idallen@watmath.UUCP (06/20/85)
> The western nations ... developed a culture that was better suited to rapid > progress and internal economic growth than the world's other cultures. > The undoubted evils perpetrated against some developing societies by > some western entities should not blind us to this. > Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology At times, I wonder if this "progress" and economic "growth" is being measured in terms of overall human and global well-being, or in terms of GNP and number of Cuisinarts per square rec room. Trouble is, I can count GNP and Cuisinarts -- I can't so easily measure overall human well-being. (Human factors? Who cares, man -- it runs at 16.5 MHz and has 32 bits of address space! Progress you can *measure*!) I guess every culture invents and believes its own measures of success, but nobody has told me how many Cuisinarts I need to replace an extended family or to endure living in Toronto. -- -IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) University of Waterloo
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (06/21/85)
> At times, I wonder if this "progress" and economic "growth" is being > measured in terms of overall human and global well-being, or in terms > of GNP and number of Cuisinarts per square rec room. ... A valid point. But to paraphrase Sturgeon's Law slightly: "90% of all progress/growth is crap, but then 90% of *everything* is crap". I have some concept of what life was like before progress set in; I have no desire whatever to return to those conditions. (For one thing, given the infant-mortality rate, I probably wouldn't have survived. For another thing, given the economic system, I'd probably have ended up as a slave, in fact if not in name.) -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry