progress is maximizing the carrying capacity in that equation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory#Overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_sele

progress is maximizing the carrying capacity in that equation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory#Overview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory#Overview >"How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming?" there is no "better" in progress. Using the same analysis, the Industrial Revolution made working peoples life worse than lives of farmers. So what? It isn't about better. It is about species survival and dominance. Humans are predators with extremely high killing instinct. Wait until the interstellar space annihilation drive invented. Any intelligent species which doesn't have photonic torpedoes may start learning history of Incas and Native Americans. It is easy to imagine how human emission of green house interstellar dust will increase the ratio of Galaxy kernel's X-rays kept inside the Galaxy and causing global galaxy warming and slow down of its rotation.