Progress isn’t always a good thing

I keep seeing viewpoints in the Opinion section of this newspaper that deal with progress and how it is being disrupted or stopped or to always be desired above status quo.

What is being ignored or unseen in these missives is that progress is not always a good thing even if it provides jobs, taxes and expands that population base.

Progress often has an unseen trap built in to it that the go-go people do not choose to see, or if they do, discount.

A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when, in pursuing progress through human ingenuity, they inadvertently introduce problems they do not have the resources or political will to solve, for fear of short-term losses in status, stability or quality of life. This prevents further progress and sometimes leads to collapse. (Wikipedia).

Many business people in Hawaii are using the mainland model for progress in Hawaii. After all, it worked on the mainland, it should work here. Right? Wrong.

First of all, it is not working so well on the mainland. It is destroying the mainland environment and killing people with pollution and stress and soil depletion and the list goes on and on. And the mainland is a lot bigger than these islands.

Hawaii can be (and is) being destroyed by progress. Not just the culture. Greed, corruption and incompetence are working to destroy our environment here. All this is in the name of progress.

Public treasures are being routinely made into private (corporate) possessions. The culture of Hawaii — aloha — is being subverted to being a selling slogan to tourists. Mainland polluters are being allowed to bring their business models here to our land limited shores.

Progress mainland style can not be allowed to destroy these islands. We are a microcosm of the planetary debasement that is occurring in the name of progress.

Many of we immigrants from around the world who came here to escape the insanity are now part of the greed that is ruining these islands. This must stop. If that means that progress must stop, then we must stop progress.

There is a collapse of this house of cards coming. The economy upon which all this progress is predicated is standing on shaky ground. It is very close to collapse. All the federal injections of fake money cannot stop the house from collapsing out of sheer weight of debt and greed.

The progress model that has worked for two centuries will come to an end and when it does, we will have to find a new paradigm for progress. I humbly suggest that we not wait for the coming collapse to begin implementing that new paradigm.

What I know for sure is that the current progress paradigm is unsustainable. And even the elites who champion the current paradigm know the end is near. The Earth that supports our lives can not sustain the current progress of slash and burn.

Let’s try a new path before we have no choice.

Tom Beach is a resident of Waimea.

Viewpoint articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.