scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2xeqoj.md

What are the most significant milestones/feats of human progress so far? (in particular social/cultural/ethical/technological/scientific/etc advancements)

• Author: u/Sailor_Vulcan Champion of Justice and Reason*

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2xeqoj/what_are_the_most_significant_milestonesfeats_of/

• Score: 14

• Created: 2015-02-27T23:42:56

Post:

I need this info for a song I'm writing. I looked on the internet but couldn't find it. It seems to be buried under a ton of other useless trivia. Please just list them and don't point me to a link to a timeline if that timeline uses flash or anything that would slow my computer down. For some reason my computer is lagging right now and I don't know why.

So far the milestones/feats I've thought of:

• Irrigation
• written language
• mathematics
• the invention of currency
• the scientific method
• sanitation
• antibiotics and vaccinations
• global exploration, improvements in map-making
• the discoveries of biological evolution by natural selection, the periodic properties of the elements, and the fundamental forces/interactions (gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force), the beginnings of astronomy/cosmology, meteorology/climatology, quantum mechanics, the cognitive sciences, and the social sciences
• the beginnings of legal acknowledgment of human rights and the implementation of legal protections for human rights (i.e., bills of rights)
• abolition of slavery
• civil rights movements
• Geneva Conventions
• aviation, global transportation
• environmentalism
• moon landing, launching of satellites and probes
• computers
• internet/global communications

anything else I'm missing that should be added to the list?

also, the most significant accomplishments/feats of human progress still left to make (that I know of):

• cure for aging
• end of global poverty, hunger and sickness
• end of war
• end of organized religion
• improvements to education and rationality/critical thinking
• end of institutional discrimination
• friendly AI

Thanks!

Comments:

u/therearetoomanydaves [+8] (an hour later)

I'm thinking that the list should be things that radically change human society, as opposed to incremental improvements). Probably most things that can be described as "The end of the monopoly of x" qualify. Here are some ideas:

• Cooking, food preservation
• Agriculture
• Cooperation and trading (no longer need to make everything you need yourself)
• Writing (no longer need to depend on personal memory)
• Money (replacing barter)
• The printing press (wide dissemination of written material)
• Efficient information storage, searching, and retrieval (this seems very much like computers, but I think the library card catalog counts)
• Industry (replace muscle power with machine power)
• The scientific method
• Recursion, or iterative improvement
• Individuals having the right to their own life (constitutionally limited democracy)
• Blogs / Facebook / etc (the end of the monopoly of publishers and broadcasters)

Future:

• Practical near-immortality
• Virtually all needs/wants provided by automated production
• Self-optimizing AI that doesn't kill or enslave everyone
• A solution to the problem of "I need really high energy density to do useful stuff, but it's also useful for making bombs"

u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (4 hours later)

I'm surprised that no one has said space flight. Even if we haven't actually sent more than a handful of people to space, just achieving it was a huge marker in our technological development. Plus all of these satellites up there were pretty revolutionary for our communications.

u/eaglejarl [+2] (7 hours later)

OP used it in the initial list:

moon landing, launching of satellites and probes

But, yeah, that was my first thought too.

u/i_dont_know [+6] (an hour later)

The eradication of smallpox.

u/Kishoto [+1] (2 hours later)

I feel like the author doesn't want it this granular.

u/Farmerbob1 [+2] Level 1 author (an hour later)

Well, depends on how far you want to go back. To me, before irrigation there would be:

simple tools

control of fire

preserved food

the concept of history

EDIT Oh, and let's not forget animal domestication.

u/eaglejarl [+2] (3 hours later)

• Religion. Whether you love it or hate it, it made an enormous impact on history.
• Refrigeration
• Industrial farming
• Gunpowder
• The wheel
• Domestication of animals

u/Cariyaga [+2] Kyubey did nothing wrong (3 hours later)

How about we just look at the Civilization tech tree and go with that?

u/ajuc [+1] (3 days later)

I can't help but notice that most of your past milestones are positive, and almost all of your future milestones are negative.

That's probably because before something is invented we often hadn't knew we lacked it. So I'd guess there's probably twice more future milestones that we can't imagine waiting in future, and they might solve some of the negative future milestones, but not nessesarily solve them 100% (like irrigation haven't solved starvation 100%).

Also if you put "abolition of religion" there, the invention of organized religion should be there as well. It influenced our history a lot more than most of the other past milestones..

