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Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors
joeljkp writes "The New York Times has an article up discussing how modern humans are 'So Big and Healthy Nowadays That Grandpa Wouldn't Even Know You.' Despite the hyperbole, the article makes several excellent points regarding the impact of antibiotics and modern medicine on humans in their youth. The 'baby boomers' of today have an overall level of health far higher than their parents did in middle age, and reason stands that their children will have even better health to look forward to." From the article: "The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before. Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person's chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years."
Who would have thought it given the current events of the world?
Intelligent design at work :)
Speak up! I can't hear you too well these days. My bones creak so loud I can't hear you!
Space for rent, inquire within
Old timers didn't have air conditioning, so their muscle and bones became brittle in the heat
I think we may have peaked with the baby boomers. They got to ride the wave of new medical advances and didn't have the weight of fast food (har har) holding them back.
Our generations (current teenagers up to 30-somethings) have grown up with McDonalds and more, and with obesity on the rise with no end in sight, I think we'll begin to see another decline with our generation, with arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease all coming on earlier.
That's impossible. Average IQ by definition will always be 100.
---------
Swearing is the crutch of inarticulate mother fuckers.
"and reason stands that their children will have even better health to look forward to"
Unless, of course, reason is to take peak oil and global warming under advisement.
This doesn't really surprise me... have you ever seen some of the ruins of ancient roman building? The doorways are about 5' tall. We have been growing for a long time.
I think it's well documented that Diabetes (type 2 - NIDDM) is appearing
at a much younger age than before.
We would have even less arthritis if people didn't buy into jogging as some health benefit. It just kills your joints.
what I believe is likely the real reason.
Life was just plain a lot harder then.
It's as simple as that. We've moved from an agrarian society to an industrial one to a service economy. Life is easier. No more scythes or plowing with a horse. No more mining coal with pick axes. No subsistance farming or clearing new fields by hand (unless you want to, I suppose). People are more educated about what's healthy and what's not, no more mercury based patent medicines, or blood letting with leaches.
The article has it half right - modern medicine play a large part, but I believe the major effect is because it's able to recognize and address the true nature of ailments, not because it's making the human body more robust. That is, it's a remedial effect more than a prophylactic one.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Are there any credible reasons to believe that humans in general are growing physically stronger and more durable, rather than overreliance on technology (in particular, antibiotics) actually having the opposite effect?
Fuck Slashdot
Current medicin causes that people avoid illnesses devastating their bodies over the years and causing them die young. For example, I had both legs broken and pneumonia when being child and serious helicobacter pylori infection (don't know how to describe it in english, it caused 'wounds' in my 'digestion system' forcing me to take strong antibiotics), few teeth had to be cured etc. Thanks to today medicine I've cured it all virtually without any side effects.
Now imagine someone 200 years ago with the same problems. He (she) possibly would heal his legs, maybe cure pneumonia (propably with serious effects through his entire life), would surely lose his ill teeth and propably never recover from helicobacter.
It's not that we are somehow better. It's that current medicin allows us to get rid of serious problems early, before they devastate our bodies.
No if we could only find a healthy environment for all these healthy people to life their long lives in...
I just hope I am kept alive long enough for the singularity to happen, hey Ray?
Kurzweil is also an enthusiastic advocate of using technology to achieve immortality. He advocates using nanobots to maintain the human body, but given their present non-existence he adheres instead to a strict daily routine involving ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea." [5]
But also with immortality would come a bunch of challenges, here is an excerpt from his 1999 book, The Age of Spirtiual Machines:
The gambler had not expected to be here. But on reflection, he thought he had shown some kindness in his time. And this place was even more beautiful and satisfying than he had imagined. Everywhere there were magnificent crystal chandeliers, the finest handmade carpets, the most sumptuous foods, and, yes, the most beautiful women, who seemed intrigued with their new heaven mate. He tried his hand at roulette, and amazingly his number came up time after time. He tried the gaming tables, and his luck was nothing short of remarkable: He won game after game. Indeed his winnings were causing quite a stir, attracting much excitement from the attentive staff, and from the beautiful women.
This continued day after day, week after week, with the gambler winning every game, accumulating bigger and bigger earnings. Everything was going his way. He just kept on winning. And week after week, month after month, the gambler's streak of success remained unbreakable.
After a while, this started to get tedious. The gambler was getting restless; the winning was starting to lose its meaning. Yet nothing changed. He just kept on winning every game, until one day, the now anguished gambler turned to the angel who seemed to be in charge and said that he couldn't take it anymore. Heaven was not for him after all. He had figured he was destined for the "other place" nonetheless, and indeed that is where he wanted to be.
"But this is the other place," came the reply.
That is my recollection of an episode of The Twilight Zone that I saw as a young child. I don't recall the title, but I would call it "Be Careful What You Wish For. As this engaging series was wont to do, it illustrated one of the paradoxes of human nature: We like to solve problems, but we don't want them all solved, not too quickly, anyway. We are more attached to the problems than to the solutions.
Take death, for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it, and indeed often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we would find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. If death were indefinitely put off, the human psyche would end up, well, like the gambler in The Twilight Zone episode.
We are due for a deadly infectious disease that will wipe out a good portion of our civilization.
Cite, The Coming Plague, Hot Zone... And a couple other books I cannot remember currently.
get used to it.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
I've read articles that claimed the opposite: THE HEIGHT GAP - Why Europeans are getting taller and taller and Americans aren't.
And yes, they factored asian and mexican immigration out. Immigrants catch up to the "native" american standard over time. But the standard itself didn't change since the revolutionary war, according to the article.
It's entirely possible that the overall average is an all-time constant 100 but that people being tested in recent years have consistently beaten the historical average.
If the evidence says that we are going to live healthier longer into old age then let's raise the retirement age for collecting social security benefits. The current system is a ponzi scheme that needs some serious help to keep it afloat. Raising the retirement age would appear to a logical start.
Does anyone else feel a strong urge to smack those smarmy bastards who are so convinced that drugs and chemicals and such are making us weaker?
"Ooh, but the cavemen didn't have glut--"
"Fuck the cavemen. They were chased by saber-toothed tigers and lucky to live to the age of 20."
I say pump me full of drugs, corporate America!
And it took less than one decade for the average IQ to drop below that of a rock.
*Sigh*
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
These types of articles goes to show how nothing has changed, we are at the practical maximum of human life extension using tech of the last couple centuries. We need to change that, we need to really kick our leaders in the butt to do something(bush & co. for instance don't like the concept of advanced nano/biotech allowing us to live longer).
We are pretty well at the limit (max life span) of what our genes allows us to live.
With the decoding of the human gene project, we can now identify those member of our society that have the right combinations of genes that allow them to live to 100, 120 years smoking, drinking eating whatever they want and not suffering an early death like most the rest of us.
Once we can understand how these peoples genes allow this, we will eventually be able to modify everybody else to do the same. The real advances eventually, using nanotech devices, will be to go inside the body and repair the ravages of aging in our cells and reverse this process to make people permanently young (say 20 to 25 years old physically) and people would get these treatments every 10 or so years). Advanced nano and biotech will enable people to boost their intelligence and physical capabilities, (interface to the net and send each other thoughts), this technology could make things like downloading other peoples skills (like in the matrix) possible. Nanotech cosmetic surgery will enable people not to be locked into their looks they inherited, or if they got bored with their modified looks, they could revert to the looks they were born with.
The thing is, we have to demand that our politicians stop wasting billions and 1000's of billions on useless wars and, instead, spend some money on nano/biotech to cure all our ills and make us younger. Do you want to be the last generation to know what is was like to have no choice but get old and die.
Its like Young people nowadays having no idea that 25 years ago, there was no PC's, cell phones, email, Internet, search engines available to the general public, if you wanted to looks something up, you had to go to a library or phone a librarian, or subscribe to a magazine, all of which took days or weeks to accomplish. 25 years from now, people will be popping nano pills, downloading "how to genetically program in 24 seconds" and generally staring at you old farts, while trying not to listen to stories of how it was so primitive and how they have it all so easy.
Actually, they're a tried and true medical treatment that's still used today. Specifically for warding off necrosis in damaged tissues. Mind you, it's not bloodletting, but still used.
Maggots too.
Quick article
I, for one, welcome our new Ourselves overlords
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_(science)
Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors...
...especially about the middle.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well... maybe, but not in the US.
When I was a sophomore in HS, 1984, one of the coaches who taught phys. ed. told us why jogging was bad. I think jogging peaked in the 1970s. When I was in college, I joined the running club and kept at it until I realized my knees weren't cut out for long distance--but nobody in the running club intentionally jogged. We all strived for an efficient, smooth, long-distance pace. Oh, and shoes have become hi-tech marvels compared to what was worn just 30 years ago. I didn't stop exercising, I switched to hiking. On inclines, you get a different kind of workout, but it's no less intense than running if you push it, and it doesn't impact your joints.
The bottom line though, is that anybody who "jogs" today must have been thawed out of a deep-freeze or something. If you spend just a few minutes with even the most amateur runner, they will tell you jogging is bad.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Completely retarded, and they stay that way as they get older. Increasing IQ my ass.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
We have essentially the same genes as 3 generations ago. Evolutionary change takes much, much longer than that,
We just live in a much better environment these days. Had our ancestors gotten to live like we, they would have been just as healthy.
Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors
Why thank you, that's so sweet of you to say...
Hey wait a minute, did you just call me fat?!
