Notice though, how you define "progress" as "more stuff". I'm not that convinced that even life expectancy raises are to be automatically qualified as progress

Notice though, how you define "progress" as "more stuff". I'm not that convinced that even life expectancy raises are to be automatically qualified as progress. Is life and civilization merely a quantitative issue? Should the life in today's L.A., for example, be qualified as progress over the conditions of, say, early 20th century Vienna?