Is human progress beneficial?

[[...]]

Is "progress" truly beneficial to the human species?  Did ppl in the olden days have it better...like really olden days...like the way no contact tribes live nowadays?  Seems there was less disease and stress.  More leisure time and connection.  Progress has made life more luxurious for those who are born into a place that has those luxuries.  But how has progress truly benefited us?  Our brain is our biggest asset, but may also be our downfall...

[[Fl...]]

That depends on how you define better. There were lots of things that were better thousands of years ago but there are also things that are better today.

 

"Progress" is human nature. My guess is that if you could somehow objectively measure if it is better or not, we would see that it leans toward positive. Given the fact that the way we are (always trying to progress) I don't see how it could be any other way. We are the way we are to promote the survival of our species.

[[...]]

Good point - but survival or growth of the species does not equate "better" life for each individual organism.

[[Fl...]]

I am certain that there was much less "mental illness" in the past. Instead of sitting in office chairs 8 hours a day, eating crappy processed foods, staring at tv and computer screens and "socializing" via smart phones (not to mention shoveling down synthetic pharmaceutical drugs) people were out in the world surviving, doing things that make people stronger and healthier. But they also lived hard lives and died when they were in their 30's.

 

Who had or has it "better"? I think that depends on who you ask and when you ask them. I doubt that everything considered most people would want to go back to living like we did 10,000 years ago though.

[[...]]

Definitely can't go back, I agree. But current tribal ppl live far past their 30s. If I were born into one of those tribes, and didn't know this more luxurious life, I think it may have been better. But, no, can't go from this to that.

[Guest [sa...]]

Nah, think competing for resources is better. 

[[Gr...]]

I think about stuff like this a lot.  I was watching that movie on Netflix, "Take Your Pills" about how parents are all worried that their kids won't be able to succeed in school and in jobs, and I am just thinking, we should reflect more on the industries we support.  What is the benefit to mankind and/or the Earth, if we succeed in making a larger entertainment industry.  I really want to know what good the internet is going to be doing for us in the future, because the idea that our best and brightest are just developing algorithms to make us look at the screen a few more seconds longer, seems like a waste of good talent for me.

 

What about cleaner energy and less plastic packaging?  More kindness to animals, even if we are raising them for food.  I feel like so often in history, we do what we need to, in order to win, but then, we have to live with the losers, and everything that was done to them, they still live with and are effected, and our world is way more effected by how we get the win, than the world is currently willing to acknowledge. 

[[Aj...]]

That’s a big question. Will have to come back to it when I’ve got my philosophy head on.

 

Stephen Pinker thinks it is all good. Not sure I entirely agree.

[[Eu...]]

Humans are still just that -  human. The basic needs are the same. The packaging is just different. Barring a nuclear waste dump, most all places damaged by people rejuvenate. All matter breaks down to re-form in a cyclical fashion. But allow humans to "progress" in any area and things get screwed up; after they're gone things return to the same cycles.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Is "progress" truly beneficial to the human species?  Did ppl in the olden days have it better...like really olden days...like the way no contact tribes live nowadays?  Seems there was less disease and stress.  More leisure time and connection.  Progress has made life more luxurious for those who are born into a place that has those luxuries.  But how has progress truly benefited us?  Our brain is our biggest asset, but may also be our downfall...

 

what made you ask these questions? i ask because your barrage of questions appear whole. whole as an egg that manages to contain all essential nutrients and still appear simple, symmetrical and small. there is a person underneath these questions that yearns for socio-economic equity and an absolute frame of reference in a universe that is chaotic.

 

when i was a kid, i found stories interesting and life boring. now, unfortunately, i have woken up to the reality that life itself is a story. i got what i wanted i think. i wanted life to be a fantasy. life became one. now i cannot forgive myself for wishing for the apocryphal. i ruined life for myself and i cannot undo what i have done.

 

 

[[...]]

Is "progress" truly beneficial to the human species?  Did ppl in the olden days have it better...like really olden days...like the way no contact tribes live nowadays?  Seems there was less disease and stress.  More leisure time and connection.  Progress has made life more luxurious for those who are born into a place that has those luxuries.  But how has progress truly benefited us?  Our brain is our biggest asset, but may also be our downfall...

