Is progress an illusion?

Benj96

Humans have always faced problems and adversity. From the very existential to the minor everyday inconveniences and everything in between.

We have innovated, invented and advanced technology, health and social systems consistently for millenia in order to combat these problems.

So it seems we should have less problems now than ever before. When do we reach utopia as if problems are decreasing in number and severity, then surely utopia is just around the corner?

The issue I see here, is that there is no golden innovation. There is not a single good or advantageous advancement that doesn't come with a string of new problems attached - abuse/misuse, unforeseen side effects, waste products etc.

So every solution seems to have new problems radiating off of it. And I think this suggests that progress is somewhat illusory.

Sure, if you asked me would I prefer to live now or 500 years ago I would of course opt for now. And if you said would I prefer to live now or 500 years in the future, I would hedge my bets and say that the future again would be a more desireable time to live than the present.

However, there are also problems we don't have to deal with now which may be existential in 500 years time. Just as there were problems that people 500 years ago didn't have to deal with now that we now consider existential (climate change for example).

Good and bad always exist. Progress is about approaching the ideal (all the good stuff) whilst mitigating or eradicating the effects of the bad. But I'm not sure the bad will, nor even ever can, be eliminated.

Some examples of this dicotomy affecting progress are:
1). The creation of antibiotics (good) and thus the creation of highly infectious and difficult to treat "superbugs" that can kill or cripple a healthy 23 year old.
2). The advent of global travel and the rise in global pandemics due to the ease of transmission across the world.
3). The utilisation of nuclear fission for electricity production and the fear of chernobyl-like disasters and nuclear weapons.
4). The conferring of a longer than ever before lifespan of humans, and the increase in death by cancer and the slow chronic deterioration of health (living a longer time in poor health, pain and suffering).
5) Cars as a mode of quick transport, and the rise in fatal car crashes.

The list goes on and on. So when we focus just on inventions and the benefits they give us, it's easy to convince ourselves we are always improving. But when you consider all things not just the benefits, it's not so clear to say we are advancing. Changing yes, advancing, not so clear.

There have certainly been people who lived hundreds of years ago that had much better lives (were happy and healthy) than people that live now. And also the reverse is ofc applicable also.

Tom Storm

↪Benj96

I think it's pretty fashionable to be pessimistic about the notion of social improvement. If progress means to move forward or onward to more advanced conditions (less suffering, more opportunity) then I believe there is progress. The fact that there may also be disadvantages or a shadow side attached to some instances of progress does not mean progress in false. It just means there are also drawbacks. And some countries are more progressive than others. And some people are better positioned to benefit from progress. But I would, for instance, definitely prefer to be born a woman in the West now, than in 1923. The safety of childbirth, the life choices and education options available, shit on what was on offer then.

Much of these discussions depend upon what you consider progress to look like in practice. I personally don't consider progress to be part of a utopian model of reality, where humans are on journey to a specific end point of social perfection. I'm more of a progress minimalist. :wink:

Benj96

↪Tom Storm

That's fair. As you said I think it has a lot to do with personal notions of the directionality, "end goals" or aims, motivation of humanity as well as what one thinks is good or bad respectively. And between all those variables I guess there is huge scope for whether one believes true progress does occur or not.

I think it's pretty fashionable to be pessimistic about the notion of social improvement. — Tom Storm

Maybe. For me I'm not sure if I am witnessing progress or simply change. But in any case I'm not pessimistic about it.

If it were to be true that we are not progressing towards anything that is ultimately and outright better/or improved verses the past (as in that the amount of happiness and suffering hasn't changed and remains equal through time).
This doesn't bother me.

Progress or no progress, my personal view is that it is what it is and its enough for me anyways not to feel pessimistic or disenfranchised about life.

For some the prospect that everything may being fundamentally pointless (that progress in the end is futile) is a source of great sadness/depression.

Ludwig V

↪Benj96

We can only progress from where we are. For better or worse, the problems of the past, if they have not survived into the present, are beyond mending and the problems of the future are not yet problems. That doesn't mean we should not try to solve the problems we have. In some cases, we will succeed; in other cases we will fail; some we will not even recognize.

