I was trying to write this list of “challenges” in a close to neutral way, and perhaps erring on the side of the progress skeptics.
For clarification, I’ll add:
not every specific advance has to benefit everyone
the sum total of progress does not have to benefit literally every last human before we judge it as good
the fact that many people are still in extreme poverty today is not an indictment of progress, considering the context that the number is decreasing
progress does not in my opinion have to benefit everyone equally (and I deliberately avoided phrasing the issue that way)
I do think that, if we lived in a world where progress had somehow accrued benefits to only a small elite, leaving most people as destitute as they were before 1800, even though everyone was participating in the system… well, at minimum that would raise a major eyebrow.
However, that’s not the world we live in—in my opinion, the benefits of progress have been shared broadly (if not evenly), and that’s a good thing.
Thanks. I basically agree with you.
I was trying to write this list of “challenges” in a close to neutral way, and perhaps erring on the side of the progress skeptics.
For clarification, I’ll add:
not every specific advance has to benefit everyone
the sum total of progress does not have to benefit literally every last human before we judge it as good
the fact that many people are still in extreme poverty today is not an indictment of progress, considering the context that the number is decreasing
progress does not in my opinion have to benefit everyone equally (and I deliberately avoided phrasing the issue that way)
I do think that, if we lived in a world where progress had somehow accrued benefits to only a small elite, leaving most people as destitute as they were before 1800, even though everyone was participating in the system… well, at minimum that would raise a major eyebrow.
However, that’s not the world we live in—in my opinion, the benefits of progress have been shared broadly (if not evenly), and that’s a good thing.