Topics list

All posts in the various topics are listed here, along with the book chapters.

Traps

Solutions

Insight

 

Book chapters:
  1. They saw it coming - introduction to the book's themes
  2. Hostile environments - how humans came to see the world as a hostile place
  3. Ingenuity and Inertia - with innovations come obstacles
  4. Separated from living things - the concept of man as distinct from the natural world
  5. Historical trajectories - evolution of the rise, decline and fall of social entities
  6. Reconcilable differences - how the division between humans and nature is harmful, yet reconcilable
  7. Forward and backward - insulating humans from their natural environment sows the seeds societal collapse
  8. A two-sided story - neurological support for the fact of mental specialization
  9. Playing God - the self-referencing realm of science and technology fosters notions of irreproachability
  10. Excuses, excuses - rational methods can be put to any use; they are not a guarantee of accuracy
  11. A Fork in the road - excessive mental specialization gives rise to the failure of ingenuity
  12. Audacious and brilliant intuitions - the most creative scientists have often relied on intuition
  13. Nurturing Genius - "The genius creates good ideas because we all create good ideas" - S. Pinker
  14. Resilient adaptations - human resilience argues that societal collapse, and the failure of ingenuity can be avoided
  15. Afterthought


 


Progresstrap.org is a companion site to the book Escaping the Progress Trap
by Daniel B. O'Leary

Download the Kindle version: US UK

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Buy the book at Amazon.com »

 

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