The Progress Manifesto (How Technology and Industry Advance Human Life and Well-Being)

A new philosophy of progress: a moral defense of technology in the service of human flourishing, and an ambitious vision for the technological future.

The debate over technology and its role in society has reached fever pitch. Skeptics and “doomers” accuse technology of ruining the planet, destroying our health, stealing our jobs, and even threatening human extinction. But a new and growing movement—already influential in Silicon Valley, among prominent academics, and increasingly in both political parties—is promoting technology as the engine of progress and the path to abundance.

The Progress Manifesto is a rallying cry for this movement. It presents a new philosophy of “techno-humanism”: the view that science, technology, and industry are good—not in themselves, but because they promote human flourishing and well-being. In short, it is the idea that material progress leads to human progress. Crawford acknowledges, and even embraces, the problems of progress, but his aim is to point toward solutions. He shows how progress can become not only a practical but a moral ideal, offering us a goal to strive for, a heroic archetype to emulate, and a responsibility to live up to.