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Learning about the story of human progress to keep it going
(German version below)

Dear friends of Effective Altruism,
Jason Crawford, author of the website The Roots of Progress, will be the guest for our September meetup. He'll give a short introduction to the field of progress studies. We'll then ask him about current developments in the area, the biggest bottlenecks, and the intersection with what we're interested in in EA.
After the chat and Q&A (in English), there will be an opportunity to discuss further and get to know other attendees in ice-breaker sessions (in English or German).

~~~ Summary ~~~
From The Roots of Progress:
"50,000 years ago, our ancestors lived at the mercy of nature. They had stone tools, and the use of fire—and not much else. They had no agriculture: they survived by hunting and foraging. They had no medicine. They had small boats to travel short distances on water, but on land they had to walk, and anything they took had to be carried. They had language, but no writing. Of course, they had no science. And they had only the tribe to protect them: no police, no courts, no law. In short, their lives were characterized by abject poverty, superstition born of ignorance, and constant tribal warfare.
We have come a very long way. We live in buildings, not caves. We are surrounded by mass-manufactured products made of steel, glass and plastic...." Read more here: https://rootsofprogress.org/smart-rich-and-free

~~~ About the speaker ~~~
Jason Crawford is the author of The Roots of Progress, a website about the history of technology and industry and the philosophy of progress.
He is also the creator of Progress Studies for Young Scholars, an online learning program about the history of technology for high schoolers, and a part-time technical consultant and adviser to Our World in Data.
Formerly, he was a software engineering manager and tech startup founder. He was co-founder & CEO of Fieldbook, a hybrid spreadsheet-database.
He's also been an engineering manager at Flexport, Amazon, and Groupon. He was at a few other startups as a co-founder or early employee. Longer ago, he helped build a biotech supercomputer for D. E. Shaw Research.

~~~ How to join ~~~
The meet-up will take place at 19:00 via Zoom.

~~~ What else should I know ~~~
People who are unfamiliar with effective altruism are encouraged to watch “What are the most important moral problems of our time?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyprXhvGVYk) by one of the founders of Effective Altruism, Will MacAskill, or the longer talk “Introduction to EA” (https://youtu.be/48VAQtGmfWY) by Ajeya Cotra as introductions to the topic.

We look forward to seeing you!

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Liebe Freunde des Effektiven Altruismus,
Jason Crawford, Autor des Buches The Roots of Progress, wird bei unserem September-Treffen zu Gast sein. Er wird eine kurze Einführung in das Feld der Progress Studies geben. Danach werden wir ihn zu aktuellen Entwicklungen in diesem Bereich, Engpässen und den Überschneidungen mit den Dingen, die uns an EA interessieren, befragen.
Nach dem Chat und den Fragen und Antworten (auf Englisch) gibt es die Möglichkeit, weiter zu diskutieren und die anderen Teilnehmer in Icebreaker-Sessions (auf Englisch oder Deutsch) kennen zu lernen.
Das Treffen findet um 19:00 Uhr per Zoom statt.

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