Read and think as usual on a Friday, and was thinking about how the world would be in say even just 10 years from now.
I think its going to be a mess before it would be in a peace.
In fact it is already in a mess… How would embrace the world, and if anyone would think there is a
universal solution to a world of mess ? (I think its a mess because 1. social values have eroded. 2. More people seem to be controlled by status and money. 3. terrorists. 4. Competition to be the prime superpower where I think Nature is really the
Superpower.)
I think it is going to be pretty much right where it is now. Right where it has been since the first protozoa got innovative and grew legs. The sun will keep spinning and the moon will continue to wax an wane. Power will continue to corrupt. Absolute power will continue to corrupt absolutely.
In other words. The world isn’t a mess. Or, more specifically, it isn’t any more a mess than it was 500, 2000, 10,000 years ago. I am assuming you have studied world history. I personally don’t see the world any more a mess than it was in 500 BC when the Persians and Greecians were slaughtering each other because of the power equation stated above. In many ways, I find it in a much better state.
[quote="cheerygirl]
I think its going to be a mess before it would be in a peace.
In fact it is already in a mess… How would embrace the world, and if anyone would think there is a
universal solution to a world of mess ?[/quote]
You’re never going to find a solution because you will never find agreement that there is even a problem.
How so? Based on who’s values? Yours? If so, who are you to dictate to me what values I should follow?
As I see it, social values could be considered to be getting better. Here in Canada Gays can marry. Humans no longer use other humans for slaves…well, legally anyway.
Compared to when? See Persian/Greecian comment above.
If you think the world is a mess because of terrorists…they have won.
See Persian/Greecian comment above. The “superpower” pissing match has been going on since testosterone was invented. It happens in every gym class, class room, playground and home (if you question this one, you’ve never been married or lived with someone).
My point CG, is the sky isn’t falling. There will always be problems to fix because we’re humans. We constantly screw things up. Its our nature.
So to sit here an naval gaze as to why the world is “a mess” is counter productive. Identify a specific problem that needs to be addressed and I am more interested in that discussion because we can discuss possible solutions that have the ability to affect change.
did I dictate you to follow my values? Did i state any values here?
The mess that we are having here is much worse than in any part of human history because of the rate we are going into. We took a much less time than our forebearers to prosper and at a faster rate, we are taking a nose dive into getting the problems worse. We can only sort this out if we are determined to unite in as allies and not as foes.
Terrorists can only win if and only we do not unite against them. If we spend time on unnecessary fights and do not know where to stop and how to keep peace then they will win us. The factors I’ve stated are the issues I think why the world is in a mess. Look at the airports and how we are guarding against them in order to live a peaceful life. Isn’t that the fact that the terrorists have affected us trememdously ?
[quote=“ip_wirelessly”]
I think it is going to be pretty much right where it is now. Right where it has been since the first protozoa got innovative and grew legs. The sun will keep spinning and the moon will continue to wax an wane. Power will continue to corrupt. Absolute power will continue to corrupt absolutely.
In other words. The world isn’t a mess. Or, more specifically, it isn’t any more a mess than it was 500, 2000, 10,000 years ago. I am assuming you have studied world history. I personally don’t see the world any more a mess than it was in 500 BC when the Persians and Greecians were slaughtering each other because of the power equation stated above. In many ways, I find it in a much better state.
You’re never going to find a solution because you will never find agreement that there is even a problem.
How so? Based on who’s values? Yours? If so, who are you to dictate to me what values I should follow?
As I see it, social values could be considered to be getting better. Here in Canada Gays can marry. Humans no longer use other humans for slaves…well, legally anyway.
Compared to when? See Persian/Greecian comment above.
If you think the world is a mess because of terrorists…they have won.
See Persian/Greecian comment above. The “superpower” pissing match has been going on since testosterone was invented. It happens in every gym class, class room, playground and home (if you question this one, you’ve never been married or lived with someone).
My point CG, is the sky isn’t falling. There will always be problems to fix because we’re humans. We constantly screw things up. Its our nature.
So to sit here an naval gaze as to why the world is “a mess” is counter productive. Identify a specific problem that needs to be addressed and I am more interested in that discussion because we can discuss possible solutions that have the ability to affect change.[/quote]
I have to agree with ip_wirelessly on this one.
Did you know that life expectancy has doubled in the last century?
I’m just thankful that unlike my grandparents, I never lived through a Great Depression or drafted into a World War.
Cheer up Cheery Girl!
