Title: Alec Stapp — Progress is a Policy Choice
Description: Alec Stapp is the co-founder of the Institute for Progress, a non-partisan innovation policy think tank aiming to “accelerate scientific, technological and industrial progress while safeguarding humanity’s future.” He joins the show to discuss how to achieve change in the age of lobbying, why bipartisanship is underrated, why US immigration policy is so slow-moving and MUCH more!
Important Links:
IFP’s Website — https://ifp.org/
Alec’s Twitter — https://twitter.com/AlecStapp?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
IFP’s Twitter — https://twitter.com/IFP
Show Notes:
0:00:00 Intro
0:00:52 Main podcast
0:01:58 Reimagining the Think Tank
0:08:06 Progress is a Policy Choice
0:10:03 Bipartisanship is Underrated
0:12:34 Achieving Progress via Reframing
0:17:09 Achieving Change in the Age of Lobbying
0:20:22 Moonshot Projects and Incremental Change
0:27:11 Ways to Enact Change Within Existing Institutions
0:30:41 Navigating Bureaucracy
0:35:00 Government Embrace of Technology
0:42:24 Reducing NIMBYism
0:46:38 The Barbell Approach to Policy
0:50:55 The Washington Mindset
0:55:02 Reasons to be Optimistic
0:57:19 Lessons From Other Countries
1:02:12 Why Hasn’t Immigration Policy Changed?
1:07:51 Alex as Emperor of the World
Books and Articles Mentioned:
Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better; by Jen Pahlka
The Proceduralist Fetish; by Nicholas Bagley — https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-procedure-fetish/
The housing theory of everything; by Sam Bowman, John Myers & Ben Southwood — https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/
