Eh? A contender for the most self-contradictory sentence I've ever read ;) The best reason to believe in positive power of "human progress" is, specifically, not ignoring "what the living conditions for people were throughout history".
And to clarify: I'm not saying "all technology is bad", but rather "not all technological progress is automatically good for humanity".
As an example, living conditions of hunter-gatherers were way, way better than living conditions of the first people in cities, and I'd argue, depending on which parameters you use, might still be better than our modern, big-city living conditions (except maybe for the richest 1% of the world)
I, personally, think "techno-utopianists" don't go far enough. The contributions of some supposed non-technological progress - even to an extent of the institutional progress, but especially of some supposed cultural/ethical values improving, etc. - is overrated. Ultimately, it's all downstream of technology - only the technology enables the complex economy of abundance, and combined they allow good institutions to propagate. Even modern societies, as soon as they become poor, quickly start losing a veneer of "ethical progress". And we don't even usually see actual technological degradation.
In order to achieve this, we are destroying the environment, other species and their habitats.
> but what is the alternative to blind progress being proposed
You don’t need and ethicist for this - but an accountant. We need to get stricter about negative externalities. For example, every inventor/manufacturer should be forced to take back their product after end of life. This will slow progress but if done right, it will avoid destruction brought by technology or at least not palm it off on to poorer society or environment.
Why do you think so?
Occasional hiking into some wilderness and sleeping in a tent for a few nights is okay, but I am not a wild animal, and I don't want to live like a wild animal, surrounded by wild animals.
My assumption is that since we're living longer then ever we're probably living healthier then ever. (Or at least there's an option to do so).