We are adherents to what Thomas Sowell calls the Constrained Vision.
We believe the Constrained Vision – contra the Unconstrained Vision of Utopia, Communism, and Expertise – means taking people as they are, testing ideas empirically, and …Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like “existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social …Milton Friedman
Neven Sesardic
Nick Land
Paul Collier
Paul Johnson
Paul Romer
Ray Kurzweil
Richard Feynman
Rose Wilder Lane
Stephen Wolfram
Stewart Brand
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Thomas Sowell
Vilfredo Pareto
Virginia Postrel
Willia…
Thomas Sowell
economist · 3 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Thomas Sowell is an economist and social theorist best known for articulating the distinction between the "Constrained Vision" (which assumes human nature is fixed and progress comes through incremental, empirically-tested reforms) and the "Unconstrained Vision" (which assumes human perfectibility through expert design and social engineering). In this course, Sowell's framework appears to anchor a critique of techno-pessimism and what the readings characterize as decades of "demoralization" campaigns against technological progress, positioning constrained-vision thinking as a counterweight to utopian AI safety discourse and centralized technological governance. His work is cited alongside other market-oriented and techno-optimist thinkers (Friedman, Kurzweil, Brand, Wolfram) to establish an intellectual genealogy skeptical of expert-driven constraints on innovation and individual choice.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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Alexandre Kojève 1George Orwell 1Thomas More 1Adam Neumann 1David Ulevitch 1Marc Andreessen 1Martin Casado 1Milton Friedman 1Neven Sesardic 1Nick Land 1Paul Collier 1Paul Johnson 1Paul Romer 1Ray Kurzweil 1Richard Feynman 1Rose Wilder Lane 1Stephen Wolfram 1Stewart Brand 1Vijay Pande 1Vilfredo Pareto 1Virginia Postrel 1William Lewis 1William Nordhaus 1J. Bradford DeLong 1