...many new illnesses are striking these healthy new people but they're being made to think it's normal. Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, inexplicable depression, various systemic yeast infections resulting in a wide array of symptoms... All on the rise. But that's OK because now there's the "purple pill", or Zoloft, or even Viagra. There are a whole host of things the older generations did right and those things are being forgotten. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. (Or is that the old person instead of baby?) All of today's medicines are unsustainable. The moment that this civilzation fails, all these new "super humans" will be shit out of luck. Be very careful about patting yourself on the back for being a new super human. You're in a very fragile place.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
From what I've read so far the information is relative to the US only. There is other information about European areas as well, but I wonder what there is to know about Asia and areas that are significantly less developed?
I have noted in the past that I seem to be a lot more healthy than just about everyone else I know. My health increases further as I avoid certain foods such as milk, bread and pasta.... things with excessive processing and preservatives. But those things didn't exist in the same form "back in the day." So I think there has to be more to it.
I have to assume part of what I experience is linked to the community in which I live, but still... if I am not an anomoly, then there's even more improvement that can occur.
If you want to get technical and you are concerned about your "money" you have to admit the system is setup to use poof created fiat money, printed out of thin air. Keep repeating that until you really "get it", to where you honestly understand the full ramifications of it. It's the biggest scam ever. On a small scale they would arrest you for fraud. On a large scale it has created a controller monied class who runs your life. You like being a serf? If you don't, keep looking upstream to where the real problemns are, not at folks worked all their lives to try and get back a pittance. You can't "opt out" of it, it's not their fault, and for a lot of people it is all that stands between them and street level poverty. You go tell someone who has already worked 5 decades and watched their jobs evaporate overseas to go "pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get another job". Let me tell ya something, when you get older..you get *tired*. It doesn't matter if you can walk marginally better than someone 200 years ago at such and such an age, oursociety does not have anything much better than what we have now, from the combo of Fed counterfeit money, the much worse wall street casino scam, and the second worlding of the US. If you haven't noticed, there's been a war against the older middle class for 2.5 decades now. They will come for YOU next.
You want to make sure your labor actually builds for the future, start working *now* to get an honest accountable monetary system in place, one that cuts the fatcat non worker central bankers and their politician whores out at the top levels and rewards the productive people. Fixating on social security is at best 1% of the future problems you will face. Inflation by the Fed, knocking down your worth, and promising your future labor (and your kids and grandkids, etc), to keep them crooks rolling in luxury and power to ultra obscene levels are a MUCH larger set of problems for you younger folks than some social security age.
if I am not an anomoly
You cannot be an anomoly, because there is no such thing.
You may possibly be an anomaly.
I will wrap up TFA...
Americans and Europeans of today, who have health insurance, are bigger, fatter, and healthier than people who were too poor pay their way out of conscription during the Civil War.
Boo War!
Hooray Health Insurance!
they work for Wal-Mart. Then they have neither the insurance to cover nor the income to afford the drugs and treatments mentioned.
Can't muster the self-discipline to keep yourself in shape and poison-free in a society filled with healthy alternatives, free information about the risks you take, and a gym around every corner? Get your genes outta the pool, bub. :)
However, it should be noted that the evolution of the mind and the evolution of the body are at odds right now, much more so when you factor in both of the world wars which were just so luckily placed at the crux of vast technological revolutions. Just as brains were becoming as important to have as muscle in terms of succeeding in society, everyone with the traits of courage and physical prowess heads off to the slaughter. One should not understimate the impact of a massive war on the evolution of the species: Each of the millions upon millions of army-duty worthy men that died in those wars would've otherwise possibly taken up one of the female population and continued his bloodline. Instead, someone else, someone quite possibly smarter but not as physically endowed (those that piloted instead of fought on the ground, or worked as doctors, cryptographers, etc), took his spot. I'll always wonder how much this changed the direction of civilization... Without such an evolutionary boost to intellectual traits, would we have arrived at such a tolerant society so quickly? I say tolerant because in a remarkably short span of time, racial prejudice has been outlawed and homosexuality has been brought into the main light of society as an acceptable way of life. If I'd lived 50 or 70 years ago, I'd never have been able to predict society would move forward so quickly.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
The article talks only about how health has improved over the last few hundred years. This is almost entirely due to nutrition and sanitation. The article fails to mentions the much more interesting point that we are probably still less healthy than our ancestors of 2000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers are on average taller than Americans today, and there has never been a documented hunter-gatherer cancer death. Read accounts of the original Spanish explorers in the Carribean and Florida. They saw how much taller and healthier the hunter-gatherer tribes were.
m ondmistake.html
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/dia
http://www.paleodiet.com/lindeberg/
The ideal human diet is high in meat and animal fat. For the last several hundred years "civilized" humans have been highly reliant on grains and short on quality fats and proteins, which has been disasterous for human health. Only in the last hundred years has meat and fat consumption risen to reasonably healthy levels in wealthy countries. The effects of increased meat and fat intake was clearly documented in post-war UK and Japan, where deliberate efforts to raise egg and dairy consumption had dramatic effects on heart disease and general health.
If i have an animal which is sick in childhood, for example does not get enough of mothers milk, it usually stays the little one.
And the civil-war time is not exactly a healthy one. Child-work, people fleeing europe for economic reasons, cruel working conditions (early factories are no fun) etc. Sounds like a lot babies without "enough milk".
Which is why the germans supported a bit "socialism" (unions, schools etc) at Bismarcs time. Labor should be as cheap as possible, yes, but then you get bad soldiers..
Hey, with modern advances in insulin pumps, prosthetic feet, and scooters, it'll be no big deal! I hope to start marketing a scooter that's basically designed as motorized wheelbarrow. It will be sold with a free prying bar and some barrow-lube to help people remove themselves from the scooter when they get to their couch.
Women dig out-of-towners, and occupying soldiers are just about the manliest out-of-towners anyone will ever meet. Plus, during an occupation, soldiers typically have the best food, sundries, and other assorted things that are great to have. The point being, it's entirely possible that the drive for war exists precisely because we evolved to wage war as a way of periodically spreading and mixing different gene pools. Just something to think about.
They're comparing a population that has been through world-wars and war induced famine
with another population that looks okay superficially but is overweight and also likewise
suffering from malnutrition.
Food used to be wholesome but scarce, but without modified genes, cobalt irradiation and
the billion plus artifical flavorings, colorings and "preservatives" they add to it nowadays.
Today food is abundant and literally designed to make you sick and whatever remains of the
wholesome foods, these are out of reach of the majority of the population simply because of
the price.
Yet another Brave New - York feel-good message that could have been authored by Reichsminister
Dr. Goebbels himself.
One thing this article misses is the impact of the industrial revolution on health. People are healthier today than they were 150 years ago or even 75 years ago, yes. The 19th and early 20th century had people in the industrialized world in rather unhealthy conditions with quite poor diet. The real question is looking at the health of people century by century over the last 10,000 years in a variety of places and cultures. Changes in medicine, population patterns (rural to urban) and diet have changed health, but not in the ways implied by this article.
Consider disease.
Antibiotics and modern medicine have changed disease in a big way. However, how common were major wide-spread outbreaks of disease 5000 years ago? The flu of 1918 and the plague of the Middle Ages were widespread because of increased travel and contact among peoples compared to say in 1500 BC. AIDS is a modern example of a disease that has spread quickly globally today, which would not have reached many populations in earlier times. People's in Western Hemisphere were almost totally isolated until 500 years ago. Australia as well was isolated.
Diseases brought from Europe such as small pox were the primary cause of the annihilation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Native American peoples had no immunity to such diseases.
Some diseases such as polio and small pox were common 1000 years ago and have been all but eliminated today, but probably were not so common in 3000 BC. Other diseases that have been eliminated such as leprosy seem to have a long history in some populations, but probably not all.
Consider nutrition.
In modern times people in the industrialized world by and large never want for calories. Excess calorie consumption is a far greater public health threat than lack of calories. However, this is not true world wide as famine kills hundreds of thousands in Africa in particular.
500 years ago, a lack of abundance of calories at some point during a person's life was fairly common globally. Also, poor nutrition from an unbalanced diet was far more common in Europe 500 years ago than today. Poor nutrition is a major problem today in South Asia and other areas.
How was the diet of peoples around the world in 2500 BC? Because the world was far less populated then, nutrition on average may well have been better than in 1500 AD.
The diet of woodlands Native Americans 600 years ago was probably as balanced as the diet of modern US residents. This was not necessarily true of the Native Americans of Central America, who relied more heavily on corn agriculture.
Much of this information on disease and nutrition can be ascertained from looking at skeletal remains.
One thing we do know from archeology: humans today are generally larger than they have been over the past 10,000 years. This is probably because of an abundance of calories throughout their lives, although reductions in disease may also be a factor.
those who live in developed countries. don't forget africa.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
As a society we *rely* on technology.. When was the last time the average guy had to go build some shelter and go kill the evening meal? I think as a individual we are less 'robust' then our ancestors.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Although we are no longer subject to predation, there is still sexual choice. I don't know that this would apply to everything.
However, size I feel would be greatly affected. In both men and women (at least in European cultures) being tall lends sexual advantages and over time these will begin to alter a populations average genetic make up.
How many women are looking for short, dark and handsome?
LIVE, Love, die
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.
My gawd, look at the people around you, and then see THIS movie:
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition (2001)
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/preview/1808403906
Do you think any of the people around you, including yourself, might survive such a thing? I seriously doubt it. The mental toughness to do that doesn't exist anymore and those tough enough to do such things are supported by high technology instead of simple woolen clothing, a sailing ship, dogs, and a talented ship's carpenter (who was the real hero).
Modern humans aren't so robust. Take away my asthma meds and I'd be dead in a week.