Our successes are not illusions; neither are our failures. Often, we will not be able to tell which is which; that judgement will be made in the future.

We don't know where we are progressing to. At least, if there is some final utopia or heaven that we can progress to, no-one has been able to conclusively describe it. But we can recognize improvements from where we are.

You will see that I'm trying to identify progress, not on a grand world-historical scale, but on the scale of our actual lives. I can't see anything else we can do. Should we not try to solve the problems we have because we don't know how it will all seem in 100 or 1,000 years time? Should we dismiss the improvements we can make because they may turn out to create other problems later on? I don't think so.

Perhaps the greatest flaw in ideas of world-historical progress is the failure to recognize that disaster and loss is always a possibility and often actually happens. When it does, we pick ourselves up and begin again. What else?

The second greatest flaw in those ideas is the assumption that progress in the world is general and in some sense includes everyone. Some people progress, others don't, or progress only slowly. So some people are developing space flight and even colonization (not to mention exploitation) of the moon and the planets while war, famine and disease still rampage around the only planet we actually live on.

Benj96

That doesn't mean we should not try to solve the problems we have. In some cases, we will succeed; in other cases we will fail; some we will not even recognize. — Ludwig V

True, and in addition some problems are currently considered good things and some good things are currently considered problematic.

What else? — Ludwig V

There is nothing else.

Out of curiosity, if you had to discern a direction, point or "aim" of humanity ie. "where we are going" - what would you say that is?

Or furthermore, would you say evolution doesn't have a purpose its running towards but instead it's purpose is behind it - ie what it comes from out of pure neccesity?

Benj96

So some people are developing space flight and even colonization (not to mention exploitation) of the moon and the planets while war, famine and disease still rampage around the only planet we actually live on. — Ludwig V

Should we look to home first? Should earthly problems be our sole perogative before choosing to undertake endeavours further afield? Or is taking endeavours towards space travel a neccesity to address the problems at home, even if just to inspire and motivate perhaps?

Ludwig V

some problems are currently considered good things and some good things are currently considered problematic. — Benj96

Yes, that's also true.

Out of curiosity, if you had to discern a direction, point or "aim" of humanity ie. "where we are going" - what would you say that is? — Benj96

Well, some would say that in developing robots with AI, we are developing the life form that will replace us. If that turned out to be true, the robots would say that was humanity's purpose. I mean that discerning purpose is sometimes only possible when one knows the outcome. I think that applies not only to the overall purpose of humanity but also to the purpose of individual humans. But I'm very resistant to both questions.

If pressed further to offer an answer, I would say that for humanity it is survival (see below on evolution) and for individuals it is survival of self and failing that survival of one's society, family and offspring.

Or furthermore, would you say evolution doesn't have a purpose its running towards but instead it's purpose is behind it - ie what it comes from out of pure neccesity? — Benj96

I don't think evolution has a purpose. But it does impose purposes on anything subject to it. Survival and reproduction. Anything that doesn't promote those is decoration - which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Should we look to home first? Should earthly problems be our sole perogative before choosing to undertake endeavours further afield? Or is taking endeavours towards space travel a neccesity to address the problems at home, even if just to inspire and motivate perhaps? — Benj96

I think I overstated this point. I doubt that we'll ever completely resolve the issues of war famine and death (and what about climate change?). But I do think that the issues we are living through are so pressing that the effort devoted to space flight is out of proportion. What bothers me even more is that the only reason this much money is being spent on it is that it isn't Government money. But that means that close behind initial exploration will be wholesale exploitation; it seems a pity that we should spread the wreckage we've made on this planet all over the solar system/galaxy.

Benj96

Anything that doesn't promote those is decoration - which is not necessarily a bad thing. — Ludwig V

Well let's not forget that decoration is frequently part of one's arsenal of tactics to reproduce. Picture a peacock.
So any auxiliary attribute that promotes having sex no matter how arbitrary or random those traits may seem to actual survival, are important to the species that has them for sexual selection purposes. As long as it doesn't detract from survival outside of mating it stays.