 

what made you ask these questions? i ask because your barrage of questions appear whole. whole as an egg that manages to contain all essential nutrients and still appears simple, symmetrical and small. there is a person underneath these questions that yearns for moral equity and an absolute frame of reference in a universe that is chaotic.

 

when i was a kid, i found stories interesting and life boring. now, unfortunately, i have woken up to the reality that life itself is a story. i got what i wanted i think. i wanted life to be a fantasy. life became one. now i cannot forgive myself for wishing for the apocryphal. i ruined life for myself and i cannot undo what i have done.

 

I don't understand your 2nd paragraph. But to address the 1st- I've always wondered and always been into philosophy and interested in the human condition. Also I am in a demanding profession which values progress. I am in an area where kids are pushed and encouraged to do so much. Many end up with anxiety. And I wonder what's the point? Push yourself to the brink so you get good grades and get into the best college so you get a good job so you make money and hopefully do something useful for society so you can raise your kids to do The same. And it's thought that academic and financial success leads to happiness which we know is not necessarily the point.

 

We have more stuff to make life "easier" but we spend more time working than our olden counterparts. We are less connected to each other. There is less trust. It's all about money now and greed. We destroy the environment- yes eventually all matter decomposes but plastic takes a looooong time to decompose and we make so much more in the meantime. We make more food but much of it is less healthy. Ppl are sicker than our olden day folks. Yes we live longer but are we happier? Is our life easier? Are we healthier? Are we more at peace in ourselves? We can never go back to a simpler time- such is the nature of increasing entropy in the universe. But as we sit here in benzo hell, I wonder if life was overall better before- before benzos- before so much "progress."

[Guest [Kp...]]

 

I don't understand your 2nd paragraph.

 

neither do i. 

 

But to address the 1st- I've always wondered and always been into philosophy and interested in the human condition. Also I am in a demanding profession which values progress. I am in an area where kids are pushed and encouraged to do so much. Many end up with anxiety. And I wonder what's the point? Push yourself to the brink so you get good grades and get into the best college so you get a good job so you make money and hopefully do something useful for society so you can raise your kids to do The same. And it's thought that academic and financial success leads to happiness which we know is not necessarily the point.

 

We have more stuff to make life "easier" but we spend more time working than our olden counterparts. We are less connected to each other. There is less trust. It's all about money now and greed. We destroy the environment- yes eventually all matter decomposes but plastic takes a looooong time to decompose and we make so much more in the meantime. We make more food but much of it is less healthy. Ppl are sicker than our olden day folks. Yes we live longer but are we happier? Is our life easier? Are we healthier? Are we more at peace in ourselves? We can never go back to a simpler time- such is the nature of increasing entropy in the universe. But as we sit here in benzo hell, I wonder if life was overall better before- before benzos- before so much "progress."

 

the fact that we live longer is an objective measurement of human progress (positive in this case). we are also more moral: we stress equal rights across races and gender and are sensitive to animals. all other perspectives of progress, or the lack of it, can be termed relative or subjective. it seems humans are on the right track.

[[...]]

Yes we live longer which is always given as proof that things are better now. But is this increased quantity of life correlated with increased quality of life? That's my question. An individual gazelle may live longer trapped in a zoo than in a wild one but is that gazelle having a better life than its counterparts running across the Savannah breathing clean air and eating real food?

 

As for equal rights- we do not have equal rights and probably never will. Humans are not sensitive to animals if there is money to be made.

 

When I talk of olden days, I mean tribal days, before the agricultural revolution.

Thanks everyone for participating in this!

[[Gr...]]

I don't think all progress since made since the agricultural revolution is bad, in fact most of it I really like. I do dislike a lot of stuff that seems to be happening to an extreme today, like the greed and how making money and getting more likes is the most important thing.  I do however, LOVE indoor plumbing.  Microwaves are pretty amazing as well, though, I'm not completely convinced that they won't find something bad about them in the future. 

