Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw this youtube video of an early 90s broadcast about this thing called internet, and they pretty much talked about how great it is to have a civilized conversation, without trolls. So early on it wasn't a problem, my guess is that trolls probably didn't really appear until AOL.
Specifically, on the Internet , when AOL got a Usenet gateway. No-one cared when they stayed within AOL, not least because AOL had moderators. The real Internet is not HN, it's not Facebook or Livejournal. It's 4chan and the comments on Youtube. That's what we built, that's the glorious future, the pinnacle of high tech, the global collective consciousness. How proud should we be?
The real internet isn't HN, but it's also not 4chan or Youtube. The real internet is the internet -- the whole internet. Tautological but true. As long as there's always some readily-accessible part of the internet without troll problems, then I'd say we're doing okay.
The real progress, though, would be figuring out how those civilized parts of the internet can stay civilized. Some forums have a small population. Some forums have a strong sense of community and ban-happy moderators. Some forums have downvoting, although that doesn't seem to stop persistent trolls. If you've got a better way, discussing it would be fun.