The goal, OF COURSE, is progress
BY DEFINITION progress is superior, progress is progress
What is NOT a goal is REGRESS
Obviously
That would be the opposite of progress
How do we regress?
We can go back to status quo ante
(assuming that status quo ante was regressive relatively to modernity)
OR
we can also regress by over-progressing,
overshooting
overcorrecting
by going too far,
basically: by MOVING FORWARD — but in the WRONG DIRECTION
And thus DESTROYING what was already GOOD
Now, as with all things, progress will be a mix of:
-trying out a lot of bad ideas, figuring out they didn’t work
-being overly reluctant to improve upon certain dogmas
-sometimes taking a step back, regressing, because someone had an IDEA, AGAIN, that the good old was so great
-and sometimes taking a step back TO PROGRESS, because that thing, that idea, really was superior, was the vintage
This tension is of course present everywhere:
tradition vs progress
conservatism vs progressivism
innovation vs tested methods
breaking the rules vs enforcing the rules
left vs right
GAS PEDAL vs BRAKES
And thus:
Any statement generalising that one is absolutely BETTER than the other — is of course fallacious
Because the same rule applies that we already outlined:
-PROGRESS is by definition better
-But it must actually be progress, not regress
-Sometimes it means gradual improvements of the existing platform
-Sometimes it means tearing it to the fucking ground
Indeed,
It’s never just “protect the values, norms, truth”, or “innovate, move fast, progress, transform!”
It’s BOTH
In varied degrees
Much of our problems is lacking both of those gears,
And inability to recognise when to use them:
-When to quit your job
-When to put a brake of utopian fantasizing
-When to cut ties with them, set a hard barrier — vs when to keep them
-When we need to fight for revolution — and when we need to fight against it
-When to put every penny in Nvidia and AI “bubble” — and when to sell your dotcom stonks
-When to break every rule but the rules of physics — and when to tread carefully and mindfully around the fragile machine, or Chesterton’s fence
etc
Anyone who doesn’t think this way is ultimately in danger of dogmatism — which in and of itself is BACKWARDS and REGRESSIVE
It either has them protect norms which are no longer defensible, like religion
Or blowing up the entire fucking system, and as it burns — STILL insisting it’s VIRTUOUS and BETTER