As technologists we often prefer to think that we are not responsible for the uses that result from our work. We like to think that technology is inherently impartial; that it is sterile in intent and result.

The longer we work, however, the more we come to see that our work has a very concrete effect on its users. You have only to consider this here C2 wikiweb to understand this. Or the GPL, for another example. By enabling various kinds of interactions we promote those interactions.

Now we like to think that, if we didn't do the work, someone else would. There's a lot of money available for military work, for example, and we can be certain that someone, somewhere, will do it. We can pride ourselves on our principles, but they don't stop people killing people.

There is a lie in this, however. The lie is that all technologies must be created, and that all technologies must eventually be used. If we did not deny this lie, we would be sitting at the bottom of a mineshaft waiting for the nuclear winter to end.

The fact is, not all technologies are good to develop or use. Some make people's lives worse. Some make people's lives better. How can we judge when we're doing one or the other? 

We must create a new understanding of the word '''''Progress'''''. This word is often used to mean the general results of any kind of engineering. But true progress is not about MooresLaw, or harnessing more and more energy to our wills, or making more and more subtle copies of our expressions. True progress has a very distinct meaning that you won't find in the dictionary. 

'''''Progress''''' is anything that enables new ways for people to express love for one another, or for more people to express love for one another, or for people to express deeper love for one another.

Anything else, no matter whether it fits more nanocircuits to the nanometer, or powers more gigawatts to the warp drive, or reformats more molecules into copies of our molecules, if it does not cause new, or more, or deeper love, is not progress. It is regress, and ultimately it is self-defeating. --PeterMerel
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Thank you Peter for this page.

Are there other things that could qualify as Progress?  If something improves global quality of life (regardless of its impact on love) then is that Progress?  Say, for example, the "golden rice" that has been bioengineered to produce vitamin A.

-- JeffChapman

''Seems to pass the test here; hungry people are much less likely to create or express love for one another.''

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I am curious if this is just an inversion of the idea that the FutureCausesThePresent.  In other words, where we are going gets transmitted to us (from the future) by the force of Love.  As we execute the guidance given to us by this Love we create Progress.  Those that create the most Progress are the same folks who are most in-touch with the Love from the future.

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See also: WhatIsCopulism, BarnRaising
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CategoryEpiphany.