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poetry, philosophy and spirituality are all things that go by the wayside if the GDP is the only measure of progress. That measure of progress also leads to destructive patterns that may take decades to complete themselves but utterly ruin the society that "progresses" down that road. Many civilizations have fallen on simple things like sewerage and trash and disease, widespread poverty and massive revolts against economic oppression. To judge a society only by its GDP is to look past the source of any of its problems and cheerfully go into denial about anything that makes that society worthwhile either for the people who have to live in it or for those that come after.

Progress in human rights is so important that I end this essay on the topic. One or two hundred years ago, slavery was taken for granted by most of humanity as a natural risk in the world. It wasn't even really questioned. It's crime. Redefining it as crime, even when it sometimes still happens, is a tremendous leap of progress. The idea that torture could follow slavery into the list of historical horrors is something a society could truly take pride in being able to claim it. Discrimination, bigotry, racism, homophobia and sexism are also on the wane philosophically, it is real progress when any nation manages to stop or reduce the oppression of any group of people simply for who they are.

These things are the goals that people work towards. To say something is "progress" implies that there is a goal to the journey, and these things are the goals that real people have. A society is made up of people and it exists for the people, many societies will come out and say "we are of and for the people." But if the people aren't getting dignity and life and health, if their lives and desires are crushed by society, then it's failed. A criminal can gain a great profit, but does that make the criminal progressive? Only tangible positive results for the people in that society can be termed real progress.

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