3 ms·

Progress is like "wellness." If you have a bleeding gunshot wound, you are not well. But if there is nothing obviously wrong, are you well? If half your popula

by api 5y ago

Progress is like "wellness." If you have a bleeding gunshot wound, you are not well. But if there is nothing obviously wrong, are you well? If half your population is malnourished and lacks basic services like banking and these statistics improve, that's obviously progress. It's much harder to pin down what progress would be for a country like the USA or Switzerland.

marginalia_nu 5y ago
This still assumes that countries naturally will evolve banks and populations inevitably become well fed through some nebulous process. It's really not possible to appeal to something like darwinian evolution, as it really only cares about memetic propagation and fitness to the current environment. I'm not saying that these things aren't good, I'm questioning how it's possible to motivate the notion that it is inevitable for civilizations to converge to have these things. If it isn't, then I think we should come to terms with the fact that we think other countries are backwards because they are different from us, and we think the reason they are different is that they haven't thought things through yet. This is perhaps not a fashionable line of reasoning, but my point is that just ignoring what hides behind the notion of progress doesn't make it go away.
- darebak 5y ago
  If I understood your argument correctly than it applies more to the Amish than to poor countries because some things are definitely a sign of progress, like ending malnourishment, supplying shelter and curing basic diseases. Where I agree with you is that not every progress is progress to everyone, for example the above mentioned Amish usually refuse medical treatments in old age but are open to it when they are in the productive age. Would it be progress for them to undergo cancer treatment when they are 80? Maybe, maybe not. Is it progress when they get clean environment for childbirth? Definitely.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Progress toward what?
    - darebak 5y ago
      Well being, lower stress and suffering.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Right, didn't we already have that as paleolithic times? No pollution, can just forage for a few hours and then mostly chill. Seems these cavemen have progressed farther than we have.
        imtringued 5y ago
        That works until your population has grown so much your people start illegally logging protected forests for slash and burn agriculture because they have nothing to eat. The conventional solution is natural predators for population control. We have to do population control in our head.
        darebak 5y ago
        That's a myth of a noble savage, a lot of prehistoric people died in childhood, childbirth, from broken bones, had no safety etc.
        marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Prehistoric people died as many times a lifetime as contemporary man. What they didn't have to worry about was mortgages, inflation, losing their jobs, the destabilizing political situation in Eastern Europe, global warming, QAnon, the vanishing bees, health insurance, and so forth.
        darebak 5y ago
        They died much earlier and more painfully and their life was full of stress.

by api 5y ago

marginalia_nu 5y ago

This still assumes that countries naturally will evolve banks and populations inevitably become well fed through some nebulous process. It's really not possible to appeal to something like darwinian evolution, as it really only cares about memetic propagation and fitness to the current environment. I'm not saying that these things aren't good, I'm questioning how it's possible to motivate the notion that it is inevitable for civilizations to converge to have these things. If it isn't, then I think we should come to terms with the fact that we think other countries are backwards because they are different from us, and we think the reason they are different is that they haven't thought things through yet. This is perhaps not a fashionable line of reasoning, but my point is that just ignoring what hides behind the notion of progress doesn't make it go away.

darebak 5y ago
If I understood your argument correctly than it applies more to the Amish than to poor countries because some things are definitely a sign of progress, like ending malnourishment, supplying shelter and curing basic diseases. Where I agree with you is that not every progress is progress to everyone, for example the above mentioned Amish usually refuse medical treatments in old age but are open to it when they are in the productive age. Would it be progress for them to undergo cancer treatment when they are 80? Maybe, maybe not. Is it progress when they get clean environment for childbirth? Definitely.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Progress toward what?
  - darebak 5y ago
    Well being, lower stress and suffering.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Right, didn't we already have that as paleolithic times? No pollution, can just forage for a few hours and then mostly chill. Seems these cavemen have progressed farther than we have.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        That works until your population has grown so much your people start illegally logging protected forests for slash and burn agriculture because they have nothing to eat. The conventional solution is natural predators for population control. We have to do population control in our head.
      - darebak 5y ago
        That's a myth of a noble savage, a lot of prehistoric people died in childhood, childbirth, from broken bones, had no safety etc.
        marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Prehistoric people died as many times a lifetime as contemporary man. What they didn't have to worry about was mortgages, inflation, losing their jobs, the destabilizing political situation in Eastern Europe, global warming, QAnon, the vanishing bees, health insurance, and so forth.
        darebak 5y ago
        They died much earlier and more painfully and their life was full of stress.