Thread: Human progress: Why bother?

What is meant by 'human progress', and what are we 'progressing' to? Is it to cure all diseases, cure aging, and solve the population problems this would create? We won't appreciate that once we achieve it. Is it to colonize a world off Earth and put an end to limited resources? We won't appreciate that once we achieve it. Is it to master an understanding of every natural phenomenon in the universe, including every aspect of the human mind? We won't appreciate that once we achieve it.

We won the inter-species arms race thousands of years ago and nobody is impressed in the slightest. So what was the point?

Our 'progress' is driven by emotion and economics rather than rationality.

A few books, a few observations, a few youtubes, has snowballed into an inability for me to take anything seriously, to the point that it's affecting my life noticeably. This isn't a bad thing, it's all based on honest truthseeking, but it's a little weird.

"Up helm! Keep her off round the world!"
Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship.

-Moby Dick, chapter 52, The Albatross