On Progress

From Ben's Writing

Naïvely define progress
Show how this definition is insufficient because it is relative and subjective
Is progress ethical? A lot of social "progress" is due to violent uprisings, can this be justified?
Some event we may consider as progress may not be. See Omnivore's Dilemma pp. 10 — "[W]e might never have needed agriculture had earlier generations of hunters not eliminated the species they depended upon."

We might try to define progress as anything that makes a thing — whatever that thing may be — better. As vague as this definition may be, it seems to satisfy some visceral intuition about what progress might be. By taking something and changing it so that it is faster, more flexible, easier to use, or even more palatable, we make it better. Unfortunately, there is an inherent problem with this definition; it doesn't capture the criteria used to determine that something is better. Is it our personal opinion that counts? Or does it have to be determined by the majority of members of some community? Is it better if this something helps most of the people most of the time, or is it fine if it only helps some, or even one? What if it helps no one directly or immediately?

Defining progress as an improvement is naive, it makes our judgment and definition subjective and relativistic. Progress, in this light, depends on some observer for validation: it is merely someone's opinion of what sucked before and doesn't now.

Now, intuitively, for lack of a better word, we know this to not always be the case. That is to say: not all the improvements history has been witness too are dependent on any single group's judgment, they simply are better for all groups, everywhere. Modern medicine, western or otherwise, is an improvement of this type; the rigor of the scientific method, another; hormonal birth control may even be considered a member; pre-Mesopotamian tools; language and even fire, to name a few.

There are things (processes, etc.), which have moved in a direction direction that enhances them. Take the wheel, language, or (modern) medicine, for instance; all of these can be objectively considered as progress — a move forward, or better yet, a positive improvement over what came before.