Ok, I'm Getting Worried

[cosmicfolklore]

still I keep having this thought that, humanity as a whole made greater things when less people ruled.

I'll take air conditioning over pyramids and Great Walls any day.

 

[aldecaker]

I agree with Cosmic. This is the best time I can think of to live in all of history, for the reasons he stated. Sure, it has led to massive overpopulation, but that may balance itself out before it's too late. Getting it is one thing, though; keeping it is another. Just like a car or a business, it takes a lot of attention and work to keep it going.

 

[carver]

I do want to continue this conversation but it's getting really late on this side of the planet and tomorrow's a big day.

However I'd like to leave with a question :

I'll take air conditioning over pyramids and Great Walls any day.

I'm not saying which I'd choose, probably AC too actualyl, since it's damn hot where I live.

However, why? Why does AC takes your vote ? Why don't Great Walls and Pyramids generate admiration and respect? simply because they are useless, there are plenty useless things in museums as well, painting, sculptures, etc ... and music, great composers ...

I've personally always felt that those are the great traits of our humanity. Inventing AC being part of it as being a sign of our intelligence, but to me it has sadly turned from being achievement for the beauty of it, to the today's unfathomable success of PokemonGo and all those things that increase people comfort as well as their individuality/solitude.

 

[sablebrush52]

Why does AC takes your vote ? Why don't Great Walls and Pyramids generate admiration and respect? simply because they are useless, there are plenty useless things in museums as well, painting, sculptures, etc ... and music, great composers ...

I've personally always felt that those are the great traits of our humanity.

Correct. That's why they're not useless. But neither is technology. Anything that can engage, enthrall, educate and inspire is not useless.
But, from the standpoint of the aggrieved concern for loss of opportunity that begat this thread, being an enslaved worker on a pyramid or section of the Great Wall was not likely anything other than a miserable short life of constant deprivation and toil. We may admire the result, but we wouldn't want to have worked on it.

@weezell: not only America, it does seem that the culture, honour, pride, richness of minds has indeed decayed since 1800 onwards.

Can't agree with this one. The airplane, telegraph, telephone, vaccines, standards of hygiene, Van Gogh, Mahler, The Beatles, Vampire Weekend, Cirque de Soleil, e. e. cummings, Jean Paul Sartre, Einstein, Chopin, Stravinsky, Woodstock, the moon landing, the Brooklyn bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Tolkein, Ida Rolf, Ansel Adams, Buster Keaton, Lew Gehrig, Alvin C. York, and a billion other disparate achievements by a billion other staggeringly gifted minds, more than contradicts that notion.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Why don't Great Walls and Pyramids generate admiration and respect?

...Because I don't really want to be flogged at work all day, while pushing rocks over dead bodies of my friends and family, just to appease some ruler. Art is fine, as long as I am getting to eat meats and pies. If I am having to eat putrid meats full of maggots with my hands covered in feces, I seem to lose the aesthetic of the object d'art. Nope, I am happy living in a world, where I get to work in a comfortable career with air conditioning, and flying over to the other side of the world to view the Wall or pyramids is not out of my reach. I can even pull out a small rectangle thing out of my pocket and look at pictures of anything in the universe, and even call someone and talk to them. I can even talk to someone while standing on top of that Great Wall.

Nope, we live in an age of wonders and marvels beyond all scope of reason. We just take all of this for granted, like the fish takes the water for granted.

 

[carver]

Can't agree with this one. The airplane, telegraph, telephone, vaccines, standards of hygiene, Van Gogh, Mahler, The Beatles, Vampire Weekend, Cirque de Soleil, e. e. cummings, Jean Paul Sartre, Einstein, Chopin, Stravinsky, Woodstock, the moon landing, the Brooklyn bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Tolkein, Ida Rolf, Ansel Adams, Buster Keaton, Lew Gehrig, Alvin C. York, and a billion other disparate achievements by a billion other staggeringly gifted minds, more than contradicts that notion.

Like they say in French "tu m'as mis mon nez dans mon caca" - you placed my nose in my own turd ...

You're quite right.

But then what does keep my head banging about the fact that I feel the society is crumbling, people are dumb and dumber, uninteresting bunch.

