In the modern western world there is this pervasive, and slightly bizarre, idea that the advance of all things (e.g. technological, medical, political, personal comfort, success, etc.) is a monotonic increasing trend from awful to awesome. And that just because something was once done or existed, then that thing is now “in the books” and there is no reason to ever revisit that thing, whatever it was. It’s a belief that once it’s been done, it’s easy to do again. But the universe is ruled by entropy. And if you stop fighting to reduce it, it just keeps growing.