Progress trap
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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.
The term gained attention following the historian and novelist Ronald Wright's 2004 book and Massey Lecture series A Short History of Progress, in which he sketches world history so far as a succession of progress traps. With the documentary film version of Wright's book "Surviving Progress," backed by Martin Scorsese, the syndrome achieved wider recognition.
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See also
- Escalation of commitment, also known as irrational escalation
- Resilience (ecology)
- Cultural lag
- Societal collapse
- System justification
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
- A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
- The Icarus Paradox: How Exceptional Companies Bring About Their Own Downfall, by Danny Miller
- The Geography of Hope by Chris Turner
- The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon
- The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas-Homer Dixon
- The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Joseph Tainter
- Progress and its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth, by Larry Laudan 1977 ISBN 978-0-520-03721-2
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