Progress

Progress used here as growth of information by larning individuals and societies. See Information.

Such progress would seem inevitable as long as learning agents exist. It can create the ability to self-destruct, which would seem to make it self-limiting in the long run unless defense somehow becomes easier than offence or perfect collaboration exists.

One of the main ways to explain Fermi’s paradox – why we see no evidence of alien civilizations despite the great number of opportunities in the universe – is that progress is difficult to survive so that civilizations don’t last very long. Nuclear weapons show that humanity can mount a credible threat to its own existence. Progress continues. Future inventions might become even more dangerous. Recent developments, for example in artificial intelligence and biology, suggest more plausible ways in which progress could go terribly wrong.

Yet progress also allows so many of us to exist and it enables an ever-increasing share of this growing population to lead ever longer and better lives.

Progress is good, for as long as you survive it. A long future, and the aim of this site, is about surviving progress for long. Increasing the number of Saturdays.