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Topic: Is now really new?
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Lima Bean
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3000
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posted 28 August 2003 04:03 PM
Talking to my peers, people seem to be pretty convinced that now is the worst time in world history, and that everything is worse than it's ever been, and that we're surely heading into destruction and oblivion, no doubt about it. Opinions may vary on how quickly our demise is actually approaching, but we're all pretty cynical.But then I think about other centuries, and other epochs, and I think, we've just always had strife and destruction. We've always been unhappy with our leadership, and there have always been unjust wars and genocide and exploitation. It's just looked different than it does now. The where and how and sometimes the what are different, but still equivalent to what they were in times gone by... So I'm wondering, is there a real quantitative, measurable difference between now and then? Are we really any worse off now than we were 20, 100 200, or 600 years ago? Are we any better off over all? Is it really a new world, or is it just that the minutiae of human existence has changed over the years, without really changing the big picture?
From: s | Registered: Aug 2002
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kuba walda
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3134
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posted 28 August 2003 04:32 PM
quote: That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs. Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height, down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
I don't think recent history compares to the horror of WW2 ..... yet
From: the garden | Registered: Sep 2002
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Lima Bean
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3000
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posted 28 August 2003 05:29 PM
quote: like not dying from dysentry or syphilis for example
But now we're dying of lung and colon cancer instead. quote: I think the biggest failure in history is the inability of the first world nations to even make an attempt to use their vast wealth to help out the third world nations.
I don't think this is necessarily historical, but more contemporary. We're still making this mistake.
From: s | Registered: Aug 2002
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zaphod
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4261
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posted 28 August 2003 05:31 PM
Lima Bean: Examples: Western legal systems and forms of government,electricity, electric lights,excellent housing, indoor plumbing, refridgerators, all sorts of fantastic medical proceedures and medicine, overall more personal safety, huge freedoms never before in existance (except in certain middle east theocracies), better food, education for the masses.....developing world problems are due mainly to their local customs, lack of democracy, lack of freedom, lack of ownership of private property etc.... don't blame the West for their problems
From: toronto | Registered: Jul 2003
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 28 August 2003 06:20 PM
I think this question is pretty complicated. I tend to be a pessimist and think about our WMD's as well as great improvements in conventional warfare, pollution, global warming, third world conditions, extinctions, ecosystem destruction leaking nuclear and toxic waste containers at the bottom of oceans, the spread of corporate domination as well as the trivialization and commodification of everything by the West which seems to be leading the way for the rest of the world these days...but are we worse off, in the main, than we were 100, 200, 700, 2,000 or 10,000 years ago? Certainly our global average life expectancy is higher than it's ever been and seems to be increasing. Feudalism and slavery, which dominated the lives of most of the world's population for thousands of years is in decline, htough some might argue (not unreasonably) that the Free Trade agreements currently being negotiated may be paving the way for a sort of global corporate neo-feudalism similar to that which existed in Europe and North America during the 19th and much of the 20th century, and still exists in Mexico and Asia. I believe that there is more compassion in European and North American social life, where the disabled or infirm were mocked and tormented publicly. At least some cultures in the world have an new, explicit abhorrence for torture, even if most governments will use it when it suits their purposes. The idea that women are as capable as men has been irrevocably planted in the global mental culture, as has the idea that racism is wrong. The possibility for people to communicate instantly across the globe is the thin edge of the wedge for creating a truly global conciousness. These few impressions aside, I think there are more people currently living (and dying) in misery than there have been in all of human history ( I base this on a statement I heard (read?) which says that there are currently more people living on Earth than people who have lived on Earth. There are probably as many people currently being tortured as there ever have been, and there are still about 20 million people living as slaves. Roughly half (~60,000,000) of the total number of people killed by the plague in the 13th-14th century (137,000,000) are currently believed to be infected with the AIDS virus worldwide and the infection rate is not declining significantly. So, if you had to play the body lottery again, would you want to do it now or at another time in history, chosen at random? [ 28 August 2003: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 28 August 2003 06:40 PM
Lima Bean asked: quote: Is it really a new world, or is it just that the minutiae of human existence has changed over the years, without really changing the big picture?
And this is the real question. My answer would be: the minutiae have changed, but the big picture continues unperturbed. If the big picture changes, I think it's going to happen along the lines of "punctuated equilibria" in evolution: many insignifiant changes accrue in a genotype without much change in the individuals of a species until one (or a few) more slight changes in DNA sequence cause the emergence of a whole new species, quite different from its almost-genetically-identical predecessor.
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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badlydrawngirl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4224
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posted 28 August 2003 09:23 PM
coincidentally, i was thinking about that this week, but more specifically in terms of women's rights, freedoms etc. in that respect, at least in the western world, there's no comparing that we're better off (but still have far to go).in the 'is the world better' sense: on an environmental/ecological basis - absolutely not. and i agree re: species - ask any gorilla if they feel secure in their future (if you can find any these days). also, ask any native canadian/american/south american/australian etc. if we've got it better today and you get a different perspective in their response. but, when i get down or think this is 'the worst' era, i always hark back to noam chomsky and in a few interviews i've read of him. he's almost always asked something along the lines of 'aren't we in a worse situation now politically/socially etc? and isn't it terrible?' and he always has a positive response about how it's so much better because we're so much more aware of the issues etc. he never gives up hope and because of this he's a hero to me, not just in the linguistic genius, social libetarian sense, but in his positivity.
