What is the end game of progress?

[The2ndWheel]

Is there one? We know what the goal of women's suffrage was. We know what the goal of the civil rights era was. Hell, we even know what the goal of a corporation is. What is the goal of progress? Will there be a time that we can say that this moment is what we've been going for, and there isn't anywhere else to go? Just progressing aimlessly into endlessness? What are we progressing towards?

[Avalux]

1. There is never an end; kinda like evolution.

Progressing towards betterment of the human condition - a mental state more than physical as in evolution; towards knowledge, enlightenment. Have we made any progress as a species in the past several thousand years? I don't think so. We have a lot of work to do.

[kiki]

2. "We have made no progress in the last several thousand years"

...considering that this statement was typed onto a keyboard and transferred instantly onto a global forum where, every single day, tens of thousands of individuals express dissenting opinions about their government, don't you think that's a teensy bit harsh?

Imagine what some medieval serf or 19th-century rail worker would make of that. I know things aren't great, but come on.

[Avalux]

3. Technologically, certainly there's been progress.

However, in the scheme of things, until humans stop persecuting and killing each other for our differences, not much has changed.

[kiki]

4. I wasn't just referring to the technology...

If they had DU back in the 13th century, pretty much every post would be considered treason and most of our heads would be rolling around in baskets or on a stake outside some castle. Granted, this isn't too far from the situation in some countries nowadays - and of course, you-know-who and his cronies are working as hard as they can to make it like this in the good old US of A. But still, we have relative freedom of speech, children don't have to work up chimneys any more, women don't get stoned to death for having affairs, entitled rulers can't just come along and massacre your family or entire race, and so on.

The antics of Bushco are the clearest indicator the West has had in a good long while of how fragile these advances are, but there HAS been progress in the hearts and minds of mankind, and lots of it.

[burythehatchet]

6. yes, a mental state..a spiritual state

simpy cannot exist within a capitalist structure - he who dies with the most toys, wins.

[burythehatchet]

5. sssssshhhhhhh

[leeroysphitz]

7. What's wrong with the idea of CONTINUOUS improvement?

At my job I'm pretty good. I'm competent and skilled but there is always room for improvement. I regularly, through the course of my work, find ways to streamline and improve what I do.

[bryant69]

8. This seems a convoluted way of asking "is this all there is?"

but the tenor of the time seems to suggest that progress is over - if we progress further it will probably be in our capacity for betrayel, hatred, and murder.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[mmonk]

9. Reactionary forces that put us back at the beginning

again.

[lectrobyte]

10. The Dream Before

She said: What is history?

And he said: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future

He said: History is a pile of debris

And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future
And this storm, this storm, is called Progress.

-- Laurie Anderson