Evolution: progress or decline?
Evolution means change, but change is not always progress, is it? Nowhere in the theory of evolution does it say that evolution is destined to become a better version of what we already are, change is always by adaptation.
We live in times of great changes, but, changes for what?
We are really making progress or we are declining, because change can mean either.
Actually, we can even be doing both at the same time, while for some we are making progress, for others we are declining, and everything depends on the angle from which you are looking and what your interests are, because we can be moving forward in some areas, such as In fact we do, and decaying in others.
For the so-called progressives, change is always for good, because they have their sights only on what is progressing, and not on what is declining, on what is being replaced by change. On the other hand, the so-called conservatives, who are no longer conservative but reactionary, only look at what they are declining, or rather, what was stuck, because, in effect, the slogan of the presidential campaign of Trump was "Make America Great Again", great again means that it is no longer, that it declined, that the change was for the worse and that we must go back, or rather, change again, or that there was simply no change when it should have have it
In reality, change, which is inevitable, always occurs in the social body and is always presented as an improvement to the current status. Because, reflect a little, if it were not an improvement, why the change would take place at all, why someone would worry about wanting to change if it is not for something better.
Although with ups and downs, change always occurs for good in a society, or in a living organism, and rest or lack of change is always seen as synonymous with stagnation.
The question really is not whether the change is good or if we should or should not change as a society, the question really would come to be in which sector is the priority change, in which sector the change is most needed, because in a certain way, the change will always happen, the question is always where. And this is true in society, as in the entire life of a person.
Do not cling to the static, lest you want to remain motionless, the change grabs you devoid.
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Very refreshingly put! This reminds me that I was thinking about diseases the other day, because of a family case, and when I read elsewhere that auto-immune diseases are much more common in modern societies than in unmodern ones, this is due to the progress of antibacterial and antiviral drugs and treatments. So while this is seen as progress on the one hand, at the level of bacterial and viral defence, it is a kind of regression at the level of the immune system that now, as it sees itself rid of useful bacteria and viruses, is turning against itself. Thus, research has been done on the tapeworm and there is the thesis that the tapeworm and its host have formed a symbiosis in millions of years of evolution that is useful. No matter how you twist and turn it, everything always has an effect that cannot be completely foreseen.
Interesting. It would be necessary to see whether the advance in medications brought only a decrease in autoimmune diseases, or brought progress in general. Although I agree with you, although the change is for good, there are effects that cannot be completely foreseen.
Well, the devil is in the word "generally." How can something be general if it means progress in one case and regression in another? You can somehow assume that people are better off today than they were four hundred years ago, but what aspects of that do you want to base that on? On health, on income? Then you have to ask, what is health, what is income? Nevertheless, I do not want to pretend that I do not know what you are talking about. I believe to know that it is generally better today than it was hundreds of years ago, yet I do not know exactly. I assume that we are materially better off, but all the sparrows are calling from the rooftops: But mentally. But psychically! Then one would have to ask: What does "today" actually mean? Am I better off than my mother? Sure I am. Materially and in terms of degrees of freedom. But how much do I suffer in the care of those who come after me? For example, when I think of my son and his peers?
When he said the other day that we needed a printer, I said, "Really? Isn't it wiser to use the printer at my work, since it's not used all day anyway? And is it wise that we all have our own washing machine here in the house? Wouldn't it be wiser to share two washing machines in the basement? And he said, "Three would be better."
Such a thing is called regressive economically because it reduces consumption, but could be called very progressive ecologically because it protects the environment. Can we think of progressiveness differently than in terms of production and profit? Can we be the more progressive the less we work and produce?
What would you say: how do you imagine a progressive world?
I'm with you. For me a more progressive world is a more ecological world. Economism is a hard nut to crack. Progress should not be seen only in productive or economic factors. There is a wider world than that.
I don't think there is such a regressive economy, rather it would be a stagnation. It's not like you're throwing away what you have. Then, it does not really recede under any aspect, as in the case of autoimmune diseases, it only stagnates.
:)
Von EwigLernender - my own digital foto, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1378819
I was about to mention permaculture, which is a term with which I am not very familiar but I know thanks to Steem(it). That's a form of ecological progress.
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