Philosophy & Institutions

317 advances: 267 achieved, 19 at the frontier now, 31 ahead.

The frontier

• AI chip export controls 2022 · frontier
  US export controls on advanced chips, Oct 2022.
• Altos Labs 2022 · frontier
  Launched Jan 2022 with $3B for cellular rejuvenation.
• US chip export controls 2022 · frontier
  The Oct 2022 BIS rules on advanced AI chips and tools; tightened in 2023–25.
• CHIPS and Science Act 2022 · frontier
  $52.7B for US fabs and R&D.
• Media literacy 2022 · frontier
  Encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create media.
• Existential risk from artificial intelligence 2022 · frontier
  Hypothesis that artificial general intelligence could result in human extinction.
• Internet privacy 2022 · frontier
  Personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via Internet.
• IIT vs GWT adversarial collaboration (Cogitate) 2023 · frontier
  Rival theorists pre-registered opposing predictions and tested them together; first results were announced in 2023 (published in Nature, 2025). Neither theory was fully vindicated.
• Peremptory norm 2023 · frontier
  Compelling law (international) that cannot be derogated.
• Digital literacy 2023 · frontier
  An individual's ability to find, evaluate, and compose clear information from a digital source. Researchers reported ' digital resignation ', calling for regulations and education reform.
• AI governance regimes 2024 · frontier
  EU AI Act 2024, safety institutes.
• EU AI Act 2024 · frontier
  Regulation (EU) 2024/1689: prohibits some practices (Art. 5, e.g. social scoring and manipulative AI) and requires human oversight of high-risk systems (Art. 14). Binds providers and deployers, not machines.
• 2025 RAM shortage 2025 · frontier
  Ongoing shortage of RAM and SSD. In November, a supply shortage in semiconductor memory begins, marked by significant price increases in consumer DRAM components.
• California SB 925 statewide fusion commercialization plan 2026 · frontier
  First US state law directing a fusion siting, permitting and commercialization strategy.
• $63B SPV to buy Broadcom XPUs and lease them to Anthropic 2026 · frontier
  BofA, Citi and Morgan Stanley (first lien) and Blackstone (second lien) fund a vehicle that buys Broadcom accelerators and networking for lease to Anthropic; deliveries from 2027.
• China drafts AI export controls (23 technologies incl. frontier models, agents, chip design) 2026 · frontier
  Draft rules let foreigners use Chinese AI via cloud but require approval to transfer models, data, chip-design or datacenter tech; temporary registration already in force; adoption expected by year-end.
• US Treasury proposes expanded outbound investment rules (AI, chips, quantum, hypersonics, biotech) 2026 · frontier
  Implements the 2025 COINS Act: reporting or prohibition for US investment in sensitive tech in China and other countries of concern; covers AI incl. "superintelligence"; comment period before final rule.
• US Section 232 proclamation: robotics and industrial machinery imports threaten national security 2026 · frontier
  Trump concurred with Commerce's finding that imports of robots (incl. humanoids, quadrupeds, AGVs), industrial machinery and parts impair national security; Commerce and USTR get 180 days to negotiate, with tariffs, quotas or incentives held in reserve.
• Artificial Intelligence Act 2026 · frontier
  European Union regulation on artificial intelligence.
• Effective, efficient government · future · progress: none
  Government that reliably delivers outcomes at low cost and with consent: policies are tested before enactment, measured after, and administered with near-zero friction. It is mostly a social-technology problem, so the chain is short but adoption is hard.
• Rule of law and secure property and contracts · future · progress: demonstrated
  Courts that enforce contracts and protect property, for strangers and rulers alike. Without them, nobody funds a 20-year bet.
• Low corruption and institutional integrity · future · progress: demonstrated
  Public money and permits go where the rules say, so big programmes deliver instead of leaking.
• Long-horizon, stable governance · future · progress: demonstrated
  Institutions that can commit to and fund multi-decade programmes across elections and leadership changes.
• Open inquiry and free speech · future · progress: demonstrated
  The freedom to question, publish and be wrong in public: the engine of error correction.
• Talent mobility (high-skill immigration, brain circulation) · future · progress: demonstrated
  The best minds can move to where the work is and move back, so talent compounds instead of being wasted.
• Fast permitting and clear, minimal regulation · future · progress: demonstrated
  Clear standards that create markets (like the shipping container) instead of open-ended review that adds drag.
• Healthy demographics · future · progress: early
  Stabilising or above-replacement fertility keeps a young, growing pool of builders. The fertility collapse is a major slow drift.
• Mass education and numeracy · future · progress: deploying
  A population that can read, calculate and reason, and so can build, check and govern advanced technology.
• High-trust society · future · progress: demonstrated
  Strangers cooperate, contracts are cheap and institutions are believed, which makes ambitious collective projects possible.
• Binding machine-ethics law (Asimov-style laws in statute) · future · progress: none
  Enforceable law that AI systems themselves must obey (harm avoidance, obedience within limits, honesty), verified in the systems and not just required of their makers.
• Sealed-assembler safety and governance · future · progress: early
  Broadcast-architecture assemblers, kill switches, and international standards, so nanotech is deployed with confidence instead of fear.
• Resolving FTL causality (chronology protection) · future · progress: none
  Understanding whether faster-than-light travel necessarily allows time-travel paradoxes, and how nature prevents or permits them.
• Aging as an approvable indication · future · progress: early
  Regulators accept "slowing aging" as a treatable target, unlocking investment in therapies that prevent many diseases at once.
• Hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) · future · progress: early
  Why physical processing is accompanied by experience at all (Chalmers, 1995), and a theory predicting which systems are conscious and whether an emulation or gradual replacement preserves the person. This gates identity continuity for uploading. 'Solved' may never be cleanly provable: progress may come as converging, tested theories rather than a proof.
