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author: niplav, created: 2023-01-20, modified: 2024-05-04, language: english, status: in progress, importance: 5, confidence: remote

Peter Thiel likes to distinguish between Progress in Bits (new algorithms, network protocols, user interfaces, social media sites…) and Progress in Atoms (transportation speed, energy usage, material abundance…). I propose a third category: Progress in Qualia; and outline factors influencing it.

Progress in Qualia

It is not clear how one might want to measure Progress in Qualia: the necessary instruments are not quite there yet. Therefore I'm mostly reduced to speculation, but speculation also has it's place.

I will be trying to find examples of broad developments that impact many people a little (an aggregative "normally distributed" view), and qualia in the logarithmic tail that might out outweigh other types of qualia in importance (an outlier-focused "log-normally distributed" view).