Figuora

Framework

Progress Engine

A research-in-progress sketch of what must keep turning for capability gains to compound rather than stall or reverse.

Research In ProgressHypothesisResearch In ProgressUpdated August 2, 2026ProgressSystemsCivilization

Problem

Progress talk oscillates between cheerleading and despair without a mechanism model of compounding improvement.

A progress engine requires generation of useful novelty, selection among alternatives, retention of gains, and recombination—each opposed by capture, dogma, decay, and war.

Model

Problem

If progress is only a mood, it cannot be studied. If it is only GDP, it cannot be trusted. We need mechanisms.

Model

Research in progress: imagine an engine with four strokes—(1) generate useful novelty, (2) select, (3) retain, (4) recombine. Civilizations stall when any stroke fails hard enough: dogmatism blocks selection; war destroys retention; extractive elites capture novelty as zero-sum status.

This is a draft mechanism, not a clockwork law of history.

Limitations

Metaphors seduce. Figuora marks this as research-in-progress because we still lack clean measures, and because competing goals (justice, sustainability, meaning) may rightly constrain "engine output." Honest skepticism is a feature of the model’s current status.

Assumptions

  • Progress is not automatic once science or markets exist.
  • Selection environments matter as much as invention rates.
  • Retention (libraries, institutions, maintenance) is a first-class process.

Evidence

  • Print and scientific societies improved retention and critique loops.
  • Periods of high invention without property or status rewards often fail to compound.

Predictions

  • Systems that optimize only short-term novelty without retention will fake progress.
  • AI may raise generation while stressing selection/verification unless redesigned.

Limitations

  • Engine metaphor overstates mechanical regularity.
  • Normative debate about what counts as 'useful novelty' is unresolved.
  • Empirical operationalization of each stage remains incomplete.

Counterarguments

  • Random shocks and empire explain more than engines.
  • Degrowth frames reject compounding material progress as the goal.
#progress#compounding#research

Sources

  1. 1. The Lever of Riches — Joel Mokyr (1990)
  2. 2. How Innovation Works — Matt Ridley (2020) · Optimistic recombination thesis; use critically.