Ideas
The steps say what to do. These pages say why the order is what it is, what regularities the first climb followed, where they point, how it fails, and which choices the record says to make differently.
The six constraints
Technology does not advance because people become cleverer. It advances when a small number of physical limits are pushed back. Almost every step on the ladder is gated by one of these six, and knowing which one you are against tells you what to work on.
Patterns of progress
What actually happened over the last twelve thousand years, read as a set of regularities rather than a story. Not great men and lucky inventions — the shape the data makes when you stand far enough back.
Futures
The same patterns, extended forward. Not prediction — extrapolation, with its confidence marked and its failure modes stated.
How it actually fails
The anatomy of collapse, read backwards — because knowing the failure modes is what lets you build against them.
The better path
17 things adopted widely that should not be repeated, and 16 cheap fixes that arrived centuries late, each on the step where the choice is made.