain.) This period was one of peace, which many in Japan welcomed after the Sengoku Jidai (a period of civil war) of the 1500s.

      Conservatives in Japan welcomed this closing of the country to foreign influence. At the time, Japan was dominated by the samurai class. Samurai, while traditionally warriors, had moved in peacetime to become aristocratic bureaucrats at the service of their daimyo, a feudal lord. Samurai had a monopoly on military force and controlled most of education. Merchants were seen as a lower class, even lower than farmers. Feudalism, a system where a lord would rent out land in return for labor from the peasantry, had ended in parts of Europe around 1500. Whereas competition among European powers had created the emergence of a middle class, Japan had remained socially, technologically, and militarily stagnant from 1639 onwards.

      As described by Mitsutomo Yuasa in his study The Scientific Revolution in Nineteenth Century Japan:

      The traditional society (feudalism) before the Meiji Restoration, namely the age of Edo of Tokugawa Shogunate, was based on pre-Newtonian science and technology, and on pre-Newtonian attitudes towards the physical world.

      In 1853, Japanese isolationism came to an end. With the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry demonstrating a textbook example of gunboat diplomacy, the United States forced an end to Japanese isolationism and the opening of Japanese ports to American trade. In the years that followed, Japan established diplomatic relations with the Western Great Powers and underwent a collapse of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate.

      Japan then went through a period of rapid modernization, importing Western technology, ideas, and culture. Ian Inkster describes the impact:

      By 1855, Western machinery and factory organization had been introduced at Nagasaki for the maintenance of warships, and a spurt of building began in 1860 under Dutch leadership. It was Englishmen who in 1867 constructed the first steam powered spinning plant, the Kagoshima Spinning Factory. . . . By 1882, the Osaka Spinning Company operated 16 mules, 10,500 spindles and was practically powered by steam. . . . From 1870 to 1872, 245 railway engineers arrived in Japan from Europe. . . . Telegraphic communication was also established by the British from 1871.

      The industries that were revolutionized by foreign influence included the iron industry, mining, railways, electricity, civil engineering, medicine, administration, shipbuilding, porcelain, earthenware, glass, brewing, sugar, chemicals, gunpowder, and cement manufacture. Japan developed its staple industry and export product, silk manufacturing and spinning, under guidance from a Swedish engineer using Italian methods. The silk industry also employed a large amount of female labor in Japan, with more women in the industrial labor force in Japan than in any other country in Asia.

      The development of technological innovations improved Japanese industry. Ryoshin Minami showed the growth in total horsepower between 1891 and 1937 was in the order of 13 percent annually. The figure below shows the growth rate of development of primary industries during the period between 1887 and 1920, as well as overall economic growth. In many of the years during that period, growth in private non-primary fixed capital was in the double digits.

      By the 1890s, Japanese textiles dominated the home markets and competed successfully with British products in China and India. Japanese shippers were competing with European traders to carry these goods across Asia and even to Europe.

      The Satsuma Rebellion occurred in 1877, as Japanese government restricted the ability to carry a katana (long sword) in public. Regardless of one’s thoughts on the right to bear arms, the reduction in the power of the samurai class was a win for ordinary Japanese people. Having access to modern medical techniques, transportation, and goods benefited the whole society, rather than just feudal elites. Indeed, many of the samurai were able to adapt to their new roles in a modern Japan, working in business or government. In the 1880s, 23 percent of prominent Japanese businessmen were from the samurai class. By the 1920s, the number had grown to 35 percent.

      By 1925, universal manhood suffrage had been implemented, a stark contrast from the Tokugawa shogunate. The social structure had loosened, allowing societal advancement far more easily than in the feudal era. By 1897, 95 percent of citizens were receiving some form of formal education, in contrast to 3 percent in 1853. With a more educated population, Japan’s industrial sector grew significantly. Of course, the new system still had its problems, such as labor strikes and industrial unrest. However, Westernization brought far more economic freedom to the Japanese people. Attitudes to commerce changed. Merchants rose from being the lowest class to becoming a vital part of the burgeoning middle class.

      In Japan, progress was seen in economics, science, technology, education, consumer goods, industry, and social mobility. Society and the traditional order had been uprooted, in an example of Schumpeterian “creative destruction.” The inflow of new ideas, of new ways of doing things, allowed people to become freer, wealthier, healthier, and better educated. The opening of Japan was fundamentally an opening to progress. By isolating itself, Japan fell behind the rest of the world. As it opened itself to competition, it was able to catch up, and in some cases, surpass other countries. And the ordinary citizen of Japan was better for it.

      Blog Post | Globalization

      Heroes of Progress, Pt. 51: Frederick McKinley Jones

      Introducing the American inventor whose mobile refrigeration units transformed the global economy.

      Alexander C. R. Hammond —

      Today marks the 51st installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org titled Heroes of Progress. This column provides a short introduction to heroes who have made an extraordinary contribution to the well-being of humanity. You can find the 50th installment here.

      This week, our hero is Frederick McKinley Jones, an American inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur. With more than 60 registered patents across various fields, Jones was one of the most prolific African American inventors of the 20th century. Jones is best known for inventing mobile refrigeration systems for trucks, trains, and ships. His invention meant that fresh produce and other perishable goods could be delivered on a large scale anywhere without spoiling, regardless of the season. Starting in World War II, Jones’ refrigeration units were also used to transport blood, organs, and vaccines worldwide. Later versions of his refrigeration units are still in use today and have been used extensively to transport COVID-19 vaccines. Mobile refrigeration revolutionized the supermarket and restaurant industries, leading to billions of people being better fed, and transformed the medical industry, helping save millions of lives.

