Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word progress trap.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • This page has been cleaned up, so I'm removing my little joke from earlier. Leaving this placard though, so bilby's comment above isn't orphaned.

    March 12, 2009

  • Haha, nice one John.

    March 12, 2009

  • This is the condition in which we find ourselves when human ingenuity, in pursuing progress, inadvertently introduces problems that it does not have the resources to solve, preventing further progress.

    March 12, 2009

  • "This is a classic progress trap – a term coined by historian Ronald Wright in his book The Short History of Progress. A progress trap refers to the aspects of our civilisation that have made us successful and comfortable but can ultimately lead to our downfall. Success here refers to economic, social or even cultural. The problem is that we have become so used to relying on such technologies or processes that we cannot see a way around them: they seem natural and inevitable and so we get stuck along this path even when the consequences become increasingly obvious."

    - James Arvanitakis, How we think about water is a classic progress trap, thepunch.com.au, 2010.

    September 16, 2012