• Planetary stewardship institutions · future · progress: early
  Governance able to manage century-scale planetary projects and Earth's own climate, with legitimacy across generations.
• Digital twins of economies and cities · future · progress: demonstrated
  High-fidelity simulations of a real economy or city, calibrated on live data.
• Simulationism: policy tested on simulated societies · future · progress: early
  Every major law is trialled first on validated simulated societies, then piloted, then measured. Jason sees this as the first step toward effective government.
• Evidence-based policy at scale · future · progress: demonstrated
  Policy randomized trials, pre-registration, and sunset clauses as standard practice.
• India Stack · future · progress: deploying
  Open digital identity, payments, and data rails that make public services instant and cheap.
• Futarchy: vote on values, bet on beliefs · future · progress: early
  Robin Hanson's proposal: citizens choose goals, and policies are adopted when markets predict they will advance them.
• AI-administered permitting and services · future · progress: demonstrated
  Permits, benefits, and filings handled in minutes by audited AI agents.
• Machine-readable, verified law · future · progress: demonstrated
  Legislation written as executable, formally checked code, so contradictions and loopholes are found before passage.
• AI-mediated deliberation at scale · future · progress: demonstrated
  Tools that let millions of people find common ground (vTaiwan, Polis), consent at scale.
• Privacy-preserving identity and voting · future · progress: demonstrated
  Zero-knowledge proofs let citizens prove eligibility and vote verifiably without exposing personal data.
• International AI compute governance · future · progress: early
  Treaties and monitoring of frontier compute that make advanced AI development legible and cooperative.
• Space resource property law · future · progress: demonstrated
  Clear international rules for extracting and owning space resources (Artemis Accords and successors).
• Ethics and law of digital minds · future · progress: early
  Personhood, rights, and consent frameworks for emulated and merged minds, so uploading is a choice protected by law.
• Charter cities and governance sandboxes · future · progress: demonstrated
  New jurisdictions that pilot rules at city scale and measure outcomes, the real-world test after simulation.
• Liquid democracy · future · progress: demonstrated
  Delegable, revocable votes that combine direct and representative democracy.
• Automation dividend · future · progress: demonstrated
  Sharing the output of a robot economy with every citizen, so abundance is universal and not concentrated.

How we got here

• Personal carbon trading 2021 · achieved
  Generic term for a number of proposed emissions trading schemes under which emissions credits would be allocated to adult individuals on an equal per capita basis, within national carbon budgets. Scientists concluded that personal carbon allowances (PCAs) could be a component of climate change mitigation.
• UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI 2021 · achieved
  Adopted by UNESCO member states in November 2021: the first global standard on AI ethics (human oversight, proportionality, do no harm). Non-binding.
• Retro Biosciences 2021 · achieved
  Founded 2021 with $180M from Sam Altman.
• Focused research organizations 2021 · achieved
  Convergent Research FROs for mid-scale science.
• African Continental Free Trade Area 2021 · achieved
  A continent-wide tariff reduction agreement.
• 2020–2023 global chip shortage 2020 · achieved
  2020–21 economic shortage caused by demand for semiconductor chips exceeding supply. 2020–2023 global chip shortage
• Russification 2020 · achieved
  Measures to increase the influence of Russian culture and language. First flight of a fully Russified Superjet aircraft equipped with domestic Aviadvigatel PD-14 engines.
• Progress studies 2019 · achieved
  Collison and Cowen's "We Need a New Science of Progress" (The Atlantic, 2019).
• United States withdrawal from Iran Deal 2018 · achieved
  2018 US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. 2018 – May 8 – President Trump announces the United States withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
• Legalized online sports betting 2018 · achieved
  After Murphy v. NCAA (2018), US online betting exploded.
• Tariff wars (2018–2025) 2018 · achieved
  US–China tariffs, 2018; broad tariffs, 2025.
• GDPR compliance regime 2018 · achieved
  EU data regulation, 2018.
• AI mass surveillance 2018 · achieved
  Facial recognition state surveillance.
• Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 · achieved
  Legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons. 2017 – July 7- The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally-binding international nuclear weapons ban, is ratified by 90 countries.
• Ethics of artificial intelligence 2017 · achieved
  Ethics of technology specific to robots and other artificially intelligent beings. Asilomar Conference on Beneficial AI was held, to discuss AI ethics and how to bring about beneficial AI while avoiding the existential risk from artificial general intelligence.
• European Parliament resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics 2017 · achieved
  Adopted 16 Feb 2017: cites Asimov's laws as directed at designers, producers and operators (they "cannot be converted into machine code") and asks the Commission for robotics law. Non-binding.
• Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 2015 · achieved
  International agreement on the nuclear program of Iran. 2015 – Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran agrees to limit its uranium-enrichment operations in exchange for submitting to IAEA inspections and reduced sanctions.
• Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present) 2013 · achieved
  Disclosures of NSA and related global espionage. 2013 – Edward Snowden discloses a vast trove of classified documents from NSA. See Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)
• Calico (Alphabet) 2013 · achieved
  Founded Sept 2013 to study aging.
• International waters 2012 · achieved
  Waters outside of national jurisdiction. 2012 – Russia announces that it will resume regular patrols with its SSBN fleet in international waters.
• EPSRC Principles of Robotics 2011 · achieved
  UK research-council principles from a 2010 workshop, published 2011: robots are products, humans (not robots) are the responsible agents, and robots should not be designed to deceive.
• Effective altruism 2011 · achieved
  Giving What We Can (2009) and the "effective altruism" name (2011); Singer, Ord, MacAskill.
• Replication crisis 2011 · achieved
  The Open Science Collaboration (2015) replicated only about 36% of 100 psychology findings.
• Dodd–Frank Act 2010 · achieved
  A post-crisis US financial law of about 850 pages.
