We pay a price: for everything we add, we lose something
In particular, we need to be aware of the fact that there is no such thing as absolute progress, that every time we add something to our world, we take something away as well.
It's the Eastern notion of balance, of yin and yang, at play: Everything Better Is Purchased At The Price Of Something Worse. Life does not by definition only get better when someone invents a new phone or car or facial cream, even if that phone makes it easier to talk to someone thousands of miles away, or the car makes it easier to go see people, or get away from them, or the cream dissolves wrinkles like magic. It doesn't work like that.
We pay a price: for everything we add, we lose something. The question then becomes: what do we value most. But that's a question we never ask: we see everything new as an addition to our lives, and ignore what gets taken away from us.
-- Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor-in-chief of The Automatic Earth