What Happened to the Idea of Progress? | Hacker News Reader

What Happened to the Idea of Progress?

rootsofprogress.org

17 pointsfeross8 comments

I think about "Progress" at Disney World with Epcot and the Carousel of progress; and the historical markers for world fairs and regional expositions. I hope that Musk might make an attraction when he retires. (Or had bought 6 flags instead of this Twitter "fun" - it has a $2b market cap)

That said, the Internet offers these expositiins, more accessible - Kickstarter, startengine, Tesla digital showrooms, YouTube.

And the world really has continued to advance since the doubters of 1935.

- Space ships and satellites, 30 years of ISS

- diesel electric locomotives that haul more and require less maintenance than 50 steam locomotives. Electric metro trains.

- solar power, even if to power "just" a phone

- cell phones with gps and satellites, ready access to the Internet with YouTube across the world, cameras, 4k, messaging

- the led, the lcd, infrared, cryo

- some level of self driving cars, safety in cars, any car that can go 300 miles, any car that can last 50k, 100k miles.

- modern plastics, composites, clothing, consumer air conditioning

We cured polio, eradicated smallpox, invented the television, the computer, got one into every home, brought about jet travel, radar, used said radar to predict weather and heat food, stopped AIDS, cured more than one cancer, invented the laser, used it to communicate faster than anyone could have imagined and to entertain cats.

We're not even started. Why, just last week my computer learned English well enough to paint whatever I could ask it to.

We literally have Star Trek universal translators now and they're under $100.

We also let a series of diseases go from "essentially eradicated" to "resurgent threat." Used mass media to foment genocide, civil unrest, and terrorism. Jet travel benefits very few people overall but is a significant contributor to climate change, and airports are a major localized source of air, water, and noise pollution concentrated on the populations that benefit least from air travel. We predict the weather but refuse to act on that knowledge to prevent wide-scale misery and death.

These things are all amazing technological accomplishments but it's not actually clear yet if most of them are overall improvements for the quality of life of most people, if you extend your "we" out to the entire world rather than just the most affluent quartile of the wealthiest nations.

I'm not trying to completely dismiss these things either, or say they don't or can't ever have positive effects. But just because they're impressive accomplishments doesn't mean they represent progress for the species per se.

We humans are quite imperfect creatures. To expect a perfect outcome from humanity it's naive at best. I am not saying that your points are incorrect nor I disagree. I just want to state that, considering past history, we should be really grateful and not take things for granted.

Basically an abstract for the real article, at https://bigthink.com/progress/a-new-philosophy-of-progress-j...

The issue with the mid-century idea of progress was that it was overly focused on advanced technology while generally ignoring social structures, human needs and environmental impacts. Any reasonable theory of "progress" would need to address these deficiencies.

Heading into the last phase of my working life, I still have no idea what to think of 'progress' and 'innovation'. I like that Jason Crawford (rootsofprogress.org) is thinking and writing about these topics.

Adjacently: I'm pretty sure there's a 'temperament' component. Pessimism vs optimism. Something like the OCEAN personality traits. Reactionary vs progressive.

I've been binging politics, history, and philosophy. Stuff like the podcast Know Your Enemy, which traces the origins and rise of the current movement conservatives. I now have a better appreciation for the American anti-progress mindset.

Typified by the movement's creator like this:

   A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, 
   at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience 
   with those who so urge it.

    -- William F. Buckley, Jr.

For whatever reason, by whatever means, this anti-progress mentality is currently shared by a large fraction of the population.

This belief has both left- and right-wing manifestations. For instance, as a tree hugger, I've definitely been a doomer wrt climate crisis. And now that it's been pointed out to me, I see similar defeatism among the left. Chris Hedges, obviously. But I'm talking about in my own life, as an activist and participant.

So. This is a long way of saying, I hope Crawford, and others, eventually acknowledge that we have dozens of cohorts wrt "progress", and trying to bring everyone along is quixotic.

Alternatively, I'd encourage him create, articulate, and the advocate his own political and moral philosophy of progress. There will always be haters, Eeyore's, concern trolls, and so forth. Glean whatever useful bits they offer. But otherwise ignore them. Any attention to the insincere, unconstructive critics is a distraction, keeping you from doing your own awesome thing.

Advice I would give my younger, newly minted activist, if I could.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Know Your Your Enemy is fantastic. It feels like the only serious cultural analysis today is coming from thinkers pretty far to the left. Which is sad because that has not always been the case

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