Humanity: in decline since '75?

[Wolfgang]

If the industrial and information ages have lead to a decline in human spirit, is simply looking back to ancient times a suitable answer?

[Wolfgang]

"Because we're not losers patting ourselves on the back for noticing something is wrong with society. For people with testicles it doesn't stop there, we actually try to do something about it, make a positive change. And for that a subjective approach is needed. So we call it decline because that's how we perceive it."

Is it really all that defeatist or fatalist to question the plausibility to effect any significant change at all? I can't speak for others but I'd rather focus the energy inward to my family. Maybe I can't change how anyone else thinks, but maybe I can. I can't say for sure. I know I can shape how my children and grand children think.

I donno how metal it is though for the meaning of life to default back to "raise healthy children". Better than "raise happy children", which is all parents try to do now.

[Nero]

This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple. That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it. Humans have lost the capability.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-capability-peaked-about-1975-and.html

Humanity seems to have been going nowhere new, just getting better at known technologies like the internal combustion engine, computers and DNA analysis.

Interestingly, Black Sabbath peaked in 1975.

I'd say Vol 4 is where they peaked, after that it went downhill with Sabotage being the last interesting Black Sabbath album (I was never a fan of Dio)

I don't think moon landings are a great human accomplishment either. If they are then the average carny ride could also be called a great accomplishment. What exactly did we learn from going to the moon? What universal secrets have been revealed to us? And at what cost? The moon race was just a prestige project during the cold war, I wouldn't call it a Wonder of the World.

I agree though somewhat I read somewhere that some of the moon landing footage was actually edited from what you know see on specials i.e. when it was live camera I remember on a blog somewhere they pointed out where there might have been a alien structure of some kind that was long abandoned . and as far as the cost well we had millions of dollars lot of good it did us the people. To never reap the benefits that the goverments did if the fact of the structure is true or false as I am most liekable to be in the middle of the yes and no section.

[nether]

If the industrial and information ages have lead to a decline in human spirit, is simply looking back to ancient times a suitable answer?

No.  Then we merely project our desires onto the past.

Because they are both technological accomplishments. Look at it this way: the Wonders of the World were something more because they represented people's culture. What does space exploration represent? To me it represents the culture of carny rides, more intelligent of course but it comes down to the same thing. Btw porn also allows me to more directly experience that which once could only be imagined (sorry bout that one, I couldn't resist)

I disagree with this almost entirely.  I understand that there are comparisons to be made between carnival rides and space shuttles, but these are superficial comparisons-- ideologically these 'technological achievements' represent two entirely different matters.

Which is superior:
1. A culture that looks at the night sky and connects the dots to find anthropomorphic figures around which to develop a mythology.  Perhaps the bright dots are also seen as the souls of vanquished warriors.
2. A culture where technology has developed to the point where these 'celestial bodies' can be analyzed and quantified.  This culture supports men who risk (and lose) their lives in order to see what is really out there.

Answer: neither.  Both are working within their means, both have their mythologies, both have their convictions.  Thousands of years from now, those looking back at our era could, for all we know, discover the ancient ruins of our spacecraft and be amazed at these achievements.  Again, the only reason you are able to so readily write them off is that we do not have enough distance from them, and thus see their various relationships to other aspects of the modern world.

[Cargést]

I am quite convinced that ours is nowhere near the "most advanced" civlisation to have existed.  Human history is too long/badly documented for there to have been no other point in time when we were, if not at this exact level, then at a pretty similar one (perhaps using technologies and physical properties of objects unknown to us [ZPE?]).

[esoteric]

I am quite convinced that ours is nowhere near the "most advanced" civlisation to have existed.  Human history is too long/badly documented for there to have been no other point in time when we were, if not at this exact level, then at a pretty similar one (perhaps using technologies and physical properties of objects unknown to us [ZPE?]).

Caution is the best wisdom - and it's best to admit that at this point in time, we know next to nothing. Kill everyone below IQ120, and all we can be completely sure of is that we will end up with a society that is good at completing IQ tests. When we have less than a scintilla of an idea what our future will require, acting with such confidence is foolish.

[Veritas]

Caution is the best wisdom - and it's best to admit that at this point in time, we know next to nothing. Kill everyone below IQ120, and all we can be completely sure of is that we will end up with a society that is good at completing IQ tests. When we have less than a scintilla of an idea what our future will require, acting with such confidence is foolish.