--
BMO
What we really want as humans, are shorter, more miserable lifespans. The only way to have this is to keep doing exactly what we are doing. Yes we did increase the lifespan with modern medicine, at the same time we increased misery levels to the highest they have ever been in history.
Inequality is higher than ever globally. While slavery has been abolished, starvation and poverty has been increased. While the world is more educated, we are also brilliant suicide artists, constructing the tools and devices of our own extinction.
We have a few options.
1. We can continue to increase world misery while decreasing the human lifespan.
2. We can somehow change human nature so that we stop craving misery and short lifespans and aim for life extention and quality of life.
3. We go extinct.
There might be more options, but these are the most obvious. The world is just a manifestation of our collective thoughts. We ultimately get exactly what we want, and we want misery and shortened lifespans because we don't like long healthy and happy lives. It's all simple.
So to be honest, our ancestors didnt have it so bad. Yes you could live a short miserable life back then, but back then if you had a high enough IQ and good health, there was a chance you could live a long slightly less miserable life. In otherwords we go through cycles, and right now misery is cherished.
I call bullshit. Modern humans excel in many feats of endurance such as rowing a boat across the Atlantic ocean, running a marathon at advanced age, marathon swimming and so on. One of the most impressive to me was the solo ascent of Everest without oxygen by Reinhold Messner in 1980.
The only thing that matters is how miserable we are, and how long we live.
We live longer, but we work to increase world misery, not decrease it. To be blunt, we don't care about human emotions, we care only about making a quick $ and nothing else. It's not about lifespan, IQ, or anything relative to the future. It's just about controlling the present.
It's just another example of a word that can mean the opposite of itself.
(Another example is "Certain foods are good for you", where the dictionary definition of "certain" is "specific", but the speaker here is using it to intentionally be vague and general.)
having a high IQ means absolutely nothing if your ethical IQ is low.
What did you pull out the "misery levels to the highest they have ever been" thing from?
It might be true, but I'll never know just from reading your post.
The article forgot to mention "In western countries...".
I know a fair bit of people who look much older than their age and people who cant get medicine for any of their diseases.
Someone please add this to the article submission system in slashdot:
UPDATE ARTICLES SET TEXT = 'In America, ' + TEXT;
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
It's simple, if you have a low ethical IQ, and you are irrational/very emotional, then there can be conflicts. Look at people around you, who are the most violent and dangerous types? The emotional irrational unethical types, right?
The problem with IQ is, we have no ethics IQ test. We also don't do a good job teaching people to be rational. You can be a genius but if you are an irrational genius, you'll make the sort of emotional quick short term decisions that will harm the long term future. If you are irrational you only harm your future self, and thats the key.
So here is the question for you, if we live in a world filled with people who like to increase world misery, who like to be irrational, and who don't care about the future, what can you do? People in this world WANT more misery, thats why there is more. People in this world WANT pain, poverty, misery, inequality, etc. Why? Because they crave these things, for whatever irrational reason, but this is what people want. Do all people want this? No, there are always a few who don't, but those few arent in a position to make decisions or do anything about it. So we get what we want in the end, it's Democracy.
Prior generations had to labor from dawn to dusk at tasks that were often debilitating and dangerous. When I was younger, I remember seeing the toll such work had had on older people I encountered. In my area, tuna fishermen would have gnarled hands from a lifetime of mending nets. People who had labored at such things as ditch digging or construction were stooped and arthritic. I seldom see these signs of a life of toil these days.
I have to call bullshit here I guess the pixie fairy just dropped all this Modern tech out of the sky, id Say the ablity to Evovle from "simple woolen clothing, a sailing ship, dogs, and a talented ship's carpenter" to the stuff that lets us Own Natures ass far outweighs the robustness of "Surviving" it
Well, lets just say the world is so miserable that we are afraid to calculate it. We are afraid to even ask the question. We are afraid to even care about how we feel, how people in the third world feel, or how our children will feel. The world is miserable, how many of us like going to work for 8 hours when we could just as easily be working 4 hours a day? How many of us like to fight for food, water, clean air, and good health when we could all have these things?
Imagine being born in the third world, and having to fight your way into America or Europe, only to further fight your way into the middle class out of the ghettos, and further fight your way out of the middle class into the upper class, and even if you somehow through pure genius, talent or luck make it from the poorest village to the highest tower, it doesnt matter because by this time the scales have changed and your money is worth less. You see, you'd think those who work their way to the top would be the ones who would want to protect the ability to continue to do this, but it's usually not like this because once you get to the top it's very difficult to stay there. The middle class will eventually cease to exist, robots will eventually replace most workers, as will outsourcing, at best if you make up from the poorest village to the highest tower, you just want to have enough security to stay there.
Do we live on a miserable planet? Yes, the majority on planet earth are miserable simply because the lower you are on the food chain, the more you have to fight to survive. Just getting to the top of the food chain doesnt solve your problems, with more money brings more problems. Just being rich does not make you immune to the rest of the world because it's not really money that matters, it's positioning. Some people will be rich forever simply because of what they own. Some people are rich right now and could lose it all on a bad bet. And to get rich, from the bottom up, takes a lifetime of sacrifice.
If we did not want diabetes to appear, we would cure it. Diabetes is profitable, so we want it. Having diabetes increases world misery, it's profitable, and we don't care about health or aging. So why would we cure anything?
I'm sure there are some individuals here who do want cures for diabetes, cancer, and other diseases, and I'm sure these diseases could be cured if we wanted to cure them. It's a matter of will, if we put hundreds of billions into it, it would be cured.
The alternative is that all human life could be wiped out. It could be a plague, but it depends on the plague. Some plagues are so dangerous they could wipe out all life on the planet. I'm sure you've heard of the grey goo problem by now.
My European ancestors tended to live to be around 40, but my Native American ancestors tended to live to 75 years and beyond -- one Cherokee great-great-great-grandmother lived to be 107. Native Americans truly did tend to live longer, but I don't see many studies on it, despite the fact that this pretty well-known. Why, I don't know. But I can guess some of the reasons they lived longer: better eating, more excercise, and most espceially, not a smany chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes in their bloodlines.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
This is why people on both sides are fighting over nothing. If someone wants to believe in God, they will, and science just proves it, including evolution. If someone does not want there to be a God, they will look for evidence to prove God doesnt exist, and it's usually the same scientific evidence used to prove God does exist. It's up to the interpreter.
In my opinion, if you believe evolution is God, you believe in God just like the person who believes an old man in the sky created Adam and Eve, both theories are equally suspicious to any open minded individual as both Darwin and Jesus base their beliefs on personal assumptions. Jesus assumped God is good and loving, Darwin assumed God is the fittest. It doesnt matter because both are right and wrong at the same time. God is good and evil, fit and unfit, depending on the version of God we get and want. We can have the accidental God of Darwin but it does not change the fact that evolution did happen, and that we DO control it, even if just by who we choose to mate with, it is a conscious decision and we arent machines. We can have the deliberate God, in which an old man designed our DNA which programmed us to choose certain mates and guide evolution. The result is still the same.
I sometimes wish others saw the issue as you did, whether they agree with that view or not, for one very simple reason, the same reason you stated: We are afraid to know how far we are falling, so we won't ask.
We believe our culture to be the height of civilization, that our evolution has been a steady process of improvement, that we have gone from single-celled organisms, to brutish beasts, to intelligent beings, and only the higher from there, well, one day maybe we'll ascend and become gods ourselves!
Because of course, we're already gods of THIS planet - WE decide who lives, who dies, WE are the masters of this domain and look how wonderfully well we've done with it.
Gone are the days of our brutish tribal ancestors, the ones who worked less than we do and lived more than we do. Look back in disdain on our tribal ancestors, because they didn't have governments of billions controlling every aspect of their lives; they didn't have pollution and toxins greater than any measure in the history of the planet. No, we've done wonderfully well on the path we're on. We work harder, stress more, enjoy less, but by god we have it easier than any humans in history!
Life for the sake of life - as in, extending the length and general health of life - without purpose, is meaningless.
Only if we give ourselves a world worth living in, does any of that matter. And we are hell bent on never doing so.
We are what Daniel Quinn calls "The Takers," a people who believes it owns the world, that it is above the natural laws that kept this planet in ecological balance for millions of years, that doesn't have to participate in the natural order of the world - no, we usurp it for our own uses, destroy every habitat we find necessary in our constant, neverending goal of colonization of every square inch of livable land on the planet. Forests fall before the might of our totalitarian agriculture; whole peoples die before the might of our destiny to 'civilize' the planet.
A man can jump off a cliff and flap his arms and convince himself he is flying.. until he hits the ground.
We are a foot off the ground, and when we hit, it won't only be us to die.. no, we're hell bent on taking the entire planet with us.
We are a pathetic, deluded little culture who thinks it is God on earth. How wonderful will the day be when those illusions come crashing down.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
...if everybody lives 1000 years and there is no war to thin them out. The government has one thing right, even if they didn't do it on purpose. People are ok, but I would like some room left for other critters. No special reason, I just like to know a variety of critters is running around.
Expecting the government to get aging research right is pretty darn optimistic. Perhaps your optimism will extend your life for you.
We might note that this is a gratuitous mis-use of the term "robust", which is a well-known technical term in anthropology. It has nothing to do with state of health. It's basically a measure of bodily weight relative to height.
Thus, the Neandert[h]al (sub)species was "robust", the invading Cro Magnon people were "gracile". In common English speech, more common terms might be "stocky" versus "slender".