• NATO missile defence system 2009 · achieved
  2009 – November 12 – President Obama announces changes to the NATO missile defense system, including an increased reliance on the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and the AN/TPY-2 radar, and the RIM-161 Standard Missile…
• HITECH EHR mandate 2009 · achieved
  Subsidized EHRs; physicians now spend hours a day clicking.
• ARPA-E 2009 · achieved
  The DARPA model applied to energy.
• Aadhaar digital ID 2009 · achieved
  Biometric ID for 1.3B people.
• Degrowth 2008 · achieved
  First international Degrowth conference in Paris (2008); roots in Latouche and the 1972 Limits to Growth.
• South Korean Robot Ethics Charter (draft) 2007 · achieved
  The commerce ministry (MOCIE) released a draft charter drawing on Asimov's laws in 2007; it was never formally adopted. The Korea Robotics Society proposed a new charter in 2018.
• International sanctions against Iran 2006 · achieved
  Economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions imposed on Iran by the international community. 2006 - April 11 - President Ahmedinejad announces that Iran has produced enriched uranium in defiance of the UN and the IAEA, leading to sanctions.
• Integrated Information Theory (Tononi) 2004 · achieved
  Giulio Tononi's theory identifies consciousness with integrated information (Φ), giving a quantitative, falsifiable claim.
• Ansari X Prize 2004 · achieved
  A $10M prize won by SpaceShipOne.
• Libya and weapons of mass destruction 2003 · achieved
  2003 – December – Libya announces the closure of its WMD programs, including an early attempt to develop an atomic bomb using designs from Abdul Qadeer Khan.
• Six-party talks 2003 · achieved
  Meetings on North Korea nuclear program. 2003 – North Korea announces that it has several nuclear explosives. The Six-Party Talks begin in Beijing.
• 2003 invasion of Iraq 2003 · achieved
  2003 military invasion led by the United States. 2003 – March 20 – Although Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei claim there is no evidence that Iraqi CNBR weapons development has resumed, President Bush authorizes the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
• Airworthiness certificate 2003 · achieved
  A document issued by government authorities to certify that the aircraft registered in that state complies with the design aspects of the appropriate airworthiness requirements. first certificate of airworthiness for an electric powered aircraft was granted to the Lange Antares 20E.
• International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation 2002 · achieved
  Also known as the "Hague Code of Conduct". 2002 – November 25 – The International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation is ratified at The Hague, Netherlands, regulating proliferation of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
• United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission 2002 · achieved
  Organization established by the United Nations 1999-2007. 2002 – November 13 – UNMOVIC inspectors return to Iraq after the Iraq Resolution and UN Security Council Resolution 1441 to ensure that it has ended its CNBR weapons.
• Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty 2002 · achieved
  2002 nuclear disarmament treaty between the U.S. and Russia. 2002 – The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty is signed by U.S. president Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin, and is ratified by the U.S. Senate and the Russian State Duma on June 1.
• SMIC and China's chip push 2000 · achieved
  SMIC founded 2000; 7 nm-class (N+2) chips via DUV multipatterning (Huawei Kirin 9000S, 2023).
• High-frequency trading 2000 · achieved
  Microsecond arbitrage.
• Medicare residency cap 1997 · achieved
  The Balanced Budget Act froze funded residency slots.
• African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty 1996 · achieved
  1996 international treaty. 1996 – April 11 – The Treaty of Pelindaba is ratified, creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Africa.
• Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty 1996 · achieved
  International treaty to ban nuclear explosions. 1995 – The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is ratified by 168 states. India, Pakistan, and North Korea have not signed the Treaty while China, Iran, Israel, and the United States have signed but not ratified it.
• Taliban bans on girls' education 1996 · achieved
  1996–2001, then reimposed from 2021 (secondary schools, then universities in 2022).
• E-commerce 1995 · achieved
  Amazon and eBay, 1995.
• Agreed Framework 1994 · achieved
  1994 treaty between the United States and North Korea. On October 21, the United States and North Korea sign the Agreed Framework.
• Megatons to Megawatts Program 1993 · achieved
  Arms control agreement between Russia and US. On February 18, the United States and Russia sign the Megatons to Megawatts Program agreement.
• European single market 1993 · achieved
  Single market, 1993.
• Samsung memory leadership 1992 · achieved
  Samsung became the number-one DRAM maker in 1992.
• START I 1991 · achieved
  1991 treaty between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the reduction of strategic offensive arms. 1991 – July 31 – The START I Treaty is ratified between the Soviet Union and the United States.
• Neural correlates of consciousness (Crick & Koch) 1990 · achieved
  Francis Crick and Christof Koch made the search for the neural correlates of consciousness a mainstream research program.
• Grievance-oriented academic fields 1990 · achieved
  Identity-centered fields; the 2017–18 "grievance studies" hoax got several fabricated papers published.
• Patent trolling 1990 · achieved
  Non-practicing entities litigating patents.
• Regulatory compliance industry 1990 · achieved
  Effort spent navigating rules rather than building.
• Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa 1989 · achieved
  CODESA. 1989 – South Africa opts to dismantle the six nuclear weapons it has secretly built amid the negotiations to end apartheid.
• Global Workspace Theory (Baars) 1988 · achieved
  Bernard Baars proposed that consciousness is information broadcast across a brain-wide "global workspace".
• Basel Accords 1988 · achieved
  International bank capital rules.
• Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1987 · achieved
  Arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. 1987 – December 8- The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed by Gorbachev and Reagan at the Washington Summit, and is later ratified by both countries.
• Taiwan and weapons of mass destruction 1987 · achieved
  History of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in Taiwan. 1987 – Chang Hsien-yi, a colonel of the Republic of China Army and the deputy director of the INER, defects to the United States and provides the CIA with classified documents revealing a secret nuclear weapons program in Taiwan.
