Call me strange but I happen to be a person that sees progress as having more than what you started with. Before the wheel we got every where by shank's mare (on your own feet) The wheel meant we could now ride every where or at least not have to carry everything on our backs. Domestication of animals meant we had beast power instead of man power.
As you can see with every bit of progress we gained something we did not have before. In fact we have a great deal more than we ever did. While we did loose on the physical activity end of it. We gained in the fact we didn't work ourselves to early permanent retirement(death).
We at one time were a civilization organized into what is known as feudalism. Simply put we lived on land that a powerful lord owned. We paid rent to him which was a portion of our labour and or military service. Lest we be kicked off his land. The Lordship had last word on everything, while he didn't sully himself with our day to day lives if he caught wind of something that could directly affect his income or ability to field a regiment of men at arms he would have his men put a stop to it.
For the most part that is ancient history we discovered Constitutional democracy. We decided that their ought to be limits on what the powers that be could do. There were these fellows in the early days before the idea of Constitutional democracy, they were a radical bunch, they had the nerve to think people ought to get paid for a days work and individuals had rights. They were the progressives of their time they were radical in their beliefs.
Imagine rights for common people! That was enough to get a person hung back then, no member of the aristocracy wanted one of these radicals in their town. They would make people discontented with the order of things...Rights for common people how absurd.
The idea of rights and freedom caught on like a house on fire, there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. The tighter the tyrants squeezed the more people slipped through their fingers. Freedom came at a very high cost in some lands. People died for it.
Today in our century progressive liberals are common place, sadly they are not what they used to be. Today their idea of progress is to take away freedom and democracy, the common people are just too common to enjoy it. They over indulge in food and drink, they waste their money on frivolities. They indulge in unhealthy things and become burdensome to others. So our once libertine philosophers that fought for the common man, have turned over a new leaf. They now lobby for restrictive laws to limit our freedom and try to stack democratic governments to favour them.
It would appear that our erstwhile liberators have decided that they know what is best for us, and have become the feudal lords. While they won't evict you from your home directly they will tax you out of it. They have even bandied about the idea of taking away your health care if you do things they disapprove of, like smoke tobacco or eat too many burgers.
It is a sad day indeed, for it seems that progress today is to regress to yesterday.
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