Re measuring progress, it’s hard. No one metric captures it. The one that people use if they have to use something is GDP but that has all kinds of problems. In practice, you have to just look at multiple metrics, some which are narrow but easy to measure, and some which are broad aggregates or indices.
Re “piecewise” process, it’s true that progress is not linear! I agree it is stochastic.
Re a golden age, I’m not sure, but see my reply to @BrianTan below re “interventions”.
Re measuring progress, it’s hard. No one metric captures it. The one that people use if they have to use something is GDP but that has all kinds of problems. In practice, you have to just look at multiple metrics, some which are narrow but easy to measure, and some which are broad aggregates or indices.
Re “piecewise” process, it’s true that progress is not linear! I agree it is stochastic.
Re a golden age, I’m not sure, but see my reply to @BrianTan below re “interventions”.