
Progress Isn't Natural (2016) - Tomte
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/progress-isnt-natural-mokyr/507740/
======
tim333
Progress of a sort seems to be speeding up. The first 9bn years things
progressed in a leisurely way up to life on earth, then evolution was kind of
slow for the first 3bn years till life went multicellular when things speeded
up a bit, the in recent times things sped up with writing and technology and
it looks like another step up when AI takes off. Not sure how much of that you
look at as natural

~~~
npstr
>Not sure how much of that you look at as natural

All of it. Humans are just a bunch of apes, fully part of nature, and the
universe experiencing itself.

~~~
chongli
That definition of nature leaves little room to make any useful distinctions.
Why have the word at all at that point?

The usual order of things is to call natural anything not made by human hand.

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pdimitar
Philosophical take:

From humanity's very biased point of view, if we assume we are smart and
conscious -- and that is a severely questionable assumption! -- I view
progress / entropy as two kinds:

(1) "Natural", non-directed movement of a system from one stable state to
another. The chaos theory outlines these processes fairly well: basically
longer periods of semi-stable system which is always on the brink of the chaos
but almost never tips over to it, and then sudden cataclysmic changes which
are quickly followed by new semi-stable states. This is related to external
factors that upset the balance.

(2) "Non-natural", or movements of a system directed by external agents. This
is a conscious effort to break the currently existing balance. This implies
understanding of the system and its dynamics, it implies dissatisfaction with
that current state, and finally it implies understanding how to modify the
system in a way that is deemed favorable to the interfering agents.

Since we are not that smart as we think, #2 is almost always inevitably
leading to cataclysmic changes because we don't have good enough understanding
of the entirety of the system we are trying to modify in our favor. Combine
that with the fact that we are always arrogantly thinking that we can grasp
everything at once -- or simply don't care and never consider the bigger
picture in the first place -- and cataclysmic changes are basically
inevitable. They just happen on a longer time scales than we are used to think
about.

So "progress" in the way we perceive it today -- related to our so-called
"civilization" \-- is definitely non-natural. But we are definitely working
towards our own end... or at least towards our next evolutionary stage.

I believe that we are already outside of the cycle of natural entropic changes
in our own ecosystem and societal systems.

~~~
glamblor
To paraphrase: " _Unguided arms races (blindly fumbled through) are bad,
because they lead to ground shaking events, not unlike the Cambrian explosion,
very obviously followed by the Cambrian extinction event._ "

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian-
Ordovician_extinction...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian-
Ordovician_extinction_event)

Massive competition leads to a decisive, if catastophic, yet Pyrrhic victory
of attrition, perhaps?

Also, I think with: "very biased" to describe point of view is an unnecessary
editorialization, , and "severely questionable assumption" I totally disagree
with.

~~~
pdimitar
> _Also, I think with: "very biased" to describe point of view is an
> unnecessary editorialization, , and "severely questionable assumption" I
> totally disagree with._

Well, I am questioning our own assumption that we are intelligent and
conscious. All we know is our current level, and some of us can _imagine_ a
possible higher level. But that might not even describe a "true" intelligence
and consciousness.

Because if anything, so far agent Smith from the first "Matrix" movie is
right: we act more like a virus and not like mammals.

You can disagree with my wording of course, but do you disagree with the
premise?

> _Massive competition leads to a decisive, if catastophic, yet Pyrrhic
> victory of attrition, perhaps?_

Yes, this is how it looks like. If there's gonna be some sort of big war where
everybody gets to pull out their biggest sticks then it definitely won't at
all matter who is gonna win because by the time the "victory" arrives the
Earth is probably gonna be an uninhabitable wasteland.

Our military are like that. There might not be anything remaining to fight for
but their values will likely compel them to fight until the bitter victory.
And it's very likely it will be bitter indeed.

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branweb
I mean, yeah, I agree. And it's useful to be reminded that it isn't natural
lest we take it for granted. But why the strawman setup/teardown at the end:

    
    
      Nowadays, unsubstantiated fears of monstrosities created by genetic engineering...threaten to slow down research and development in crucial areas, including coping with climate change.
    

One could respond that progress is responsible for climate change in the first
place. Point being, fears about progress are hardly "unsubstantiated", and it
is useful to step back from time to time and think about what we're moving
towards.

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gumby
> Tradition did not give up without a fight. In the closing decades of the
> 17th century, an intellectual battle occurred between two groups, the
> ancients and the moderns.

Tradition still hasn't given up and remains a significant force in certain
countries.

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beerlord
Who you have to thank for modern progress:

[https://www.natureindex.com/country-
outputs](https://www.natureindex.com/country-outputs)

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jplayer01
Seems like mostly just painting the history of scientific progress, instead of
trying to make a point about it. If the author was trying to make a point,
it's not supported by anything in the article.

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dpark
The entire point of this is apparently leading to this bit at the end:

 _”Nowadays, unsubstantiated fears of monstrosities created by genetic
engineering (including, God forbid, smarter people, drought-resistant crops,
and mosquitoes that don’t transmit malaria) threaten to slow down research and
development in crucial areas, including coping with climate change._

 _Progress, as was realized early on, inevitably entails risks and costs. But
the alternative, then as now, is always worse.”_

I found the article a very fun read with a completely disconnected ending.
It’s almost like a school assignment where the writer said “Oh, I got my 5
pages. I’m done.”

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B1FF_PSUVM
"Pride comes before the fall", as those damn ignorant ancients were wont to
say.

Stupid gits ... right? right?

~~~
dpark
I’m sure this was very clever (right? right?), but I don’t know what your
point actually is.

