Tyler Cowen

But they didn't seem that...

concretely crystallized to me in institutions the way they are like in Goldman Sachs or legal partnerships.

So that struck me as very fragile and I thought that at the time as well.

while not seeing the very clear, crystallized, permanent incentives to keep on being a part of the institutions, a bit of excess enthusiasm from some people, even where they might have been correct in their views, some cult-like tendencies, the rise of it being so rapid,

that it was this uneasy balance of secular and semi-religious elements that tends to flip one way or the other or just dissolve.

So I saw all those things and I just thought, like the two or three best ideas from this are going to prove incredibly important still.

And from this day onwards, I don't give up that belief at all.

But just as a movement, I thought it was going to collapse.

You know, when Patrick and I wrote the piece on progress and progress studies, he and I thought about this, talked about it.

I can't speak for him, but my view at least was that it would never be such a formal thing or like controlled or managed or directed by a small group of people or like trademarked or it would be people doing things in a very decentralized way that would reflect a general change of ethos and vibe.

So I hope it has in many ways like a gentler but more enduring trajectory.

And I think so far I'm seeing that.

Like I think in a lot of countries, science policy will be much better because of progress studies.

That's not proven yet.

You see some signs of that.

You wouldn't say it's really flipped.

But a lot of reforms.

You're in an area like no one else

has any idea, much less a better idea or a good idea.

And some modestly small number of people with some talent will work on it and get like a third to half of what they want.