Also mathemathics isn't done.

u/Cruithne [+1] Light Sith epistemologist (5 days later)

Spoken language ought to be up there. There's a reasonably strong theory that humans had sign language long before we had spoken language, but spoken language came in to do what sign couldn't- communicate in the dark, for example.

u/luminarium [+1] (an hour later)

Fire
Trade
Markets
Speech
Tribes
Electricity
Printing press
Law
Cell theory
Evolution theory

u/Farmerbob1 [+1] Level 1 author (12 hours later)

Oh, a very important one. A great deal more important than what many people might think at first glance.

Alcoholic beverages.

Yes, they cause a great deal of pain and misery in the world. That being said, after people started living in large groups, the water that was available became foul and dangerous to drink. Weak beer, watered wine, and other light alcoholic beverages were safer to drink than water. Early medicine used alcohol as a painkiller. Without alcohol, our world would be a hugely different place.

u/The_Mad_Duke [+1] House Tremontaine (14 hours later)

Not a milestone, but a significant accomplishment/feat of human progress: building cities and infrastructure. I mean, when I consider the skyscrapers and cathedrals that surround me have all been build by fellow ape-like creatures, I feel that's quite impressive.

Developing empathy and human level intelligence perhaps could be considered crucial early feats if you're (particularly) interested in ethics. (But perhaps random chance played to large a role in their development to call them "accomplishments".) As a predecessor to written language, I'd say spoken language is pretty impressive too.

u/Chosen_Pun [+1] The Chosen Ones (16 hours later)

No one's mentioned the invention of the bow yet.

u/None [-6] (an hour later)

I think it's totally subjective. I know some people from /r/DarkEnlightenment – myself included – who could make a pretty good case against the "end of institutionalized discrimination." (Which I think is funny as a future goal, but I digress. Politics is spiders.)

If I were you, I'd stick to the technology / science field: eg, technology and science (irrigation, antibiotics, language, all the physics discoveries you lumped together). That stuff is objective: there's no worrying about whether it's a "step forward" or "step backward"; just look at what's had a big effect on civilization / human living conditions and run with it. In that theme, for future predictions I would add space colonization and drop –

reviews list in OP

Wait, do you seriously think we'll ever actually be able to end poverty? I mean, you've indicated you understand game theory and evopsych, sooo

I think even in a best-of-all-worlds scenario, where the entire post-scarcity world is ruled by a FAI, it would be nearly impossible to evade poverty and inequality in some areas. Equal opportunity, not equal outcome … right?

And in the same theme, organized religion is only really bad in some places – unless you're suggesting we make the places where it's good more like the places where it's bad, which is interesting and would make sense eventually I guess?

AHH SPIDERS, SPIDERS EVERYWHERE. I'M SO SORRY

ETA: Downvotes why? I thought we would be beyond the petty downvoting of dissenting opinions in this sub …

u/None [+5] (11 hours later)

SPIDER WARNING. UNGOLIANT APPROACHES.

u/Transfuturist [+4] Carthago delenda est. (2 hours later)

I know some people from /r/DarkEnlightenment – myself included – who could make a pretty good case against the "end of institutionalized discrimination."

Please do so.

u/None [-1] (3 hours later)

Note in hindsight: I should've said "pretty mean case," since I suppose its goodness is entirely subjective.

I really really really don't want to turn this sub to politics (since, as its now-inactive founder, I kinda have a vision for it, and political debate doesn't quite fit), so in lieu of typing out the whole argument myself, I'll kindly direct you to the best summary of NRx beliefs I know of, which is this SlateStarCodex post. I believe with about 80% confidence that the section you're looking for is entitled Plays Well In Groups, but I'm not sure if it would make much sense without context. Although the article is very long, like most SSC articles, it's also very good (also like most SSC articles). I highly recommend you read the whole thing, if you can find the time.

I'd also point you towards the relevant section in SSC's NRx rebuttal, but honestly that thing is so long that I've only read it once, so my (already cursory) memory isn't half as good in regards to that one. Sorry :/

Best of luck!

u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (5 hours later)

I doubt my position will change very much, as I'm fairly sure that ethical positions that consider people failing to be inherently good are entirely contradictory to my own position, undefined as it may be. But I will read it.

u/None [+1] (17 hours later)

ethical positions that consider people failing to be inherently good

Huh? I'm not saying that at all! I'm just saying …

Oh. I might have read "discrimination" as "segregation." Well, that might explain some of the downvotes.

u/blockbaven [-5] (9 minutes later)

The answer? Love.

u/Sailor_Vulcan [+5] Champion of Justice and Reason (23 minutes later)

huh? isn't that a milestone of neurobiological evolution in regards to dealing with the prisoner's dillema, not a milestone of human social/cultural/ethical/technological/scientific/etc progress?

oh wait you're telling a joke about how a bunch of people say that love conquers all and is the answer to everything, aren't you?

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