These are some high-signal sources for shaping a progress-focused mind.
🧪 Academic Preprint Servers
- arXiv
Early access to thousands of scientific papers weekly across physics, AI, math, and more. - SSRN (Social Science Research Network)
Preprints in economics, law, and policy that often foreshadow institutional or policy shifts. - bioRxiv & medRxiv
Biomedical and health science breakthroughs before peer-reviewed publication. - NBER Working Papers
Influential early-stage research on productivity, innovation, and economic growth.
📰 Specialized Newsletters
- Vox Future Perfect
Covers altruism-inspired stories on global health, development, and policy innovation. - Future Crunch
“Intelligent optimism” newsletter highlighting technological and human progress. - Exponential View – Azeem Azhar
Weekly insights on AI, biotech, climate tech, and their economic and societal impacts. - Noahpinion – Noah Smith
Sharp takes on economics, industrial policy, and growth-oriented tech narratives. - New Things Under the Sun – Matt Clancy
Literature reviews of what academia knows about how innovation works and scales.
🏛️ Government & Institutional Reports
- OECD Reports & Data
Policy reports on productivity, innovation, and education across developed nations. - World Bank & IMF
Empirical insights into development progress and governance in emerging economies. - Our World in Data (OWID)
Data-rich visualizations of long-term trends in health, tech adoption, and living standards. - Institute for Progress (IFP)
A think tank translating Progress Studies into policy ideas on science, immigration, and more. - NSF / NIH / DARPA / ARPA-E / NASA
Press releases and reports often flagging major scientific, engineering, or space advances.
✍️ High-Quality Blogs
- Gwern.net
- Longform essays and experiments on technology, psychology, statistics, and foresight—dense, rigorous, and often ahead of its time.
- Neel Nanda
- Neel Nanda’s blog explores personal insights, practical advice, and research reflections on AI, rationality, and self-improvement.
- Nintil
- Nintil is a blog by Jose Luis Ricon focused on economics, philosophy, technology, innovation, and progress studies, featuring in-depth essays, curated links, and personal reflections.
- Alexey Guzey
- Personal website of Alexey Guzey, featuring essays on productivity, science, AI, philosophy, and advice, plus links to his favorite writings and recent posts.
- Marginal Revolution
- Daily curated economics and tech links from Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok.
- LessWrong
- Forum for applied rationality, AI risk, cognitive science, and forecasting, featuring high-quality, collaborative thinking on long-term progress.
- The Roots of Progress
- Deep essays on the history of innovation and how to accelerate it today.
- Astral Codex Ten – Scott Alexander
- Rationalist deep dives on medicine, policy, and science with contrarian clarity.
- Construction Physics – Brian Potter
- Engineering-centric posts exploring why infrastructure evolves slowly—and how to fix it.
- Eli Dourado’s Tech Policy Writings
- Policy-focused blog on aviation, energy, biotech, and removing barriers to progress.
🗞️ Niche Media Outlets & Journals
- Asterisk Magazine
Smart, weird, and undercovered science/policy writing from a progress lens. - Quanta Magazine
Exceptional science journalism on math, physics, biology, and breakthroughs. - MIT Technology Review
Covers real-world commercialization of breakthrough technologies. - Rest of World
Reports on how tech transforms lives in emerging markets, far from Silicon Valley. - Palladium Magazine
Governance futurism meets institutional analysis in thoughtful long-form stories.
📡 Curated Aggregators
- 1440 Daily Digest
Fact-based daily digest highlighting only the most essential global news stories. - Morning Brew
Business, tech, and innovation updates in a witty, digestible format. - Hacker News
Tech community–driven front page for trending research, startups, and breakthroughs. - Slashdot
Geek-focused headlines covering science, open source, and regulatory changes. - Futurity
Curated research news from top universities, rewritten for clarity and relevance.
🧪 Fun & random
ctrlcreep.net
- ctrlcreep.net is a personal, experimental website described as “a gloam cave for autochthonous nudibranchs,” featuring links to creative projects, writing, and social profiles.
FutureHouse
- Non-profit building AI agents to automate research in biology and other complex sciences.
Art Chaidarun
- A personal blog by Art Chaidarun featuring tech and music how-to guides, project highlights, and life reflections.
