The Problem with 'Progress'

Where are we headed? What is the better world than all the progressives want us to embrace? They're not giving us any vision for the future. They talk all about progress, but they're not telling us what we are progressing toward.

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, so I will do my best to offer an abstract of this vague concept with the hope of making it more comprehensible. We cannot progress toward nothing. If we want to see progress, we need to clearly define our goal and vision.

We all have at least a slightly different idea of what progress means. 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 to figure out what's most important in life. That'd be nice. And the ability to more easily build a better future sounds good. Here, I'm not using the word "build" in the abstract sense. I'm talking about building a better built environment: better buildings, road networks, urban planning and environmental engineering. Well, what does that even look like?

But 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.

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 lot in it about my past, and the things I've done. 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 make my new draft, I'm going to take the best of what I've already done and include 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 apply it moving 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.

Here are some popular suggestions regarding the future we are progressing toward, based on patents by big companies (from this.our.planet Instagram):

• Mind-reading interface

• space-based data centers

• dream monitoring and control

• robot emotion systems

• augmented reality glasses with memory playback

• smart skin wearable sensors that reacts to touch monitors health, and interacts 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 brain computer interfaces, 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. Even if there are some 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

However we define progress, the definition has 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 our work, we subsequently abandon our ability and the right to define and direct the progress of that work.

A future where technology takes over our work is the one that most often comes with the porten "proceed with caution". Robotics, an AI and robotics 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. 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.

I want to continue this exploration into humanity's collective concept of progress. So I'm thinking about making this a working live document. Whenever I come across a new idea or technology that captures a progressive mindset. I will do my best to record it here.

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 don't know.