During the second week of Edge Esmeralda, I spent a couple hours each morning at the Roots of Progress sessions--discussions led by Jason Crawford. Each day had a different topical focus (AI, biology, energy, nanotech & aerospace, and wrap up respectively) and the goal of identifying “What we want to see.” We began each session by sourcing sub-topic ideas from the room (e.g. for Bio: longevity, fertility, genetic engineering, de-extinction, etc.) then progressing through those to generate more specific ideas or discuss particularly promising developments. We almost always had more topics and ideas than the time allowed for.

Importantly, the goal was not prediction (what do we expect to go poorly or go well) - nor was it long term speculation. The question was more imminent goal setting, i.e. “what do we want to build [in the next couple decades].” Note that, this distinction was not drawn as clearly in the first session (on AI) - and is difficult to draw when everyone is constantly debating timelines and likely outcomes, so we did spend some time e.g. pondering: will people date AIs?

What follows are the Claude extractions from my very messy notes over the course of the week (without any attribution of who was there and said what i.e. under Chatham House Rule). These are organized as: "readings to do" | "startups to check out" | "technical(ish) questions to check" | "Historical questions to investigate" | "Creative briefs" | and "Process Reflections"

In a few places, I've added items that were not discussed, but, upon re-reading my notes, I wish were. These are // commented out like so.
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Readings to Do

Books & Essays:

• "Where's My Flying Car"
• Paul Romer: "The deep structure of economic growth"
• J Stor Hall's story of nanotechnology funding politics
• Darkolm / Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi
• "Player of Games" (fiction)
• Drexler original nanotechnology work + Feynman "Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
• Brian Potter analysis on Solar & Grid
• Jason Crawford post on Solar & Grid
• Casey Handmer posts on Colorado River system and direct air capture
• Casey Handmer Post - no known commodity resources in space
• Casey Handmer on desalination, on solar
• "Prediction Machines" (book on logistics/supply chain)
• "Clinical Trial Abundance" essay series (co-authored by RoP fellow)
• Jason Crawford manifesto on solar radiation management
• Andy Matuschak on "The Primer"
• BusinessAI.substack.com (AI in teaching)
• Winston Churchill's 50-year prediction (lab grown meat)
• Eliezer Yudkowsky short story (city where you could rearrange all the housing)
• Buckminster Fuller intro - "bare maximum" (minimum amount needed to achieve full potential)
• Kate Hall writeup on testosterone replacement therapy and agency
• NYTimes article "Madam Tetrachromat Searching"
• Ross Douthat NYT interview on population collapse - Alice Evans
• Lindo B Johnson - TX hill country, Karo/Caro chapters (4-5), "Sad Irons part" (electricity coming to countryside)

Research Projects:

• NYU Transit Costs Project
• Black Spatula Project (reproducibility in science)

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Startups to Check Out

Transportation & Aerospace:

• Boom (supersonic, making their own engines)
• Varda (space-based manufacturing)
• Zipline (drone delivery)
• Swyft Cities (gondola systems)
• Zoox (custom autonomous vehicles)
• Boring Company

Energy:

• Helion and Commonwealth (fusion, claiming 5-year timeline)
• All the nuclear ones (SMR companies)
• Valar Atomics (jet fuel synthesis)
• "Sonos for home batteries" (startup concept)
• Solar space companies

Biotech & Health:

• Trilo-bio
• Future House (AI agents for scientific research)
• MindJoy (S. Africa education app, Gabby Immelman)

Education:

• Austin Alpha School & Matt Bateman
• U-fondo

Construction & Living:

• Factory OS (building stuff in SF area)
• Someone building Lego-style modular housing for rapid experimentation
• Cooking robot company (needs identification)

Industrial:

• Simpson Strong Tie (value engineered sheet metal reference)
• Central Valley Lumber

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Technical Questions to Check

Nanotechnology:

