Progress?

In 1864 Robert Browning published the poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra. It starts like this: “Grow old along with me!/The best is yet to be,/The last of life, for which the first was made. . . .” The French pharmacist-psychologist-hypnotist Émile Coué (1857-1926) created a self-improvement affirmation, the English version of which goes, “Every day and [in] every way I’m getting better and better.” Optimism and the idea of progress are clearly twins. Yet another 19th-century author, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was more of a realist. He opened his A Tale of Two Cities (1859) with this famous statement: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair….” Which version appeals to you?

With wars raging in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, with social fragmentation in the U.S. and elsewhere, with the waning of democracy and the rise of authoritarian governments in the world, with additional species disappearing each year, with the vast majority of environmental and climate scientists predicting the death of life on planet Earth if we don’t take significant and immediate action against global warming, it’s easy to be pessimistic and think of ours as the worst of times. Yet there are reasons to be hopeful too. Here are some improvements that Chat GBT4 AI suggested via the Bing search engine in this regard:

• The Internet and Broadband
• Mobile Phones
• Email
• DNA Testing and Sequencing/Human Genome Mapping
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Microprocessors
• Fiber Optics
• Online Shopping and E-Commerce
• Photovoltaic Solar Energy, and
• Social Networking via the Internet

Bing’s response went on to mention the elimination of trachoma in Benin, Mali, and Iraq; mass polio vaccination by the Taliban in Afghanistan; the illegalization of domestic violence in Uzbekistan; and the updating of the sex-crime code in Japan. One might also add the dramatic decrease in violent urban crime in the United States and the slowdown in the world’s population increase as other grounds for hope. In my own life I’ve experienced medical progress in two sets of operations. First, when I had my initial cataract surgery, a needle-based shot was required in my eye to keeping it from moving during the operation, while four years later, drops did the same thing in my other eye. Second, when I had my left knee replaced eight years ago, I was given total anesthesia. However, when my second knee was replaced this year, I received a spinal anesthesia as being less disruptive to my system and the procedure was speeded up and measurements were improved thanks to AI-based robots. So maybe all eras are both the best of times and the worst. So let’s hope that the former will prevail.

Your call!