[hilbert42]

This article is a good, short and succinct summary of past human progress and the 'cost' it's placed on humanity. It discusses the negative aspects of progress by pointing to what social commentators have said over recent centuries about its downside with an emphasis on the latter half of the 20th C. - from 1960s onwards - which by then it had become obvious to many that progress did not come without significant negative side effects.

The author concludes that defeatism and stopping progress aren't the only way if negative side effects are to be avoided and that we can learn from those mistakes but to do so we need to rethink the philosophy of progress.

And that's a view with which I'd wholeheartedly concur.