I agree with IP too. The names change, but the world always seems to have the same amount of problems. My wife was just commenting about how in American films, the roles of Soviets have now been replaced with Arabs/Muslims (see the new film, The Kingdom). Maybe in 10 years it will be the Canadians or something.
Interestingly, and related to faith, the Hindus believe that the world only gets worse until evil triumphs and the universe restarts. Hindus are precise people, and if memory serves, evil will triumph in the next 20-30 years. Time also speeds up during this period though, so it don’t worry, it won’t feel that long.
“The more things change the more they stay the same”
Of course things will be different, but probably not as dramatically as we’ll think. 10 years ago we (America) were still fighting in the middle east, every religious sect in the arab world still hated each other, they all hated the jews, etc.
Things I do know will happen in 10 years:
I’ll finally be able to afford a used Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.
Video games will look really, REALLY cool.
We’ll still be in a war somewhere in the middle east for reasons that most of us won’t understand.
Rapid prototyping machines and giant touch sensitive work tables for computers will be consumer machines you can get in Best Buy.
Larry King will still be alive.
Gas will be $12 a gallon, but people will still drive SUV’s.
Comic books will become cool again after comic book based movies run out of characters to create movies about.
I am cheery in general but not that much when it comes to the world’s woes. Life expectancy has doubled. But the quality of life has dropped.
Diseases mutate at a much faster rate into different forms. Weather has gone haywire. People are more complex. Over here life expectancy is expected to hit over 80. As population ages, there are problems where there aren’t many young people to look after the aged. Older people are supposed to be taking care of themselves… I wish I have the time to type in more why I think the world this time may not be that fortunate. Sure that we have improved in the way we live. But the way I see it is that most people may not be that simple and straightforward to sort problems out. That is why we have a long range of different problems. People seem to be born to fight. Fight from the most trivial matters to the big greedy ones. We basically don’t need a bloody fight like what our ancesters did. All you need is a press of a weeny button and its adios for good.
It takes a short time to cure. It also takes a damn short curly time to perishh too…
Regardless life goes on. My mother never want to think so much. She often tells me to stay cheery as usual. I am basically the happy baby at home, at work and at play.
it probably be a start of another cold war
little ice age, or the years with out summer in the 1800’s…weather is weather. Read about the flu that killed millions of people during and after WW1, havent seen one of them in a while, we might and if we do one of the big problems will be solved…population pressure on the planet. Conflict, at one time the cross bow was considerd so nasty the pope put out a edict that it could only be used on “heathens”, later gun powder came in and made it obsolete. “old” people now are in far better physical shape than even in the 50’s, look at the number of oldsters haveing a grand old time doing everything from surfing to skydiving, not just sitting around playing rummy waiting to die. In my book taking care of your parents is just part of the package, a honnor and a reality check too. That many “kids” think otherwise is sad and self centerd but hey remember “ducks and suv’s”? Conflict is in out DNA, we have only been “civilized” for a 10’s of thousands of years but our brain structure is ~ 250k years old and old habits are hard to break. Will we ever become “peaceful” its unlikely, as we ALL have a ego and bristle when we are put upon.
CheeryGirl, if you could pick any period in the past to live, when would it be and why?
I was wondering where this thread was. So here it is… No wonder I was snoopying around and couldn’t find it. Almost posted another thread asking where it has gone…
This question actually could send me writing in pages way more than this. But let me quickly write it down here.
The closest one would be the Tang Dynasty. But seriously my answer should be none. Because there is no era then nor now where there is no human fighting, no bloody plots, and simply an era of peace. But I still believe that the problems we are having now is much more
serious. Can you deny the fact that the accumulated human sins in various areas have caused what it is today ? Do we really have peace ? Are we better people ? I don’t think we are. I think we should think in terms of a bigger picture. We are having a more comfortable life than our fore bearers because of the convenience we derived from
technology. But we are not enjoying the truest sense of life when families are not families and humanity is not humanity.
Think in terms of environment and politics alone. They are in a mess.
If we mis-handle any part of it,all of us will perished pretty soon.
I am sure if you read human war history, there are many more people died than in the past. WW2 had more casualties than in WW1. The advance use of weapons means more people
were perished in a shorter time. Maybe the only humanity there is that people die faster and suffer less pain. But that’s an irony. We probably could do with much lesser fighting if people could think simpler. Why are we so complex ?
Sure there were flu pandemics in the past. Along with Polio and TB used to be one of the deadliest disease. But if we see what kind of diseases we have today, its very easy to see its getting worse. Have you noticed that children today are less healthy than our generation?