 

I completely agree with you libr, about academic and financial success not necessarily providing a happy life.  I actually hate how much pressure is on kids for grades and I do think it's stupid.  When I was a kid I thought it was very important, and if I was a kid today I probably would have begged to have adderall to help me with my grades.  I think that was unhealthy and did not set me up properly for what life was truly about.  Also, even more extreme, you see kids really really depressed today, when they go deep into hock to get a college degree, and afterwards there's no guarantee even of financial success, let alone finding something meaningful to do with their lives. 

 

I feel like the message that getting good grades means anything is very stupid and causes people to waste a lot of their time and energy on stuff they don't necessarily like doing.  I also think it is very sad that more kids are not encouraged be involved in the arts in school.  Cause you can't really grade an piece of art or a song, I mean, they don't even teach songwriting or anything like that, let alone teaching the more practical things like how to fry eggs or how to buy and prepare food on minimum wage. 

[[Ho...]]

Greed has always been part of the human condition. Julius Caesar was greedy, even though he thought he was doing it for the good of Rome.

 

The thing about primitive tribes and ancient human history is, once you reached adulthood, you'd probably live to be pretty old. Unless you were a woman, in which case chances were you died while giving birth. If you didn't die while giving birth, you had many more children. Half of whom would die before they got to adulthood. Now we have vaccines that prevent many of those deadly illnesses.

 

Infections were deadly. Cut yourself severely? You could die from sepsis after the wound got infected. Or contract tetanus from a common bacterium that lives in the soil, but again, thanks to vaccines nobody gets tetanus anymore, at least in western society.

 

And these dangers were around just 100 years ago.

 

And today, more and more people are surviving cancer. Even compared to just 20 or 30 years ago. I was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago. A very fast and aggressive form of cancer. Even just 10 years ago I would be dead. But drugs have since been invented that could treat my cancer, and I am alive today because of it.

 

So no, I'd rather be living today, not in ancient human history. And I am not one of those people who are like "life is so precious, live each moment like it's your last" kind of cancer survivors.

[[...]]

HopeToDoThis - Congratulations on beating cancer! Definitely a huge benefit of modern medicine. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

Yes, childbirth was risky. But primitive tribes didn't suffer from the infections we now vaccinate against - those started once people settled in one place, domesticated animals and population grew a bit. Prior to that, not much infection actually. But infection after a bad cut or trauma probably did happen. And trauma in general had treatment.

 

Interesting discussion!

[[gi...]]

Is human progress beneficial?

 

Yes, human progress is beneficial.  If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here talking about it.

[Guest [sa...]]

The trick is to Just humiliate people and bombard them with positive and negative reinforcement until.they have children and are Full of debt, and Shame them and their children into consuming your goods, while.promotingg a culture of "spirituality" and ignorance so they can look forward to their deaths like the good pessimists they are!

[[Da...]]

I think you'd have to make your question more specific. I think you referred to "quality of life" in one of your replies, but we don't know what the quality of life was for people 30K years ago. I think it was probably better than we tend to assume. Yes, they were much more likely to die violent deaths, child mortality was much higher, no technology like climate control etc. but I tend to think quality of life is fairly reliant on happiness, and happiness seems to be related very closely to biology, as we have all found out one way or another.

 

It's my opinion, not supported by much of anything at all, that there has been significant genetic deterioration in the human population, especially in the last 40-50 years. But before this as well, when we sequestered ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom so that predators were no longer a danger to us. If there has been genetic deterioration, you are more likely to get flaws in DNA replication etc and you'll end up with physical / nervous system dysfunction. This will definitely result in lower quality of life. There are studies that observe that men today have lower testosterone levels than a random sample of men their age from just 40 or 50 years ago. It's more alarming when you realize that testosterone levels and men's health are highly correlated. If you have lower testosterone levels, your probability of mortality increases, you're much more likely to have health problems etc. If I recall, it's not something that can be rectified with testosterone replacement therapy. More likely the testosterone level is a reflection of a healthy genotype expression. So why do we have lower testosterone levels? They don't know, but a prime suspect is plastic type substances that have leached into food and bioaccumulate. They act like estrogens and disrupt hormone levels. It might not be a coincidence that men are doing pretty bad these days, graduating from university at much lower rates than women and earning much less as a result. So yes, I think we are losing  quality of life by allowing corporations to run roughshod over the populace in pursuit of profits under the assumption that profits are great because capitalism is great. The real goal should be population health, if you are to pursue happiness and quality of life. Maybe capitalism, but a little more cautious and ethical.

