posting this because I need to be reminded of it myself.
was it all worth it?
thoughtportal reblogged
"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity
To optimists and believers in progress, ideas that started in Europe in the mid-17th century are responsible for the longest winning streak in human history. In that time, medical advances eradicated several diseases for good; technology made our lives easier and healthier; and equal rights for women, minorities and LGBTQ+ people were secured in one long continuum of progress over the past 300 years.
Indeed, these things are all true. Humanity has made huge strides over the last three centuries, but to the figurative patient – the protagonist with the ailment, be they individuals or societies as a whole – progress is relative, not absolute.
That is, you can only perceive your distress in the here and now. It is not alleviated by a notional time in the past or a parallel existence in the present where it has, or could be, worse.
When the argument of progress takes hold as a response to political malaise, suffering is hidden. Before we advance the notion of progress, we should ask ourselves: what counts as progress? Who benefits from what counts as progress? If the progress that arose from capitalism, liberal humanism and scientific inquiry is to be measured in terms of life expectancy and affluence, then where do all the fallouts of this trifecta fit?
The very concept of progress is often ethno and class centric, where certain markers of development are valued over others, and where those markers have served the interests of some over others. To ask a sick member of society to be grateful and try to seek the progress that has only benefited others is like urging someone to attend a heavily barricaded and policed party for which they have no invite.
Optimists display a jarring positivity because they believe only in one thing: the big picture. The further you zoom out, the smaller the negative phenomena appear.
The inexorable tectonic force that carries along social change is the ability of human beings, their healthy natural self-preservation instinct, to register pain and inequality and have the bravery and moral conviction to do something about it. If progress evangelists had their way, they would watch movements for social equality expire, as they berated them for not being grateful that things really couldn’t be much better, therefore guaranteeing that things do indeed get much worse. The only way to create the best pre-conditions for progress is to be grateful for the past and take nothing for granted in the future.