Progress throughout history.

[Suggestion Box]

couldn't quite decide where to put this thread, since it relates to technology, business, economics, and history, but i put it here.

also, i probly won't be able to get back to it as i'm leaving for the summer tomorrow, so this is purely for y'alls enjoyment.

anywho:

the automobile was very influential, allowing people to get from place to place faster - but now it's required that we get from place to place faster. we can't just walk to work anymore - we need cars. society has caught up to the technology - it is no longer special convenience to own a car.

phones, planes, the internet, power/water systems, the list goes on. if the snake evolves to better kill the rabbit, the rabbit evolves to better defend against the snake. so it is with technology. it's like a new toy - it gets old pretty quick and loses its value.

is there any reason to think that human happiness, or whatever we think is important, is a function of progress? Capitalism tends to champion progress as its motive for how it works. we could all agree that there has been much technological, philosophical and economic progress over the past, say, 6000 years of humanity. how much good has it really done? these days in america it seems like 'progress' and 'well-being' are synonymous. why?

 

[BobW188]

Are we even experiencing "well being?" In the middle of the worst downturn since the Great Depression?
The question nobody asks is, Progressing to what? And without a destination, how can you be progressing? Henry Ford set out to make a car that the average family could afford. Now, as you note, a car is something we must have. Aboard the piston engined DC 6's and 7's and Lockheed Constellations of the 1950s, perhaps 100 people might be served a full meal in reasonable comfort. Now we are jammed in by the hundreds, are lucky to get a bag of trail mix, and may have to buy the pillow we use to rest our heads, "stretching out" being no longer possible. And, for all of this, neither the auto makers nor the airlines can make a profit! GM and Chrysler may soon join Packard, Hudson, Nash and Stutz in the history books and lines like Eastern, TWA and (soon) Northwest are gone from the skies.
More and more, at least in small and mid-size towns (themselves dying off) there is no drug store, and the cafe' has to close after lunch simply to cut its losses.

Finally, of course, for all the science, technology and innovation, we ourselves remain the same. We may live longer - though in much of the world this is simply not so - but in character we might as well be living in the Jerusalem of David's or Jesus's time. We have not changed and, without that, there can never be anything meaningfully called "progress."

 

[Gracchus]

All the real and supposed disadvantages of progress can be justified by indoor plumbing.

 

[Kharak]

Aboard the piston engined DC 6's and 7's and Lockheed Constellations of the 1950s, perhaps 100 people might be served a full meal in reasonable comfort. Now we are jammed in by the hundreds, are lucky to get a bag of trail mix, and may have to buy the pillow we use to rest our heads, "stretching out" being no longer possible.

That is all very misleading. The people who used to fly in the 50's were far more well off and a far smaller population than the expanded demographic of flyers now (accessibility is the keyword). Flying was once a luxury regulated to the rich, even for domestic flights. Now even a middle class family can exercise occasional transatlantic journeys. Of course, I also believe your characterization of previous flights being comfortable is also misleading. Sort of like how passenger liners of the previous period like to depict themselves as comfortable without the incessant sea sickness and subsequent vomiting.

Finally, of course, for all the science, technology and innovation, we ourselves remain the same. We may live longer - though in much of the world this is simply not so - but in character we might as well be living in the Jerusalem of David's or Jesus's time. We have not changed and, without that, there can never be anything meaningfully called "progress."

Living longer is quite important. How many people in the industrialized world die at infancy today? Even combining the persistent menace of abortion, which predates our era, the amount of the born and unborn that live beyond infancy when compared to times past is enormous. There was a time when most people die quickly as infants or stillborn. A longer average lifespan is a very good indicator that more people are at least able to enjoy their lives.

Of course, disease is not a tenth as rampant in the well off areas as it was before. How many people get scurvy? Bubonic plague? Pneumatic plague? There were families that knew only a life of sickness and hard labor ended by a final sickness, where there were seldom old people and rarely an individual physically unscarred by the various pox of the day. There was a day when virtually killing a person was the only acceptable medical treatment.

 

[BobW188]

Actually, by the 1950s the airlines were after the middle class market and were more and more pricing accordingly. Go back before World War Two, and you are quite right. As to comfort, I've been on the props, been on the jets and believe me, I'm not just being nostalgic. I'll take a DC 6B or Lockheed 188 Electra over anything in service today.
As to your remarks on long life, reread mine. I spoke of character, not enjoyment

 

[Kharak]

As to comfort, I've been on the props, been on the jets and believe me, I'm not just being nostalgic. I'll take a DC 6B or Lockheed 188 Electra over anything in service today.

Personal preference can work anyway you want it. I personally think that all American motorcycles are uncomfortable, does that make it true? The point is that international and domestic air travel is accessable and not wholly uncomfortable.

As to your remarks on long life, reread mine. I spoke of character, not enjoyment

How can we possibly judge that people have lost character?

