Robotic factories build everything from toys to advanced microchips. Machine learning solved protein folding<\/a> 20 years earlier and powered a medical revolution, with permanent CRISPR cures for cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. Stem cell therapies<\/a> for damaged hearts came a decade earlier, saving tens of millions of people from early death. Nanotech robots eat arterial plaque, and we have mRNA cures for HIV, Zika, breast and prostate cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A grid of seventh-generation Starlink satellites beams down InfiniBand-speed internet across the globe. Using a robot and lag-free, ultra-high-definition VR, a top doctor in New York can now perform life-saving surgery on a patient halfway across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did we get to this sci-fi future decades early? In the years leading up to it, the Luddites and other enemies of innovation failed at every attempt to cripple, crush, or kill progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the world of flight, there was no backlash against “sonic booms” or runaway fears after the Concord explosion<\/a>. Instead, engineers did with supersonic jets what they\u2019ve done with every other kind of plane: they made them safer. In 2022, there was just one airplane passenger injury for every 15 billion miles flown<\/a>, and supersonic jets could be just as safe \u2014 but much faster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anti-nuclear activists didn’t kill nuclear expansion in the 1970s. Instead, the US kept right on building reactors, leading to a carbon emissions chart like France\u2019s. We have safe, clean, abundant energy, and there’s no talk of degrowth or slowing down \u2014 just what to build next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US didn’t pull funding for stem cells during the Bush administration, and in Africa and Asia, widespread technophobia didn\u2019t prevent the approval of genetically modified crops that could save the vision \u2014 and lives \u2014 of millions of the continents\u2019 most-vulnerable residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, that’s not the world we got. So, what went wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer is that, in way too many cases, the Luddites won. They slammed the brakes on technology and progress out of unfounded fears or personal beliefs, and we all paid the price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Activists push big, scary headlines about the bad things they predict a technology will bring, but they ignore the good things we stand to lose without the technology.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The hidden price of technophobia is incredibly high, too. The real cost of these doomsday policies is in the air we breathe, the families who bury loved ones too soon, the new kinds of jobs that never get created, and the rockets that never blast off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Activists push big, scary headlines about the bad things they predict a technology will bring: a silent spring, mass unemployment, a new ice age. But they ignore the good things we stand to lose without the technology: the jobs that never get created, the clean air we don’t breathe, the cascade of new inventions that never come to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you throw a wrench in the wheels of progress, an alternative future full of opportunities disappears. Enemies of innovation may think they’re doing the right thing by slowing progress down, but they too often fail to consider how gumming up the works causes us to miss out on good things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What diseases will we cure with stem cell breakthroughs decades later than we could have because we wasted eight years in the second Bush administration restricting the research? How many damaged lungs did we get because we killed off nuclear and kept right on burning coal to keep up with electricity demand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Opportunity cost is invisible \u2014 but as we\u2019ve seen time and again, it\u2019s one of the biggest bills in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2013, researchers from NASA and Columbia University calculated<\/a> that America\u2019s nuclear power fleet had prevented 1.8\u202fmillion premature deaths and 64\u202fgigatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions since 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now imagine if the US had doubled or tripled the size of its reactor fleet since the 1970s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2025, it would be running on a French\u2011style nuclear grid, with more than 70% of its electricity generated from zero\u2011carbon fission. We would have prevented another two to four million deaths. Instead of rising, global temperatures would have stayed steady. In short, there’d be no climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s what happened instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protests against nuclear power intensified in the 1960s and \u201870s. In 1974, the US scrapped the Atomic Energy Commission, which was tasked with both regulating and promoting nuclear energy, and replaced it with the practically anti-nuclear Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The NRC prioritized minimizing risk over promoting growth, creating regulatory roadblocks that made it harder to build nuclear reactors. The US didn’t break ground on a single new reactor between 1977 and 2013<\/a>, and the first reactor of the modern era didn’t go online until 2023. Two of the four projects launched in the past 12 years were abandoned before completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why did this happen? Because humans are great at overestimating big, flashy, short-term threats and ignoring long-term ones. Smoking might cause lung cancer, but because it takes decades to develop, it\u2019s