Matthew Ball
- Matthew Ball’s blog features in-depth essays on the business, technology, and cultural impact of gaming, streaming, and the metaverse, with a focus on industry trends, major companies, and the future of digital media.
Wes Vance
- Wes Vance is a coder, founder, and digital nomad who designs and codes web and mobile travel apps while traveling the world in his van and educating people about National Parks.
Josh Kaufman
- Josh Kaufman’s website offers research and resources on business, rapid skill acquisition, decision-making, personal science, and practical wisdom to help you improve your work and life.
thepolymathproject.com
- keeping this one for the nostalgia. sad to see this guy quit. I think I was reading this blog in something like 2016-2017.
xkcd.com
- The xkcd comic “Grounded” humorously depicts a grounded airplane as if it were a misbehaving child, blending aviation and parental language for comedic effect.
dariusforoux.com
- productivity. self improvement. habits. wealth building Relevant articles: not sure. I do remember that I was reading this website somewhere back in 2016 or 2017.
OkDork.com by Noah Kagan
- Stories on marketing, starting a business, personal improvement and productivity tips.
tim.blog
- American entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster. He powered my online career.
jamesclear.com by James Clear
- blogger. writer. self-improvement guru. wrote something called Atomic Habits. Relevant articles: Zanshin: Learning the Art of Attention and Focus From a Legendary Samurai Archer Continuous Improvement: How It Works and How to Master It note: might come back to this later.
thoughtco.com
- Inspiration at some point. maybe something 2016. keeping it for the nostalgia.
farnamstreetblog.com
- Farnam Street (fs.blog) is a platform by Shane Parrish offering timeless insights and practical wisdom on decision making, clear thinking, and continuous improvement through articles, podcasts, books, and newsletters.
pjrvs.com
- writer. blogger. coder. Paul Jarvis’s blog shares insights on business, design, and independent entrepreneurship from his experience in tech.
tynan.com
- digital nomad. ex-Pick Up Artist. Found out about him reading the book The Game by Neil Strauss. loves tea and writes about it.
sivers.org
- musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher. Monomaniac, introvert, slow thinker, and love finding a different point of view. California native, I now live in New Zealand.
brandur.org
- an occasional writer, and engineer at Stripe and previously Heroku. keeping it for later.
patrickcollison.com
- Co-founder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. Found him through Gwern.net
ralphammer.com
- A visually engaging blog by Ralph Ammer exploring philosophy, creativity, design, and drawing through concise, illustrated essays and thought-provoking questions.
theoutline.com
- The Outline is an online magazine featuring thought-provoking articles on culture, power, and the future, presented with bold visuals and unconventional perspectives. I liked the aesthetics of it. Part of nostalgia as well.
christine.website
- A personal tech blog by Xe Iaso featuring articles on programming, DevOps, open source, and digital culture, with frequent updates and a wide range of technical topics.
Alex Becker
- Discovered him around 2019. He made an impression on me when he coded a game in 30 days with not coding experience and no LLM.
Black Swan Farming
- Black Swan Farming is a site focused on product development strategies that emphasize rare, high-impact breakthroughs and avoiding common pitfalls to build products and teams people love.
Hardip Patel
- This is Hardip Patel’s personal portfolio site, showcasing his health stats, software projects, work history, moods, and blog posts in a data-driven, visually organized format.
This is important
- A personal blog by Sarah Moir, a San Francisco-based tech writer, featuring curiosity-driven research and essays on music metadata, technical writing, SaaS documentation, and data analysis practices.
kipp.ply
- A personal blog featuring in-depth articles on programming, technology, and personal reflections, organized by favorites and chronology.
roon’s blog
- Roon’s blog is a Substack publication offering “gonzo journalism in the age of AGI,” featuring essays and commentary on technology, artificial intelligence, internet culture, and philosophical topics, written by information ecologist and technological optimist roon, with thousands of subscribers.
hurly.com
- nice design, productivity advice & content creation/curation
meaningness.com
- Meaningness is an evolving guide to understanding and navigating meaning, meaninglessness, ethics, and purpose in life.
Indie Hackers
- Indie Hackers is an online community where entrepreneurs and developers share strategies, revenue numbers, and stories about building profitable online businesses.