Just because it is broadcast on television and written by some quack writer does not mean anything is lost. If anything, that we question the increasing brutality of our father's before us (dare say, even war), I would say people have more character than normally admitted. There are old and young, rich and poor who both use the advances of our modern society to exercise more charity than the Victorians would like to speak of, despite the disdain of the reactionaries of our "consumerist" population.

 

[BobW188]

I didn't say we'd lost character. I said we'd stayed the same. That, by definition, means we have not progressed.
My basic point remains what it was at the outset. Progress to what? If our idea of progress is to make a comfortable American motorcycle, or to make airline flight accessible, truly comfortable and safe, we can measure whether the changes we make take us toward these goals or away. But if, as OP suggests, capitalism promotes itself as leading to "progress," I'd reply that I'm unaware it had set a goal.

 

[Chesterton]

Progress to what?

Exactly. That's the only important question. If we're headed to destruction or hell I'd prefer regress to progress.

Here's some favorite quotes of mine on progress from G.K. Chesterton:

"Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative."

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision."

"My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday."

 

[Gracchus]

On the personal level, we progress toward death. On the level of the species, we progress toward extinction.

 

[Chesterton]

On the personal level, we progress toward death. On the level of the species, we progress toward extinction.

Fitty Cent could use that idea to support his philosophy of "Get Rich or Die Tryin'". If you're right, then the wisest, highest thing a man can do is - whatever his emotions tell him to want at any given time.

So I guess I should begin that raping and killing spree I've been procrastinating about. (Or maybe just go steal that food processor I've had my eye on.)

 

[Dale]

Suggestion Box,

The decrease in infant mortality means an increase in human happiness. Imagine having to have lots of children just so a few of them would live--and that would be your only insurance for old age.

You mention phones. Telephones enable people to talk with those they love at great distances. Hundreds of years ago, when settlers left Europe for America, or other parts of the world, they left their families behind forever. It was the same way when New Englanders headed for California in the 1800's, they knew they were leaving family and everyone else they knew behind, probably forever.


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[BobW188]

The decrease in infant mortality also gives parents more mouths to feed and contributes to the controversies of birth control and abortion.

The telephone did away with one of the foremost rules of courtesy: Don't interrupt. Any nitwit can now invade your privacy for any reason at any time and, more and more, can do so from anywhere in the world.

Yet again: Progress to what? The very word pro-gress comes from the Latin for "move toward," and implies a destination. What we've been talking about here is change, which can be movement toward, movement away, movement sideways; movement to good, movement to evil ... etc., etc.

Set out from where you are to, let's say, New York City, follow the right road, airway or sea lane, and as you get closer you can honestly say you are making progress. But that very progress will mean different things if you wanted to go or did not, love NYC or hate it. Seatmates on the same airplane, you might be looking forward to arrival with joy, I with dread.

 

[Agonaces of Susa]

Progress is a myth.

Chariots and flight are ancient technology.

 

[the sad clown]

Progress is defined by goals. Learn what your goals are, and you will know if you have progressed. I personally would prefer to live now that at just about any point in the past. That is because I value what society has achieved, especially with regard to technology and knowledge. Anyone who does not value these things, or finds them to be less valuable than other things will not see society as having progressed, at least not in the same manner.

 

[marlowe007]

I go back and forth on this topic, including my definition of 'progress' - it's slippery, eye-of-the-beholder type stuff.

Part of the time I wonder if the fruits of progress-for-profit, and runamuck technology that fragments communities into so many islands-of-one, actually represent 'progress' at all.

Other times I marvel that we're doing what we're doing here: people of more-or-less like minds who are total strangers to each other, seperated in some cases by thousands of miles, by oceans, by continents, not to mention widely disparate outlooks and experiences; not just having a real-time conversation, but forming a loose-knit community as well Each of us, even if we're resistant to the notion, are having our boundaries broadened simply by exposure to each other's comments, ideas, experiences and personalities. What we do here, frivolous as it can seem at times, would have been unthinkable to everyone just a few decades ago. The vastly-increased capabilities of communication, and the attendant opportunities to know so much more so much quicker than those before you ever could are the stultifying limitations of past generations that are unthinkable. This discussion: the venue, the method, and the nature of its contributors - represents profound progress. Whether any of us can capitalise on such boons with notable human achievement is another matter. But I've got my fingers crossed.

 

[keith99]

All the real and supposed disadvantages of progress can be justified by indoor plumbing.

And modern TP is the icing on the cake!

I'd like to see those who disparage progess live for just one month of winter with outdoor plumbing and heat provided only from wood they chopped by hand. I'll be nice and allow the big pieces of wood to be already cut for splitting.

Oh wait, I decided to be a real ********, they have to choose, either also having do the wood cutting by hand or live with corncobs and/or cut up Sears catalogs instead of TP.

 

[Chesterton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