Progress

I just wrote this on a Reddit post and thought I'd share to get your insights...

It is in relation to this Arthur C Clarke vid... the discussion turned (as it often does) to politics and government and the economy and the best mix of them all.... anyway, this is what I wrote....


"Progress is fueled by many things and ruthlessness and greed are simply the extreme expression of passion and ambition.... and passion and ambition do not need to be fueled by an unrelenting desire to beat your fellow person and amass great fortune and are often driven by just the opposite. Your example of pseudoscience actually disproves your thesis. Science is a great example of altruistic collaboration for the betterment of humanity (generally speaking , that is the purpose of science, Hiroshima and Nagasaki aside). Scientists collaborate across nations, across universities, across town and while the grant system feeds a competitive spirit, the scientific process and science's "raison dietre" is strong enough to resist this imposition. ....I think there also needs to be a clarification amongst posters about what we are prepared to sacrifice for "progress". Personally, my happiness and the happiness of my family comes before anything else, and that happiness is not contingent on "progress". Therefore, I would sacrifice progress before I would sacrifice happiness (although I think it's on a continuum, not a binary decision)..."