ok so i’ve heard at least 2 different definitions of progress.
- one strictly defines progress as technological progress. the reasoning is that “progress” comes from latin “pro-gress” (marching forward) which refers to any labor process feeling very similar to a long march. exhausting.
- another nice angle i’ve heard was that “progress” is a play-on-words with progesterone which is a substance produced by biological women to advance various internal processes, as such it is understood as “what women do” or as women’s movement. it’s silly but i’ve heard it and now so have you.
especially, do you think that “progress” properly describes your goals? do you say that progress is what we need as a society? if no, how else would you describe your goals?
To me, progress is change in a desired direction. When a lumber mill is built, that’s progress to the company and employees. When the same mill gets decommissioned 20 years later, that’s seen as progress by environmentalists.
The term itself doesn’t define the direction or goals. People who use it take care of those things.
Yeah, the definition of progress relies heavily on context.
Would you like some radium water? It was considered highly progressive in the early 1900s since it utilised this fancy new thing called radiation. Borderline magical stuff when you think about it.
Progress could also take you full circle, back to where you started.
If that happens, though, it wasn’t really a sound idea. At least, not all the way through.
To use some math jargon, improvement is supposed to be transitive with other improvement.
We had electric cars at first. Lead acid batteries were pretty miserable a hundred years ago, so no wonder why gasoline and diesel took over so quickly. That was progress in the 1900s, because gasoline was just so much more practical in every way.
Currently, we’re transitioning back to electric cars, but this time we have vastly superior batteries. Today’s progress means we’re driving cars that pollute less than their predecessors. Even when you get less range, it’s still counted as progress because priorities have shifted. That’s not exactly full circle, but it’s close enough.
With bisons and whales we’re really trying to come full circle. About a hundred years ago, we were driving both groups towards extinction, but now we’re trying to get those numbers back to normal. Both directions were viewed as progress because priorities have changed so much.
Either way, decisions were made based on what the situation called for at the time. As the world changes, more information becomes available, and different things become important. These things shape decisions all the time. Perhaps future generations will look down on us building all these wind mills instead of developing fusion reactors.
Killing all the bison was essentially an act of genocide against Native peoples, as far as I can tell. So sure, if you let the decisionmakers of the day define progress however they want, progress is a constant. Usually it’s thought of as a singular, abstract thing, though, that can either be achieved or not.
Burning fossil fuels was a tradeoff. We built a modern industrial economy, but in exchange we depleted the reserves in the ground and have pushed the climate out of equilibrium. Depending on how you define progress, that may have been a step forward or not.
(Also sidenote: electrification wasn’t yet complete, so rechargeability wasn’t an early car cure-all anyway. Primary cell car vs. lamp oil/lamp oil byproduct car vs. multiple fuel steam car was the competition)