Is progress necessarily beneficial for society?

Is progress necessary beneficial for the society? Thats the question. My answer is straight. A definite no would be my resolute answer.

No, it is not necessary. However, it does not mean progress in the society is totally useless in the countries. Let me weigh the pros and cons.

Pros

1)It can allow things to be done quicker using technology. For example, with the new MRT lines like the Circle line which help students studying around MRT stations there to reach home in a quicker time, thus allowing things to happen faster.

2)It also provides convenience to people. Places that cannot be access easily before became more acessible. One example is the Marymount station that can only be easily accessed by bus before but now, it is accessible by Circle line.

3)It also reduced the number of work that we have to do. Some manual stuffs such as calculating the score has also become computer-generated. Calculation that have to be made is taken over by technology with the use of calculators and Microsoft Excel.

4)All this lead to more effectiveness while working. Thus, the tempo of life is much faster making the quality of life would be much higher. This links to high standards of living and people would have better food and shelter that they can enjoy.

Cons

1)As I had mentioned above, if there were to be progress, standards of living would be higher. With the standards of living being raised, the society would be more competitive. There would be more competition in life and people may be more pressurized than before. Because of not able to adapt to the high tempo of life, they may succumbed to suicide.

2)Progress also affects the enviroment. For example, the ozone layer had been damaged because we had produced too much greenhouse gases. We also cleared large pieces of forests to make way for factories, thus affecting the quality of the air.

3)This leads to privacy. You see, hackers have the technology to hack our accounts and do crimes out of it. This lands us in hot soup although we are innocent. This caused unnecessary worries and also add to the pressure, again.

4) Progress also affects the life of the villagers. For example, in Village By The Sea, the goverment in bombay wanted to build factories in Thul, a small village in india. Villagers were unhappy about it as they thought the gas emitted from the factories would affect their fishing industry and thus, not able to survive as fishing is their only source of income.

In conclusion, progress is needed. However, I believe everything has its pros and cons. We cannot grumble about progress hindering our lives, we must learn to adapt.

George Bernard Shaw once said,“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ”