Our Technological Progress is not all it's Cracked up to be

Humans tend to make improvements. Wherever we have focused attention, that area of life has become more advanced and more efficient, as well as generally better for everyone. Humans have done a lot in the tens of thousands of years that we’ve walked this planet in our current form. It certainly got faster 12,000 years ago with the rise of agriculture, but just looking at progress made since the industrial revolution of the late 1700s, our advancements have been truly great.

Consider the way that the average human lives in the current year, compared to how we lived even a thousand years ago; life was brutal, dirty, harsh, dangerous, and unpleasant - unless you were more than a commoner, in which case it was brutal, dirty, and harsh. In short; even for a king, it's clearly not ideal. Today, even the poor of the first world have a better standard of living than the kings of the middle ages. We've certainly progressed, haven't we? Where, before, a day's hard work might afford just enough to eat that day and a continued place to sleep a thousand years ago, today, the hard working individual is rewarded with standardized currencies that can be exchanged for whatever their heart desires.

Where before warfare was seen as a common state of affairs, now the Earth is more peaceful than it has been before. Our lives are made easier, fuller, and longer by science, technology, and medicine. Even the idea of death itself will soon become optional. Truly a great time to be alive.

Yes, humans have made great strides, but toward what, and for what reason? Yes, science and technology have greatly improved the length and quality of the average human, and entertainment and leisure options have never been more plentiful, but does it really matter?

Does it really matter that people can afford big homes and all sorts of fancy things if they have to spend two thirds of the best years of their lives working and are only left to their own devices when they no longer have the physical capability to do what they want to do with their lives? What's the good of progress if most are only allowed such little time to experience it?

It's true that science and technology has given us an immeasurably great buffet of choice when it comes to leisure and entertainment, but what good does it do, really? Would people really be so miserable had the Avengers movie never come out, or if they couldn't experience the wonders of Candy Crush? Sure, movies and games and Netflix are great, but life would be fine without them. People occupied themselves just fine before the internet came along.

Even our scientific and medical advancements are worth little in the scheme of things. People do indeed suffer of less disease now, but the idea that people actually lived shorter lives in the distant past is a myth, caused by the huge rate at which babies would die before their first birthday. 20 was never middle-aged, and a boy who lived to be 15 had a good chance to see 50. We have cured countless diseases and ailments, but sickness is a problem for the individual, not the species. An individual can die but the species moves on, stronger for their sacrifice.

Before we took control of our own destiny as a species, evolution and natural selection made sure that only the best of us survived. Some would be stronger than others. Some would be more resistant to diseases. These are the individuals that produce the most offspring. Who's to say that we would not have eventually 'beaten' many diseases through evolutionary trial and error over many generations? Many people are resistant to many illnesses, thanks to the processes that might have strengthened us against many more. Remember that 'not curing a disease' is not the same as letting it run rampant. Future generations can be strengthened against them if evolution and natural selection were allowed to do their work. In any case, man's 'eradication' of any disease is an illusion. If medicine is unavailable for any reason, any disease that the body can't fight on its own might as well be incurable. If our medicines disappear, we are at the mercy of disease - and that's okay. Many individuals will perish but future generations will be stronger for it. We would not have been worse off in the long run had medicine not progressed as it did.

These ideas; that money is good, and that for-profit, externally produced entertainment is important, that sickness is something to be attacked and cured with all manner of potions, are not universal values, but ideas imposed on the world by wealthy western nations hundreds of years ago. In reality, whether we have lots of money or little, whether we are entertained all day or not, or whether most people who are born die old or not, is of no consequence, and our industrialised world has certainly not given life more meaning than that of the pre-industrial world.

All of these things that make our world supposedly better than that of thousands of years ago; electricity, computation, medicine, entertainment - does it really add meaning to life? More of us live longer and more convenient lives, but for what reason? Are we any happier now than we would have been 500 years ago in the middle of the Italian Renaissance, or 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt? We have distractions aplenty, but little of substance to distinguish us from our ancestors. All of our supposed “progress” has done little to give our lives meaning, so we might have as well have not even bothered at all.