We need a new philosophy of progress

Fifty thousand years ago, our ancestors lived at the mercy of nature, surviving by hunting and foraging, with no permanent shelter and only a campfire for light and warmth. Two hundred years ago, almost 90% of people still lived in what is today considered extreme poverty: many subsisted on manual labor in the fields, lit their homes with candles, cooked with wood or coal, and hauled their water in buckets from the well. But by the mid-19th century, per-capita incomes in the West started rising consistently for the first time in history. Soon ordinary people would have plumbing and electricity, own refrigerators and washing machines, travel in cars and airplanes, and live or work in skyscrapers. This unprecedented progress engendered an optimism that lasted into the mid-20th century. The title of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair was “A Century of Progress”; the 1939 fair in New York featured “The World of Tomorrow,” and people came back from it proudly sporting buttons that said “I Have S

Fifty thousand years ago, our ancestors lived at the mercy of nature, surviving by hunting and foraging, with no permanent shelter and only a campfire for light and warmth. Two hundred years ago, almost 90% of people still lived in what is today considered extreme poverty: many subsisted on manual labor in the fields, lit their homes with candles, cooked with wood or coal, and hauled their water in buckets from the well. But by the mid-19th century, per-capita incomes in the West started rising consistently for the first time in history. Soon ordinary people would have plumbing and electricity