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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 3852225" data-attributes="member: 54877">G. K. Chesterton answered you almost 100 years ago.&nbsp; The &quot;idea of progress&quot; has never been that &quot;change can be for the better&quot;--at least not in people espousing &quot;progress&quot; for its own sake.&nbsp; Rather, it is that there is some direction that we are &quot;progressing&quot; towards, with the very carefully unstated implication that the direction is a good one.&nbsp; It also usually comes with the assumption that there is nothing fundamental about the human condition (that is, all parts of the human condition are subject to improvement via &quot;progress&quot;).&nbsp; The problem arises when you delve into the details, because then agreement about direction goes poof.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />As GKC also said, given clear goals, you can progress towards a bad goal, a good goal, or even an indifferent goal--as long as you have a clear goal. Only problem is that the more clear the goal, the more people jump off the bandwagon.&nbsp; And if you get fuzzy on the goal to avoid that, then you are sacrificing the goal for the concept of &quot;progress&quot;. You can't &quot;progress&quot; anywhere going seven different directions at once.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I think we see the truth of GKC's points already, in the nature of the discussion since the 4E was announced.&nbsp; I'm fairly certain that the 4E designers have a goal in mind, and have a pretty decent shot of attaining it. If they set out to fix X, Y, and Z, they will probably nail X to the wall, send Y scurrying for the shadows, and at least make Z hunker down in the corner most of the time.&nbsp;&nbsp; What the side effects will be, and how this will interact with the (human) legions of fans, and their goals and perceptions, remains to be seen.&nbsp; <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing&nbsp; &nbsp; :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 3852225, member: 54877"] G. K. Chesterton answered you almost 100 years ago. The "idea of progress" has never been that "change can be for the better"--at least not in people espousing "progress" for its own sake. Rather, it is that there is some direction that we are "progressing" towards, with the very carefully unstated implication that the direction is a good one. It also usually comes with the assumption that there is nothing fundamental about the human condition (that is, all parts of the human condition are subject to improvement via "progress"). The problem arises when you delve into the details, because then agreement about direction goes poof. :D As GKC also said, given clear goals, you can progress towards a bad goal, a good goal, or even an indifferent goal--as long as you have a clear goal. Only problem is that the more clear the goal, the more people jump off the bandwagon. And if you get fuzzy on the goal to avoid that, then you are sacrificing the goal for the concept of "progress". You can't "progress" anywhere going seven different directions at once. :D I think we see the truth of GKC's points already, in the nature of the discussion since the 4E was announced. I'm fairly certain that the 4E designers have a goal in mind, and have a pretty decent shot of attaining it. If they set out to fix X, Y, and Z, they will probably nail X to the wall, send Y scurrying for the shadows, and at least make Z hunker down in the corner most of the time. What the side effects will be, and how this will interact with the (human) legions of fans, and their goals and perceptions, remains to be seen. :lol: [/QUOTE]

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