Do we have starving poor ? Of course we do. If all the well-offs would spare their change, do you think we have hunger, poverty and human
distress ? Why would companies like to do retrenchments ?
In the past, it was slavery. Today we still have slavery. Where are the slaves? In the factories ! Are there human discrimination, racial discrimination ? Yes there still are. Even after Abraham Lincoln liberated the blacks, we still have racial disparity.
Humans like to differentiate and have class differences. But educated and wise people know that this sort of classification is not good for all in the long term. Unfortunately most people are stupid so stupidity begets stupidity, issues gets complicated.
The wealth that is held in the few is enormous. The rich-poor gap is clearly much wider than in the past. In the past, people suffer from unhygenic conditions and discrimination. Today we are cleaner in sanitary terms.
But are we really that clean ? Toxicated environment, contaminated food are just a few of these worries. Sanitary uncleanliness is easy to clean, toxicated living surroundings with depleting animal and plant species
topped with new mutated diseases that are even deadlier to handle aren’t !
I’ve never seen antibiotics are given for sore throat before until now. Neither do I see people who look fit on the outside have so many illnesses inside.
Tang Dynasty is an era where the arts and economy flourished. Where it has the lengthiest time when people are happy with peace. (minus the peasants.) But than again, throughout history its about exploiting the poor.
This is about the best time in the past, at least for Chinese.
Let me ask a question: do you think the problems of aggression is anywhere lighter than in the past?I would think its present only in a different form. Human beings are born to fight, and the nature of
cruelty only morphs into a different form. Surely there are much less human physical fighting, but there are invariably silent fighting.
The era where there is total peace is idealistic. But at least the ideals of moving towards where the world can genuinely tolerate different people, thoughts, and culture; and when the world knows
that peace without suspicion, war and hatred is where we have a truly civilized world. If one were to have long life, it better be a good one. The one that Zippy quoted are the ones who are pretty well off. Not the commoners in general. Old people usually live alone and in old folks home.
When we talk about improved quality of life it has to mean a large part of the population. Happy lives of people should mean healthy mind and body. Healthy relationships with people of
different creeds. The chemistry of people are complicated and even schizophrenic. Why would anyone want to do such stupidities ?
With the advances we have, technically speaking all of us should be living in nirvana. But in reality to the utter stupidity of human beings, we can almost rarely reach total peace and happiness.
And we say human beings are first class animals.
In life where fairness is granted with a double edged sword, where shades of greysare far more real than definite hues; it is still better to have ideals and be happy. I am sometimes angry of the fact that people could judge people and that some people choose to marginalised and sidestep when they want to do so. But such anger is quickly vaporised and I usually useanother positive cheery approach to handle these issues.
Remaining young is very important — both physically and at heart.
I dont really care if I go out of point.
Its not perfect post and its not even skin deep but I
just thought I just spill this out.
cheers!
Life is never fair. It never has been, and it never will be. The world has to balance itself out somehow, it’s simply the fundamental laws of the universe.
For every good theres an evil, every rich theres a poor, everyone healthy gets sick, ad infinitum.
It’s an impossible goal to eradicate sickness, end violence and intolerance, banish the corrupt, or make the poor rich. For every disease we cure we create one stronger, for every corrupt politician who is thrown from the government another one will take their place, they are simply the truths that no matter how hard you try you’ll never change.
The best you can do is do what you can…take care of your friends and family, take care of yourself, and do something good every now and again to help balance it all out.
My visceral answer to my own question (when would you like to live) is typically “the future!”
This says a lot about why I’m a designer. I don’t care how bad the past or the present are, I’m just interested in improving it for tomorrow. This is also why you don’t find too many “conservative” designers. We’re not here to preserve the past, but we can certainly learn from it.
But I think this attitude takes it’s psychic-toll on designers, who are constantly stewing on problems. Surround yourself by problems and everything begins to look like one.
Exactly my point put in another thread of mine. But someone thought that it is not a natural law but of a ‘nurture’ type.
Life isn’t fair. I think a lot of people have gone cynical about it somewhat. But if human intelligence were of any hope, then perhaps we could use it to greatly minimize this ‘natural occurrence.’
Thought you asked about the past ? and it somewhat pin to : since I don’t like the persent then when in the past that I liked ? oh wow…
The future is important. But what I see is people don’t really learn from the past because they either chose not to. Or they forget it very easily.