• How close are computer chips to atomic precision manufacturing?
• What are the fundamental constraints of biological vs. artificial nanomachines?
• Xenobots research (programmable organisms from frog cells, Michael Levine)
• Nanotechnology: viability, timeline, uses

Energy Systems:

• Transformer manufacturing bottlenecks (grain-aligned steel, 5-year queues)
• HVDC transmission line efficiency (Chinese systems, <5% loss)
• Desalination energy costs vs. residential water pricing
• West Texas natural gas price differentials and transport constraints
• Geothermal: fundamental viability and scaling questions
• Fusion: Is the 5-year timeline realistic? (skeptical double-check)
• SMR scaling arguments (efficiency losses when scaling down fission reactors)
• Nuclear vs Solar debate dynamics and grid structure implications

Biotechnology:

• Sequencing sperm cells without destroying them (may be impossible?)
• IVG (in vitro gametogenesis) current state
• Latest developments in IVF technology
• UVC light wavelengths for virus killing in buildings
• Enzyme pathway switching (turning on fetal pathways in adults)
• Existing reliance on genetic engineering (current state mapping)
• De-extinction/domestication economic viability analysis

Human Enhancement:

• Tetrachromacy gene therapy feasibility (CRISPR-based delivery to eyes)
• Brain adaptivity requirements for experiencing enhanced color vision
• GLP1 antagonists for willpower enhancement
• Artificial gonad systems for hormone regulation
• Alternative insulin delivery systems
• Continuous biological monitoring (beyond glucose)
• Enhanced immune system modifications
• Yamanaka factors applications

Air Quality & Sanitation:

• What kind of air exchange rate equals being outdoors?
• Air filtration technical requirements for indoor air quality
• UVC light downsides and current commercial availability
• Technical opportunities/challenges around air sanitization

Space & Manufacturing:

• Casey Handmer's analysis of space-based commodity resources
• Pebbles and missile defense systems ("golden dome" concept)
• What is the best economic case for space (tourism + research + military sufficient?)
• What hypotheses need inexpensive testing to validate space economic benefits?

Education & Games:

• Technical opportunities for combining pedagogy with gaming
• Learning mechanisms in games vs. traditional education

Robotics & Automation:

• Humanoid vs. specialist robot trade-offs & context suitability
• "Markovian state dynamics" in robotics
• Exoskeleton integration possibilities
• Roomba limitations and next-generation cleaning robots (stairs)

Construction & Materials:

• 3D concrete printing limitations and material science challenges
• Tilt-up construction scalability
• "5 over 1" construction method constraints
• Living building/bioreactor integration feasibility
• Flatbed shipping costs impact on prefab viability

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Historical Questions / Context to Investigate

Technology Development:

• What killed real nanotechnology research? (funding politics story)
• Reagan-era Star Wars program details
• Winston Churchill's 50-year prediction about lab-grown meat
• Green Revolution history and contemporary variations
• How deregulation of gas transmission led to pipeline development
• What is going on with the grain-aligned steel shortage? With the transformer shortage?
• Loss of "focused ion beams" knowledge and Bell Labs expertise
• The Velvet Underground influence (only a few albums, everyone who bought one started a band)

Comparative Analysis:

• China vs. US nuclear development capabilities and cultural differences
• Why US high-speed rail projects fail (permitting, contracting, environmental review)
• Tokyo train systems vs. flying cars vs. Boring Company approaches
• African solar panel imports from China trends

Scientific History:

• Water sanitation's impact on disease elimination
• GMO yeast success stories in wine industry
• Did people maintain distant close relationships using letters? (historical communication patterns)

Urban Development:

• History of city transport evolution (horses → carriages → horse buses → electric trolleys)
• 1930s Soviet metro stations as examples of beautiful underground spaces

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Creative Briefs to Visualize

Urban Planning Scenarios:

