One of the peculiar features of history is that time always erodes advantage. Every invention sooner or later leads to a counter-invention. Every success contains the seeds of its own overthrow. Every hegemony comes to an end. Evolutionary history is no different. Progress and success are always relative… In history and in evolution, progress is always a futile, Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things.

Matt Ridley