      Jones was born on May 17, 1893, in Covington, Kentucky. His mother left while Jones was young, and his father, a railroad worker, struggled to raise him alone. When Jones was seven years old, his father sent him to live with a priest in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, at the age of eleven, just after finishing sixth grade, Jones left school and ran away from the priest. Jones ended up taking odd jobs across Cincinnati, and while working as a garage janitor, he discovered a passion for automobile mechanics. Despite his lack of formal education, Jones would observe the mechanics and absorb as much information as possible. Within three years, he became the foreman of the garage.

      In 1912, after short stints working in a hotel and onboard a steamship, Jones moved to Hallock, Minnesota, and began working as a mechanic on a large farm. During this time, Jones started building race cars to drive at county fairs and racing exhibitions. His cars were built and designed so well that they overwhelmed the competition, and Jones became one of the most well-known racers in the Great Lakes region. By 1913, Jones had secured an engineering license.

      During World War I, Jones joined the U.S. Army as an electrician, and while serving in France, he performed the necessary wiring to ensure that his camp was equipped with telegraphs, electricity, and telephones. Jones was discharged with the rank of sergeant in 1919 and returned to the farm in Hallock.

      Soon after his return, Jones built a transmitter for the town’s first radio station. He would also regularly help doctors by driving them to house calls during harsh Minnesotan winters. One year in the early 1920s, when the snow was so deep that it was impossible to navigate through it by car, Jones attached skis to an airplane fuselage, along with a propeller and motor. Soon doctors were zipping around Kittson County at high speeds in Jones’ “snowmachine.” Although he never patented it, in effect, Jones had built an early version of the modern snowmobile. Similarly, when he heard a local doctor lamenting that patients had to travel to the clinic for x-ray exams, Jones developed a portable x-ray machine that doctors could take to patients’ homes.

      In the mid-1920s, Jones invented the first process and devices that enabled silent movie projectors to play recorded sounds. For the first time, “talking pictures” were possible. This invention attracted the attention of local businessman Joseph A. Numero, who owned a company that developed audio equipment. Numero hired Jones in 1927, and for several years Jones focused on converting silent movie projectors into talking projectors. Jones also found ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality of projectors. In the 1930s, he also invented and patented a machine for movie theaters that automatically dispensed tickets and change to customers.

      However, Jones’ most important invention resulted from a $6 bet made by Numero during a game of golf. One of Numero’s friends, who owned a trucking business, complained that he had a contract to transport raw chicken from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Chicago, Illinois (a 400-mile drive), but because of high temperatures, an entire load of chicken had spoiled. Numero responded that his engineer, Jones, could easily solve that problem and create a refrigerated trailer—within just 30 days. Numero’s friend was skeptical of this claim, and the pair made a bet for $6 (about $122 in 2022 USD).

      Within two weeks, Jones had designed a prototype, and within 30 days, he had a working model for the first unit, called Thermo Control Model A. Jones’ design attached refrigeration equipment to the undercarriage of trucks, which then flowed chilled air into the trailer via refrigerant tubing. 

      Numero immediately recognized the potential of this invention and promptly sold off his audio equipment business. In 1938, he formed a partnership with Jones called the U.S. Thermo Control Company (renamed Thermo King Corporation in 1941), with Jones as vice president. In the same year, Jones filed a patent for the Model A refrigeration unit, which he received in 1949.

      Jones then modified the design so it could be fitted on trains and ships, and by 1941, he created the Model C. This newer model mounted the refrigeration unit on the front of the truck and was lighter and more durable than previous designs. The Model C was manufactured for military use during World War II and became incredibly important for preserving medicine, blood, and food for army hospitals and troops on the frontline. The U.S. military applied Jones’ invention to their trucks, boats, and planes. Jones also developed cutting-edge refrigerators for military field kitchens and air-conditioning units for field hospitals. 

      After the war, the Thermo King grew rapidly. In the 1940s, Jones also developed gasoline-powered refrigerated boxcars, which helped further reduce shipping costs and made fresh produce more widely available and cheaper. By 1949, Thermo King was a $3 million business ($36 million in 2022 USD). In the 1970s, the company expanded to Europe, and today, it continues to sell later versions of Jones’ invention worldwide.

      Throughout his life, Jones accumulated more than 60 patents in various fields, including refrigeration, engines, sound equipment, and x-ray machines. Jones received dozens of awards and honors, both during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1944 he became the first African American member of the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. In 1977 he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame, and in 1991, President George H. W. Bush posthumously awarded him the National Medal of Technology. In 2007, Jones was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

      Jones continued to work for Thermo King Corporation, and during the 1950s, he became a consultant for several branches of the government, including the Bureau of Standards and the Department of Defense. In 1961, aged 67, Jones died of lung cancer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

      Frederick McKinley Jones working black and white photo

      By inventing practical mobile refrigeration units, Jones helped change consumers’ eating habits forever. Before the invention of practical mobile refrigeration units, produce had to be transported in cans. But now, people can eat fresh produce year-round, which has undoubtedly improved the health of billions of people and transformed the global economy. By making it easier to transport blood, vaccines, and organs, Jones’ invention also transformed the medical industry and, in the process, has saved millions of lives. For these reasons, Frederick McKinley Jones is our 51st Hero of Progress.