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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

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If progress results in civilization ending within a generation, then at least one generation has enjoyed the frouts of progress.

It's certainly perfectly cromulent to judge that as good and even better than the alternative of a civilization that keeps chugging along in a way that improves people's lives compared to not having civilization - and even improving the amount by which this is an improvement - without enjoying the fruits of progress, where progress here refers to the types of societal changes pushed for by people identifying as "progressives," rather than something more generic like "improving over time" or "moving forward." I don't think this is a common sentiment, though; what I see by and large is motivated reasoning that circumvents the issue altogether, by adopting a genuine, good faith belief that progress - again, referring to the specific meaning alluded above, not the general term - not only won't result in civilization ending within a generation, but that progress will help make civilization more robust against ending.

As a progressive, I would say that the odds that I'm mistaken about the goodness of my ideology - and more generally that people who agree with me are mistaken about the goodness of our ideology - is sufficiently high that I have a general preference to hedge my bets by having humanity keep moving forward long after my death. It's possible that we'll create literal heaven on Earth that you and I can enjoy until we die as the last humans to have ever lived, but it's also possible that, when good, intelligent, well-meaning people do their best, in good faith, to implement ideas that I consider to be good, this actually creates a hell on Earth that we all have to suffer through before we die as the last humans to have ever lived. I would prefer to avoid that.

If civilization continues forever without progress, then, from the point of view of at least N=1 progressive, what's the point of civilization?

The way I see it, the point of civilization is to organize humans in a way that helps make both surviving and thriving easier or more likely for them. Not uniformly or monotonically, but in some vague general sense. Which some/many people see as a good thing worth sacrificing for, even if no one ever enjoys the fruits of progress, again, by that specific meaning referenced above.