Maybe, but I think it is a more general problem of ethical progress not keeping up with technological progress. Fear is a part of it but the notion that a few choices could've led to a radically different outcome that is necessarily better is I think a reach - a worse outcome is just as likely. A lot of the progress we've made on top of these "marvels" you outline have already ben corrupted. The Internet was corrupted with the commercial Web.  A lot of the others are just offshoots of the Internet. mRNA vaccines are a decent technical achievement but they don't deserve to be in the same sentence as the Internet and http/the early web (we have great vaccines like J&J *two dose version*, AZ, Sputnik, etc. all work as well and they all don't use mRNA;  I see it as an incremental advance). The corruption is what leads to us going the wrong paths and in many cases, it is due to greed of some kind that leads to this. Microsoft Windows IMO set back computing decades with the way they did things. Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook have set back social media, and so on. You forgot Unix/Linux and free software. Next to the Internet, I'd say that is the next biggest marvel we've achieved. We've also advanced a lot in therapeutics and medicine. I think we need to live sustainably. I think this is right from an ethical perspective. We need to use less than what we produce. Then true progress will be possible.

Maybe, but I think it is a more general problem of ethical progress not keeping up with technological progress. Fear is a part of it but the notion that a few choices could've led to a radically different outcome that is necessarily better is I think a reach - a worse outcome is just as likely. A lot of the progress we've made on top of these "marvels" you outline have already ben corrupted. The Internet was corrupted with the commercial Web.  A lot of the others are just offshoots of the Internet. mRNA vaccines are a decent technical achievement but they don't deserve to be in the same sentence as the Internet and http/the early web (we have great vaccines like J&J *two dose version*, AZ, Sputnik, etc. all work as well and they all don't use mRNA;  I see it as an incremental advance). The corruption is what leads to us going the wrong paths and in many cases, it is due to greed of some kind that leads to this. Microsoft Windows IMO set back computing decades with the way they did things. Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook have set back social media, and so on. You forgot Unix/Linux and free software. Next to the Internet, I'd say that is the next biggest marvel we've achieved. We've also advanced a lot in therapeutics and medicine. I think we need to live sustainably. I think this is right from an ethical perspective. We need to use less than what we produce. Then true progress will be possible.

user
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assistant