From: toronto | Registered: Jun 2003
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Lima Bean
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3000
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posted 29 August 2003 10:37 AM
quote: conservative-leaning people tend to think the world is better than previously while left-leaning people think it is worse and getting worse as time flows on
This may simply be because for right-leaning people, it is getting better. Governments are getting more corporate, big business is bigger all the time, and the salaries and benefits are bigger as well. The lifestyle that this provides for is ever more luxurious and decadent, and there seems to be no limit to the wealth and power, for those supporting and in the ranks of the right. And for all the same reasons, those of us watching from the left are ever more frustrated and discouraged because there seems to be no way to topple the right from their gilded heights. Perspective is everything. [ 29 August 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]
From: s | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lima Bean
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3000
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posted 29 August 2003 10:43 AM
Sorry to double post--I went home and y'all kept posting! I've gotta catch up!! quote: how has indoor plumbing created more problems than it solves? Read about London in Dickens' times. Sewage,garbage in the streets, no running water. Talk about polution! The people didn't bathe.
I think that while indoor plumbing has saved us from a lot of dissentary and other bacterial diseases, and other problems associated with unhygienic living conditions, it's also allowed us to abuse the water systems of the world in ways that we just didn't do before. We're flushing all that shit that used to line the streets right into our lakes and rivers, and the ocean etc. We filter it, somewhat, and treat it with chemicals and who knows what else, and then just dump it back out into where the fish and plants and other aquatic animals live. We dump it in the same water that other people are drinking down the line. Think about Walkerton, or the Hudson River, or Lake Erie. They've seriously suffered because of our indoor plumbing. So in some ways we are better off, but in other ways, we're way worse off.
From: s | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 29 August 2003 11:32 AM
quote: A bit off topic but intersting in light of this thread: I have noted over the years that conservative-leaning people tend to think the world is better than previously while left-leaning people think it is worse and getting worse as time flows on. Anyone else experience this?
I think there's some truth to this, though I may be the exception that proves the rule . I think part of it comes from the fact (my observations anyway) that Lefties think that people are good, in general and are therefore the logical place to look for solutions to the world's problems. Bound up in this is a frequent mistrust of technology, which is the most obvious area to look at to make a case for improvement over time. Righties trend to be more cynical about people and society and therefore look to technology to solve the world's problems. because of the first part of the last sentence, they value human life less (in general, NOT with respect to their friends and family) and are more sanguine about those who can't pass Social Darwinian muster "falling by the wayside". Clearly, both viewpoints have merit and flaws. zaphod: Certainly as a percentage of the world's population, the Plague far exceeds the AIDS epidemic, in terms of affected people, but, even considering the massive resources being directed towards a cure, the HIV retrovirus is much scarier in some ways than Yersinia pestis, the bacterium believed to be the cause of the Black Death. First, the Plague killed those who did not recover in 2-3 weeks after infection, leaving little time for them to infect others. There were obvious symptoms which let everyone know a person was infected so they could be quarantined. HIV can incubate asymptomatically in an infected person for up to ten years, which compensates for its less efficient transmissability. The HIV retrovirus mutates much faster than a bacterium can and the constant development of new anti-AIDS drugs is a two-edged sword that may increase the emergence of drug-resistant strains. What happens if a more readily-transmissible form of the virus develops? Our technological ability to fight disease is made less relevant than the "Yay Technology!" folks believe, because 100 million people or more die every year from diseases we can cure, because there is no profit to be made in treating them. Considering where AIDS is more prevalent, this is a big problem. Have there been any events in human history that people would say dramatically improved (or at least changed)life for people in general? Some examples that are frequently mentioned: development of agriculture, Bronze Age, development of writing, Guttenberg printing press, the "germ theory" of disease. Or are our problem essentially societal and technology just an aggravating factor when all is said and done?
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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Jingles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3322
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posted 29 August 2003 01:35 PM
The biggest difference between the present and the past is that today, we could end the whole ballgame within an hour.In the past, genocides came and went. Cities were destroyed. But at least you could rebuild. Today, the power to destroy the world is in the hands of a few ideological fruitcakes who have no problem with destruction, and they don't seem to grasp the permanence of that ability. As for our "advances" such as those suggested by zaphod, none are universal, most come at the expense of the natural environment or on the backs of the rest of the world who still live in pre-industrial conditions. Like LB said with respect to diseases, we have eliminated a miniscule amount, created newer and far more lethal ones, and merely delayed the inevitable for the rest. All of us North Americans today will, if we don't die in a car crash or eat ourselves to death, die of some form of cancer. We created(or, more properly, aggrivated) this disease in our quest for green lawns, mosquito-free bbq's, and cheap electricity for our BBSing. The rest of the world is lucky: they'll die from cholera, dysentary, malnutrition and cluster bombs long before cancer can claim them. quote: developing world problems are due mainly to their local customs, lack of democracy, lack of freedom, lack of ownership of private property etc.... don't blame the West for their problems
Of course, those backwards people are just too fucking stupid to raise to our enlighted level, aren't they? It isn't our fault that the west colonized them, sold them into slavery on industrial scales, pillaged their resources, installed brutal puppet governments that robbed them blind, refuse to allow medicines that may negatively impact earnings, saddle them with unpayable loans, bomb the living shit out of them on a whim, and flood them with cheap weaponry and encourage bloody gang warfare to keep labour and resource extraction costs down. Nah, their misery is their own fault by believing in primitive local superstitions like "community property", "self-sufficency" and "living" that keep them from getting Playstations. I'm surprised you didn't include their sub-human cranial phrenology as a reason as well.
