This is perhaps the most important discussion of all.

Indeed, equating progress with GDP is a recipe for failure.

Humans do not progress: knowledge progresses. Humans have been repeating the same behaviors since neolithic times. We are still the people who evolved to flourish in small competitive tribes - warring with other tribes, and dehumanizing them so that we don't feel bad about it.

We will not truly advance unless we change _ourselves_. At a biological level. Otherwise, the future will be like in so many dystopian moves - Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Soylent Green, and so on - where a few own all the natural resources, sequestered away in enclaves, now served by robots, with everyone else outside, scraping by.