• SEMATECH and the US–Japan chip agreement 1987 · achieved
  A US consortium; the 1986 trade agreement.
• Montreal Protocol 1987 · achieved
  CFCs phased out after Molina and Rowland (1974) linked them to ozone loss.
• New Zealand's nuclear-free zone 1986 · achieved
  Legal prohibition on nuclear energy or weapons within New Zealand. 1986 – New Zealand announces a nuclear-free zone in its territorial waters, resulting in the unofficial cessation of the ANZUS Treaty.
• Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 1986 · achieved
  1986 United States cybersecurity law. 1986 – After an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, United States Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems.
• Japanese DRAM dominance 1985 · achieved
  NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi overtook US firms; Intel exited DRAM in 1985.
• ASML founded 1984 · achieved
  A Philips/ASMI joint venture.
• Fabless model 1984 · achieved
  Xilinx and Chips & Technologies; fabless firms grew on pure-play foundries.
• Anti-war movement 1982 · achieved
  Social movement opposed to a nation's status of armed conflict. 1982 – June 12 – The largest anti-war demonstration in history occurs against nuclear weapons in Central Park in New York City during a UN disarmament conference.
• Lam Research 1980 · achieved
  Plasma etch.
• Special economic zones (Shenzhen) 1980 · achieved
  Shenzhen SEZ, 1980.
• NATO Double-Track Decision 1979 · achieved
  Armament resolution by NATO. 1979 – December 12 – NATO makes its Double-Track Decision responding to the Soviet Union's increased deployment of RSD-10 Pioneer intermediate-range ballistic missiles and Tupolev Tu-22M bombers by deploying increased numbers of medium-r…
• Iranian theocracy (velayat-e faqih) 1979 · achieved
  The 1979 revolution set up clerical rule; universities were closed in the 1980–83 Cultural Revolution, followed by a sustained brain drain.
• Postmodernism 1979 · achieved
  Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition (1979): incredulity toward metanarratives; Derrida and Foucault.
• Identity politics 1977 · achieved
  The term was popularized by the Combahee River Collective statement (1977).
• Khmer Rouge "Year Zero" 1975 · achieved
  1975–79: cities emptied, schools, money and religion abolished; about 1.5–2 million deaths.
• Petro-funded Salafi madrasa spread 1975 · achieved
  Gulf oil revenue funded mosques and madrasas abroad from the 1970s.
• Defensive medicine and malpractice costs 1975 · achieved
  The mid-1970s malpractice crisis; unneeded tests ordered to avoid lawsuits.
• Administrative bloat (higher-ed and healthcare) 1975 · achieved
  Administrators outgrew faculty and clinicians from the 1970s on.
• "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (Nagel) 1974 · achieved
  Thomas Nagel argued that subjective experience has a character that no purely physical description captures.
• Certificate-of-need laws 1974 · achieved
  The 1974 federal planning act pushed states to require permission to build hospitals and buy scanners.
• Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 1972 · achieved
  Arms control treaty between the US and the USSR. 1972 – March 26 – The SALT I Agreement is ratified between the United States and the Soviet Union, leading to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
• Regulatory capture (theory) 1971 · achieved
  Stigler's theory of economic regulation, 1971.
• Professional lobbying industry 1971 · achieved
  US lobbying spend over $4B/yr.
• Gender studies 1970 · achieved
  Women's studies programs began in 1970 (San Diego State).
• NEPA environmental review burden 1970 · achieved
  NEPA, 1970; EIS reviews average 4+ years.
• Madman theory 1969 · achieved
  Feature of Richard Nixon's foreign policy.
• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 · achieved
  International treaty limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. 1968 – July – The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for signatures. This treaty is intended to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
• Intel founded 1968 · achieved
  Noyce and Moore.
• Nuclear power in Egypt 1967 · achieved
  Nuclear research sites and processing facilities of Egypt. 1967 – June 10 – Israel wins the Six-Day War, hindering the nuclear program in Egypt started by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
• Treaty of Tlatelolco 1967 · achieved
  Treaty to prohibit and prevent the testing, use, production, storage or acquisition of any nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean. 1967 - February 27 – The Treaty of Tlatelolco is signed in Mexico City, creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America.
• Outer Space Treaty 1967 · achieved
  Treaty that forms the basis of international space law. 1967 – January – The Outer Space Treaty prohibits nuclear tests in space.
• Applied Materials 1967 · achieved
  The largest deposition and etch toolmaker.
• Anti-intellectual "Four Olds" campaign 1966 · achieved
  Red Guard campaign from 1966 against old customs, culture, habits and ideas; universities shut until about 1970.
• Healthcare cost disease (Baumol) 1966 · achieved
  Baumol and Bowen: costs rise without productivity gains.
• Medical billing codes (CPT) and admin bloat 1966 · achieved
  CPT was first published in 1966; billing and administration now take roughly 15–30% of US health spending.
• Cultural Revolution 1966 · achieved
  1966–76: universities closed and scientists persecuted.
• Medicare and Medicaid 1965 · achieved
  US public health insurance.
• Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 1963 · achieved
  1963 limited test ban treaty. 1963 – August – The Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water opens for signatures. The treaty limited nuclear weapons tests to underground detonations.
• Tokyo Electron 1963 · achieved
  Coat/develop and etch tools.
• Paradigm shifts (Kuhn) 1962 · achieved
  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962): normal science, anomalies, revolutions.
• Antarctic Treaty System 1959 · achieved
  International treaties concerning Antarctica. 1959 – Nuclear tests in Antarctica are banned under the Antarctic Treaty.
• US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement 1958 · achieved
  Nuclear weapons security pact. 1958 – The United States and the United Kingdom sign the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement.
• Great Leap Forward 1958 · achieved
  Backyard furnaces and collectivization; about 30M famine deaths.