Is it because in the past, there was no middle class and only poor and rich, and we'd only hear about what the rich/educated people do? And now that there is a middle class, educated yes but still with impoverished minds that find relief with hours of TV, we realise that what we hear from them is really just average ... ?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Heck, just being able to talk to people who enjoy the same method of tobacco consumption from all over the world is amazing!!! Pipesmagazine is a modern marvel in and of itself. Just thirty years ago, this whole conversation would have been impossible.

 

[carver]

We just take all of this for granted, like the fish takes the water for granted.

You might be right ... :?

 

[warren]

To steal a line: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
Your take is dependent on what is important to you. I can live without a plethora of blends, very easily and well. In the greater scheme of things, my smoking is fairly low on my list of importance.

 

[mcitinner1]

Balderdash...

@weezell: not only America, it does seem that the culture, honour, pride, richness of minds has indeed decayed since 1800 onwards.

Not Balderdash...
Can't agree with this one. The airplane, telegraph, telephone, vaccines, standards of hygiene, Van Gogh, Mahler, The Beatles, Vampire Weekend, Cirque de Soleil, e. e. cummings, Jean Paul Sartre, Einstein, Chopin, Stravinsky, Woodstock, the moon landing, the Brooklyn bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Tolkein, Ida Rolf, Ansel Adams, Buster Keaton, Lew Gehrig, Alvin C. York, and a billion other disparate achievements by a billion other staggeringly gifted minds, more than contradicts that notion.

 

[carver]

@mcitinner : what ? it's the exact same response as SabreTooth.. SableBrush

 

[sablebrush52]

Is it because in the past, there was no middle class and only poor and rich, and we'd only hear about what the rich/educated people do? And now that there is a middle class, educated yes but still with impoverished minds that find relief with hours of TV, we realise that what we hear from them is really just average ... ?

The middle class has driven a lot of what has been achieved over the last 200 years. And yes, our increased methods of communication have drowned us in a flood of mediocrity. But I don't believe that mediocrity is more prevalent today than in previous eras. It's just much easier to broadcast it to a wider audience. By the same token, talent and sometimes genius are also are easily broadcast to a wider audience than was possible before the rise of communication technology.
Are we in the middle of an unprecedented onslaught of stupid? Absolutely! But we are also in the middle of an unprecedented onslaught of brilliance. The mediocre largely disappears over time.

 

[mcitinner1]

I was just having fun with my new favorite word. No criticism intended at all.

 

[carver]

Balderdash ?

hum ... what is that ?

 

[carver]

But I don't believe that mediocrity is more prevalent today than in previous eras. It's just much easier to broadcast it to a wider audience.

Indeed, but it seems that the mediocrity in the past had much less consequences of everyone 's lives than what it does have today.

By the same token, talent and sometimes genius are also are easily broadcast to a wider audience than was possible before the rise of communication technology.

Indeed again, and I don't mean to be pushy, but, again, it does seem to me, that however more broadcast, it's now drowned in a puddle of over-information, where no one bothers to actually listen to that type of info.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

where no one bothers to actually listen to that type of info.

This doesn't make sense to me. What is meant by "type" of information, and can you prove no one listens to it?
While mainstream social networking would lead us believe that all kids are hipsters who take billions of selfies, the actual fact is that TED Talks is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing programs, and science is still one of the largest growing fields of study. What old farts set around and complain about concerning the the younger generation and what is actually happening with the younger generation are billions of years apart. Old people generally always get everything wrong. I have observed this for 50+ years. Old people pretty much suck. I will just set here with my socked feet in sandals, smoking my pipes, while more kids than ever get degrees in science and expand our human knowledge further and further each day. And, when my old curmudgeon friends setting around me starts top bad mouth them, I pop 'em in the mouth. :wink:

 

[iamn8]

Bravo Cos!! Well said! If you weren't gonna say it, I was.

 

[clickklick]

Cry . . . It'll make us all feel better!

 

[jpmcwjr]

Wait! You forget HD TV!! I'd trade a/c for UHD or plain old HD if forced to choose. I'd have to move, but that's just a trade off I would make.
Overall, I doubt that mediocrity and boorishness have increased as a percentage of our society, but certainly the numbers have increased along with population, and access to such, thanks to the 'Net, has become prevalent.

 

[mcitinner1]

bal·der·dash
/ˈbôldərˌdaSH/
noun: balderdash
senseless talk or writing; nonsense.

"she dismissed talk of plots as “bunkum and balderdash.”"
Tee Hee Hee