Hank Green on 250 Years

“You do alright for cats, but not for chickens...”

From here (also check out here for more good news):

“Would the average American in 1776 think we had done a good job?” 

I’m worried that they wouldn’t, but not for the reasons you might think. I’m worried that they would look at things that I see as miraculous, like the increase in rights for women and non-white people and people who are not upper class, and they would see that as some kind of failure of the social order. 

I hope some of them would look at our society and see the progress, but I think most of them would not. 

Though, honestly, I guess I wouldn’t be sad to discover that the founders of this country didn’t really live up to their own ideals, because I already knew that. Perhaps this should make me happy… that we have been able to make so much progress inside the frames those people built that we have moved far beyond their sensibilities. 

I hope I would be similarly unnerved by the next 250 years of progress.