Progress

For the vast majority of the human experience, the workday was measured by the sun.   For the most part, artificial light was limited to burning oil, whether vegetable or mineral.   Whether the lamps that Jesus used, or the kerosene lights and candles that lit the evenings of the pioneers of our more recent past, artificial light was important.  Then, in the late 1800s, the electric light bulbs were invented, and human progress took a dramatic leap forward.  The electric revolution of the late 19th century made a huge difference in human life and spawned continuing progress that continues today.  Even this computer I use to communicate my philosophy on life can be traced directly to that simple invention.

I remember a conversation between my father and my sister.  She came into the kitchen holding an open textbook and asked, "How do light bulbs work?"

Dad made his living as a telephone man.  His working career spanned that time from rotary dial phones and twisted pair cable, through electronic switching, microwave technology and fiber optics.  He looked at the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and pronounced.  "Battery on one side, ground on the other."

"Okay," my sister asked.  "So how does the television work?"

Dad chuckled.  "Basically, battery on one side, ground on the other."

The point is that artificial, electric light spawned a transformation of human endeavor.  And, for some progressives, that's a problem.  A recent NPR article says it's a problem.

Earth Is Lit, And That's A Problem

That's the title of the article.  Click on the link, but they're serious.  The earth is too bright.  They're worried about light pollution.  Seriously.

The rapid increase in night lighting has been a profound change, a kind of global experiment, that has happened in just the last 100 years. "My mum, for example, grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, in a time before they had electrification," Kyba says. "So she grew up with an amazing starry sky, and now she lives, within one lifetime, under a very light-polluted sky."

This is called progress, something that progressives are adamantly against.  Much the irony.  Progressives won't he happy until humans descend into darkness, barely clinging to life.  For myself, than you, I'll put up with a little light pollution.