Ordinarily this wouldn't matter. But we're dealing with a topic in which the technical terminology is relevant. Using the technical term in some vernacular sense is understandable, but it's misleading. And it's likely to lead to dismissal by people knowedgeable in the subject.
You'd think that we'd want to avoid this in a forum that consciously targets "nerds" and "geeks" (two more technical terms that the public uses very differently).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
while our obsession on anti-biotic this and that has created a world where people lack immunities to bugs that our ancestors would of shrugged off. as anyone should know when you are born you share the same anti-bodies as your mother for the first two weeks of life for protection while the baby's own anti-bodies learn from them. this is how polio became such a problem it's a weak virus but when has no immunity it's devastating. also it doesn't just stop there.
l 1 90/1023
it's also what we eat. the human body evolved to basically eat animals for fat and protein and fruit/veggies for the rest, this may surprise people but we did not evolve to eat grain or dairy(other then human breast milk) yet the majority of our current food has the following.
* Highly processed foods that are deficient in important vitamins and minerals
* Synthetic food compounds
* High in refined sugars
* High in saturated fat
* Deficient in fiber
* Mega-size portions
* High in calories
you can drink milk only because of a recent mutation of a human gene. a normal human would not be able to eat any kind of dairy with lactose in it because once they reach maturity the gene for that gets turned off. this was about 6,000 years ago. the rest of the stuff in cow milk other then the nutrients are things we are not evolved to eat and might be the cause of some of out illnesses, along with the lectains in grain which can even block the absorption of protein.
more information.
http://www.earth360.com/diet_paleodiet_balzer.htm
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/318/7
to assume we know better then nature is the epitome of ignorance.
The insanity of a people who think they can subdue the ecosystem of an entire planet and live to tell about it, simply boggles my mind.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Bet you are a Goth...
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
The basic premise is that we are destroying the future. I'm sure some animals will survive. I'm sure we will be replaced by the next great species to become intelligent, but our time is clearly up. The Dinosaurs had a finite timespan, they ruled planet earth for millions of years. Humans also seem to have a finite time span. The reason we have a finite time span is because we WANT to go extinct.
As much as I can tell people that our collective actions are driving us into extinction, if thats what people are wanting, the only thing I can do about it is invest in it and try to profit from the end times. It's not that I'm naturally cynical, but humanity does not care about itself, so why not get rich on that? I'm sure thats what the majority of people are thinking, at least those who are poor and not in a position to do anything. What can you do? The best you can do is invest in oil, tabacco and other obviously profitable companies, the bet is that the future will always be worse than today, that racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty and other symptoms will only increase and intensify. The only thing you can do is bank on it.
You are right, we are about to hit the ground, the option is to hit the gruond into a pot of gold, or hit the ground onto a pit of spikes. This civilization is just not sustainable. The only way it could be sustainable is if we actually worked for a better future, a higher quality of life, and once a for all we globalize the economy, for real. It's not going to happen in my lifetime folks, and it looks like we are in the final human lifetime considering the technology.
Pollution is one problem, we could go extinct just by pollution alone. If we have no clean air, no clean food, no clean water, it doesnt matter how much money you have, it doesnt matter how hard you work, nothing you do will save your children, UNLESS decide now that the future is worth saving, and that takes work. I think most humans think short term, they want to win the now, at the cost of the future. You can win the now, but if theres no future, you only win greater misery and chaos. I'm convinced that a group of humans, or a country, will eventually win control of the now, and in the end it wont matter because there won't be a world left to control, and there might not be many people either, or animals, or plants.
Nah. Never used one spec of black makeup, and don't own a single dark piece of clothing.
I'm usually very easy to pick out in a crowd, however, for reasons I still do not understand. Maybe the blonde hair.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
"Antibiotics and modern medicine"? Let's be clear about the real reason that humans today live longer than their predecessors: hygeine. The good, old, mundane bar of soap (and its liberal application to the human body) has had a much more profound effect on human health than all the doctors in history and their medicines combined.
Or overpopulation. We in the west have convinced ourselves that the reason that there aren't enough resources is that the poor are having too many babies. That may be partially true, but the biggest reason for the lack of resources has more to do with wheat and other foodstuffs being used to make doggy treats for our overpampered pets while people starve. You know there's a major problem when the people on diets and who insist on nothing but Organic Doggy Treats for lil Frufru have decided that the earth can't feed them.
As far as the environment, it's a mixed bag. We do need to control greenhouse gases, but on the other hand, it seems highly unfair to ban the factory after we've already moved to a post-industrial economy, where we can ban the chemical byproducts of processes we no longer do ourselves.
This is probably the worst time for much of the planet -- because we're not only living like feudal lords, but because we don't live anywhere near the third world, and we just so happen to be in control of most of the major media. We've created a bubble -- one that makes darn sure that we never have our consciences pricked by having to see so much as a picture of a poor person, let alone talk to them. At least when the old feudal lords left the castle to go somewhere, he'd usually have to pass a peasant or two on the roadside, possibly even having a conversation with them. Until we start looking the third worlders in the face and start listening, we may as well be the new Marie Antonettes. But who cares, American Idol is on TeeVee.
I'm looking at the Education at a Glance study from 2005. (XLS warning)
The high school graduation rates for the Netherlands and the UK are 60-70%, differing between age groups. The rate for the US is 85-89%. If your standards are higher, of course your graduates are going to have higher IQs on average.
Now, I think having higher standards is a good thing (the "no child left behind" crap in the US annoys me to no end), but don't take statistics out of context.
We are a foot off the ground, and when we hit, it won't only be us to die.. no, we're hell bent on taking the entire planet with us.
"The planet is fine...the people are fucked." - George Carlin
Lately, I've been feeling like I'm hosting a party, introducing people. "Fan, meet shit; Shit, this is Fan. Why don't you two go mingle somewhere?"
You assume because miserable conditions exist that this is the desired state of things. What you rule out without providing a reason for excluding it is that miserable conditions may exist because we do not yet know how to prevent/eliminate them.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
You assume people segregate because of racism. At my boarding school at mealtime the races sat with their own but not because they did not get along but because it is easier to relate to those who are most like you. You can't call people racist if they aren't integrated in every waking moment of their lives.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
We don't really live longer now than our ancestors used to. We just die a slower death.
Simpy
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hehe, Score -1 Troll. Looks like someone didn't like seeing their precious little view of paradise be crushed.
Not that that wasn't expected. In fact, I've never had a positive response when I tell people the straight truth about the world they live in.. because nobody is interested in the truth.
I've found it much more effective to sort of 'fudge' the truth until someone is paying enough attention to actually show them new ideas; people in our culture are uncommonly good at avoiding new ideas unless their survival is at stake (and sometimes even then...)
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Yes, its the evil white people's fault. Like most of the opinions expressed in this and other threads, the problems and causes are more complicated than your small brain can currently comprehend. Their solution is non-trivial. In actuality, if a serf or peasant actually tried to speak with a lord of the past, he would have been murdered. That's the whole point of a feudal system. Romanticising the past is just plain stupid.
The most dangerous are the rational people who can control the irrational nature of others.
Why do you think we live in a world with more misery than before? Overall global morality has improved, that is why the problems in the world are highlighted. Modern human rights violations only exist because recently there is general consensus there are human rights.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Can you prove that evolution is not God? Can you prove anything you just said? What if I say science is God? Then will you stop believing in science just because I changed the name of it to God?
Most Athiests dislike the word "God". There is no rationality or logic to it, it's just dislike for the word. Rename the word to "Evolution", or to "Chaos" or "Randomness" or "Accident" and then they can believe that we have a random accidently chaos generated universe. So chaos becomes God.
Athiests have a God too, Darwin is only one theory of evolution, I'm not saying that evolution isnt real, but why is there only one theory of evolution if we are to take it as a legit science? Since when did we present just one mans hypothesis for something as complex and deep as evolution? Darwin had many theories, some of them have been proven right, and some are just wild speculation. Survival of the fittest, wild speculation, because there is no definition of fittest, and fittest could just mean lucky. So survival of the lucky is in my opinion not really based on fact, or evidence, it's just a way to fill in the gaps as to why some species survive longer than others.
What is most fit? Whoever survives. Who survives? Sometimes the unfit survive and the species dies out. Sometimes the fit survive and the species continues to evolve, but it's far more complicated than Darwin makes it seem. Natural selection? There is no natural selection, evolution is always guided by intelligent and conscious selection. Humans evolved intelligence because intelligent people could communicate better with each other, due to language. It had nothing to do with intelligences aiding with survival, thats speculation. Often the most intelligent humans are the least likely to survive because language skills did not mean you'd have the physical skills or the killer instinct. Warriors often were less intelligent, but through brute force would take over an area, rape all the women, and kill most or all of the men. You can't say they were more intelligent, just more violent and aggressive, so aggression became a survival trait. Now we are at a point where, theres no need for that sort of aggression, we have technology, we have laws, we have sophisticated civilization, so now even with no rational or logical reason we fight each other for the fun of it, just being aggressive for the sake of aggression. Can we say it helps us evolve faster? Not really.
So there is no way to define fittest, but in the human species fittest is whoever is most aggressive. In other species fittest might be something completely different, the bees and insects work in group mind, they have way more discipline, their concept of fittest is not the same as ours. The aggressive mouse which goes around biting cats might not have much success, so aggressioon only works when intelligent people support it with technology.
