Wednesday 25 March 2015

Progress

Should one have to pay a price for progress?

6 comments:

  1. Hello everyone,
    "Should one to pay a price for progress ?"

    We can think we have to work hard for progress and work hard it's a price because when you work you don't see your friends and you don't watch TV but whatever your spend your free time at work and that is a price to pay, something like a concession.
    For exemple I have taken "work" but it is possible for many exemple like "sport" or "life".

    And we can think in other case we don't have to pay a price for progress, for some people "sport", or supleness is easy as if it was innate.
    in that case we shouldn't pay some price.
    But there is things like "work" who everyone should work even if is a little bit.

    For me we have to work in all case for progress. That's an evidence.
    So work for progress and have what do you want !

    Thanks for reading

    Pierre Chalard

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    Replies
    1. Quite a good point, but then you have tackled the subject from an individual point of view. What if we considered the question from a wider point of view? Imagine the question at the level of countries, of cultural or ethnic groups, or maybe if we looked at progress in terms of social and moral advancement (when gender or race or religion are at stake )?

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  2. To begin the progress it is information that pass of generations after generations which over time become more and more precise thanks to the advanced.
    The progress can help people to live, for medicine for example or to discover new things
    Should we have to pay a price for progress?Sincerely in the world in which we live at present, yes everything has a price so yes we have to pay out some money to progress.
    But just with some money we would not progress ! So there is not only the money, the work can be seen as a price given by us.
    And the third element to progress is maybe the hope to find new things, the hope is not really the price but the reason why are we working to the progress and we give a part of our time to work.
    Like I said, the progress can help some people to live, and there is no progress without work.
    To my mind we pay all the time to the progress but differently, for example the teachers are working for the progress: they are teaching us to learn new things and whit thoses informations we choose a voice and a job and maybe a part of us gonna discover incredibles things !
    to finish, nothing is free in the world wich we are linving and there are different manners to pay!

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  3. In order to answer this question, we first have to get a grip on the definition of « progress ». From what I have found, progress seems to define a movement, a change, most of the time in a positive way. Although this positive aspect of the term may not always be present, I will assume that, for this current question, it is.

    As a consequence, I will try to answer the question: what were or could be the drawbacks of humanity's globally good changes? (I am calling a « globally good change » any modification which has doubtless more direct benefits than direct inconveniences).

    Because I can see no way to answer using pure logic, we will need to seek examples of some representative progresses.


    To begin with, we'll look at the very first important progress in History: the one with which it began: the invention of writing. This is arguably one of the most important progress in all of human history. About the drawbacks? Well, it did set into motion almost every bad things that happened since then, I guess, but those are not direct consequences, so we can't measure them.
    We can also give some attention to the next important step on the same path: the spread of printing. This is also a great change in history, and as for its direct inconveniences, it has none.

    But let's look at another kind of progress: the equality between black people and white people. Because it has been a very long and complex struggle, we are only going to look only at the events which happened in the U.S.A. between 1955 and 1965 (civil rights movement) (why those events? Well, because I found a good place to pick infos about it).
    What was achieved? A better legislation, more fair and more willing to defend the rights of minorities, and to let demonstrations happen was created. But in that case, there have been drawbacks.
    Those were the harm inflicted on many members or sympathizers of the movement, and the death of some of them, such as Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and many others.
    So … was it worth it. Yes. It changed the way all African Americans lived. It is a progress as defined earlier. But the cost cannot be overlooked.


    So, should one have to pay a price for progress? Sometimes. We only answered that question in a limited way, and we already can't say “yes” or “no”. But I would still be curious to explore other aspects of that question.


    Do you agree, or do you think that I am wrong? Which huge progress do you think will happen in a near future, and will there be a price? Do you think more ambiguous discoveries, like steam energy/electricity/nuclear energy were mostly positive?
    Please tell me, I'd love to discuss it!

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    1. Assessing the positive and negative effects of human discoveries can be an endless work, but you are right : it certainly is worth doing for our future generations.
      If one considers Aborigenes' vision of the earth as a motherly place, a bounteous land to be respected, and to be passed on from one generation to the following one , one can't help reflecting about the impact of our discoveries. History is full of wounded people , people who have suffered the price of progress when progress went with the idea of power, self-righteousness, individualism. The notion of "price to pay for progress " is necessarily linked to moral values. Shouldn't new discoveries go through an "ethical" test before being blindly implemented? But then, who can forsee what human beings might do with them? A never-ending, but very interesting question indeed!

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  4. To begin with, progress is an improvment, a development which contributes to make the world a better place. It can also be a negative progress but we rarely talk about it. Should one have to pay a price for progress ?

    Firstly, a progress always means a price to pay in my opinion because our mind changes to make this progress.
    Secondly, there are two kind of prices : -material beacause, in our world, we always need money to progress in the society. For example, we pay to study in adavanced scholls to progress in some areas. But a progress also means afetr a reward like a diploma showing our abilities to do a job.
    -psychological because our mind needs to adapt some situations, sometimes difficult. Therefore, we can say that we must do concessions. People disagree when animals are killed for scientific researches but it helps to progress in medicine and then saves many lives.
    Lastly, the work given by everyone is a price to progress in life : to change the importance of a job, we need to work or, as the others said, teachers pay a price to make the others progress.

    To conclude, there is no progress without a price to pay, even a little one, because our world was created like this : no pain no gain.

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