easy for people to continue to puff away on their cigarettes. Get one painful but temporary sunburn, though, and you\u2019re unlikely to forget to slather yourself in sunscreen the next time you hit the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1979, a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania experienced a partial meltdown. No one died during the accident, and people living in the area experienced a dose of radiation \u201cabout 1 millirem above the usual natural background dose,\u201d according to the NRC<\/a> \u2014 that\u2019s not much higher than a chest X-ray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, that accident became the rallying cry for the anti-nuclear movement and helped put nuclear builds on ice for 46 years. While nuclear regulators fought over paperwork, coal plants kept belching poison. Fewer than 2,800 people have died due to nuclear energy, but pollution from fossil fuel-generated electricity now kills 1.1 million to 2.55 million people<\/a> every year <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from its direct impact on our health, this continued reliance on fossil fuels is warming the planet \u2014 ironic, given that environmentalists<\/a> were at the forefront of the early anti-nuclear movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heart damage is permanent. We can\u2019t heal scar tissue or naturally regrow injured heart muscle. If heart damage is severe, a person\u2019s only hope of survival is a transplant, and there aren\u2019t enough donor hearts available to meet demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine if we could<\/em> repair heart damage, though. We could potentially save some of the estimated 17.9 million people<\/a> who die of heart disease every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stem cells could make this a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the cells in your body are specialized to serve a very specific role. Stem cells have yet to develop into a specific type of cell, and by creating the right conditions around them, scientists can turn these cells into whatever your body needs \u2014 including new heart tissue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attempts to do this are already underway. In 2024, a University of Illinois cardiologist launched a clinical trial<\/a> testing whether stem cells derived from umbilical cords and delivered intravenously could help patients with chronic heart failure \u2014 something that had never before been tested in the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That stem cell treatment of tomorrow could join the several we already have today \u2014 across the globe, these powerful cells are being used to repair broken bones<\/a>, cure sickle cell anemia<\/a>, and treat cancers<\/a>, such as leukemia<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could have happened a lot faster, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In science, every lost year compounds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In August\u202f\u202f2001, then-US President George\u202fW.\u202fBush froze federal funding<\/a> for embryonic stem cell lines, largely due to activists\u2019 moral and ethical concerns about the destruction of human embryos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overnight, America\u2019s most promising biologists became policy refugees. Labs shuttered or limped along on private grants. Many simply moved to Singapore or the UK. California tried to fill the funding void by setting aside a $3 billion bond<\/a> for stem cell research in 2004, but state-level action can\u2019t replace a coordinated federal effort to advance a field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The federal embargo ended in 2009, but in science, every lost year compounds: you start with fewer post\u2011docs trained, and that leads to fewer papers published and cited, fewer startups spun out, and fewer breakthroughs built atop those that came before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A paper published in the journal of Technology and Innovation<\/a> in 2011 estimated that the moratorium delayed first\u2011in\u2011human stem cell therapies for macular degeneration<\/a> and Type 1 diabetes<\/a> by at least five years, affecting countless patients who could have regained their eyesight or thrown away their insulin pumps earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, the philosophical concerns of anti-stem cell activists created an unmarked graveyard filled with treatments for innumerable ailments, from heart disease to cancer. We may still get some of them, but every year lost is another year delayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using advanced gene-editing technologies, we now have the ability to modify crops to give them desirable characteristics, and according to the vast majority of scientists, these genetically modified organisms are perfectly safe to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]here have been no confirmed incidents of adverse human health or environmental effects from genetically engineered crops during nearly three decades of global use,\u201d wrote an international team of food scientists<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1999, two European scientists, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, produced a prototype of a rice plant that had been genetically modified to help address vitamin A deficiency, which is a leading cause of childhood blindness \u2014 every year, it strips vision from half a million children<\/a>, many of whom live in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2005, their \u201cGolden Rice\u201d had been developed to the point that it could have a real impact on public health, but despite no credible trials suggesting that it wasn\u2019t safe to eat, anti-GMO activists would oppose the crop and slow the approval process to a crawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, the Philippines would become the first nation to approve Golden Rice for cultivation on a commercial scale, but just three years later, it rolled back the approval \u201cout of caution.