Dystopias, authoritarianism, technological threats... Is progress over?

The idea of progress is embedded in our psyche and we have a daily way of thinking about it.

But the idea of linear progress has not always existed, nor does it hold up in times of abolished futures, when civilization hits a wall.

The menu of daily apocalypses never seemed so full at a time when Donald Trump has returned to the White House leading a wave of far-right populism that threatens democracy.

The idea of progress is shaken by the profusion of dystopian futures in novels, essays and audiovisual products.

In 2017 , a collective book published in Spain by Seix Barral , with contributions from figures such as Bruno Latour , Nancy Fraser , Eva Illouz , César Rendueles , Marina Garcés , Zygmunt Bauman , Slavoj Zizek and Santiago Alba Rico , gave a graphic name to the situation: The Great Retreat .

Some current ideas of progress are linked to technology and to the techno-utopian ideals spread from Silicon Valley .

Raymond Kurzweil , a former Google engineer, proposed the Path to Singularity: the exponential growth of technological development, especially artificial intelligence, will take us by the middle of this century to that point of singularity where the human will give way to the posthuman.

Other alternatives to progress understood as unlimited economic growth arise in currents such as degrowth.