• DARPA 1958 · achieved
  Founded after Sputnik, 1958.
• Fairchild Semiconductor 1957 · achieved
  The traitorous eight; the root of Silicon Valley.
• Atoms for Peace 1953 · achieved
  Speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953. On December 8, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers the Atoms for Peace speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
• Publicly subsidized stadiums 1953 · achieved
  Milwaukee County Stadium, 1953, and the franchise-relocation leverage that followed.
• NSC-68 1950 · achieved
  Top secret policy paper. 1950 – April 7 – The National Security Council issues its classified NSC 68 policy paper advocating for the United States to expand its conventional and nuclear arms in response to the Cold War and the decline of former great powers such…
• Occupational licensing expansion 1950 · achieved
  US licensed workforce grew from ~5% (1950s) to ~25%.
• NSF and Vannevar Bush model 1950 · achieved
  "Science, the Endless Frontier" (1945) led to the NSF in 1950.
• United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy 1949 · achieved
  U.S. congressional committee (1946-77). 1949 – September through December – Debate occurs within the Truman administration over whether to authorize the development of a hydrogen bomb.
• World Health Organization 1948 · achieved
  Coordinated global health campaigns.
• National Health Service 1948 · achieved
  UK universal care.
• Apartheid economic controls 1948 · achieved
  Legal racial segregation that crippled human capital.
• Truman Doctrine 1947 · achieved
  United States Cold War policy to contain communism in Europe and elsewhere.
• GATT/WTO trade system 1947 · achieved
  GATT 1947; WTO 1995.
• Baruch Plan 1946 · achieved
  Proposed U.S. atomic energy plan following World War II by Bernard Baruch. 1946 – June – The Soviet Union rejects the Baruch Plan.
• United Nations Atomic Energy Commission 1946 · achieved
  Commission established to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy. 1946 – June – First meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, which was established by the first resolution of the U.N. General Assembly, is held.
• Potsdam Conference 1945 · achieved
  Meeting of the Allied heads of state near the end of World War II. 1945 – July 22 – Truman alludes to Stalin about having successfully detonated an atomic bomb at the Potsdam Conference.
• Operation Paperclip 1945 · achieved
  Secret program of the US to bring German scientists, including former Nazis, into the US to work for the US government. 1945 – May – The United States captures a number of important German rocket scientists, including Wernher von Braun, for work on American missile programs through Operation Paperclip.
• Knowledge problem (Hayek) 1945 · achieved
  "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (American Economic Review, 1945): prices carry dispersed knowledge.
• Game theory 1944 · achieved
  von Neumann and Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.
• Reichsforschungsrat 1942 · achieved
  Reich Research Council. 1942 – July – The Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) relinquishes control of the German nuclear energy project to the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council), essentially making it only a research project with objectiv…
• Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics ("Runaround") 1942 · achieved
  First stated in the short story "Runaround" (Astounding, March 1942): a robot may not harm a human, must obey orders, and must protect itself, in that order of priority.
• Lend-Lease 1940 · achieved
  United States foreign policy during World War II. In March, the US approves a Soviet request for over 0.3 tons of uranium compounds under the Lend-Lease program. General Leslie Groves hopes to hide the extent of the Manhattan Project, and reveal the location of Laboratory No. 2.
• Italian Racial Laws 1938 · achieved
  Italian Racial Law 1938. 1938 – Fermi is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his achievements, and flees from Fascist Italy to the United States due to the racial laws ratified under pressure from Nazi Germany.
• Critical theory (Frankfurt School) 1937 · achieved
  Horkheimer's 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory".
• Falsifiability (Popper) 1934 · achieved
  Logik der Forschung (1934): scientific theories must be falsifiable; The Open Society (1945).
• Securities and Exchange Commission 1934 · achieved
  Disclosure-based US securities regulation.
• Econometrics 1930 · achieved
  The Econometric Society was founded in 1930 (Frisch, Tinbergen).
• Smoot–Hawley tariff 1930 · achieved
  US tariff, 1930, which deepened the Depression.
• Bell Labs 1925 · achieved
  Birthplace of the transistor, information theory, and Unix.
• Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin 1924 · achieved
  Trade exhibition in Germany. 1924: the first radio receivers are exhibited at the Berlin Radio Show
• Washington Naval Conference 1921 · achieved
  Disarmament convention held by the United States from November 1921 to February 1922. 1921 – Washington Naval Conference – U.S. negotiating team aided by decryption of Japanese diplomatic telegrams
• Central planning (Soviet Gosplan) 1921 · achieved
  Gosplan, 1921; Five-Year Plans from 1928.
• Cargo cults 1919 · achieved
  Melanesian movements, e.g. the Vailala Madness (1919) and John Frum (1940s).
• Exclusionary zoning 1916 · achieved
  NYC zoning 1916; single-family zoning; housing scarcity.
• International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 1914 · achieved
  1974 international treaty for maritime safety. 1913: The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was convened and produced a treaty requiring shipboard radio stations to be staffed 24 hours a day.
• Protestant work ethic (Weber's thesis) 1905 · achieved
  Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). This is a contested thesis, not settled history.
• Slot machine 1895 · achieved
  Liberty Bell slot machine, ~1895.
• Antitrust law 1890 · achieved
  Sherman Act, 1890.
• Eugenics movement 1883 · achieved
  Galton coined the term in 1883. It led to coercive sterilization laws (Indiana, 1907) and, at its extreme, Nazi racial policy; similar ideas recur across cultures.
• Social insurance (Bismarck) 1883 · achieved
  German sickness insurance, 1883.
• Nihilism 1882 · achieved
  Nietzsche diagnosed the "death of God" (The Gay Science, 1882) and the threat of nihilism.
• Industrial research lab 1876 · achieved
  Edison's Menlo Park, 1876; Bell Labs 1925.
