Most of the problems in the future are going to be created by technologies we’re creating today. Technology is a means of producing new problems. It’s a means of producing new solutions, but the fact that we have a choice between those two is what tips the balance very, very slightly in the favor of the good for the long term. Over civilization scale, we have this net tiny incremental accumulation of these choices over time, and that tiny accumulation is what we call progress. If you have one percent compounded annually, that can be very, very powerful. It doesn’t seem like very much. What’s one percent? But when you compound this accumulation of choices and options over time, that’s what civilization is. It’s the slow accumulation of a very tiny increase in new choices over time.
We. Are. The one-per-cent.
Near-Earth Object 