• SF Bay Area with 50% personal flying vehicles (density analysis, traffic patterns)
• Dynamic sky space pricing visualization
• Above/below ground infrastructure integration (beautiful tunnel designs)
• Micro-grid neighborhood layouts
• Multi-modal transportation systems combining gondolas, flying cars, trains
• Through-line expensive parking economic models
• Skyscrapers or cities that can be spun up/down in a week

Transportation Integration:

• Beautiful tunnels (LEDs instead of reflective tiles)
• Flying cars: intermediary uses first, traffic dynamics modeling
• Supersonic travel economic activity scenarios (5k trips, no jet lag, Edge City implications)
• Congestion pricing applications
• Intermodal transport apartments (train, boat, airship)

Modular Living & Infrastructure:

• Lego-style building blocks for housing
• Skeleton skyscrapers you can slot units into
• Vanlife scaling
• Hong Kong shipping container living, but integrated nicely
• High-end glamping huts for digital nomads
• Pop-up cities for a month or quarter

Living Architecture:

• Buildings as bioreactors
• Living buildings you can plant (architecture elements as bioreactors)
• Chemical plants conformed into livable buildings
• Multi-story brewery-style living/working buildings
• Agile biofoundry concepts
• Flow bioreactors integrated into building floors

Abundance Scenarios:

• Water everywhere
• Direct air capture industrial landscapes
• ‘Transparent aluminum’ ceramic - uses of high heat/pressure production materials
• Fusion + desalination combined use cases
• Life with dramatically more energy availability

Human Enhancement Futures:

• Tetrachromacy enhancement centers
• Hormone regulation via artificial organs
• Enhanced immune system modifications
• Developmental engineering facilities
• AI-driven optimal tutoring environments
• // better temperature regulation (more comfort in broader range of temperatures)

Biotechnology Futures:

• Mammoth burger restaurants and dino-nugget production
• More domesticated species as pets, companions, urban assistants
• Desert forests and alpine jungles from saltwater-resistant plants
• Kelp farming operations
• Nanotech immune system (puck thing from Darkolm)
• Ocean farming operations

Entertainment & AI:

• Personalized content creation (Sherlock Holmes in medieval Japan)
• AI-human dating interfaces and authentication systems
• Real-time game-master content generation
• Educational games that adapt to individual developmental needs
• AI games + learning (Ender's Game Giants Drink, Diamond Age, Player of Games style)

Energy Infrastructure:

• "Too cheap to meter" energy abundance scenarios
• Geothermal drilling operations at scale
• Solar panel coverage reaching meaningful Earth energy percentages

Air Quality Systems:

• Air sanitation infrastructure (water sanitation equivalent for air)
• UVC lighting integration in building systems

Space Applications:

• Moon resort low-gravity sports facilities
• "White Lotus on the Moon" hospitality concepts
• Far-side radio telescope installations
• Space-based manufacturing orbital facilities
• Space tourism: space games, moon spa, expansive views

Robotics Integration:

• Humanoid robots in domestic settings
• Specialized robots for construction and manufacturing
• Robot-assisted walkable communities
• Exoskeleton-enhanced human work
• // wish we had discussed more on which contexts are best for humanoids vs specialists

Social & Cultural:

• Technology solutions for maintaining romantic relationships
• Walkable communities designed to foster human connection
• Digital nomad infrastructure networks

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Process Reflections

Discussion Format Success:

• Topic list → subtopic focus → brainstorm "what we want to build" = good structure
• Combination of common sense checks with technical grounding
• Building cases for different viewpoints

Meta-Questions:

• // Why does the Nuclear vs Solar debate seem particularly intense?
• Grid structure implications for energy choice debates
• Market-based solutions for transportation and infrastructure
• Why is there so little research on above-baseline human enhancement vs. disease treatment?
• How do we balance humanoid vs. specialist robots? ("¿por qué no los dos?")
• What role does romantic love play as "load-bearing" in civilization?
• How do we make technology that serves the soul, not just efficiency?

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