[[ma...]]

Progress is good, as long as it is sustainable. Overall, it's two steps forward, one step back. I wouldn't want to go back in time as for women that would mean having a 25% chance of dying at child's birth, having a huge number of children or perhaps even being burned as a witch I also like microwaves, hot water from the tap, disabled access, talking to you through the internet, and a few other stuff.

[[...]]

I think you'd have to make your question more specific. I think you referred to "quality of life" in one of your replies, but we don't know what the quality of life was for people 30K years ago. I think it was probably better than we tend to assume. Yes, they were much more likely to die violent deaths, child mortality was much higher, no technology like climate control etc. but I tend to think quality of life is fairly reliant on happiness, and happiness seems to be related very closely to biology, as we have all found out one way or another.

 

It's my opinion, not supported by much of anything at all, that there has been significant genetic deterioration in the human population, especially in the last 40-50 years. But before this as well, when we sequestered ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom so that predators were no longer a danger to us. If there has been genetic deterioration, you are more likely to get flaws in DNA replication etc and you'll end up with physical / nervous system dysfunction. This will definitely result in lower quality of life. There are studies that observe that men today have lower testosterone levels than a random sample of men their age from just 40 or 50 years ago. It's more alarming when you realize that testosterone levels and men's health are highly correlated. If you have lower testosterone levels, your probability of mortality increases, you're much more likely to have health problems etc. If I recall, it's not something that can be rectified with testosterone replacement therapy. More likely the testosterone level is a reflection of a healthy genotype expression. So why do we have lower testosterone levels? They don't know, but a prime suspect is plastic type substances that have leached into food and bioaccumulate. They act like estrogens and disrupt hormone levels. It might not be a coincidence that men are doing pretty bad these days, graduating from university at much lower rates than women and earning much less as a result. So yes, I think we are losing  quality of life by allowing corporations to run roughshod over the populace in pursuit of profits under the assumption that profits are great because capitalism is great. The real goal should be population health, if you are to pursue happiness and quality of life. Maybe capitalism, but a little more cautious and ethical.

 

Interesting!  I also believe quality of life was better in the olden tribal days than now. Population health absolutely should be the goal, I agree!  But in a system where money is now the unit of trust instead of trust between people, and capitalism of course rises, money inevitably supersedes personal trust.....so people are willing to sacrifice others in order to get more money.

 

When a whole tribe stuck together and protected each other completely, that kind of trust is intense...that sense of belonging, that I'll sacrifice myself for you mentality instead of I'll sacrifice you to benefit me.  This is huge.  Yes, of course I like some comforts of modern living, esp hot water. But keep in mind that many people in the world do not have hot water running from a tap. Modern day comforts are not enjoyed by all people in the world yet all people suffer from modern day problems.

 

As for testosterone - I doubt our genes have changed in 50 yrs but certainly which genes are expressed or not could change. But more than that, testosterone is low bc of our high exposure to estrogen - this is bad for men and women alike. All the plastic. Hormones in our food. But the biggest culprit is birth control pills that end up in the water supply either by people throwing them in the trash or peeing out those hormones.

 

In places where ppl still live a primitive tribal life - many diseases that we suffer from don't even exist - heart disease, cancer, many infections, diabetes, many autoimmune stuff, benzo w/d.

If we never knew about modern comforts, we wouldn't miss them.  We aren't currently missing whatever amazing inventions are yet to come.

We can't change the trajectory of human life or ever go back....but just fun to discuss and dream.... so thanks for playing everyone!

[[al...]]

Humans are hardwired to mentally evolve, it is something that we cannot just turn off. The ability to communicate lessons learned from experience and to apply them to anticipated future events is the force multiplier that has been propelling our species forward at an ever increasing pace. The real question is not wether or not we are better off now than we were in the past, but rather we should wonder if our ability to solve problems will eventually outpace our ability to create them.