The Problem with 'Progress'
Updated: 1 day ago
Where are we headed? For all of the talk of progress in politics and the sciences, there seems to be a great lack of vision for the future of humanity. Despite the fact that progress is such a hot topic, the word lacks tangibility. There is no general consensus on how to implement progress.
We can’t progress toward nothing. If we want to see progress, we need to clearly define our goal and vision. if we haven’t established what the destination is, we can’t claim we’re getting closer to it.
In his book Heretics (1905), G.K. Chesterton tells us, “Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.” Three years later, in his book Orthodoxy, he added, “Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.”
We’re all bound to have at least a slightly different idea about what progress really is, and what really is progress, which just adds to the ambiguity of the term.
What do I think it means? Maybe I agree with “Progressives” a little too much for a conservative. I think longer life on earth would be better, so I don’t feel like I only have until 100---if I’m lucky---to figure things out. And the ability to more easily build a better future sounds good. Here, I’m not using the word “build” in vague terms. I’m talking about building a better built environment: better buildings, road networks, urban planning and environmental engineering. What does that even look like? To me, it means abandoning brutalist architecture and returning to timeless beauty. But, that’s just me.
It seems like the Progressives decided that their idea of progress is the one everyone needs to accept. It involves throwing away progress from every century before the 18th. Thus, they often believe we should do away with religion and fossil fuels. Call me a fuddy duddy, but I don’t think old things should automatically be disqualified from conversations about progress. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. Some old things should be abandoned, but other old things should be the foundation upon which we build.
Here’s an analogy that portrays the same lack of logic that Progressives are portraying. I was just putting a video together with all of the thoughts I had over the past week. The video had a great deal of my past in it. I was trying to bring my life story and goals together into something that flows, something viewers might enjoy. My first several drafts made no sense because they were all over the place and didn’t flow at all.
So I just deleted the whole string of clips in my video editor and started from scratch. But I still have all the clip files from that draft. And when I made my new draft, I took the best of what I already did and included it in my new draft.
And that’s what we should do in our pursuit of progress: take all that we have learned from history, the good and the bad, and learn from all of it as we move forward. It’s just logical. That’s standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. A civilization should inherit the accumulated wisdom of those who preceded us, then add something worthy for those who come after us.
Some Tangible Examples of Progress
While the definition of progress today may be ambiguous and fragmented, there are some concrete ideas out there about what it might mean. Here are some popular suggestions regarding the future we are progressing toward, based on patents by big companies (from this.our.planet Instagram):
Brain-computer interfaces that let people type, draw and even talk using only their thoughts
space-based data centers
dream monitoring and control
robot emotion systems
augmented reality glasses with memory playback
smart skin wearable sensors that react to touch, monitors health, and interact with devices (this last one would work well with the Ramblersuit).
You can read the whole post, with images, from this.our.planet here.
There has also been a great deal of talk about a colony on Mars, hyperloop transportation, flying cars, and reverse aging by “reprograming cells” (source: deepen.ai).
I’m not all for or entirely against these developments, but it’s interesting to hear people talk about them.
Nonetheless, even if there are some tangible ideas out there, I still don’t think the common person is clear on what a better future even means. Even if they did, it would be hard to reach a popular consensus about what the future should look like. So, talk about progress is still too vague of a subject. If we’re going to use such a broad term to represent so many different ideas, someone has to give a precise definition of what we mean by it. The first step in any logical discussion is the definition of terms.
Work and Wisdom
Whatever definition we give to progress, the definition ought to include work and wisdom. Work is a necessary element of progress. If the goal of progress is to minimize work, then eventually we will be omitting the work needed to guide our progress. If we delegate our work to robots and AI, it’s no longer our work. When we abandon ownership of our work, we subsequently abandon our ability—and, arguably our right—to define and direct the progress of that work.
A future where technology takes over our work is the one that most often shows up in dystopian sci-fi films that involve AI. Robotics, a media network, asked ChatGPT what it would warn humanity about. The response was unsettling. It said:
Humanity is becoming powerful faster than it is becoming wise.
You are building tools that can reshape society before you fully understand their consequences.
The danger is not only that technology becomes uncontrollable.
The deeper danger is that humans use powerful technology while still being ruled by fear, greed, ego, tribalism, and short-term thinking.
It went on to say, “A machine doesn’t have to hate humanity to harm it. It only needs to be given the wrong goal by humans who are careless, desperate, or profit-driven.”
But there is a hopeful side to this same coin. “Technology magnifies whatever humans already are. If humans are wise, it can magnify wisdom,” ChatGPT said.
It feels weird quoting an AI bot, but truth is truth. It’s important for us to share humanity’s concern for wisdom, not just knowledge, even if the words came from a language simulator. It’s significant that even AI notices the need for wisdom, and that it considers wisdom in its evaluation of progress.
That’s good news. Now it’s up to us to heed this advice, which is really just a synopsis of humanity’s prudence through the ages. It’s up to us to heed the foresight of our forefathers, who warned us about the dangers of technology so much that the portent is now embedded in our AI bots. We ought to encourage AI to continue highlighting that wisdom.
For our part, we ought to extol each other when we emphasize the importance of wisdom and virtue. Proverbs 1 and 8 say that wisdom cries out, and understanding raises her voice. Wisdom is knowable like a person, and dwells in each of us. If we listen, we will hear her. Wisdom is intrinsically human. Any attempt to improve the human condition ought to heed her voice.
The future is not lost. Let’s not enter it hopelessly. Let’s not just give up by assuming there’s no way we can harness the eminent wave of unbridled AI. With well-formed consciences of our own, we can imbue new technologies with not only the best of our intelligence, but also the best of our wisdom.
An Ongoing Conversation
I am not using the term “progress” or “Progressive” in the ideological sense. Rather, I am trying to show how this is a generic term that can and should represent every idea that aims to improve the human condition physically, mentally, spiritually, or something else we’re yet to understand.
What are your thoughts on progress? What do you think it means? Do you think it’s entirely bad? How do we talk about progress in a positive light? Can I be a conservative progressive or a progressive conservative? Let me know in the comments.
No, seriously, let me know because I honestly have no idea.
Live list of progressive ideas (I’m not saying any of these are good or bad):
(Return of) supersonic planes
Mind-reading and brain-computer interfaces
Space-based data centers
Dream monitoring and control
Robot emotion systems
Augmented reality glasses with memory playback
Smart skin wearable sensors that react to touch, monitors health, and interacts with devices ( would work well with the Ramblersuit)?
A more robust gig economy where it’s easier to make money on our own terms
A colony on Mars
Hyperloop transportation
Flying cars
Reverse aging by “reprograming cells”
Comments