Progession as a society?

[Ilikepiedoyou]

What is the true yardstick ,if there is one, which we can measure our society with. What is the true mark of our progress?

 

[ElFenix]

that assumes society progresses, which sort of implies a directive. i'm not sure that it does, and that it isn't mostly random noise.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: Ilikepiedoyou
What is the true yardstick ,if there is one, which we can measure our society with. What is the true mark of our progress?

First, you need to adequately define "our society". ATOT has members posting from all over the world, and as you know the world contains a multitude of different societies, many of which are quite different from each other. Secondly, the questions are so general that you need to narrow the scope down to something you can actually answer. For example, what aspect of society are you considering? The growth of technology? The growth of tolerance and acceptance of diversity? The standard of living? Overall happiness? Life expectancy? Population?

 

[five40]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
that assumes society progresses, which sort of implies a directive. i'm not sure that it does, and that it isn't mostly random noise.

There is always progression no matter what. As long as we are alive we progress. If there was no progression we'd still be hunter gatherers struggling with survival.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by: five40

Originally posted by: ElFenix
that assumes society progresses, which sort of implies a directive. i'm not sure that it does, and that it isn't mostly random noise.

There is always progression no matter what. As long as we are alive we progress. If there was no progression we'd still be hunter gatherers struggling with survival.

Well, technically, we might progress, but as a society, we might not - look at it this way - in the 60's we had the hippies spewing love and non-violence and all that jazz, followed by the 80's conservative republican muney-grubbers - if you look a little back further, the "roaring" 20s were very similar to the 60s, breaking all social norms set by the prior generation.

As far as attitudes go, a lot of researchers agree that attitudes oscillate in a given time. Standards of living-wise we might be getting better, but you know what Einstein said (or what's attributed to him) and I paraphrase:

I don't know what WWIII might be like; but in WWIV, we'll be fighting with sticks and stones

So who knows? Even that might be oscillating, for all we know.

 

[sandorski]

Length of existance, Wealth, Power, Size/Population, Influence on others, and various internal demographics.

 

[mjrpes3]

There is only one measure of progress in society: the rate of consumption of material goods.

 

[Siddhartha]

Average life span and life span of the poorest group.

Infant mortality rates, average and poorest groups

Literacy rates, average and poorest groups

New born birth weights,

Size of prison populations, in terms of percentage of population

Percentage of GDP spent on education and health care

Tracking this information would provide a picture on how well everyone in the society is doing.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Ilikepiedoyou
What is the true yardstick ,if there is one, which we can measure our society with. What is the true mark of our progress?

Your ture yardstick is here.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Ilikepiedoyou
What is the true yardstick ,if there is one, which we can measure our society with. What is the true mark of our progress?

Your ture yardstick is here.

whoa, a moonbeam post out of p&n!