• Metre Convention 1875 · achieved
  1875 international treaty. Metre Convention was extended to include the electrical units.
• Red Cross and Geneva Convention 1864 · achieved
  Neutral battlefield medicine.
• Property registration (Torrens title) 1858 · achieved
  Torrens title registration, South Australia, 1858.
• Hell money 1850~ · achieved
  Form of joss paper printed to resemble bank notes. Hell money: Hell money is a form of joss paper printed to resemble fake legal tender bank notes.
• Taiping Rebellion 1850 · achieved
  Hong Xiuquan's millenarian movement, 1850–1864; an estimated 20–30 million deaths.
• Imperial ideologies (civilizing mission) 1850~ · achieved
  Manifest Destiny (1845), the "white man's burden" (1899) and mission civilisatrice justified expansion.
• Marxism (as philosophy) 1848 · achieved
  The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867): historical materialism and class struggle.
• Corn Laws (protectionism) 1815 · achieved
  British grain tariffs, 1815–1846.
• Luddite machine-breaking 1811 · achieved
  1811–1816 textile machine destruction.
• Research university (Humboldt) 1810 · achieved
  University of Berlin, 1810.
• Abolition of slavery and the slave trade 1807 · achieved
  Britain's Slave Trade Act of 1807 and Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, enforced by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron.
• Napoleonic Code 1804 · achieved
  French Civil Code, 1804.
• Legion of Honour 1802 · achieved
  Highest French order of merit. Mahmoud Hessabi was awarded the title of Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government.
• Income tax 1799 · achieved
  Britain's war income tax, 1799.
• Nationalism 1789 · achieved
  The French Revolution's nation in arms (levée en masse, 1793); Herder and Fichte gave it cultural form.
• Utilitarianism 1789 · achieved
  Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789); Mill's Utilitarianism (1861).
• Abolitionism (moral movement) 1787 · achieved
  The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1787); Quaker petitions; Equiano's Narrative (1789).
• Constitutional republic 1787 · achieved
  US Constitution, 1787.
• Kantian ethics and critique 1781 · achieved
  Critique of Pure Reason (1781); Groundwork (1785): the categorical imperative and human dignity.
• Adam Smith's moral philosophy 1759 · achieved
  The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) grounded ethics in sympathy; it came before The Wealth of Nations (1776).
• Separation of powers (Montesquieu) 1748 · achieved
  Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws (1748), applied in the US Constitution (1787).
• Wahhabism 1744 · achieved
  The 1744 pact between Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud.
• Inductive reasoning 1739 · achieved
  Method of reasoning in which a body of observations is synthesized to hypothesize a general principle. David Hume described induction, the logical method of learning generalities from examples.
• Utility 1738 · achieved
  Concept in economics & game theory: a relative measure of happiness or satisfaction. Daniel Bernoulli introduces the concept of " utility ", a generalization of probability, the basis of economics and decision theory, and the mathematical foundation for the way AI represents the "goals" of intelligent agents.
• Annuity 1724 · achieved
  Series of payments made at equal intervals. 1724 – Abraham de Moivre studies mortality statistics and the foundation of the theory of annuities in Annuities upon Lives,
• Natural rights (life, liberty, property) 1689 · achieved
  Locke's Two Treatises (1689); later the US Declaration (1776) and the French Declaration (1789).
• Religious toleration 1689 · achieved
  Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration and England's Toleration Act (1689); earlier Edict of Nantes (1598).
• The Enlightenment 1687 · achieved
  From Newton's Principia (1687) and Locke through Voltaire, Hume, Diderot's Encyclopédie (1751) and Kant (1784).
• Alphabet of human thought 1679 · achieved
  Hypothetical language created by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz developed a universal calculus of reasoning ( alphabet of human thought ) by which arguments could be decided mechanically.
• Scientific journals and peer review 1665 · achieved
  Philosophical Transactions, 1665.
• Qing literary inquisition 1661 · achieved
  Peaking under Qianlong (1772–93); books were destroyed during compilation of the Siku Quanshu.
• Scientific Revolution ethos (Royal Society) 1660 · achieved
  Royal Society motto Nullius in verba (1660): authority yields to experiment.
• Scientific societies (Royal Society) 1660 · achieved
  Royal Society, 1660.
• Social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke) 1651 · achieved
  Hobbes's Leviathan (1651); Locke's Two Treatises (1689) made consent and rights the basis of government.
• Tibetan monastic theocracy 1642 · achieved
  The Ganden Phodrang under the 5th Dalai Lama (1642–1959); monastic estates relied on bonded peasant labor.
• Cartesian method and rationalism 1637 · achieved
  Descartes's Discourse on the Method (1637), with the Géométrie appendix founding analytic geometry.
• Dogmatic suppression of inquiry (Galileo affair) 1633 · achieved
  The Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo in 1633 and kept him under house arrest; the Index banned Copernican books until 1835 (formally).
• Patent system 1624 · achieved
  English Statute of Monopolies, 1624.
• Puritan thrift and calling 1620 · achieved
  English and New England Puritans (c. 1560–1700) stressed literacy, frugal saving and diligent work in a "calling."
• Baconian empiricism 1620 · achieved
  Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620): induction from systematic observation and experiment.
• Thirty Years' War 1618 · achieved
  1618–1648; German lands lost an estimated 20–40% of their population.
• Mercantilism 1600 · achieved
  Zero-sum trade doctrine, 16th–18th century.
• Destruction of the Istanbul observatory 1580 · achieved
  Taqi al-Din's observatory was demolished in 1580 after clerical pressure linked it to misfortune.
• Catholic probabilism 1577 · achieved
  Christian theological doctrine that one can follow an authoritative opinion regarding the morality of an act, even if other opinions are more probable. 1577 – Bartolomé de Medina defends probabilism, the view that in ethics one may follow a probable opinion even if the opposite is more probable
• European witch trials 1560 · achieved
  Peak c. 1560–1660; an estimated 40,000–60,000 executions, plus Salem in 1692.