I'm never disputing the science of evolution. I'm disputing the fact that the "theory" of evolution isnt fully proven. It's part speculation and part science. The science part, we know about genetics, we know about DNA, we know over time evolution does take place. We do not know why, we just know how. Science never explains why, and Darwin's "why" is as much his spiritual belief as saying "God" intelligently designed it. Really survival of the fittest is not some proven law of nature, many species were more fit than us, which we wiped out into extinction in our own process of going extinct, so it's never as simple as "might makes right", or "survival of the fittest". If an Astroid hit, then a lot of the species would survive, and we'd be the least fit to handle it. We can't even handle pollution, we can't even protect our habitat, we are fit for self destruction. So in our case who actually wants to be the fittest if it's only the road to being fit for extinction?
You are right, there might be people, humans, who are fit, and who could save the species from going extinct, but based on how we choose to define fittest, whoever is the best at
I don't understand your reasoning. We went to the moon in the 1960's. We spend 300-400 billion a year on defense. Eliminating misery has never been a concern, not ever, there is no evidence of it in history, not even in this country. Let's see, we are in the country that created the "ghetto", that created "segregation", that didn't allow women to vote, that works longer and harder with less vacations than any other country on the planet, with both some of the richest and poorest people living next to each other in the same country.
If our goal were to decrease world misery, shouldnt we start by reducing the workday? extending the weekend? reducing the work day to a 4 hour a day maximum, or adding friday as part of a 3 day weekend would do a lot to reduce world misery. I think everyone on this website would want to work less hours so they can spend more time with their families, friends, or doing things they enjoy. Instead we are working more hours than any other country. So don't tell me we don't know how to eliminate world misery when we are creating our own environment. We are the ones who want to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with almost no vacation time, and we don't even have a reason to be doing it.
We know how to prevent the miserable conditions, and we WANT people to be miserable. Can you with a straight face, tell me or anyone that the third world is this poor and starving to death when the third world is mostly farming land, rainforest, and has all the gold, oil and diamonds on the planet? Starvation only exists because we want people to starve. Poverty only exists because we want or need people to be poor. Ghettos only exist because we create them. It's not like these situations formed by accident, just read the history books.
The solution? We can work for quality of life, we can work for happiness, we can work to reduce misery, and it does not take a lot, just a simply change in priority. First we have to love ourselves and care about how we feel. Once we care about how we feel, then we can care about how other people such as our neighbors feel, and yes we could have a better environment for everyone if we worked to improve it. Sadly, we are working to increase misery. We have not even invited Africa, perhaps one of the largest continents on earth into the WTO, despite the fact that we get oil, gold, diamonds and other natural resources from countries, we go out of our way to avoid trade. This is why countries are poor, it's a matter of trade, and if there are sanctions, or debt it makes countries artificially poor forever.
So I don't understand your point, it's not difficult to be rational. I assume you are rational and you want to work hard today so you can work less hard tomorrow. You'd like to have robots doing most of the work so we can all work 4 hours a day. Hell you'd like to globalize the economy so we can all work 4 hours a day even sooner, but guess what, we have a globalized economy now, and we still work 8 hours a day, and now it takes 2 incomes to survive.
Yes I agree that global morality has improved, but it's not improving in the places that matter. So the third world is highlighting human rights abuses? So people in ghettos are highlighting human rights? There have always been moral people in this world, there has always been men and women in the third world, in ghettos, in the working class, in the middle class, and upper class who have morality. The problem is that, it's not simply a matter of numbers. If 5 out of 6 billion people are moral, but just a few thousand or million very important people are immoral, thats all it really takes.
So you are right, the world believes there are human rights. Does the average CEO? Does the average leader? Human rights only exist if the police, judges, CEOs and other decision makers say it exists. If they say human rights do not exist, human rights do not exist. Not everyone agreed with slavery, but you know, without slavery how would America have been built? Today a lot of people disagree with human rights abuses, but how can you have a war without human rights abuses? So in a way, it's always the decision makers who decide for us what official morality is.
You and I, we may have our personal morality, but the official morality is decided by our leaders, not by us. We can discuss our morality in the church, in the classroom, on Slashdot, but really it has nothing to do with how society is setup. Human rights, or any rights, only exist when they can be defended, and the only country on earth capable of defending them is this country. The leaders of this country decide if human rights are worth defending or not, and thats how it has always been since forever. If the leaders of this country decide they want to take us back into a monarchy, then so be it. If the leaders of this country decide on a new set of rights, so be it. We are the workers, we go to work, we pay taxes, but we don't make decisions of this sort.
So it's not that the world is immoral right now, I see a lot of people standing up for human rights, more than any other time in history, but it's a matter of which people are standing up? I'm seeing mostly the victims standing up. I'm not seeing important, powerful, or rich people in mass standing up to defend human rights. You can have a billion poor people stand up for human rights and it changes nothing. You could have 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion, all stand up and it changes nothing.
If you have ever seen a house from the 1700's, you must have remarked at how small the doorways and rooms were. Have you ever seen old suits of armour? They look like they were made for people under 5 feet. Hobbits, I tell you. We're all descendants from Hobbits.
So how exactly are people less ethical and rational than a hundred years ago? Go on, explain how there's more 'misery' today than in the age of slavery, imperialism, workhouses, consumption, 80 hour weeks, racial segregation, no women's suffrage and ethnic cleansing.
You can say it ain't racism all you want to, but the fact that it's not changed in 50 years suggests that it's more than just "I don't have black friends".
Health standards in the west have been improved the last century, but out of the 6+ billion people on this planet, only 1 billion of them enjoy these high standards. What about the rest of the world?
Absolutely nothing in this article is startling if you are a student of history:
Gee, chronic illness and cancer were high. Do you know it was business as usual for preserved foods to have ingredients like copper and lead for coloring? Do you know Bayer could market heroin for those aches that nag you? The horror of big government not withstanding, maybe food and drug laws have value?
How many people died from coal fired pollution in the 19th century? Clean Air Act anyone? For that matter, with no pollution control laws, it was anyone's guess what you were eating, drinking, breathing and living on top of from day to day.
No worker safety laws, no minimum wage, no 40-hour week, no food stamps, no social security. You paint the picture.
The Oxford History of the American People states that the average American breakfast was something like whiskey and ham. Maybe if McDonalds served whiskey with a McMuffin we would be back in the 19th century. Companies like Kellogg were founded as health food alternatives.
I personally had an ancestor die of cholera the year before Minneapolis got their water system up in 1869. Municipally-run water systems are good too. And another civil war ancestor die of typhoid -- probably also water contamination.
Universal childhood vaccination. Infant and children's nutrition to curb lifelong chronic illness. Sounds pretty socialist to me.
All-in-all, we have the health we have because there was a social infrastructure that promoted public health. So can we start to agree that Little House on the Prairie was a TV show and the propaganda we have been fed since the 80s that the 19th century was the golden age of America is a fantasy?
out of the 6+ billion people on this planet, only 1 billion of them enjoy these high standards. What about the rest of the world?
Dear Third World.
How are things on the bottom of the barrel? I've been hearing about bombs going off somewhere or other--I really don't pay much attention. I hope they haven't been doing all that much damage, or killing too too many people. Remember, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. And well, that which DOES in fact kill you is sending you right on your way to Heaven, which looks remarkably like Martha's Vineyard. Which I'm sure you've never seen, because you probably don't have a TV, but imagine your neighborhood with food, water, and doctors.
How am I, you ask? I for one am enjoying the leg up provided by the oppressed masses so that I may taste the sweet nectar of health and wellbeing. I give you, third world, my personal thanks for being the stepping stool by which I reach the fountain of youth. The ladder I climb to plug my PDA into the surge-protected, line-conditioned socket. The groundcover that provides the traction on my long, arduous journey up the mountain to the hot springs of cosmopolitan sex and sensuality well into my golden years.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Third World.
-Nathan Curry
Please stop stalking me, bro.
"People in this world WANT more misery"
No, people want to aliviate their own "misery" first, their monkeysphere comes next, the rest of humanity is "beyond" their capacity for caring (except maybe thru charity where someone does "something good" on your behalf).
The current situation is a whole lot of passionate people fighting for thier own interests, then the interests of their monkeysphere and finally for other groups such as voters and "the rest". Does it ever cross anyone's mind that one man's hero is another man's villian. Even Hitler had plenty of public support but this does not mean German's are "evil". It's just that "at the time" Hitler seemed to be looking after Germany pretty good, what with capitalists from around the world investing in the country and Hitler building a strong military, things were "just peachy" compared to the rest of the planet.
The "international community" is a collection of nation states, many of them capable of wiping out our species entirely, all of them looking out for thier nation's "self interest". With diminishing oil reserves, the collapse of fisheries and other bad news about the future of humanity I don't see how these self interested "states" can avoid blowing each other up. Democracy has become an excuse for fascism, kidnapping a soldier is provocation, to retaliate by kiddnaping half of a democratically elected government and destroying the only power plant servicing 1.4 million people?
The west is supposed to be living under the shadow of terror, so how come the vast majority of terrorfied people I see on my TV are arabic?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I've always wondered what is the exact meaning of the life expectancy statistic. Is it the average age at which people died this year, the average age at which people born this year are expected to live to, or is it a weighted average of both? When we see each year the "Life expectancy is longer by 0.x years in 200y" article, it makes a huge difference!
My grandpa lived to the rape age of 92. I am 40 and I have cataracts and failing kidneies. I will be lucky to see 50
We must stop this progression of intelligence before we are left with Bills, Beavis's, Buttheads, and Teds who understand how to get laid! The future would have no humor.
Capitalism is always nice with a healthy dash of socialsm.
Boycott Sony
I am just going to put this out there. I think you may have some form of a mental illness. Seriously. You speak as if there is some Misery Factory out there somewhere pumping out more misery. You don't sound like a person who has all their marbles upstairs. You are ranting and raving all over this thread against things that no one else sees because THEY DO NOT EXIST. Ok take that for what it is.
