Progress

The railroad, telegraph, Internet, computer, space flight, automobile … all of these represent progress. Academics have created categories of progress – Pre-agrarian, Agriculture, Industrial, and Information ages. Each of these is meant to emphasize that in certain periods progress seemed to cluster and accelerate in specific areas. Agriculture made it possible for one farmer to feed many people. Industrial progress made it possible for one blacksmith to shoe all of the horses in town. Information progress makes it possible for one accountant to manage all of the financials of a company. In this way progress is a tool toward efficiency. But, in addition to this, progress makes it possible to avoid starvation, lack of housing, and lack of knowledge about diseases. If progress did not generate efficiency in business, it would still generate a social good. It would move mankind from the cave to the condominium. It would raise life expectancy from 40 years to 75 years. This is a great thing for the individual, but what does it mean to society as a whole. What is the impact of an experienced 40-year-old farmer, miner, or doctor remaining alive and active for another 30 years? This provides a huge boost to the collective memory and ability of a society. A little progress enables a lot more. As a doctor comes to understand how to treat people, he is also able to perfect new techniques and tools and to practice with those long enough to master them. His or her knowledge can then be passed on in the form of writings that he/she may have the time and money to generate.

Progress is the striving for something better. Once a society tastes the benefits of a little progress, it is easy to get them to pursue more. Progress provides more money, more physical assets, more knowledge, and more freedom to indulge in what is precious in life, which is sometimes the pursuit of more progress.

Is progress different from knowledge? Is it possible to attain new knowledge and withhold it from circulation and application so that it does not generate progress? Is progress managed and directed? Certainly it is. Government, social structures, and individuals all work to create progress, but they also work to control it and direct it toward ends that appear valuable and away from ends that appear dangerous.

The atomic bomb was developed during a time of war. If the world had not been at war at just the right time when atomic knowledge was coming together, would anyone have ever invested the incredible amount of money and effort necessary to bring atomic weapons into existence? One could ask the same of space flight. Kennedy was able to mobilize the money and minds of the American people toward spaceflight and a trip to the moon because we were ideologically threatened by the Soviets. If the Soviets had not threatened us, would we ever have been able to pull this off? I think … No.

Look at the history of NASA and space exploration since the demise of the Soviet race for space. Have we gone beyond the moon? Where are the great missions to Mars and the outer planets? We have settled into the pattern of sending machines to planets while we all stay home. It appears that since the Soviets or Chinese do not want to go to Mars, then we don’t either.

If the Germans did not want an atomic weapon during WWII, then perhaps we would not have wanted one either. Or at least not badly enough to spend the money necessary to do it. It might have taken another 50 years to gradually sneak up on the creation of the nuclear weapon.

Perhaps all progress requires competition. If man is not competing against another man or against nature, then there is no motivation or reason to move forward. Agriculture and industry were means of overcoming a lack of food and a lack of natural resources. But, once we have everything we need from nature we look to other people to determine what we want, based on what they want.

It seems that the current frontier for progress is medicine. What one thing does nature have that we want control of? Death. We are tired of dying when some disease or infirmity decides that it is time to go. We want to stay until we are finished with life. I wonder when that would be. If possible to live forever, would anyone ever choose to self-terminate? Or is there a place in time and longevity when a man or woman simply says, “I am finished, goodbye.” Perhaps we will have the opportunity to find out within the next 100 years.