What's your idea of the world moving forward?

Is it the production of new technology? The liberation of nations, countries and/or acceptance of human rights? More people going into the arms of God? I feel that these are all valid options and opinions, but my thought...

Think of a city, life is going backwards in slow motion; Cars are driving in reverse while people walk down flights of stairs backwards, yet amongst all this: There is a lone skateboarder going forward, against the world and no longer alone, as more choose to join him. All of those moving backwards look away as though they are the ones going forward and that he is only spiraling downward. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss

Are you sure the world is really moving forward with the things we think it is or is it keeping us from doing just that? Are we really neglecting what leads to happiness because it has become unpopular? Will it keep us from truly developing? Is that why it feels though nothing is going anywhere and people are so focused on the end rather than the beginning and the path that leads to that end they so desire?

Discuss.

Maybe the skateboarder has the wrong perspective. Maybe he's the only one going backwards in a sea of progression.

Anarcho-primitivism.

I think less murders/year is a good measure of progress. That, and the distance into the universe we can travel.

The more educated the working poor are, the more we progress as a whole.

I see more value in the average McDonalds worker knowing Calculus, knowing how the monetary system operates, and reading as many thick books as years they are old.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 20 2011, 11:55 pm by ClansAreForGays.

I'll have a bachelor's degree and I want to work near minimum wage so that I can do what I want. How does this fit into progress?

Edited post - forgot to hit submit like half an hour ago with the tab just sitting in the background.

I just see more value in the 99% of the poor having undergraduate level knowledge, than a highly funded lab cranking out an even smarter phone.

I don't think that education past a good school education for the masses in needed. Currently, the school system is shit in most of the western world, IMO, so we have to go for a bachelor's degree. What I think is essential are moral values for the masses. Don't ask me how to reliably implement those on a mass scale.

Intelligent computers/robots.

Most positions anymore require masters work anyways... :\

I don't think progress is so much a forwards/backwards thing ... It's definitely not one-dimensional. It's more like a plane ... and the progress is moving along with the plane while certain areas are moving outwards. I think overall we've actually kinda gotten stuck, but certain things continue to spread... Slowly. And very few. Like pouring a bucket of water onto asphalt on a hot day. It'll spread fast at first, but as it thins it begins to crawl .. and then every so often a little bit of the water will spill and rush forward, then just stop. ... ;o And some of the water slowly evaporates and recedes, too.

It's hard to say if something is moving forward as a whole ... Some thing will leap forward, as others evaporate away and get lost. It really depends on what specific point you are trying to look at.

Colonization of new planets, end to third world countries, I'm sure with colonization of new planets there will probably be third world planet's though, finding the gravity particle, proving M theory, unification of human race as a result of some disaster that doesn't entirely wipe out our race. Yea basically that's it, too lazy to type more.

@Farty

That kind of sounds like the Archer's paradox thing from math.. how progression continues but at a slower rate.

Education and innovation are the marks of a progressing society, to me. Education has gotten worse, the vast majority of Americans think reading to educate yourself is a waste of time. Innovation has been largely relegated to corporations who spend more money on bureaucratic bullshit than actual progress. I'd say we've been in a decline for quite some time in those areas.

Reading for pleasure and enlightenment in America is considered snobbish. Until that changes, I don't expect much else to.

The world is always moving forward and getting better. It has never been fair though.

Almost all of the listed measures are valid ways to measure progress. What are you actually trying to get as an answer? Which sphere of advancement we value most? In that case, technological progress. Or, most generally, advancement towards Utopia.

Vortex, the definition of a third world country is one that was not a member of the first world (West during Cold War) or second world (East during cold war). Third world countries will always stay third world countries.

Faz, I've never had anyone walk up to me reading and told me that I'm a snob for doing so. Or experienced anything similar. I've never heard that education is a waste of time. And I'm fascinated as to what brings about the conclusion that corporations spend more money on bureaucratic bullshit than actual progress.

When religion is gone and replaced with philosophy.
Pollution,war, and famine will not longer exist.
Any movement towards those goals is progress.

How would you replace religion with philosophy? Since pollution has been increasing for the past two hundred years, would you say that we've regressed?

To be honest, I was just sparking a conversation. See what people get out of the statement, rather than any real thing. Farty, Kame and FaZ had some really nice views, whether based off mine or how they see progression. Just trying to all philosophical with it.

Of course, but a lot of people in a lower socioeconomic class probably won't be picking up an intelligent discourse anytime soon (think rednecks). A lot of people are simply ignorant. A lot of the time it's not their fault, but some people are just intellectually lazy.

There are ignorant people in every society. That's not what Faz said.