The United States did not invent the "ghetto". The word is an old Jewish word that was brought here so clearly "ghettos" existed before this young country, the US, did. Do you honestly think there were no poor areas in cities before the American Revolution? Was the United States the only country that didn't allow women to vote? Has that not changed? Was the United States the only country that had segregation? Has that not changed as well? Poverty rates, women's rights and civil rights have all moved in the right direction over the course of our nation's history. So where is your foundation for us never making eliminating misery a priority?
As for eliminating misery not being concern thats pure nonsense. Humans all over the world today live longer and more healthier lives than their ancesetors in the past. We have more material posessions, better health care and less worry about basic needs such as food, shelter and safety. Yes there are still regional wars in some parts of the world but there hasn't been a World War in over 50 years. You also assume that making people work less would automatically make them happier. A lot of people enjoy their jobs and only hate working because they are working at jobs they don't like. Not many people want to sit at home all day everyday. That would get boring fast.
Yes I can tell you with a straight face that the world is poor and starving to death because we have yet figure out how to get those countries to form stable governments. There is no lack of food, there is however a lack of infrastructure and stable governments in the starving nations. While I am sure there are some evil individuals out there but as a whole no humanity does not want people to starve. I think your mental illness is the cause for your nihilism. There's just no logic behind it at all. We can't invite Africa into the WTO until they get their act together. Humans aren't socialists. We need there to be something in it for us to do something. Thats not evil. Its just the way it is and it works out very well. The capitalist system allows for ridiculously high standards of living, socialist utopian systems allow for ridiculously low standards of living. I know which one I prefer.
I don't know. Maybe I'm the crazy one and I'm miserble and I just don't know it. I live a comfortable life in a good house, I'm healthy and have a good job but maybe I'm miserable just because you say so.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I never said it was ignorance of other races. What I said is that people are more comfortable around those who are more like themselves. You can harbor no ill will towards a person of another race yet feel more comforatble and be able to relate more easily with those of the same race as yourself. Where's the racism in that?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
My great*6-grandfather lived to be over 100, in Massachusetts in the ~1700s. His family were mostly English and/or German immigrants who did farming of some sort. It wasn't common, but it wasn't rare either, at least for people who didn't get killed by plagues or wars or accidents or doctors or starvation or childbirth or infant mortality.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Grain farmers had much different conditions than herding societies, and both were different from hunter-gatherers. Anybody who's nomadic is going to be getting exercise, and exposure to more kinds of diseases (therefore developing resistance), and is likely to have lower population concentrations than pre-industrial grain-farmers who stay in one place and grow enough calories to feed large families and support villages and armies. That doesn't mean that herders don't get into fights (they're just usually smaller ones and animal-thieving instead of big wars between rich rulers over land.) That also doesn't mean that serfs and other dirt-farmers don't get lots of exercise, though it may be different varieties of it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, fast food isn't great, but it's hardly the only problem the boomers and their kids face. Television makes people far more sedentary and less social, both of which are serious problems. I don't know that it makes people more gullible or not; it may just be an efficient search mechanism to find out what they're most gullible about :-) I was born in the 50s, and my parents were relatively conservative so it was a while before we got a TV, and even longer before we got UHF and color TV, so we missed a lot of the more kid-oriented programs but still found lots of ways to be couch potatoes. Now, of course, if I want to waste time staring at a tube, it's usually the Internet, which is at least social even though it's still not exercise...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, the Industrial Revolution has meant that city people often didn't get much exercise, but for most of history, most people got lots of exercise, whether they were dirt-farmers or hunter-gatherers. If average people got fat, it wasn't lack of exercise - maybe an older farmer could get his kids or farmhands to do more of the work, and a prosperous farmer had enough calories that his body's hunter-gatherer feast-and-famine biology could convert it to fat, and people who could afford riding horses might not always walk, but there was still lots of physical labor to do.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades"
/., the Republican OR Democratic Parties membership or Paris Hilton, that's for sure.
This study wasn't based on
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
What should the UN, Europe, and the US do about Congo? Let's see, how about we ask the only black senator Barack Obama what we should do about the Congo? Also since when did the UN, NATO or the US have a responsibility to do anything for the Congo? The African Union has that responsibility. Secondly, we have plenty of blacks in America who know exactly what to do about the Congo, but no one really listens and does anything about ghettos in America so why would the Congo matter?
We make those decisions everyday. We decide through voting who is in power. We decide if human rights is more or less important than having a cool pair of shoes. Sometimes we play dumb and keep our eyes closed to what's going on, but in the end we are the ones who make those decisions.
We voted and we got exactly what we wanted. What point are you trying to make? Yes it's a democracy, but it doesnt matter who you vote for, because the agenda is the same no matter who is elected. So we vote on individuals, not on agendas.
Typically it isn't the victims who stand up, those most impacted by human rights vilations, are more worried about survival than getting the message out. The media, celebrities, and the rich are in fact the ones who spread the message about human rights abuses. Unfortunately, we tend to focus on the few negatives, than the overall positives.
This is equal to saying that Bono did more for human rights than Martin Luther King or Ghandi. I don't understand your point. Jesus Christ was not rich either, he was poor. The founders of this country who created the bill of rights, the constitution, the declaration of independence were not rich, and were not kings in Europe. I just do not see where in history, did the rich stand up to defend the poor, I'd love to see you cite some records, but as far as I've seen things, women, gays, blacks, citizens in general, always stood up for themselves. No one was ever given anything, not even the right to vote was guarenteed until people fought to win those rights.
You are ruthlessly optimistic. The weak are almost never defended by the strong, and the strong almost always hate the weak. There are exceptions, there always are, but history does not lie.
I'm not trying to call you a lunatic anymore than you are trying to call me one, but if you think misery happens all by itself, well I guess you believe in the tooth fairy, santa claus, and little grey men.
You are ranting and raving all over this thread against things that no one else sees because THEY DO NOT EXIST. Ok take that for what it is.
Okay, whatever you say, misery does not exist. We all are happy and enjoy our suffering.
The United States did not invent the "ghetto".
Okay, we invented the "urban" ghetto. Sure ghettos in some form always exist but we created the word "urban" and "inner city" to exclusively make certain parts of cities into the "official" ghetto. That is something America DID invent. So we did not invent poverty, or the word ghetto, but the current concept of a ghetto, you know, the urban concrete jungle, with the projects and liqour stores all over the place, that was invented here. Accept American history.
As for eliminating misery not being concern thats pure nonsense. Humans all over the world today live longer and more healthier lives than their ancesetors in the past. We have more material posessions, better health care and less worry about basic needs such as food, shelter and safety. Yes there are still regional wars in some parts of the world but there hasn't been a World War in over 50 years. You also assume that making people work less would automatically make them happier. A lot of people enjoy their jobs and only hate working because they are working at jobs they don't like. Not many people want to sit at home all day everyday. That would get boring fast.
Let's see now, more humans are dying of disaase than in any time in history. HIV, heart disease, cancer, mad cow disease, avian flu, diabetes, and this is just to name a few. Now I admit, those diseases don't kill people instantly anymore like the spanish flu or the black plague, but not much has changed. We have managed to create a health industry, which profits off making you sick and then profits again off treating that sickness. So yes we might live longer if we can afford medicine, but surprise, the majority of the world cannot afford medicine.
Yes I can tell you with a straight face that the world is poor and starving to death because we have yet figure out how to get those countries to form stable governments. There is no lack of food, there is however a lack of infrastructure and stable governments in the starving nations. While I am sure there are some evil individuals out there but as a whole no humanity does not want people to starve. I think your mental illness is the cause for your nihilism. There's just no logic behind it at all. We can't invite Africa into the WTO until they get their act together. Humans aren't socialists. We need there to be something in it for us to do something. Thats not evil. Its just the way it is and it works out very well. The capitalist system allows for ridiculously high standards of living, socialist utopian systems allow for ridiculously low standards of living. I know which one I prefer.
Okay, so we seem to believe that Africa is poor as a continent because some of the countries on that continent do not have stable governments. So explain to me why China, which was communist is becoming rich? How about India? The middle east? Latin America has had a stable government for a while, why arent we trading with Mexico, it's a lot closer than China, makes a lot of sense on paper, would save in fuel and transportation costs, and would slow illegal immigration. So why is Mexico so poor while China is so rich?
Trade policy has nothing to do with stability of governments. Yes there are governments in Africa that are not our friends, but there are governments in Africa that are our friends and have been for a long time. I'm not talking about Somalia, I'm talking about Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, even Egypt. There are plenty of third world countries, which we could be trading with right now even if si
if cavemen and astronauts got into a fight, who would win?
That's all true, but the biggest breeding factor for soldiers historically is rape.
Traditionally, when conquering a city, soldiers will rape all the women and pillage its riches. This is one of the main attractions of the soldier profession. Killing all the males is optional, but also has obvious evolutionary implications.
During WW2, certainly the Red Army practiced this to the fullest, and I would guess that it was practiced by more civilized armies more than was publiciced too.
It was never the resposibility of the US government to bail out poor countries. The UN can decide to do this if they want to, but it's not the responsibility of the US.
,who have no money and who are literally starving, but who do speak up. We might not agree with what they have to say, but you have to admit that most artists arent rich, they are poor. The people in Africa who are starving have voices if you care to listen, but most people don't really want to hear it. There are movies about Rwanda, there are many people speaking abuot genocide in Darfur, and you are telling me that no ones speaking up?
