Short History Of Progress

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Humans are one of the most violent and selfish species on Earth. In the book A Short History of Progress, written by Ronald Wright, it explains how the past’s consequences still affect people today. If humans do not change the way they act soon, they will live with the consequences and so will the future generations. Violence and greed are some of the things that have brought empires down and it can soon happen today, Wright believes that humans are the “last ship sailing.” Through time humans have been able to learn by trial and error, but today, we are not able to make mistakes without great consequences. Wright’s argument should start and shape a larger discussion; it will allow everyone to learn from past mistakes so that history would …show more content…
The deposits lie hundreds of feet thick in fertile plateau…This land was almost endlessly forgiving, with erosion merely exposing new layers of good earth. (104)
Even though the Chinese had an abundance amount of top soil, they never used all of their resources. As responsible citizens, they had good judgment of what was right and wrong for them. They were able to make good use of what they had and even though they lasted for thousands of years, they never ran out of resources.

Having Wright bring light to past mistakes will bring people together to start a large discussion on how we should become responsible citizens. The evidence that Wright states in the book shows how people were affected by their actions and how their society was brought down by it. The actions and decisions we make in our day to day lives will affect us and the future generations, we cannot afford to make any more mistakes because we will end up with a consequence that can be permanent. Since we are “sailing the last ship” we have very little time left, we need to start thinking long term rather than short

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