\u201d Again, this blow to progress was dealt by people with unfounded fears of \u201cFrankenfoods.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Activists trumpet the possibility<\/em> of hypothetical risks while ignoring the certainty<\/em> of hungry kids.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Golden Rice isn\u2019t an anomaly, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bacterial disease banana xanthomonas wilt<\/a> (BXW) is a massive problem for farmers across Africa, costing them both lives and livelihoods. It slashes yields and sometimes kills as much as 100% of a farmer’s crop. Scientists have created multiple GMO bananas<\/a> that are resistant to the disease, but regulators have yet to clear any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Genome\u2011editing could double smallholder yields<\/a> and erase entire pesticide classes, but smart bills to intelligently regulate GMO crops get stuck<\/a> in endless back and forth battles. A disease-resistant cassava in Kenya, a vitamin-A-fortified banana in Uganda, a blight-resistant potato in Nigeria \u2014 each sits in a regulatory holding pattern while real people skip meals. (Though in a recent<\/a> glimmer of hope, Nigeria did make some progress with the late-2019 approval<\/a> of pod borer resistant cowpeas.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a paper published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotech<\/a>, this is largely due to Africans\u2019 ingrained resistance to food innovations:<\/p>\n\n\n Africa has historically struggled to adopt innovative agricultural technologies, which has significantly hindered efforts to ensure food security and improve livelihoods over the past century. A major obstacle in this regard has been the persistent skepticism surrounding the potential benefits of agricultural biotechnology.<\/p>\n The challenges contributing to this skepticism include a notable knowledge gap among stakeholders, widespread technophobia, or fear of technology, as well as inconsistencies with global agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBB). Although these challenges are not exclusive to Africa, they disproportionately impact the continent, making the need for effective solutions even more urgent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n But it wasn\u2019t just homegrown fears. Instead of genuine safety concerns, what really stalled progress was an NGO-orchestrated scare campaign out of the US and EU. In his article A Dubious Success, the NGO Campaign Against GMOs<\/a>, Robert Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley College, details how Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth International, and others recast safe, field-tested GMOs as \u201chazardous wastes\u201d during the Cartagena Protocol talks \u2014 terrifying African delegates and trapping lifesaving crops in endless red tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The GMO crop might change, but the story stays the same: Activists trumpet the possibility<\/em> of hypothetical risks while ignoring the certainty<\/em> of hungry kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The development of the world\u2019s first mRNA vaccines marked a major turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic, and the same technology is now in late\u2011stage trials for treating or preventing HIV<\/a>, Zika<\/a>, cancer<\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’d think we’d be celebrating the potential end of these dreaded killers, but instead we have a small contingent of radicals fighting to ban or limit mRNA vaccines<\/a> \u2014 and unfortunately, some are members of the US government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did it happen? Mostly because of Operation Warp Speed and the intense politicization of seemingly everything related to the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Operation Warp Speed was one of the most incredibly successful technological acceleration projects in history, but it has the dubious distinction of being largely disavowed by both the left<\/a> and the right<\/a> \u2014 by the left because it came under Trump’s first administration, and by the right because of growing distrust toward health authorities during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Operation Warp Speed was massively successful. It saw the US deliver highly effective vaccines in nine months \u2014 they usually take a decade to develop \u2014 and fully vaccinate more than half the population within the first year after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As James Pethokoukis wrote in his book \u201cThe Conservative Futurist\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n America was the first nation to roll out a vaccine. And it did so rapidly, getting the COVID-19 vaccine to the American people in less than ten months. And it wasn\u2019t just a single vaccine. Operation Warp Speed delivered three in record time. \u2026 [D]rug companies had lost money during previous public health emergencies, such as the 2014 Ebola outbreaks, when treatments they developed turned out to be unnecessary. But now we needed those companies to make numerous big and bold \u2014 and risky \u2014 bets. So Operation Warp Speed placed orders for vaccines and therapies while still undergoing clinical trials, regardless of the outcomes. This encouraged pharmaceutical companies to expand manufacturing capacity so vaccines and therapies were ready to be distributed once they had the FDA\u2019s green light.<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n Instead of everyone cheering a promising HIV vaccine, though, we have some people fighting the most prominent trial because 7% to 18% of participants developed hives. Yes, these hives could be uncomfortable and distressing, but they are treatable, and who wouldn’t take hives over dying of AIDS? