# Stagnation
### List of as atomic as possible stagnation theories
1. [[Low Hanging fruit theory of stagnation]]
* Specifically: [[Progress getting exponentially harder should be the null hypothesis]]
2. [[Regulations slow down technological advancement]]
3. [[Universities have been pushed more towards applied research since the end of WWII]] which then means that academics have been pushed away from more long-term and genera work
* This could be attributed to the peer review and citation system
4. [[The peer review and citation system incentivizes people to work on things that other people think is interesting]]
* This could be attributed to more government funding
* This could be attributed to
5. [[Embedded growth obligations have shifted the cultural narrative to the idea that everything can and needs to be a high-return investment]]
6. [[Exponential hardware does not lead to exponential software]]
7. [[Knowledge of how markets and innovation work has made us jaded]]
8. [[Research has become a commodity]]
9. [[The number of researchers has exploded]]
10. [[Successful professors are not necessarily the best researchers]]
11. [[Specialization in research and careers in general has cut off a lot of possible innovations]]
### Questions
* What is the rate of discovering new S-curves? How has that changed over time?
* Are today’s S-curves, individually, developing faster or slower than before?
* Are the steep parts as steep as they used to be?
* Are they plateauing at a higher or lower level?
* What is the distribution of these characteristics, over the set of all S-curves?
### Related
- https://rootsofprogress.org/teasing-apart-the-s-curves
* [[bhattacharyaStagnationScientificIncentives2020]]
* [[Stagnation and Scientific Incentives argues against the low hanging fruit hypothesis by historical analogy]]
* [[There are three main theories of stagnation]]
* [[bloomAreIdeasGetting2020]]
* [[Notes on Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?]]
* [[Regardless of whether there is stagnation or not we could do better at creating useful new technology and eye opening discoveries]]