The conservative argument is that what already works — should be protected and cherished

It’s a profoundly wise argument

“There’s nothing new under the sun”

“Only that which has proven itself historically, rather than theoretically — can be trusted”

“Infinitely many theories sound good — but it’s those which work in real world which we consider TRUE (or useful, for that matter)”

etc

 

But progress exists, actually

I say that progress mostly flows from technology

Life is technical, first. It’s crude survival

With technology, we change the paradigm of that survival

Thus our societies could change too

And they did

 

It is only at this stage, that we can even begin to grapple with what is the right course for the society to take

NOT before

 

Before the TECH is there, to change our society — we can’t even conceive of what the society will look like

Our visions of the future involved flying cars…

but not fucking TIK TOK junkies, starring at the world through 6 inch coloured screen, to an upbeat tune, and an AI generated soundbite, and big caption, to test if we still can even read

…and DEFINITELY not the DOWNSTREAM effects of those BIZARRE injunctions into our lives

That is hard to predict even with THAT THING in your hand: that smartphone, or that nuclear bomb, or AI, or that vaccine,

Go ahead predict it BEFORE it even emerged, EVEN as mere idea

 

So we only pick up what’s left

And then we say:

“We should focus more on PRESERVING that which WORKED PREVIOUSLY, that which is our LEGACY, our CULTURAL WEALTH”

or we say:

“We should ADAPT to this new PARADIGM, we should PROGRESS, to keep up with the TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIETAL PROGRESSION”

And both make sense

And both are true depending on context

 

And as usual on this site, I take neither option A nor B, nor the middle,

I say: MAXIMISE BOTH

I say: in many ways we’re still SLOW to adapt to the new PARADIGM… we’re NOT NEARLY PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH,

And in other ways — we’re NOT NEARLY CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH,

 

For instance, I don’t think we understand the value of a more harmonious living, closer to nature, closer to the body, at a more spontaneous rhythm, and more deliberate in our use of technology,

it’s only one example,

 

And likewise for progress — I don’t think we understand just how much of a paradigm shift information technology was… and now AI has doubled and tripled it,

I don’t think we will have fucking traditional institutions

AI will become the source of truth, the source of information, the source of education and the source of credentialism, AND the source of even networking

I don’t pretend I understand it with ANY precision, and my prediction could be quite wrong

Some OBVIOUS improvements will take longer to implement, and some obvious improvements will actually be regressive

But I don’t think we’re nearly close to internalising the potential societal disruptions caused by the new technology

I don’t think we’re moving fast enough, we’re thinking “progressive enough”.

We’ll fail to adapt on time and have more mess to clean up later

 

INDEED,

It would be a good heuristic to seek room for PROGRESSIVISM there where the TECH has already done the greatest disruptions

+Appealing to tradition, such as previous technology, is a fallacious application of this heuristic. TRADITION applies to ideas which stood for hundreds of years — rather than under 50 fucking years

Where appeal to tradition makes most sense is where our lifestyle have drastically strayed from what was, almost animalistically, the default

I would say conservatives have done very poor job of articulating those problems too,

often busy instead with now indefensible nonsense like religion

 

We have to be more refined in our PROGRESSIVISM and CONSERVATISM

Have deeper understanding of what is TESTED and PROVEN and worth PRESERVING,

And where the REVOLUTION is already inevitable

Then make realpolitik decisions, without partisan nonsense, or populist nonsense, which is arguably even worse