• Index of Forbidden Books 1559 · achieved
  The Church's immune response to printing.
• Jesuit science and missions 1540 · achieved
  Society of Jesus (1540): Clavius on the calendar, Ricci in Beijing (1601), and a network of colleges.
• Political realism (Machiavelli's The Prince) 1532 · achieved
  Written 1513, published 1532: power analysed as it is exercised, not as it ought to be.
• Protestant scripture literacy 1530 · achieved
  Vernacular Bibles and the reading mandate; Swedish church literacy campaigns (1686).
• European Wars of Religion 1524 · achieved
  Peasants' War (1524) through the French Wars of Religion (1562–98).
• Protestant Reformation 1517 · achieved
  Luther's 95 Theses (31 Oct 1517), spread by print.
• Bonfire of the Vanities (Savonarola) 1497 · achieved
  Florence, 1497: books, art and instruments were burned under the friar Savonarola.
• Expulsion of Jews from Spain (Alhambra Decree) 1492 · achieved
  The 1492 decree expelled Spain's Jews, and the Moriscos followed in 1609–14.
• Eight-legged essay examinations 1487 · achieved
  Ming–Qing exams (formalized c. 1487, abolished 1905) required a rigid essay format on the Neo-Confucian canon.
• Ottoman restriction on Arabic-script printing 1485 · achieved
  Reported decrees of Bayezid II (1485) and Selim I (1515) blocked Muslim printing in Arabic script until Ibrahim Müteferrika's press (1727).
• Spanish Inquisition 1478 · achieved
  Founded in 1478 under Ferdinand and Isabella; heresy trials, expulsion pressure on Jews and Moriscos, and book censorship until 1834.
• Ottoman ghaza expansion 1453 · achieved
  Ottoman campaigns framed as holy war, from the 1453 conquest of Constantinople to the 1683 siege of Vienna.
• Inca capacocha child sacrifice 1450 · achieved
  Imperial Inca rite (c. 1450–1532) in which children were sent from across the empire and sacrificed on Andean peaks, e.g. the Llullaillaco mummies.
• Flower wars (xochiyaoyotl) 1450 · achieved
  Ritualized wars among the Triple Alliance and Tlaxcala, Huexotzinco and Cholula from c. 1450, fought partly to take sacrificial captives.
• Mit'a labor system 1450 · achieved
  Inca rotational corvée labor; later exploited at Potosí.
• Scrapping of the Ming treasure fleets 1433 · achieved
  Zheng He's voyages ended in 1433; Confucian officials opposed them and the records were reportedly destroyed.
• Aztec mass human sacrifice 1428 · achieved
  Triple Alliance temple cult (c. 1428–1521) killed captives on a large scale, notably at the 1487 Templo Mayor rededication; counts are disputed.
• Aztec tribute system 1428 · achieved
  Triple Alliance tribute rolls (Codex Mendoza).
• Tlatelolco market 1400 · achieved
  Huge regulated Aztec market with judges and cacao money.
• Haijin sea ban 1371 · achieved
  Ming bans on private maritime trade.
• Renaissance humanism 1350~ · achieved
  Petrarch (1304–74) revived classical texts and the study of the human; spread by Erasmus.
• Ockham's razor (nominalism) 1323~ · achieved
  William of Ockham's Summa Logicae (c. 1323): do not multiply entities beyond necessity.
• Natural law (Aquinas) 1265 · achieved
  Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae (1265–74) held that moral law is knowable by reason.
• Rule of law 1215 · achieved
  Magna Carta (1215) bound the king to law; later Coke, Dicey (1885) named the principle.
• Magna Carta 1215 · achieved
  Limits on royal power, 1215.
• Common law 1189 · achieved
  English common law, from Henry II.
• Scholastic disputation method 1120~ · achieved
  Abelard's Sic et Non (c. 1120) set opposing authorities side by side; the quaestio–disputatio became university method.
• Venetian Arsenal 1104 · achieved
  State shipyard with assembly-line production of galleys.
• Madrasa curriculum narrowing 1100 · achieved
  Nizamiyya madrasas (from 1067) centered law and theology; rational sciences were increasingly taught outside them.
• Guild monopolies 1100 · achieved
  Craft guilds restricted entry and innovation.
• The Crusades 1096 · achieved
  Papal-called wars for the Levant and beyond, 1096–1291.
• Al-Ghazali's Incoherence of the Philosophers 1095 · achieved
  Tahafut al-Falasifa (c. 1095) condemned Avicennan philosophical theses as unbelief; Averroes replied c. 1180.
• University 1088 · achieved
  Bologna 1088, Paris, Oxford.
• Rationalist (Mu'tazila) theology sidelined 848 · achieved
  After the mihna ended under al-Mutawakkil (c. 848), traditionalist theology prevailed over Mu'tazilite rationalism.
• Hermetica 750 · achieved
  Egyptian-Greek wisdom texts from the 2nd century AD. Sulfur-mercury theory of metals: First attested in pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's Sirr al-khalīqa ("The Secret of Creation", c. 750–850) and in the works attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan (written c.
• Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) 750 · achieved
  Classical legal schools, 8th–9th century.
• Byzantine Iconoclasm 726 · achieved
  Imperial bans on religious images (726–787 and 814–842).
• Fatwa 700 · achieved
  Term for the legal opinion or learned interpretation that a qualified jurist or mufti can give on issues pertaining to the Islamic law. 2005 – August – In Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.
• Waqf endowments 700 · achieved
  Islamic charitable trust endowments funding schools and hospitals.
• Early Muslim conquests 632 · achieved
  Rashidun and Umayyad campaigns (632–750) took the Levant, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Iberia.
