MAKING A MEAL OUT OF MELIORISM

I'm not the first to wonder to bring up "meliorism" in connnection with LOST, that would be Houston Chronicle blogger Therese Odell. I don't recall the specific essay where she brought it up, but will try to find it later.

Here's the handy Wiki definition of meliorism:

"Meliorism is an idea in metaphysical thinking holding that progress is a real concept leading to an improvement of the world. It holds that humans can, through their interference with processes that would otherwise be natural, produce an outcome which is an improvement over the aforementioned natural one."

Now, here's the closest Jacob comes in Season 5's THE INCIDENT to making a philosophical statement in conversation with "Esau:"

Esau: “...They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
Jacob: “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that…just progress.”

Meliorism would seem something of an alternative to determinism, although of course one has no way of knowing what WOULD have occured if humans had not taken action.