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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #23633390 - 09/10/16 06:13 PM (7 years, 4 months ago)

yes one thing we have exported (besides 'popular' music) is junk food
and interestingly the spread of diabeties to cultures that didn't have it goes along with it.

One effect of all this homginization, (which of course includes stuff we haven't got around to considering like: TV, color TV, consolidation of control of media, and far right AM talk radio); must be a Desenitization, as the natural world tends to be interesting, if not beautiful, and adverising is ugly and uses large swatches of flat color, besides being based on conditioning and 'subliminal' misinformation if not outright lies.

Of course, as we all know, if a person behaved as self destructively as 'society' we would be shocked and send them to therapy, but it seems the profit motive, fear of communism, and who knows what other fears, are more harmful than actual viruses.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: laughingdog]
    #23633447 - 09/10/16 06:27 PM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quite true, well said.  Yes, I think we've become very desensitized in a lot of ways.  I mean, the natural world means nothing anymore to tens of millions of people, especially urban dwellers.  It's a significant problem.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici


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OfflineRJ Tubs 202
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: nooneman]
    #23634243 - 09/10/16 10:37 PM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

nooneman said:

I've read a LOT of material written hundreds of years ago as part of my degree. I can say with some confidence that the average person today is much happier than the average person in the 1700-1800s, and certainly MUCH happier than those that lived before 1000. The further you go back in history, the more brutal life gets, and their writing reflects this. People lived very hard lives that were very brutal and death was common and much closer than it is to us.





It sounds like you equate "brutality" of life with peace of mind.  Not sure they are related.

Just in the US . . .

  Cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year.

  Every 53 minutes someone is killed due to drunk driving.

  Over 50,000 people die every year from getting loaded on drugs to get high.


It appears life is still very brutal.


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Offlinehappyherb
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #23634308 - 09/10/16 10:58 PM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Most people are a sleep


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #23634434 - 09/11/16 12:02 AM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

RJ Tubs 202 said:


Just in the US . . .

  Cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year.






found it hard to beleive -- but it is as you say

https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html

of course texting is even crazier - but apparently ....

'Nearly 330,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving.
1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving.
Texting while driving is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk.'

what fools these mortals be ... indeed


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OfflineRJ Tubs 202
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: laughingdog]
    #23634443 - 09/11/16 12:05 AM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

laughingdog said:

Texting while driving is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk.





Phones are weapons of mass distraction.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #23634457 - 09/11/16 12:15 AM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

RJ Tubs 202 said:


Phones are weapons of mass distraction.




funny ...

about 50 years of color TV and maybe about 20 of video games & email, multiple choice tests, ... the 'culture' was already headed that way

but the phones are certainly a match made in heaven for the current 'mindset'


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OfflineBrendanFlock
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #23654857 - 09/18/16 06:01 AM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
incredibly weird meaning mangled commenting style - is there any particular message in it except that "nobody will ever know what you are really thinking"?




Well its a commentary on chaos and stream of consciousness writing..

To associate any meaning to any word at all that I wrote..directly gives you the meaning..and knowledge of my position which is that the words themselves are communicating a symbolic form of information, which As we speak..is in more witness than another..form of verbal communication..

In otherwords...you could not help but take away meaning from my post..therefore..you can indeed understand what im thinking...or at least the partiality of the post which was a projection of my thoughts and thought locuses...or even pure mind and soul for example...but its still writing..and can be interpreted like any other writing..


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OfflineBrendanFlock
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: BrendanFlock]
    #23654858 - 09/18/16 06:01 AM (7 years, 4 months ago)

Boundless!


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OfflineBrian Jones
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #24209559 - 03/31/17 10:50 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Quote:

Withinity said:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun

Prime example of bullshit and a capitalization catering to the peoples desires through the 'information age'. Once they know what you want they can sell to you easier. Imagine you could read peoples mind's it would be easier to control and cater to them no?

Facebook:

'Tell us whats on your mind'

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/whats-on-your-mind/477517358858/




Yes, well, the cornerstone of the modern global economy is the fabrication of wants.  People sure get irrationally worked up over stuff.




