Regarding 2. I think the crux of the controversy around progressivism is not so "much what is to be done" but, "by whom?"

The separation of powers in the west has been a pretty good at being resiliant to change with a kind of meta-stability, and also facilitating growth. Dynasties provided stability for milennia, but somehow prevented humans from making any of the post-enlightenment discoveries from the last 300 years anywhere else, and over hundreds of millions of lives. Out on a limb, but I actually suspect in the 19th century as a conseqeuence of mass literacy, we figured out how to create the equivalent to internet viruses, but in language, and use them to spread variants of mental illness. Metaphorically, our current conflicts closely resemble the consequences of ideological botnets weilded by some very unsavory characters. One way to free minds from it is to inculcate them with the idea that everywhere there is life, it is evident that it was not meant just to struggle and suffer, but it was created with an intent for it to thrive. This is really meta, but I'd say logically we need to get upstream of materialism if we're going to find ways solve material problems, and if we don't, we're just going to stay in solipsistic loops that justify our will to power. The view of the world that is predicated on an identity founded on being oppressed by other people is really a perverse form of materialist worship, where it doesn't believe in creation or intent, but it does believe in its inferiorized self relative to the idealized (evil) object it sees its identity reflected in. The view has allowed itself to be defined by (and relative-to) its own peak experience, and one that was negative. This is heresy, surely, but it seems worth it given the alternatives.

Anyway, I'd say the thing to do is, make new stuff, discover new things, and if you can't, find a way align with those who are. This meta stuff is just articulating how to untangle some of the underlying morass of beliefs that I think are getting in the way of thriving life.

Actually, I think the GP post is saying we don't all agree on 1. The way progress looks to economists like Cowen is very different from how it'd look if a single person asked that question to themselves.

Rather than agreeing on the framework of "progress means increasing GDP and productivity", you could say "progress means total families" or "progress means a growing number of independent, self-sufficient communities". Is it radical to think that to some, progress might mean _more countries_?

> Is it radical to think that to some, progress might mean _more countries_?

I find hard to believe that anyone would put that in front of more basic needs like food, safety, home.

Sure, once basic needs are satisfied, our goals start to diverge, and rely more on our subjective views of the world.

But is the world even close to that? Should we disregard basic needs as a solved problem that we don't even think about anymore?

Basic needs are covered compared to a coupe ages ago.

Spring-of-nations happened because at the time many people got their basic needs covered and started looking for higher needs to fulfill.

But as with salary raises, people quickly take better conditions as the new normal.

In comparison yes, but in absolute terms that's mostly true if you were born in the first world, and yet you still have to put a considerable amount of time into doing stuffs you dislike, like working (in most cases)

I agree with you that we have had progress, and it's been net good by far. But I was answering to someone who its answer to the question "What would look like progress to you?" was something that is multiple levels above of what we consider basic needs today.

The whole point of progress studies is that, in the long term, the best way to improve whatever we consider today "basic needs" is to "grow the pie" as fast as we can

When do we draw the line what is basic needs? Today’s third world lives better than first world 150 years ago. And even developing world lives better than nobility 100 years ago.

I don’t believe purely growing the pie will fix it. Human beings looove to look at relative quality of life. And feel much better if everybody is equally poorer rather than higher baseline, but even higher extremes.

For example my country in Soviet era was piss poor. But people managed to get by and find happiness. Nowadays we live much much much better in absolute terms. Even baseline. Yet many people are lost in rat race drowning in instagram envy.

> Human beings looove to look at relative quality of life. And feel much better if everybody is equally poorer rather than higher baseline, but even higher extremes.

Do you have some data to back that up? Or any study?. My hypothesis is that most of those people think the world is mostly a zero-sum game, and they think the best way to improve their lives is to redistribute wealth more uniformly.

> For example my country in Soviet era was piss poor. But people managed to get by and find happiness.

I'm sorry, but that's an euphemism for dying and suffering. And be mindful that you, or your family, have survivorship bias. There are studies that show correlations between happiness and GDP

I am from Venezuela, sadly, my memory is fresher. My dad needlessly died before hand because the government decided that a local pandemic (pre covid, 2017) didn't exist, the pandemic was in conflict to their statistic goals, so they acted as if it didn't existed and let it roll without restrains. And there were more common dramas like family and friends malnourished, and criminals rampaging the city (BTW, one time they entered into my house armed and tied me up while they robbed, and multiple times robbed my family's small businesses with guns). There are 2 main reasons why criminality exploded in the last decade, the economy shrunk more than 50%, and criminals weren't punished, in fact, some were even armed as guerrillas in favor of the ruling party. The line between police and criminal was as blurry as ever, I've never seen a police acting like thugs so shamelessly without any care, they knew there was no punishment whatsoever

Current trend is that money does not buy happiness, but lets you run away from sorrow. It's 2 separate attributes rather than 2 ends of the same one. People can easily live stress-free swimming in money yet don't be happy. Or be miserable due to crappy situation yet find happiness at the same time.

P.S. Venesuela is a truly sad case. Yet another example what leftist economical miracles lead to. Unfortunately too many people in West still wish that upon themselves :D

I can imagine money having diminishing returns on happiness, so there's a line beyond which money stops correlating strongly with happiness. Though I've read that if we redistribute equally our global wealth, we would be waaay below that hypothetical line, hence, for now, we should still be growing the pie, at least if we believe in equality.

But I think I see your point now, for the people currently beyond that line, subjective views of the world dominates their desires, so the axis where we want progress are now more diverse among individuals, and progress in one axis tend to harm progress on other axis, hence why there's more conflict

Money helps with reducing misery. But it helps little to improve happiness. When you can afford warm, dry and comfy shoes, that will take you out of damp misery. But comfy feet won't make you happy day in, day out.

People have subjective views of how they define progress too. For me, splitting the pie equally sounds like retrograde soviet nostalgia. I don't believe equally sharing the pie makes the world any better. Productive people (actually productive) should get bigger piece of the pie than slackers. On top of that, functioning market is important to find ideas that work. Otherwise it's straight to failure of central planning.

I agree with everything you said there

So I think our difference relies in how much our happiness is tied to relating to others

And I'm not sure how we can answer that. But I do feel my happiness rarely relies on relating to others, instead it relies more in socializing (laughing out loud or playing games with friends), and by making progress towards my moralistic goals, mostly with the point of view centered at society, our species, or all life beings