I see, so human rights is jurisdictional. Hmm guess we shouldn't have sent relief supplies to Indonesia after the tsunamis, since that is of course the responsibility of Asian countries. The US is responsible, because it is rich. Columbia isn't singled out about not doing enough in the Congo. That is the no-win situation, do nothing and the US looks arrogant and unhelpful on human rights, try to do something and it's meddling in the affairs of other nations.
Tsunami victims can bail themselves out much like Katrina victims did. I don't see your point. If we don't bail out victims of hurricanes in this country, why should we worry about Asian countries? We obviously arent good at bailing ourselves out, so why would any country call on America to bail them out?
Yes because all black people, understand the political climate of Congo... doesn't matter if they grew up in Texas, they are black, so they should know.
US policy continues to be, ask nicely, and cry about thing at the UN. You are so damn naive. Actually the person who is running for President and who will likely be elected in the Congo is American with a degree from Harvard. Harvard Doctor, the future of Congo. Please do your research BEFORE you post about the Congo. I'm not saying blacks in America know everything there is to know about the Congo, what I'm saying is that blacks in America can run the government of the Congo, aid with intelligence, and keep the country stablized. There are more than enough educated blacks in America to solve the Congo problem, and thats the only way it can ever be solved. It's not going to be solved if you try to educate the Congo, you have to bring the educated people into the Congo to build the government and train folks. You act like it's never been done before, but thats how it always works. If we want Congo to be a friend of America, the Congo needs a connection with blacks in America. This is just common sense.
Maybe I wasn't clear. When I said those most impacted, I was referring to the hopelessly poor and desperate, who don't stand up. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Che Guevara were all from relatively prosperous familites (middle or upper-middle class),
That is just ridiculous. Martin Luther King was a PREACHER, theres no way in hell he came from a rich or even a middle class family as a PREACHER in the south. Ghandi, he wasnt rich either. I don't know how you can call these people rich, Martin Luther King was the on the lowest economic ladder in America, during a time when there was segregation and everything else. Even if you do not agree with what Martin Luther King stood for or what he did, you must admit he had balls, he was brave.
People with no food actually do speak up, you just don't listen. There are africans speaking up all the time, don't you listen to any rap music? Don't you read books? There are many many writers, artists, musicians
You are correct, many people who speak up are college educated, that is true. You are correct, in order to be a revolutionary, you need an education, or at least access to books. The reason there are not a lot of revolutionaries today is not because people arent educated, people are more educated today than every before. The reason there arent any third world revolutionaries today is because, it's not
Congo American
In the second place, why do you blame only American whites, and not American blacks, for keeping to themselves? Both groups are simply acting in the natural, biologically programmed way of grouping with those most like them, which is obvious from the result: voluntary separation requires that both groups wish to be separate. I've even read articles about American blacks in the northwestern USA complaining about 'rich whites' moving into 'their' (black) neighbourhoods and driving up property prices. Clearly the American blacks like to keep to themselves, and once again, this is perfectly natural.
Overpopulation, or more specifically, rapid population growth, is a major cause of poverty. In many poor countries, the infrastructure is poor to begin with, but with stable population sizes, it could be gradually developed. However, with rapid population growth, massive building of infrastructure is required just to prevent a deterioration in the living standard. In many poor countries, infrastructure simply cannot be built quickly enough to keep up with the exploding populations (consider that China only began to truly modernise after its population growth was brought under control, unfortunately by very objectionable means).
As for hunger, there is no global shortage of food. People in some poor countries are starving, but this is because of corrupt and incompetent governments preventing distribution of food. An extreme case is Zimbabwe, where Mugabe's harsh persecution of white farmers has destroyed the agricultural sector in the country, which was its main source of exports. People are going hungry because of a corrupt and evil dictator, who is not only blocking distribution of food to those who support the opposition, but has destroyed the ability of the country to pay for imports, including many kinds of food. On a global basis, however, there is plenty of food to feed everyone in Zimbabwe, if Mugabe would just step back and let it happen.
I'm not saying people were more rational in the past, it's just in the past rational thinking was encouraged. I'm not sure I can say rational thinking is encouraged today. Rational thought is something people either are taught, or learn the hard way. Today, a youth cannot afford to make the kinda mistakes that our parents might have made. A degree is required now just to survive.
In the past I'm not saying we were more rational, but I can say in the past our culture was more rational at least. We always had a world with a select few enlightened rational thinkers, and then you had everyone else. The difference now is, somehow, we ignore rational thinking in favor of what feels good. Some of the situations the world is in don't make any rational sense whatsoever, and only make sense if you feel it.
In the past, slavery was rational, cruel, but very rational. Today we are doing things that don't benefit us in any percieveable way. I do not see how pollution helps anyone, I do not see how certain situations benefit anyone, and if they do benefit anyone it will be the temporary type benefits that only increase the value of the moment at the expensive of the value of the future. I'm just wondering, is this what is in humankind, or the earths best interest? No one seems to even ask that anymore, people don't seem to think long term. I'm not saying people 100 years ago all thought long term either, but these days even the smartest people seem to be worrying about what happened on American idol.
I highly doubt Adam Smith invented capitalism as a suicide weapon. I highly doubt that Einstien invented atomic energy to help us wipe ourselves out faster. I highly doubt any of the great minds and thinkers invented what they invented to speed up our demise.
The equation is simple, it's not even about religion. You just have to be selfish and rational enough to protect the machine itself that you depend on. Let's start with capitalism, so we are a capitalist society, but capitalism was not designed to be about quick money, it was designed to control the human species, in the way that you train your pet by giving it a prize or a toy. Humans required tools like capitalism, religion, and even drugs, to prevent us from wiping ourselves out a long time ago. Religion, money, drugs and other things like this, gave people something to fight over. The problem now is we are on the verge of running out of "things" to fight over on the group level.
There have always been people who were rational enough to know that yes, we have absolute freedom, but at the same time, by being enlightened enough to know that freedom there are responsibilities along with it. People have forgotten the basic responsibility and logic behind civilization. Do we exist to worship and serve money, or does money exist to make our lives better? A rational person would know, that while money can buy material things, true wealth is social wealth. The wealth you gain by having friends, a family, and a community. Today, community doesnt exist anymore, and while there are tribes today, most people are born into these "groups" and don't really know the people they are grouped up with. You might be born into a racial group and be surrounded by people you have nothing in common with and who you don't like, but who happen to look like you. You might be born into a religious group, and be surrounded by people who all worship the same God as you, but who don't recognize free will. You might be in a situation where you are just born at a certain time period and get labeled generation X, Y, Z or whatever, and you might have nothing in common with that group besides the fact you were born at the same time. Let's not forget astrological signs, yeah you'll meet people who have your sign, born no the same day, look the same, go to the same church, and who you can't stand. What has changed is that people don't know each other anymore, they just know groups. Sure it's always been a clique based world, and it's always been tribal, and but it seems that we lack a group conciousness, a human conciousness. We are self aware as individuals, even as countries, races, or religions, but we have absolutely no self awareness on the species level. We don't really protect our own habitat, or our collective future, or our food, our water, our biodiversity, or anything else that might actually matter 100-200 years into the future.
There are millions who are truly conscious, who can feel the world as well as rationally calculate it, but this is so rare that it does not make much of a difference when billions just want to work and consume with no real concept of what they are working to build, destroy, etc. A lot of people have children, the first question to ask is what world will your children inherit? If you don't have children, what world will humanities children inherit? If you don't know, or don't care, there is a good chance humanity will go extinct simply because no one cares about the children. It's really as simple as that. If we don't care about our kids, we don't care about the future, and if we don't care about the future, well, thats not really rational. In chess, in programming or a lot of things, sometimes the quick easy solution, leads to more problems. Often people just say, well if we play chess like we play checkers, we can take more pieces quick. Often they will think we if we just take the queen at the start of the game we will win. Often people think that if they make decisions quicker, that it's better than thinking it all through, but in reality,
Yes I worry, I worry because no one else is.
Also, I cannot pull free money out of my pocket to just travel to whatever paradise you are asking me to travel to. I'm a college student, I'm supposed to be worried about the future. How exactly can you end up in college in the first place if you don't care about your future?
The overpopulation point is a good point however, the main problem of over-population has little to do with poor or rich and everything to do with the fact that if there is no future, more people being born doesnt change anything.
So while we have plenty of food, we don't really have a plan. By the way, I don't have a pet.
Race did not exist until people invented it. Most people get killed by people of the same race, thats how well people get along with their race. People get along better with people of other races than with their own.
Just because someone looks like you does not mean you will relate to them. A rapist or serial killer might look like your clone, but does this mean you'll be best friends with their person? A person of a different race on the other hand might have the same interests as you, and the same values, does this mean you will not be able to relate to them just becaue they don't look like a physical clone?
What you don't seem to understand is the world is very intergrated, it's just not intergrated in the way you think. Racism does still exist, and intergration would be a lot easier if people werent taught that "race" were real, but hey people are taught Jesus Christ was white, and God is male. Race is religion at this point, you can believe in it if you want to, but if you take a genetics class in college, you'll see that you'll have people who look the exact same as you but who are genetically your opposite. In fact I'm sure you've more people who look look exactly like you who you can't stand, than people who look different from you who you can't stand. The fact is, science has dispoved race, and not only disproved race but also proven through stem cell research that race is now a selectable option. So humanity should just pick a race and then design all babies to look like clones, or accept racial diversity, but racism serves no real purpose.
