John McCarthy's Thoughts on the Wonders of Progress

Every now and then, you stumble across something simply wonderful on the Internet. You find a gem that requires bringing it to others' attention. That's what happened with me recently when I was reading the website of the late computer scientist John McCarthy. McCarthy, who passed away in 2011, was a Stanford professor involved in many important developments in computer science, especially in artificial intelligence (a term he coined). But he also had a deep and abiding interest in how the world is getting better.

And McCarthy wanted you to know about it. Through a vast series of webpages, McCarthy explored agricultural progress, ideology and its issues, living for thousands of years, and so much more awesomeness. He developed an idea called a skywire for fast travel within a city and the notion of *earlids *(think eyelids for ears). He even discussed something called the Shackleton Project, a precursor to the X Prizes devoted to exploring space, though much riskier. Much as Matt Ridley discussed in [The Rational Optimist](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/), McCarthy was incredibly excited about our progress.

Here are some fascinating quotes:

Last year (2002) was the first time I read of someone dying above 110 who was known for something other than having lived a long time. [The mathematician Leopold Vietoris died at almost 111. I'd read some of his work on topology.]

Or this:

Suppose we just now got 500 years warning of a strike by a Chicxulub class asteroid.

Q. What should we do *now* about deflecting it?

A. Nothing.

Our descendants 200 years from now will know enough more about how to deflect it because of the general advance of science and technology. They'll still have 300 years. I'm optimistic about the capabilities of our descendants.

Go down McCarthy's informational rabbit hole. You will not be disappointed.

Top image:Sean MacAntee/Flickr/CC