> Say that to people with cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy who are getting real, lifesaving treatments now that were simply not available a few years ago.
Its an unfortunate fact of life that we can't build a utopia with no illness or suffering. We have developed many solutions for different medical conditions over my lifetime and I'm truly happy for those helped. Over the same time, though, we've discovered and named even more. We continue to develop new medications for diseases that didn't exist in text books not long ago, and there's good reason to believe that pharmaceutical companies invent new disease classifications to get fresh funding for a medication they already have on the shelves.
I'm not saying we shouldn't help those in need, only that we can't run down that path forever with a hope that if we can just solve one more condition we'll have it all licked.
> Making those worst off better without making everyone else poorer would be much faster with globalized trade.
I'm not actually sure if this is the worst answer. We frequently hear about the widening wealth gap, fixing that certainly would mean making some poorer.
> Never mind that the world is not constant - we need innovation on the climate front if we want to stay in a stable environment that doesn’t require more sophisticated adaptation.
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind this, I just start from a different point. I think our best chance of helping reverse the problems we cause to the environment is to first remove the worst offenders of what we do today rather than start from innovating and replacing them. I think a big mistake in the green energy movement had been assuming that it would be untenable to reduce total energy use and that we must instead replace all current use and match the current rate of growth in energy consumption.
> I am sorry you have become so skeptical of progress, but I and others will continue working so that a rising tide lifts everyone, including you.
I'm actually not skeptical of progress, I may need to rephrase things if it comes across that way. I just view progress differently than I think many do today. Progress is often talked about as starting with what we have today and adding to it to make tomorrow better, i.e. always intervening more and never questioning how we got here. Put another way, I view progress worth having as progressing towards specific goals whether that means innovating our way out of it or backtracking to find another path. I don't view progress as an incremental approach that must always push ahead without giving time and consideration to removing when we realize pur current path is fundamentally wrong.