{"id":116188,"date":"2025-06-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_episode&p=116188"},"modified":"2025-06-02T09:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:07:15","slug":"jason-crawford-progress","status":"publish","type":"ftm_episode","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/series\/the-freethink-interview\/jason-crawford-progress","title":{"rendered":"We stopped believing in progress. Now, we\u2019re stagnating."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have we begun to lose faith in the future? The idea of \u2018progress\u2019 didn\u2019t truly exist throughout the majority of human history. Most ages didn\u2019t see history as an upward curve \u2013 they saw history as cyclical, full of ups and downs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This belief only shifted around the 1500s, says Jason Crawford, founder of The Roots of Progress and the author of The Techno-Humanist Manifesto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea that progress would automatically continue became widespread, until the first World War shattered the illusion that technology would bring peace and cooperation. Out of this rose a counterculture concern that modernity was a mistake, that progress itself was the problem. But was it? Are we now moving backwards? How can we regain trust in pushing forward?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have we begun to lose faith in the future? The idea of \u2018progress\u2019 didn\u2019t truly exist throughout the majority of human history. Most ages didn\u2019t see history as an upward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":116189,"menu_order":0,"template":"","ftm_taxonomy_fields":[],"ftm_taxonomy_challenges":[],"ftm_taxonomy_hidden_tags":[],"class_list":["post-116188","ftm_episode","type-ftm_episode","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe stopped believing in progress. Now, we\u2019re stagnating.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cPeople got fearful, skeptical, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/series\/the-freethink-interview\/jason-crawford-progress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We stopped believing in progress. Now, we\u2019re stagnating.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cPeople got fearful, skeptical, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/series\/the-freethink-interview\/jason-crawford-progress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Freethink\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-02T13:07:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/B1-Web-Crawford.jpg?resize=1200,630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"\u201cPeople got fearful, skeptical, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"We stopped believing in progress. 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