I wonder how many attributes of humans exist because they made women and men more desirable to one another. Why for example, do men have beards and women do not?

What determined the beard as masculine rather than feminine?

Philosophim

↪Benj96

What determined the beard as masculine rather than feminine? — Benj96

Just a fun discovery they found recently. It turns out that a beard absorbs impact from blows from fists or other blunt attacks. Since men fight more, those with beards had a slight advantage in fights. You could also conjecture that since they took less damage to their faces, they remained more attractive than those without beards.

Vera Mont

Progress, with that great big capital P is an ideal. It becomes an illusion if we convince ourselves that ideas are actual things or event in the world.
Progress, in the ordinary sense of motion toward something, is real and usual. We always have goals, aims, aspirations; we always try to go toward those things and outcomes we desire.
Once in a while, a large number of us head for the same goal at the same time, in the same direction.
When we achieve any part of that desired outcome together, we call it social progress.

None of that means we all choose the same goal, the same direction and the same path. The notion that we ever have is an illusion. You can't calculate the cost of all the wrong outcomes in the past and subtract it from the present. You can only compare your own situation with that of other humans.

The ultimate destination of a species is extinction. Every stop from here to there is progress - better for some than others.

Ludwig V

↪Philosophim

As long as it doesn't detract from survival outside of mating it stays. — Benj96

Yes. Ideally it should also not interfere with the process of mating itself.

I picked up a fun fact about decoration that improves attractiveness but impedes survival in other respects. (I can't remember the source - sorry). The Irish elk was notable for its enormous antlers. It died out long ago, but no cause has ever been identified. So there is a suggestions that its antlers got so big that they interfered with survival. See https://i.redd.it/u7xr2wk3sakz.jpg and search for more pictures if you wish.

Locating specific features of a species in relation to evolution is a very tricky business, but fascinating.

I don't want to rule out the possibility that a feature that has a respectable evolutionary purpose might also be put to other uses by the individual members. I suspect that applies quite widely to members of the human species. To put it another way, the purposes of evolution do not have to be the purposes of the individual members. I'm not at all sure that I, or you, have any purpose other than the purposes that we choose to adopt.

Yes, to adapt Keynes, in the long run we are all dead, our species is extinct and all its civilizations and achievements are rubble. Evolution will continue on its merry way.

But I find I can mostly not live my life in the shadow of those truths. Like all the other grand narratives, the evolutionary one is no concern of mine, so I can think of more interesting things.

BC

↪Philosophim

As someone who has had a beard, sometimes quite bushy, for the last 53 years, let me suggest that beards have too little mass to significantly cushion a determined punch. Worse, they provide a handle an opponent can grab onto and pull -- which is quite excruciating. Beards are very helpful in cold weather, provided they are more than just a 5:00 shadow.

Beards are said to give their wearers an aura of sagacity and power. but I'm not sure to what extent. They seem to communicate 'something' beyond mere hairiness.

BC

We have innovated, invented and advanced technology, health and social systems consistently for millenia in order to combat these problems.

So it seems we should have less problems now than ever before. When do we reach utopia as if problems are decreasing in number and severity, then surely utopia is just around the corner? — Benj96

The more I read history, the more often I am shocked to discover that something I thought happened in the last 50 to 75 years, actually happened in the last 100, 200, 300 years and more.

One way of defining "progress" is by increased energy consumption. While it took a lot of energy to build the great pyramids--hauling all those big chunks of rock around for starters, it took even more energy -- and complexity -- to run the Roman Empire. The centuries following Rome show that progress waxes and wanes.

By the time of the early Renaissance, energy requirements were rising again, and haven't stopped since then. Innovation is a precondition of getting and using more energy, and complexity is the result.

As we are discovering, there are limits to how much energy the planetary system can manage. Trillions of tons of energetic coal and oil have turned into an existential threat. Innovation, in the form of using less energy, may enable us to thrive IF we can avoid (or survive) a global warming apocalypse first.

Simplifying our lives, and using much less energy may be more difficult than achieving an ever-more complex style of living.