• Imperial examination 605 · achieved
  Merit-based civil service exams from the Sui dynasty.
• Monastic text preservation 529 · achieved
  Benedict's Rule (c. 529) and scriptoria copied classical and patristic texts.
• Roman law (Corpus Juris Civilis) 529 · achieved
  Justinian's codification, 529–534.
• Nalanda university 427 · achieved
  Buddhist monastic university, 5th–12th century.
• State religion as cohesion (Constantine to caliphate) 380 · achieved
  Edict of Thessalonica (380) made Nicene Christianity Rome's state religion; caliphates fused religious and political authority.
• Moche warrior sacrifice 300 · achieved
  Huaca de la Luna burials (c. 100–800, Peru) document ritual combat and the sacrifice of captives.
• Maya ritual sacrifice and bloodletting 250 · achieved
  Classic Maya rulers (c. 250–900) staged captive sacrifice and royal bloodletting to legitimize dynasties.
• Bread and circuses 100 · achieved
  Late-Roman state spectacle and grain doles to placate the populace.
• Teotihuacan 100 BCE · achieved
  Planned grid city of perhaps 100,000 people.
• Stoic ethics 300 BCE~ · achieved
  Zeno of Citium founded the school in Athens c. 300 BC; later Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.
• Axiomatic-deductive method (Euclid's Elements) 300 BCE~ · achieved
  Euclid's Elements (c. 300 BC) derived geometry from five postulates and common notions.
• Formal system 350 BCE~ · achieved
  Any well-defined system of abstract thought based on the model of mathematics. Late 4th century BC: Formal systems by Pāṇini in India, possibly during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya.
• Formal logic (Aristotle's syllogistic) 350 BCE~ · achieved
  Aristotle's Organon (Prior Analytics) set out the first formal system of deductive inference.
• Political science (Aristotle's Politics) 350 BCE · achieved
  A comparative study of 158 constitutions.
• Historiography (Herodotus, Thucydides) 430 BCE · achieved
  Inquiry-based history, starting with Herodotus's Histories.
• Buddhist ethics 450 BCE~ · achieved
  Siddhartha Gautama (c. 5th century BC) taught the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path; Ashoka spread it from c. 260 BC.
• Deed 500 BCE · achieved
  Type of legal instrument in common law. Before 5th century BC: Loan deeds in Upanishadic India.
• Hereditary caste (jati) rigidity 500 BCE~ · achieved
  Dharmashastra codes (e.g. Manusmriti, c. 200 BC–200 AD) fixed occupation and marriage by birth.
• Confucian ethics and meritocratic ideal 500 BCE · achieved
  Confucius (551–479 BC) taught virtue, ritual and rule by the cultivated; the Analects compiled after his death.
• Athenian democracy 508 BCE~ · achieved
  Cleisthenes' reforms, 508 BC.
• Ethical monotheism 600 BCE~ · achieved
  Hebrew prophetic monotheism consolidated in the exilic period (6th century BC); Christianity and Islam inherited it.
• Axial Age ethical philosophies 600 BCE~ · achieved
  Jaspers's term for roughly 800–200 BC, when Confucius, the Buddha, the Hebrew prophets, Zoroastrian reform and the Greek philosophers arose independently.
• Yajurveda 750 BCE~ · achieved
  The Veda primarily of prose mantras for worship rituals. c. 8th century BC – the Yajurveda, one of the four Hindu Vedas, contains the earliest concept of infinity and states, "If you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity."
• Carthaginian tophet child sacrifice (claimed) 750 BCE~ · achieved
  Punic tophet burials of infant remains (c. 8th–2nd century BC, Carthage); whether they were sacrifices or cemeteries is contested.
• Temple-estate priestly power (Amun of Thebes) 1,450 BCE~ · achieved
  By the New Kingdom, the Amun priesthood at Karnak controlled vast land and labor; the Theban high priests ruled Upper Egypt c. 1080 BC.
• Olmecs 1,500 BCE~ · achieved
  Mesoamerican civilization. c. 250 BC – late Olmecs had already begun to use a true zero (a shell glyph) several centuries before Ptolemy in the New World. See 0 (number).
• Sick leave 1,500 BCE~ · achieved
  Policy allowing paid time off from work for health needs. Sick leave — Already in 1500 BCE, at least some of the workers who built the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs received paid sick leave as well as state-supported health care.
• Mesoamerican ballgame 1,650 BCE~ · achieved
  Ritual rubber-ball sport played from c. 1650 BC.
• Written law (Code of Hammurabi) 1,754 BCE~ · achieved
  Earlier codes exist (Ur-Nammu ~2100 BC). Hammurabi is the best known.
• Slavery 2,100 BCE~ · achieved
  Attested in the earliest written law codes of Sumer and Mesopotamia (Ur-Nammu c. 2100 BC, Hammurabi c. 1754 BC). It is almost certainly older, and its exact origin is unknown. It existed on every inhabited continent; the Atlantic trade (c. 1526–1867) was one late, large instance.
• Egyptian funerary and mortuary-cult economy 2,600 BCE~ · achieved
  Old Kingdom royal tombs and endowed mortuary cults (c. 2600 BC onward) tied up labor, land and temple estates in serving dead kings.
• Standardized weights (Indus) 2,600 BCE~ · achieved
  Uniform cubic chert weights.
• Caral / Norte Chico civilization 3,000 BCE~ · achieved
  The Americas' oldest known cities, on the Peruvian coast.
• City-states and bureaucracy 3,100 BCE~ · achieved
  Sumerian city-states and Egyptian unification.
• Permanent settlements 9,000 BCE~ · achieved
  Jericho and Çatalhöyük among the first towns.
• Burial 98,000 BCE~ · achieved
  Ritual act of placing a dead person into the ground. 100 kya: Funerals (in the form of burial ) in Skhul Cave, Israel