A Debate Challenge to All Progress Skeptics

Yes, this means you!

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I hereby issue a challenge to debate all those who are skeptical of human material progress!

If you are a skeptic of progress, answer the following questions in the comments for this article, and then let’s have a real debate:

1. What year do you believe was the peak of human material standard of living (not just one nation, but the entire world)?

2. Why did you choose that year?

3. What data do you have to support that year being the peak instead of today? Why do you find that data more compelling than mine (see below)?

There are just three rules in this debate:

1. Stay respectful.

2. Stay on topic. Don’t avoid answering the questions, explaining why the questions do not matter, claiming that there is a larger issue at stake, or haggling over definitions. Just answer the questions.

3. If someone has already identified your year in another thread, join that thread rather than starting a new one. One thread per year.

If you violate the rules, do not expect an answer from me.

What If You Already Support Progress?

If you are a supporter of progress or want to bring more readers into the debate, please RESTACK THIS ARTICLE or better yet POST A LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION of a writer who you think will rise to the challenge (just don’t be snark when you do it).

I want this debate to go far beyond my readership.

What Do I Mean by “Progress?”

And as a reminder, I use the following definition of progress in my book series: the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.

You do not have to accept my definition outside this column, but I do not want to discuss definitions.

Why Am I Doing This?

1. I want to find someone who can prove me wrong. That is the only way to learn. If I am wrong, I want to know it.

2. But if no one can prove me wrong, then I want my argument to get the widest possible audience. Nothing attracts attention like a good fight.

The main points of my book series and Substack channel is:

• We live in a world of progress. By that I mean, that today humanity lives in a material standard of living that is higher than it has ever been. And for most of the last two centuries, each decade has improved incrementally.

• That progress has had such an enormous positive effect on humanity that we need to integrate that fact into our worldview. We must understand the origins and causes of that progress, and how to keep it going.

• Ideologies on both the Left and the Right fail because they have not integrated progress into their worldview.

• Therefore, we should embrace the Progress-based Perspective.

I am willing to debate any of the last three points at a later time, but for now, I want to focus on the first, because it is the most critical. One must first test one’s assumptions before building an argument.

What Progress Is Not About

Just so we avoid confusion or obfuscation, I want to make sure that everyone understands what my concept of progress is not about:

• The United States and Western Europe (it is about the entire world)

• The future (it is about the present and the past)

• What happened today, this week, this month, or this year (one needs to focus on decades and centuries)

• Every single nation, sub-national group, and individual enjoying the benefits of progress (there are always exceptions)

• The environment (it is about humans)

• Inequality

• A lack of bad events

• A lack of problems

• Utopia

• Consumerism

• Happiness (although I have given strong evidence that progress does lead to greater happiness)

Why These Three Questions?

Because they get to the heart of the matter, and it forces people to take actually compare the material circumstances of today with previous periods.

I find that many readers react viscerally to the concept of progress. Far too often skeptics react by listing current problems or things that they do not like about the modern era. They never actually compare today to the reality of the past.

I do not think this is an accident. I have noticed a tendency of progress skeptics to dance around the key issue. I believe they do so because they realize that their world view is based on incorrect assumptions, and they do not want to admit that publicly. In particular, they do not want to admit it to themselves.

What Data Supports Your Case?

Material progress is a fact. I am sorry if you do not believe it, but that is just how it is (until someone can prove me wrong).

By any of dozens of metrics, we are better off materially than we have ever been in our history. If you do not believe me, then look at the metrics of economic growth, human development, freedom, slavery, poverty, agricultural production, literacy, diet, famines, sanitation, drinking water, life expectancy, neonatal mortality, disease, education, access to electricity, housing, and violence (to name just a few), and in virtually every nation. And there are plenty more in my book.

So let me open up this thread to any progress skeptic. Answer the three questions above, and let’s duke it out!