Vera Mont

Beards are said to give their wearers an aura of sagacity and power. but I'm not sure to what extent. They seem to communicate 'something' beyond mere hairiness. — BC

What they communicate is meaningful in cultural context. In ancient cultures, the shape and style of a man's beard declared his nationality and rank. In modern times, it serves as proof of physical maturity and is either in or out of fashion. Europeans of one vintage routinely wore the either unkempt facial hair of peasants or the barbered, combed beards of the professional class; another vintage considered a man's covered face as something to hide, or unhygienic. In mid 20th century North America, clean-shaven was the norm, while beards denoted non-conformity.
None of that has any relation to reproductive capability, or inclination.

180 Proof

"Scarcity" seems the fundamental driver of dominance hierarchies and imperialism that no amount of "progress" has put an end to or significantly diminished — 180 Proof

Fundamentally, as a species we keep repeating the same mistakes in many areas of life such as ecology, politics, markets, social justice, religions, historiography, fashion, philosophies, etc which – except to those Panglossians missing the forest for the trees – render advances in the sciences and technology trivial by comparison with respect to the human condition. In the last several millennia, 'we' have not progressed beyond a scarcity-based, anxiety-driven 'global civilization', so what does it mean to say "Look at all the progress we've made" especially today in light of the world's slums and ghettos, indigenous reservations and refugee camps, failed states and environmental disaster zones, and global arms trade shows? :chin:

Benj96

↪Philosophim

oh interesting I never heard if this but it makes total sense

Benj96

In the last several millennia, 'we' have not progressed beyond a scarcity-based, anxiety-driven 'global civilization', — 180 Proof

I can only imagine this is because we have not yet managed to make ourselves or any of our creations immortal.
Or "relatively immortal" compared to the blink of an eye lifespan of any given individual.

Perhaps this is why many imaginings of the future is an intergalactic, multiplanetary artifical sentience that feeds off the most long-lived and sustainable energy sources: perhaps deriving energy not even from starlight which is finite, but even more fundamental forces like gravity.

Such a massive civilization significantly improves the odds of us sustaining a sentience that can survive millions of years even if several cohorts die off in the process.

But even then, existential threats will likely always exist. If not from the universes hostile environment itself, then from the community of sentient beings which are always capable of intergalactic wars/genocides.

The desire to continue being alive/aware comes with a natural aversion to death. If we were to somehow prove in the future that consciousness is indestructible, fundamental or goes beyond physical bodies, I would imagine this would ameliorate our fear of death.

Im sure it is for thus reason that religions popularised the afterlife. As it gives some solace to the innate fear/anxiety of being alive for a finite time.

Vera Mont

I can only imagine this is because we have not yet managed to make ourselves or any of our creations immortal — Benj96

It wouldn't help. We already doubled our life expectancy from the beginning of civilization to the present, and have made no comparable progress toward an equitable distribution of wealth and welfare.

Perhaps this is why many imaginings of the future is an intergalactic, multiplanetary artifical sentience that feeds off the most long-lived and sustainable energy sources: perhaps deriving energy not even from starlight which is finite, but even more fundamental forces like gravity.

Still parasitic and predatory, on a much larger scale. https://www.sfsite.com/09a/dan159.htm

The Really Big Problem is considering ourselves the summit and omega of all life in the universe, with an absolute, uncontested (except by our own brethren) right to exploit it, suck it dry and toss it away.

schopenhauer1

↪Benj96

As with everything social, it comes down to agenda. What are people supposed to “get out of living” exactly?

Your answer is the transgression.

Progress assumes people are here to progress. That is a transgression. People are racing around to intentionally or through byproduct of their actions “progress”. That’s a transgression of using people.

Progress is also hollow. It’s instrumental. All trappings and no meaning. To progress so we can progress to progress…

Do people get meaning out of things? Is their meaning based on someone else’s agenda? Then their meaning is a tainted one. Fettered and unfree. Me building a better robot so that people who like the idea of progress can feel good seems wrong.

It’s wrong not because we haven’t “progressed” but the idea of progress itself is prima facie immoral though INSTRUMENTALLY valuable. But this very instrumentality is also its hollowness and meaning-less in the truest sense of only being ever instrumental and as soon as it becomes the ends, becomes just using people for more endless notions of “progress”.