I think we should try and advance on three fronts: Knowledge (of the world), Wisdom (philosophical understanding) and Power (both over self and environment).

Until we have properly mastered these elements and have them working in unison we will neither have a clear picture of what we should be doing nor the capacity to carry it out. Any speculation we undertake in the meantime can not be taken literally in itself, but be seen as a midway ideological position until we find something better.

[Wolfgang]

I am quite convinced that ours is nowhere near the "most advanced" civlisation to have existed.  Human history is too long/badly documented for there to have been no other point in time when we were, if not at this exact level, then at a pretty similar one (perhaps using technologies and physical properties of objects unknown to us [ZPE?]).

Caution is the best wisdom - and it's best to admit that at this point in time, we know next to nothing. Kill everyone below IQ120, and all we can be completely sure of is that we will end up with a society that is good at completing IQ tests. When we have less than a scintilla of an idea what our future will require, acting with such confidence is foolish.

Whatever it will require, it will require adaptability. That is where the whole IQ comes into play. Might clear up some confusion. Glad I could help.

[Cargést]

I think we should try and advance on three fronts: Knowledge (of the world), Wisdom (philosophical understanding) and Power (both over self and environment).

Until we have properly mastered these elements and have them working in unison we will neither have a clear picture of what we should be doing nor the capacity to carry it out. Any speculation we undertake in the meantime can not be taken literally in itself, but be seen as a midway ideological position until we find something better.

Looking at this from a more mundane point of view, I think we should halt all attempts at "space exploration" until we know what the fuck our oceans are about.  At the moment, we haven't even managed to find Atlantis, which, in my book, is shockingly poor, and indicative of sheer laziness on the part of marine explorers worldwide.

[Wolfgang]

Atlantis is a mixture of a political metaphor for Athens and oral tradition passing down the doom of the Minoans. Now, back to looking for extra-solar planets if we may.

[Cargést]

My post was a mixture of satire and win passing down the awesomeness of myself.

There are still many mysteries about the depths of the oceans, which, if not for practical reasons, should be understood for sensible reasons - one must know oneself before one can know anything else.  The same applies to a planet as it does to an individual human, or a group, or whatever.

[JewishPhysics]

If the industrial and information ages have lead to a decline in human spirit, is simply looking back to ancient times a suitable answer?

The teachings of Christ seems to indicate so.

Creating a life only to destroy
Saved from a life of the unemployed
Where crime is the only way to survive
Which is the best to be dead or alive?
Maybe a chance but maybe not
Born to be thrown in the trash to rot
To exist in this world may be a mistake
The one who is with child, it's their choice to make

Death and life taken so easily
Right or wrong, whose choice will it be?

Abortion, when it is needed
Execution, for those who deserve it
The giving and taking of life will always be
Altering the future

Look into the future to prepare us for our fate
Controlling our existence with every life we take

Life for a life should remain the rule
The innocent victim that is what's cruel
Look to the past is what we should do
When justice was done and justice was true
Using our laws to help their escape
An easy way out is what they create
Claiming insane is the way to freedom
People are stupid enough to believe them

Death and life taken so easily
Right or wrong, whose choice will it be?

Abortion, when it is needed
Execution, for those who deserve it
The giving and taking of life will always be

[Conservationist]

If things were going OK, then you introduced a new idea, and then as that idea began to hit, you realized it was crap, you roll back.

You may keep the good things, but you're going to change direction.

That bad idea was The Enlightenment (what a pompous, stupid name!) and we need to roll it back.

This species still needs to get out there and explore the stars, and we will not do it with liberalism (or modern conservatism, a form of liberalism) in charge.

[Wolfgang]

Conservationist : What say you to the idea of human exploration to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that are potential homes for extra terrestrial life? Do you think we should just leave them alone out of the very real risk of polluting/destroying these biospheres?

I have great reservation at the idea of destroying completely alien worlds, but if we can answer the "are we alone" question with a definitive "NO" in our own solar system, that would de facto end the debate on the existence of intelligent life, if life is common enough to have developed twice in our own star system.

[nether]

I consent that there is a 'decline' in some ways... let's look back further than 1975:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#

Then again, is it a decline?  Or are we simply unaware of the majority of influences behind our every action?