I'm a Roots of Progress Blog-Building Fellow
Much to come on immigration. For now: Airplanes, anti-miscegenation, public health, and Down Syndrome
I’m extremely excited to share that I was selected for the Roots of Progress Blog-Building Intensive Fellowship1.
My focus over the two-month program is to sharpen my writing on critical talent, immigration, and how the US should be Talent-Maxxing. For the next 9 weeks, you’ll hear plenty from me on those topics.
But right now I want to step back and reflect a bit on the importance of human progress to me personally.
Great. Please brainstorm some titles and subtitles for the blog.
At the time I got my acceptance email to the fellowship I was on a plane flying 7 miles above the Pacific Ocean - a not-so-small miracle.
I got that email via wifi beamed down to me from a satellite (thank you Starlink!).
I’m happily married to the love of my life, in a marriage of the type that was illegal in California at the time my grandparents were born.
I enjoy the company of 5 healthy siblings. In previous eras, the chances of all 6 of us living to adulthood would have beens slim.
One of those siblings has Down Syndrome, which in another time would have been cause for him to be abandoned, institutionalized, or neglected. He was lucky to be born in 2000s America, which means he lives a full healthy life including gainful employment and weekly drama club.
But, of course, the problems are legion. Wars rage in Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza. Drug overdoses in the US recently hit an all-time high. In many developed countries, my brother wouldn’t have been born at all. And (obviously of equal importance) the wifi on that plane was unacceptably slow.
We have made so much progress over the past 500 years, and yet still there is so much to be improved. I couldn’t be more excited to play a small part in contributing to the broader conversation about what is working, what isn’t, and how we continue.
This fellowship is run by the Roots of Progress Institute, part of the broader Progress Studies movement which aims to build a new Philosophy of Progress.