ChatteringMonkey

↪Benj96

For some the prospect that everything may being fundamentally pointless (that progress in the end is futile) is a source of great sadness/depression. — Benj96

Everything is 'ultimately' pointless since entropy is a fundamental law of the universe.

Maybe it is a source of sadness/depression for them because they have been falsely let to believe that that is and should be the goal. Most earlier philosophers actually disagree with this, it's only in the past centuries that this idea has become commonplace.

Benj96

Still parasitic and predatory, on a much larger scale. — Vera Mont

Well everything that utilises energy can be considered parasitic or predatory when compared to a universe where energy is never used by life, and thus life does not exist.

We are restricted by the physics and chemistry of life/survival to the fact that we always need resources and energy to promote our continuity. Is it parasitic as a fundamental principal? I don't think so.

Parasitism is more when our benefit comes at the direct cost of other living systems. But if our life was based on 100% renewable energy and 100% recycled material, I would not say we are being parasites. We have merely minimised our existences impact on ecology.

The Really Big Problem is considering ourselves the summit and omega of all life in the universe, with an absolute, uncontested (except by our own brethren) right to exploit it, suck it dry and toss it away. — Vera Mont

Well as pessimistic as this seems, you're probably right in that we believe ourselves the most advanced existant so far. It is certainly the case on earth. As for the universe o don't think anyone can qualify this with any concrete merit as we simply don't know if more advanced beings exist in the great beyond.

Let's not forget that before us some other animal in our direct ancestral line was the most sophisticated.
And at one point in time there was only one lifeform (the universal common ancestor) and at that time, it was the most advanced/complex system to date.

This complexity seems to continue to increase, switching between species. So perhaps we too are also just another cog in the machine, and maybe AI will be the newest update, the most complex system in a few decades. Transcendence of awareness to the artificial sphere. In which case we will have to make way for their more evolved status - greater permanence, more knowledge, more control and power, greater abilities.

Benj96

Everything is 'ultimately' pointless since entropy is a fundamental law of the universe. — ChatteringMonkey

I actually believe entropy has counterparts acting in opposition. I implore newton's law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction as a basis for this counteraction.

Entropy is the tendency for energy to disperse and become more disordered, irregular and chaotic. However we can see from the solar system, earth and the life it fostered that organised, "regular" or "cyclical" systems are becoming more complex, regulated, agentic and ordered. As order confers complexity and control and possibly consciousness as a direct product - agency or autonomy.

Gravity pulls mass together. Entropy pushes energy apart. And energy and mass are equivalent. Space and time are the factors that differentiate the two equivalent states.

This would seem to demonstrate that there are forces working against entropy through the precipitation of energy into matter.

Is the level of organisation required to produce life the antithesis of entropy? Who knows. But such a calculation would require quantifying both entropy and the amount of organisation and life present in the universe, a calculation not yet possible, therefore it remains as a possibility.

It may not satisfy a balance. But then again, it could. We do not know.

But if they are balanced opposing phenomena, then entropy dominance is merely the illusion created by "bias" - the bias in observation of the inanimate universe by animate (living) things.

I would imagine one highly organised, structured and controlled organism is equivalent to a whole lot of disorganisation/ chaos we see around us.

Benj96

↪schopenhauer1

in simply terms then you propose "progress" is a fallacious concept. Going back to the OP this is wgat I was getting at. Progress is defined from within itself and also from goals, agendas or future prospects.

For me, all there is is change. And "progress" assumes a beginning and endpoint to that change. But energy as the source of change is relatively eternal compared to the brief and limited perspective of any human experiences.

We may see climate change mitigation as progress. But we haven't factored in other future adversities. For example if there is an existential threat from an asteroid down the line, it doesn't matter if an asteroid hits a world with a stable or unstable climate, the progress of climate mitigation is overshadowed by larger issues. And is thus null and void lest the greater threat be overcome in the meantime

Benj96

As we are discovering, there are limits to how much energy the planetary system can manage. Trillions of tons of energetic coal and oil have turned into an existential threat. — BC

Well lets not forget that the energy the earth receives every second, minute, hour, day, week etc from the sun makes our fossil fuel derived energy look like a speck of dust on the blackboard.

