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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Having lived the first third of my life in the pre internet world, I'm no longer sure I think it's net beneficial in all things. I didn't expect to be this unsure progress works. It's unscientific. Progress by definition is improving surely?

Since in (very small) ways I helped bring it into being, this message is displeasing in several ways.

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Progress isn't as linear as you'd think. A lot of times one small improvement can make many more problems appear that people never had to deal with before. But compounded over many years it looks great. In fact, the longer a time period over which progress is assessed the better it looks.

Then you suddenly have a mismatch between what you thought you learnt from history, about how wonderful progress is, and how bad things can get from things that are said to be improvements in your lifetime.

If you look at some really terrible things like asbestos poisoning, that was only possible because of progress. But it took further progress to realize how dangerous a substance that is to human health, and then to take steps to correct the mistakes that were made.

It’s been a let-down to see the core of science (question everything, use the scientific method to learn step by step) get mocked and abused for politics.

It’s also been difficult to see “youth” become more of a priority over reason, capability, and wisdom. Especially as we have navigated the emptiness of the attention economy.

But then, I’ve also seen that these too have been patterns we’ve been repeating for millennia so maybe this is always what actual progress looks like “from the inside” (aka as you live through it’s present day)

I suspect the things built on the internet are a mixed bag more than the internet itself. On the one hand, the possibility to share information and learn more about the world is probably a huge positive, on the other hand stuff like social media is probably as damaging as tobacco or leaded petrol.

I believe it's essentially a major filter, as it requires a certain (relatively low) level of intelligence to develop the internet / mass communication, but requires a much higher level of intelligence to actually survive it without it ripping apart your civilizations.

Progress is by definition a forward movement towards a destination. Noting here about neither the movement nor the destination being "better".

Progress also suggests that there is a single better destination we are tracking toward.

The concept is a quaint, 1950s oversimplification.

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