From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002
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Lima Bean
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3000
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posted 29 August 2003 02:23 PM
Rock on, Jingles. quote: If leftists are pessimistic, they haven't really been much influenced by Marx, have they? The main argument in much of his work is that human activity, even capitalism, makes things progressively better.
My study of Marx has left me waiting for a revolution that feels as if it'll never come because the proletariat masses that are supposed to rise up in anger are busy watching American Idol and waiting in the drive thru lane at McDs. I worry about how bad it'll have to get before the mainstream, general population stands up and shakes off their tv-induced stupor. In my opinion it could have happened at least three times over since I've been alive, and it hasn't yet. And each time it seems like "this is it, the people won't stand for this, for sure we'll all fight it together now," the situation actually seems to get worse instead of better (like in seattle, quebec city, all over the world in pre-waroniraq demos etc.). Marx wasn't counting on the power of tv as the new opiate of the masses.
From: s | Registered: Aug 2002
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 29 August 2003 02:58 PM
quote: Originally posted by zaphod: A bit off topic but intersting in light of this thread: I have noted over the years that conservative-leaning people tend to think the world is better than previously while left-leaning people think it is worse and getting worse as time flows on. Anyone else experience this?
It shifts back and forth. If you had posed this question in the 1960s, the leftists would have said "All is well, man!" and the rightists would have moaned that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. As Lima Bean points out, for those of right-wing ideology, the world has been going their way, economically, for the last 25 years. The paradox is that for some reason many conservatives have an odd sense of insecurity about this "progress". The more they get what they want in this world the more they seem to exhibit a siege mentality framed around the idea that "the liberals and socialists are winning!" You see it on Free Dominion. You see it on Usenet. You see it when conservatives in the government attack the allegedly "liberal media". Et cetera. Maybe they feel insecure about this "progress" because they know they've pulled the world's biggest con that dwarfs anything Frank Abagnale ever did (and he managed to pass about $2 mill worth of bad checks in the 1960s, which, if you know anything about money, would be like passing about $10 mill today). After all, convincing people that floating exchange rates, loss of national sovereignty, and multinational corporations organizing investment and trade flows for their own benefit are all "good" for them has to impart a guilty conscience to some people out there. [ 29 August 2003: Message edited by: DrConway ]
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3807
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posted 30 August 2003 03:54 AM
Is the world worse now than ever before in human history?The biosphere certainly appears to be in worse shape. Pollution, deforestation, overfishing, loss of wildlife habitat and species' extinction, urban sprawl, highways everywhere, and all the other environmental problems the planet has experienced since the Industrial Revolution that I haven't mentioned are arguments for the pessimist. Are humans better off? That's complex and hard to gauge. Some humans are doing quite well these days, while others are starving or dying of warfare and disease. Then again, there have been famines, plagues and wars throughout recorded time. The Black Death killed one in four Europeans during the 14th century. Whole districts were depopulated. What about the era of mass migrations at the end of the Roman Empire? That must have been an unpleasant time. How many died during the 30 Years' War? More recently, the 20th century was a bloodbath. Some have argued that we have the means to destroy the planet, so that makes our age worse. I'm not sure that living in our present anxiety measures up to the horror of watching your family and village succumb to the plague.
From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003
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nonsuch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1402
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posted 30 August 2003 10:00 AM
quote: Originally posted by Gir Draxon:I think Zaphod was using Islamic theocracies as an example of a type of society which is burdened by lack of seperation of church and state. Christian theocracies would experience the same thing, as well as any other religeon you can name.
I realize that. Also that he was lumping together countries that are widely varied in wealth, education, resources and history; whose problems and interests are widely different. Theocracy is just a form of government. Nations and populations can change their form of government whenever they want to. There is a kind of theocracy rising in the US right now - but that doesn't mean it will be permanent, any more than Isreal's or Iran's current form of government has to be permanent. I don't happen to like religious governments, but that doesn't mean such a government can't be effective or good for its people. It's not my job, or Zaphod's, to decide what's good for other peoples. As for whether the whole world is better or worse than in other eras... Humans are not better or worse than we have always been, but there are more of us, to fight over finite resources, to make ecological messes, to spread new diseases, to eat, wear and poison other species, and we have the science to do it all on a greand scale, irreversibly. Sometime, too, you might want to consider the level of personal satisfaction or happiness or security of the people who are 'better off'. Not starving isn't the only measure of progress.
From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001
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