So the quality of energy is equally important as to the amount of energy when we are considering progress.

Before humans lit the first controlled/ self-contained fires to run their industries - food, metallurgy, central heating etc, the planets only actively harnessed energy was the sun.

Ever since we have become more and more dependent on chemical and then nuclear energy to power civilisation. And thus changed the chemical composition of the environment (atmosphere and oceans).

Solar energy, geothermal and all the other renewable energy sources (indirectly powered by the sun) were always more stable and wholesome as an energy source than material chemical energy.

To become sustainable there is a great irony - in that we must return to what was already before - a 100% renewable and recyclable energy status of living systems.

There is no limit to thr energy we can harness as long as that energy harnessing isn't directly dangerous to our existence (the air we breath, the water we drink m, the food we eat etc).

BC

Well lets not forget that the energy the earth receives every second, minute, hour, day, week etc from the sun makes our fossil fuel derived energy look like a speck of dust on the blackboard. — Benj96

Very true. The solar constant is approximately 1370 watts per square meter -- at the top of the atmosphere. At ground level it is less, depending on time of day, location on earth, season, cloud cover, etc.

The in-coming and out-going radiation is in equilibrium, unless something happens to alter the outgoing radiation--like burning that tiny speck of chalk dust in the form of fossil solar energy, And I am sure you know all that.

With respect to future "progress" (whatever one thinks that is) we have run into another set of obstacles. Producing the solution to fossil fuel use (solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, etc.) requires a lot of fossil fuels for manufacturing, as do getting all the metals and other elements to make all this work.

The First and Second Industrial Revolutions are both based on the plentiful use of fossil fuels. The problem, in a nut shell, is that while we could run a world economy without fossil fuels, we can't make the transition to that nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, hydrogen economy without fossil fuels. We're stuck, in other words.

Take the problem of electric vehicles: there are over 1 billion internal combustion vehicles on the world's roads now. How do we manufacture 1 billion electric vehicles to replace the 1 billion internal combustion vehicles on the world's roads WITHOUT using a lot more fossil fuel?

Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation by James Kunstler is a good read on the topic.

The reality of reducing CO2, CH4, and Chlorofluorocarbon emissions is that we--red blooded, meat eating, over-weight, car-riding humans--will have to turn in our cars and walk or bicycle, and eat more tofu.

IF we can manage to do that (I doubt it) there is still plenty of opportunity to "progress" in all sorts of ways.

To become sustainable there is a great irony - in that we must return to what was already before - a 100% renewable and recyclable energy status of living systems.

There is no limit to thr energy we can harness as long as that energy harnessing isn't directly dangerous to our existence (the air we breath, the water we drink m, the food we eat etc). — Benj96

This is a very positive outlook -- and one we very much need.

ChatteringMonkey

Is the level of organisation required to produce life the antithesis of entropy? Who knows. — Benj96

No, life is perfectly compatible with the second law of thermodynamics, no antithesis or counterforce is needed. In fact life depends on the universe "flowing" from a low entropy state to a higher entropy state, if the universe were static at either end no life would be possible.

Life itself is a process by which entropy is increased. We take in low entropy free energy and produce higher entropy waste, sustaining our biological form along the way for a while. A pre-condition for this is that you have a source of low entropy energy, like the sun. This makes local decreases in entropy possible (i.e. biological life-forms on earth), but the total entropy of our solar system always increases.

As the sun eventually runs out tending towards maximum entropy.... no life will be possible. That's why I said "ultimately" in quotes, it will take a while... and shouldn't necessarily concern us all that much. We live on a different time-scale as humans.

I would still critique the idea of continual progress, but from a slightly different perspective, still related to energy and entropy. The total amount of energy we receive from the sun is limited, as are natural resources on earth. That puts physical hard limits on how much we can progress, limits we possibly already passed in some ways.