What makes you think people judge similar to themselves based on skin color? Just because someone tells you how to think does not mean you must believe in it. If I said you had to pick your friends based on hair color, and that blondes were the most valueable, would you willingly give up all your friends and only talk to blondes? Sure some people would do this, but I think the average human just wants to have friends and they dont really care what the friend looks like. People are friends with dogs and cats, and you are telling me that people don't want to sit next to another human because that human has different hair or skin?
If race is real, why does race only apply to skin color? It's only a matter of time before skinny and fat become races. It's only a matter of time before the talls stop talking to the shorts, and the smart stop talking to the dumb. It's only a matter of time before race is redefined, and thats my point, something like race has no definition, it's a religious term that can be reinterpreted and redefined forever. Disabled people arent of the same race right? So people with autism are a different race? Are depressed people of a different race? What about people who can't read? Are they going to become the new blacks?
What about people who don't like calculus, are they going to be the new blacks?
Do you see, black as a race only exists to act as an opposite to white, and it has to be this way simply so white can exist as a race. If black does not exist, race will still exist, it just wont be based on skin color anymore. So when we have designer babies and genetically modfied people, the class will decide the race most likely. Make your money now or be black in the future, and thats if we arent replaced by robots or wiped out by science.
If it were true that people only want to be around others who "look" like themselves and not people who "are" like themselves. This would mean the internet should be segregated right? Where is Slashdot black? Slashdot asian? I don't see a segregated internet at all.
Second, you go to the workplace, and you see all races in the same office working together, so what stops then from playing together? If it isn't racism, people should be able to play with the people they work with. And no I do not think people go out of their way to be among those who look like them, that is actually a portion of blacks, whites, and asians who choose to segregate themselves most likely out of racism. I'm not going to say that only whites are racist, people are racist and all races have racists. At the same time all races have people who arent racist, and often it depends on what you are taught.
It does not help when the parents of most blacks and asians were taught in the past that certain parts of town were for whites only. Sure some kids today don't think in a segregated way, but lets be serious, just because segregation ended in the 80s, doesnt mean that it's going to magically erase from everyones minds.
Racism still exists, I think everyone knows it, it's impossible to try to claim it does not exist after watching hurricane Katrina. I mean even the most naive of naive person, after seeing that, they know racism exists. I do not think people go around deliberately trying to only make friends from one race unless they have racist thinking in the first place and view people who look different as a different species, or as alien. Do some blacks view some whites as alien? Yes. Do some whites view blacks as alien? Yes. Do some asians view blacks and whites as alien? Yes. This has nothing to do with race, race is just a word to provide the excuse for exclusionary behavior. Within races there are gangs, you cannot wear the color red or blue in some places, so does this mean gang members view people outside of their tribal gang as alien and of a different "race"? Yes.
This is tribalism at core, and racism on the surface. Assume for a moment that white were the only race on earth, assume all other races vanished, and there are just white. Lets see you'd have the different hair colors to seperate with, so the blondes would view themelves as the true whites, in specific the blonde talls. So once again you'd have races, and it would start all over again. Racism is just a word, it's really a worldview, and at the core, it's just an emotion, a feeling, people are making decisions based on a feeling they get when they glance at someone. The feeling is "Ew, I don't like how this person looks, keep it away from me!".
If our goal were to decrease world misery, shouldnt we start by reducing the workday? extending the weekend?
We've done that decades ago.
When I worked at the Ontario Ministry of Labour, there was an old worker protest sign on the wall. It read: "Please join us in our struggle for a 60 hour work week and a ten hour workday". I know sometimes, some of the people in IT work that many hours; but not people doing manual labour, and not as a matter of course. Getting two days off on the weekend, and reducing the average work week to 40 hours from 60 was a big cultural shift.
Some places even give you paid lunches, which reduces your actual working time even more. I've worked at several places where an official "week" was only 37.5 hours.
I think everyone on this website would want to work less hours so they can spend more time with their families, friends, or doing things they enjoy.
Ideally, I'd prefer to be doing meaningful work that would improve the quality of life for my fellow man. I think I'd look back on my life with greater respect, in the long term, than, if I had just wasted it lazing about on the beach, doing nothing of good to anyone.
Can you with a straight face, tell me or anyone that the third world is this poor and starving to death when the third world is mostly farming land, rainforest, and has all the gold, oil and diamonds on the planet?
The third world is starving because of bad governments, not lack of resources. However, it's not the only source of farmland, forests, nor gold, oil, or diamonds in the world; and again, it's bad governments that allow abuses by industry to occur. If half a million people were killed or injured from poisoned gas in a western country, the corporation who allowed it to happen would be sued out of existance. In Bhopal, India, it's just another hazard of life.
is why countries are poor, it's a matter of trade, and if there are sanctions, or debt it makes countries artificially poor forever.
Countries are poor when people don't feel like working hard. People especially dislike working hard when they think what they're doing isn't worthwhile, such as when working under a corrupt government; imposing trade sanctions is one of the ways to try to bring a rogue government into line without involving open warfare.
No country is poor forever. Some are at more of a disadvantage than others, but disadvantages can be overcome. It's all a matter of what you do with what you've got. Switzerland has very few natural resources; it's mostly mountains and rocks, not farmland -- but they've got a thriving enonomy nonetheless, because the Swiss worked very hard at making a thriving enconomy out of services -- banking, fine craftsmanship, chocolates, etc.
The quality of human life is improving -- the worst places in the world are no worse than they were a thousand years ago, and the best places are a thousand times better. Slavery is so rare that it's an atrocity, worldwide. We've actually, finally, eliminated certain deadly diseases from the entire planet. We have a cure for the Black Death. Our science and technology keeps improving; and those things are what will make us into better people, locally and globally.
You don't see people fighting over scraps of food in the street; unless there's a famine. Then people will kill each other over a single meal. The secret to mass-producing large volumes of fertilizer is what made Europe go from a food shortage to a food surplus; and there have been no food riots in the West since we figured out the technology to keep us fed.
We're getting better. We'll continue to get better. In the West, we're developing important social concepts that underlie our society and our technologies: the fundamental right of all people to be treated as equals, the freedom to think independently and to safely express those thoughts, the right to have an idea judged on it's own merits; the value of an educated populace; the scientific method itself.
As peo
Some bad shows from current times (or the recent past) are "Friends", "Steinfelt", "24", the one that that "Three's Company" guy (the one that died recently) and that "Married with Children"/Leela from "Futurama" babe were in, the one with John Belushi's brother, "Fear Factor", etc.
Some good shows from around the 1970s (plus or minus a few years) were "Real People", "Saturday Night Live" (original cast), "Happy Days" (first and second seasons), "Roots", "60 Minutes", "Evening Shade", "Nightline", "Salvage", "WKRP", "Hill Street Blues", "Barney Miller", and "Taxi", and there were many other non-stupid (i.e., halfway decent albeit unexceptional) shows like "Quark", "Mork and Mindy" (pre-Jonathon Winters), "Welcome Back Kotter" (first season), "Land of the Giants", "Sonny and Cher", and so forth.
And PBS/BBC shows have, for the most part, been consistantly good from the 1960s to the present day ("Mystery", "Masterpiece Theatre", "Are You Being Served", "As Time Goes By", "Frontline", "Red Dwarf", "Nova", "The McNeil/Lehrer Report" / "The McNeil/Lehrer News Hour" / "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer", "BBC World News", "Doctor Who", "This Old House", etc., etc.).
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Not even close! They say "war is a failure of politics" but in reality war is a tool of politics that has shaped both the evolution of our species and it's countless "failed" civilzations. The problem now is that there are no civilizations that are isolated from each other and a group of five powerfull and competing nations are ruling the roost. If it hasn't already happened, there will soon be "nowhere to hide".
You are correct, we live in a global society now. We have a sorta global government. We have a global economy, and we have global security. We have superpowers, but the superpowers fund and take certain functions in a global system. It's not like it was where, for example, America would be in competition with the world, now America influences China, India, and all other countries it does business with, and the military is more like the stick. The EU, for whatever reason, as far as I know, does not have the sort of military might, or political capital that America has. What the EU does have right now is public opinion, and image.
What I worry about is, America does not seem to be putting America first. Yes we need oil, yes the economy is most important, and I admit the economy is boosted because of the war, but the problem is, we are gainining financial capital and losing social capital. Financial capital from short term boosts, arent as valueable as social and political capital which can allow for long term alliances. If the American economy slows down or if China and Europe speed up, what are we supposed to do?
Are you saying that this is all about entitlement?
"Now if people get upset about trees, what will be the reaction to dwindling oil (and therefore fertilizer!!!) supplies, do you think the "five veto's" will share nicely with each other when they can't even fertilize their own crops? I realise one must live in hope or life becomes literally "hopeless", but ignoring politics will not make political problems go away."
I never said people do not have a right to make money, but seriously, we can always invent new ways to make money without destroying the earth. What you are saying is that people who are in established industries feel they are entitled to their job security and money even at the expense of cutting down the last tree or contributing to an energy crisis? Self interest is something we all have but how is this rational?
I'm not sure politics work the way we think. There are global politics and globalized corporations. Globalized families and power is globalized. This means that while two countries may not disagree, it's ultimately just groups of families and factions. These families and factions are global in scope, so if you are right and France disagrees, it means a lot more than politics, this would be EXTREMELY bad news for global order.
We break it down into countries, but ultimately, something is happening. I can see the forces building up, and no one really knows what for. France does not want to be involved and I'm not surprised, and I don't have a clue where Italy stands. When you start with the global politics, you are speaking of countries, but in general, while those other countries have very powerful econmies, America is the global police force and world military power. This happened because other countries willingly underfunded their own military forces to fund the American military. The result is, when America says go, the world listens.