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Translate things into "physical" quantities like energy consumption and human population, zoom out, and get macro trends. How has energy consumption per person changed over time? Where have we had the biggest efficiency increases?
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Some info on that here, chart doesn't go back very far though:https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-and-changing-energy-sources#per-capita-energy-consumption …
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Whether productivity has actually improved as a result of technology. Are people still working the same amount of hours they were a few decades ago? If so, how come? How did other, older civilizations build large cities? Was homelessness a problem back then as well?
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Are people healthier today than they were a century ago? Are lifespans increasing everywhere or decreasing in certain spots? Have we improved the way we teach students? Are we hitting the edge case for how fast a human being can learn with technology? What is possible?
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1. How did humanity transit to Iron Age without iron tools? 2. Medieval Age looks like a total waste of time in terms of progress. Was it?
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1. I'm not sure but I'd guess with bronze tools! Bronze was the hardest metal known before iron. Also stone tools. 2. AD 500–1000 was pretty stagnant in Europe. After that there was slow progress. E.g., windmills developed around 12th century I think
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How geography has affected progress
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Some thoughts on that in my review of *Guns, Germs, and Steel*:https://rootsofprogress.org/continental-axes-and-the-roots-of-progress …
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A distinction between the progress made in the world of atoms(energy, materials) and the world of bits(software,automation) and their effects on productivity.
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