To maintain complex societies we need a lot of energy continuously, the more complex the more energy.... Currently we are getting surplus energy from fossil fuels that took millennia to generate (from that fixed amount of energy from the sun), but those will run out eventually. Maybe we could replace those with other sources of energy, but at this point it's entirely unclear if we can do that without the kick-start from fossil fuels. Maybe we can manage to some extend, but certainly not indefinitely... and as you said there are always trade-offs.

Maybe more fundamentally, there are also other biological and psychological reasons why continuous progress may actually not be what we want. To "grow" as persons, and societies too, we want and need some challenges to be able to grow. As things get progressively more safe, easier and more conformable, we may also lose something vital... so you know, the question then becomes is that kind of progress really progress?

ChatteringMonkey

There is no limit to thr energy we can harness as long as that energy harnessing isn't directly dangerous to our existence (the air we breath, the water we drink m, the food we eat etc). — Benj96

There are limits though, even only theoretically speaking... never mind practically.

Vera Mont

Well everything that utilises energy can be considered parasitic or predatory when compared to a universe where energy is never used by life, and thus life does not exist. — Benj96

Scope and balance matter. There is a difference between passively absorbing a sun's energy and using up many suns to dominate the galaxy. This:

Perhaps this is why many imaginings of the future is an intergalactic, multiplanetary artifical sentience that feeds off the most long-lived and sustainable energy sources: perhaps deriving energy not even from starlight which is finite, but even more fundamental forces like gravity. — Benj96

doesn't sound renewable and recyclable. Intergalactic? We can calculate how much natural resources and energy it takes for three or four humans to escape the gravity of Earth. I don't see using gravity for that. We may be able to calculate how much it would take to travel to another solar system. None of that material, human effort or energy is ever coming back. But I don't know if anyone can calculate what it would take to travel to another galaxy, not even Andromeda, which is already heading our way.

Let's not forget that before us some other animal in our direct ancestral line was the most sophisticated. — Benj96

None of them was in a position to wipe out all life on Earth. None of them gave itself a God-given right to do so.

Vera Mont

To become sustainable there is a great irony - in that we must return to what was already before - a 100% renewable and recyclable energy status of living systems. — Benj96

That would mean reducing the demand. We always increase the demand.
Solar energy is free, but unless you're a plant, you can only harness it with manufactured devices, every one of which depletes the Earth, pollutes the atmosphere and never goes back in the same pure form

Benj96

None of them was in a position to wipe out all life on Earth. None of them gave itself a God-given right to do so. — Vera Mont

True, no other animal has had such potential for a disharmonious existence with mother nature. Or to threaten their own existence.

However, there is always 2 sides to every coin. We as humans have great potential. The quality of that potential can be good or bad and depends on our awareness/education or understanding of the world and then what we choose to do with that knowledge. What actions we convert it into.

We are just as capable of increasing the diversity and stability of ecosystems as we are to destroy them. Just as capable at being gardeners as we are to being a blight on life.

But for that potential to take on wholesome qualities, we need a fundamental and copernican change in our attitude towards the world we live in. Namely that we don't need to outcompete everything. A lot of that comes back to our relationship with death.

Communities that believed in transcendence, afterlives and the idea that the essence of being cannot be destroyed even after death of the body, are inherently more at peace with the environment and treat it with more respect, seeing it as a living breathing organism or "gaia-type" entity in its own capacity.

This probably why they were less interested in imposing capitalist, materialistic and possessive behaviours on other civilizations by conquering and colonialism.

Vera Mont

We as humans have great potential. The quality of that potential can be good or bad and depends on our awareness/education or understanding of the world and then what we choose to do with that knowledge. What actions we convert it into. — Benj96

Yes. And the starry-eyed optimists think the more science we have, the better we behave.

However, there is always 2 sides to every coin. — Benj96

Bringing money into the equation is never a good idea!

We are just as capable of increasing the diversity and stability of ecosystems as we are to destroy them. — Benj96

Which endeavour is progressing faster, here at the end of time

This probably why they were less interested in imposing capitalist, materialistic and possessive behaviours on other civilizations by conquering and colonialism. — Benj96

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Is progress an illusion?

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