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every known treatment has some potential for side effects \u2014 we pursue them anyway because the benefit of the treatment outweighs the side effect risk. But in this instance, congressional firebrands have drafted \u201cmRNA moratorium<\/a>\u201d bills. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has cut federal funding for the trials, arguing that an HIV vaccine simply isn\u2019t needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Freeze the pipeline today and you don\u2019t just delay vaccines \u2014 you kneecap the entire platform. Every postponed trial means we wait longer for the next generation of lipid nanoparticles, dosing algorithms, and delivery devices. That cascades into oncology, gene editing, even protein replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ladder of progress doesn’t let you skip steps. Kick out the first rung, and you may never reach the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before every technological revolution comes a panic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time, the people worried about the innovation say, “This time is different.” Every time, it\u2019s a rerun. We adapt our lives, culture, work, labor, and business in the face of the new technology. We change right along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Progress is recursive. Each step builds off the last step.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This is because technology isn’t something that’s outside of us \u2014 it’s a part of us, a part of who we are as human beings. We\u2019re the latest in a long line of problem-solvers and engineers going back to our ancestors who first attached sharp stones to sticks to make axes. The tech rises and diffuses, culture adapts, creatives find new ways to be creative, and humanity levels up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Progress is recursive. Each step builds off the last step. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you have the ability to make clear glass, you get eyeglasses. Once you get eyeglasses, you get the microscope \u2014 a Dutch eyeglass maker created<\/a> that modern marvel of science after seeing his kids playing with two lenses to magnify things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A fabricmaker then used the microscope<\/a> to look at fabrics and saw a whole world of tiny creatures we didn’t know existed. Once you have an understanding of microbes, you get germ theory and the ability to fight infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Transistors enabled personal computers. PCs enabled the internet. The internet now trains large\u2011scale AI. AI accelerates protein design. Protein design feeds back into better medicines and smarter biomaterials that improve the next-gen of processors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Create a roadblock at any point in the process, and the whole operation stalls. As AI pioneer Andrew Ng wrote in a recent blog post<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n If not for funding for my early work in deep learning from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which disburse a good deal of U.S. research funding, I would not have discovered lessons about scaling that led me to pitch starting Google Brain to scale up deep learning. I am worried that cuts to funding for basic science will lead the U.S. \u2014 and also the world \u2014 to miss out on the next set of ideas.<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n Kill basic research for a decade or pass restrictive laws out of fantasy fears of AI killing us all, and you don\u2019t just lose 10 years \u2014 you do untold damage to the exponential curve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next decade has to belong to the builders.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n When regulation works, it creates minor speed bumps. It doesn’t erect concrete walls. It demands proof of harms in advance.<\/em> It doesn\u2019t imagine a whole host of harms that haven’t actually materialized in reality and may never materialize and then act as if they\u2019re certainties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You make things safe by<\/em> building them, testing them, breaking them, and iterating \u2014 never by outlawing the lab itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As James Pethooukis wrote for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)<\/a>, if US regulation had merely frozen at 1949 levels, today\u2019s GDP would be $54\u202ftrillion instead of $27\u202ftrillion. That\u2019s an extra American economy left on the table \u2014 money that could fund universal clean energy, cancer cures, carbon capture<\/a>, and Mars colonies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Opportunity cost isn\u2019t hypothetical. It\u2019s the difference between 10 million spinal cords repaired and zero, between two extra degrees of warming or no warming, between poverty for half the planet and plenty for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s why the next decade has to belong to the builders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We didn\u2019t get flying cars because we chose paperwork over propulsion. It’s time to choose differently. The cost for Luddite policies is way too high to let them keep robbing us all of the future. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe clean energy future we regulated away<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nEight years in the stem cell wilderness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The empty fields of Africa and Asia<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The mRNA backlash<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We’ve seen this disaster movie before\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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