Yeah now is better than ever. Future is going to be even better, because we’re learning from the past and are making positive impact. Racism, genocide still exist, but at least majority of people now know it is a bad thing and such crimes are prosecuted, not encouraged by the global community.
Yes, arts and economy might’ve flourished in the past, but the oppression of the poor, class system, gender discrimination probably made the past enjoyable only for the select few. It’s fun to think about the past, but to realize that I’d enjoy comparable quality of life only if I were pretty much white male slave owner…is rather disenchanting, don’t you think?
What are “the sins†you speak of? Greed? Violence? We now have states like Sweden, where wealth is pretty evenly redistributed among the population. We have organizations like Red Cross, and United Nations…I, as a female, have a political voice that can be heard.
The notion of the “good old times†is a lie. Past sucked ass.
ohhh yea the good old days, no antibiotics, average life expaentacy of about 50, indentured servitued, infant mortality in the double didgits, death rate for first time mothers over 30%, slavery, famine, building the great wall because you were forced to…yup a fine time to live if you were part of the ruling class. The future looks great, hey check out helium 3 fusion for example…works fine AND the He3 is just 270k miles away in a perfect place to mine…no epa, no life forms in fact…the moon. You got cheap, religable fusion, you got your Hydrogen econ and no biggie about carbon. Will there be profits made, you bet but so what, profit makes the world go round.
It’s proven that we have a cognitive flaw that distorts our memory/perception of the past. We give too much weight to the good things and gloss over the bad. Some think this is a Darwinian survival instinct, because if you survived the past, whatever happened then must be safer than the unknown.
The points that have been made are seen from the light where the spiritual aspects of life is neglected. Sure the world is better in terms of the areas you have stated. But it is not in the soul of people. Basically, if the world were a better place, by now we should be living in nirvana. The thread asks for opinions what would it be like in 10 years. The opinion of the past and the future is good, but I did not imply that I don’t look forward to the future nor do I live in the past. I feel that the present is in a mess. The energy has not really divert itself in an effective way to improve lives.
Life expectancy has doubled. But the quality of living – meaning that there are almost perfect understanding of all peoples, no war of any sorts; and no hunger, poverty; racial and wealth disparities and total wholesome family lives. No bully, no nuclears, no dominance from any parties, no jealousy, no hatred, no fights.
The underrlying nature of total peace has not been reached despite the advances in technology. In terms of ethics, the human race has faced to surfaced far from what our great philosophers have stated thousands of years ago.
Betrayal, dishonesty, hypersensitivity, selfishness have always been persisted throughout the centuries of human civilisation. It has only morphed in format. And there are many live examples depicting these.
Where there is people there are such issues.
Longevity has existed where the well-off can afford sanitary. With respect to having more people living in comfortable conditions, we have done so. However, if we start to compare our preddecessors who are able to afford the comfortable living then, they too were able to live long. Comparing this group of people against the common people now who are able to live as comfortably; and the quality is clearly diminished. Our predessors had much cleaner air, food and land. We have to live on GM food (even organic food is not as clean as we think), contaminated water (that even with the use of membrane technology, it might not give the water as fresh, and as good as what our forebearers had.) haywire climate (which we possibly cannot reverse it back to orginal but can only slow down the dire effects of global warming). The rest are many. These are mainly caused by people who do not want a daring change to realise what is really wrong. Either it eradicates one’s dominance/power; or it is because of self interest.
Technology without human sense for real thoughts for well being cannot really improve quality of living.
If we were to live in a genuinely happy world. The current problems must be dealt with, the past must be acknowledged. Then the future will make perfect sense. Of course everyone looks forward to the future. I too am working whatever it takes to reach that goal. (why else would I ask what would happen in 10 years tiem ??)
In all, the really positive people would answer the thread in a receptive way and don’t read things out from anywhere!
Not all good old things are a lie and not all current things are honest…
Did I say all the old things were good ? Certain old values put asian women back because the old sages think that women in power are trouble. They were right to a certain extent but they had dismissed the part that anyone for that matter who has a lack of balance for self, family and the nation are trouble to the world too. (not advocating values but stating them to quote as examples)…
Darwinian can also be seen as a pretty cruel way of living where the stronger ones survive. It is true. But it also diminishes the weaker. Step over the weak and small ones to progress. We have to remember that the real survivors are the small and nifty ones too. Other than the fact that the smarter, the richer and the healthier survives.
It is also proven that people tend to prefer to think in their own ways of thinking. It is not wrong to think in their prefered mode. But what would be brave is to step outside the prefered mode and try to see from other perspectives.Just a thought here… 