Tuesday Edition: Progress Is Happening

The string of advances we’ve seen recently in fields like AI, space and medicine may be pointing to an inflection point for technological progress. (The Atlantic)

The analysis: Journalist Derek Thompson catalogued the most significant scientific and technological breakthroughs of 2024 in a recent piece for The Atlantic.

• A new injectable drug, lenacapavir, demonstrated near-perfect efficacy in preventing HIV infections in clinical trials.

• SpaceX achieved a breakthrough in reusable space technology with its "chopsticks" system, enabling precise rocket-catching that could significantly reduce space launch costs.

• Google’s quantum computer, using the Willow chip, solved a math problem in minutes that would otherwise take a supercomputer 10 septillion years.

• Generative AI advancements included AI outperforming humans in medical diagnoses, creating cutting-edge video tools and improving weather forecasting accuracy.

More: Branch out a few more years, and the list of advancements looks even more impressive.

• GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic may help curb two of America’s gravest health crises: obesity and addiction.

• While universal adoption is still a ways away, self-driving cars have become a reality in certain tech hubs, particularly San Francisco.

• Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved lab grown meat for sale for the first time ever.

• Electric vehicle sales hit a record high last year, making up 1 in 5 of all new cars sold.

The narrative: It wasn’t that long ago many commentators and thought leaders suggested meaningful technological progress stalled out a long time ago — sure, our smart phones are smaller and fancier, but when was the last time we did something as cool as going to the moon?

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel in 2022:

Bubba’s Two Cents

Bono — the quintessential progressive celebrity — surprised many people when he told The New York Times in 2022: “There’s a funny moment when you realize that as an activist: The off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce, it’s entrepreneurial capitalism.”

I think Bono’s right when he suggests a link between the capitalist spirit — embodied in bold entrepreneurs who build and take risks — and the kind of meaningful progress that benefits all of humanity and helps solve societal ills.

These days, tech doomerism has become a bipartisan pastime. Critics on the left claim AI is racist, while figures on the right like Tucker Carlson channel Ted Kaczynski by declaring, “our reliance on technology might be our downfall.” Worshiping technology is unwise, but so is ignoring the ways it’s transformed our lives for the better.

A new study conducted by Rutgers’s Network Contagion Research Institute has found TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes neutral or positive content on China, and suppresses political criticism. (The Free Press)

The numbers: According to NCGRI researchers, TikTok downplays negative content about China.

• For instance, only 11% of Uyghur-related content is critical on TikTok compared to 80% on Instagram.

• Meanwhile, 20% of Tiananmen content is negative on TikTok versus 65% on YouTube.

Exhibit A: Users spending more time on TikTok were more likely to view China’s human rights record positively and consider it a desirable travel destination.

Exhibit B: Researchers said an analysis of search results suggests “TikTok’s search algorithm is suppressing anti-China content while amplifying pro-China and irrelevant content, relative to Instagram and YouTube.”

Exhibit C: 26% of TikTok search results for "Tiananmen," the site of the infamous 1989 student protests and massacre, were categorized as pro-China, compared to just 16% of Instagram search results and 7% of YouTube search results.

Context: The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, must sell the app by January 19 or face a nationwide ban.

• Citing national security concerns, Congress last year passed a law requiring ByteDance to divest from TikTok.

• While President-elect Trump signed an executive order sanctioning TikTok during his first term, he has since reversed course, declaring last week: “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”

• “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media,” Trump said in March.

Big influence: TikTok has more than 170 million users in the U.S., and they spend more time on the app than users of similar platforms.

Bubba’s Two Cents

TikTok having its thumb on the content scale is concerning for obvious reasons, but it’s also indicative of a major change in media consumption habits. It’s also a sign of how the balance of power has shifted from the traditional newsroom to social platforms like X and TikTok. While national conversations were once generally shaped from the top down — whatever The New York Times decided to cover, for instance — it’s now the reverse.

Looser standards in education, the military, and beyond raise concerns about whether we’ve abandoned concepts of merit and excellence. (Fox News)

The latest: As of January 2025, New Jersey no longer requires aspiring teachers to pass a basic skills test in reading, writing, and mathematics for certification, aiming to address teacher shortages.

• Similarly, in 2017, New York eliminated its literacy test for teachers, citing a need for diversity and inclusivity in education.

• According to the Hechinger Institute, an education nonprofit, the U.S. is short nearly 600,000 teachers since the pandemic.

The military: In 2024, the Pentagon removed 51 medical conditions from its list of disqualifications to boost enlistment numbers.

• In 2022, the U.S. Army revised its fitness test, introducing age- and gender-specific standards that allow women to pass with lower requirements compared to men, such as lifting 20 pounds less in the deadlift and receiving additional time to complete running events.

Grade inflation at elite colleges: At Harvard, the average grade given is an A-, and 79% of all grades in 2020 were A's, compared to 23% in 1986.

• At Yale, the percentage of A grades jumped from 10% in 1963 to nearly 80% in 2022.

• Brown University reported that 67% of grades given during the 2020-2021 academic year were A's, almost a 30% increase from 1993 .

Bubba’s Two Cents

The general mood of the country right now is pretty negative. The issues that seem to be getting the most traction are concerns about crime and disorder, abuses and mismanagement in the immigration system, government spending and waste and the general incompetence of the people in charge. The cherry on top for anyone who wasn’t already demoralized by the state of U.S. leadership was the media-assisted scandal over President Biden’s cognitive decline.

I think this is why there’s been such a visceral pushback against stuff like diversity, equity and inclusion programs. It’s not because Americans are racists. It’s because they’re fed up with dysfunction and just want officials to get back to the basics of governance. They want their country to work, and they’re done listening to excuses for why we can’t have straightforward systems based on merit.