    Sorry I took so long to respond. You hit the nail on the head with the significance of fabrication of wants. I saw a great symbolic display the 2nd time I saw REM (5th album). For the first song a giant screen just white with black letters  flashed Want, then Need for 5 minutes; I think the song was "Finest Worksong". The whole time I'm thinking 3 years earlier my Socialist Theory professor had talked  100 times about want vs. need.

    And within your post was the post of Withinity talking about reading people's minds to target their advertising and customers. I'm more suspicious than that recalling the subliminal advertising campaigns flashing images on the screen with frames so brief  the eye could not detect them, but the mind still absorbed them. This was criminalized, but then many examples came out of single pictures in magazines that subliminally got your mind thinking about sex, or something desirable without being apparent to the conscious mind. I'm sure they are still researching and practicing this. Talk about manufacturing desire.

    Just curious, how many posters remember or realize when you could only advertise beer or wine on TV and never hard liquor. Don't remember what year the law changed. I will admit that a couple of hard liquor ad campaigns  currently running are IMO very well done, but they can't sell me because I only drink lite beer.

    My modern theory professor published a journal article around 1989 on semiotics analysis of the label on a Jack Daniels bottle.


--------------------
"The Rolling Stones will break up over Brian Jones' dead body"    John Lennon

I don't want no commies in my car. No Christians either.

The worst thing about corruption is that it works so well,


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OfflinePlantManBee
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: Jokeshopbeard] * 2
    #24209584 - 03/31/17 11:13 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Jokeshopbeard said:
Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
I think our system works pitifully poorly at taking care of people



This is my real gripe. We live in a system where profits are #1, and the mental health of the populous are #163 or something.

Still, I've come to expect little other than paradox from this crazy world, and paradox it most certainly is.




bingo


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #24209671 - 04/01/17 12:03 AM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Human civilization at this point is a cluster-fuck.  Who cares how advanced it is?  The question is: What is the nature and quality of people's existential lives?  Are people getting happier over time?  Looking around at the global situation, it would seem that quality of life is being negatively impacted for most as the population spirals.

So the question is:  How advanced are we really as a species?  We have these fabulous technologies, but as I mention quality of life has grown poorer per capita, it would certainly seem, for the vast majority.  In fact, most people in the third world do not even have access to most of these technologies, and we're talking billions of people here.  Have we taken one step forward and two steps back?

I think this quote is apropos:

Quote:

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase.  This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask.  The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive."  --Frank Herbert




What are your thoughts?




(by the way an old thread)

the questions you ask have very different answers
there seem to be 2 major questions:

1)How advanced are we really as a species?

Ans: No species are ‘advanced’, they are only adapted to environments, at a certain point, or period, in time.

2)Are people getting happier over time?

Ans: you can find a list of happiest countries on line.
The happier ones are the Scandinavian ones, which have better social safety nets, and kinder values, and which are less punitive. Most of the rest of the world has a worse track record. The USA shows poorly which is to be expected as it is an imperialist power as explained by Chalmers Johnson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson


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Invisiblesudly
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: laughingdog]
    #24209686 - 04/01/17 12:12 AM (6 years, 9 months ago)

How ethically advanced can any society be to have something so foundational as this.



--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: sudly]
    #24209710 - 04/01/17 12:35 AM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

sudly said:
How ethically advanced can any society be to have something so foundational as this.





No species are ‘advanced’, they are only adapted to environments, at a certain point, or period, in time.

No species are ‘ethical’, they are only adapted to environments, at a certain point, or period, in time.

"ethical" would seem to be an abstract human concept that does not apply to the behavior of biological organisms, anymore than it does to atoms or galaxies. As someone who's every post shows a predatory insect that eats its victims alive, you are perhaps already familiar with this idea.

Of course human societies have cultures, which are based on shared 'hallucinations' or  agreements, and conditionings, which foster belief in such a notion, and those which do show compassion are generally pleasanter to live in.


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Invisiblesudly
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: laughingdog]
    #24209723 - 04/01/17 12:43 AM (6 years, 9 months ago)

There is one rather advanced species out here.

Quote:

Advanced: far on or ahead in development or progress.




A constitution sure is an attempt to act ethically.

Ethical, moral, being able to decide the difference between what is good and what is bad; not an abstract concept.



--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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InvisibleMike O. Phile
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #24211225 - 04/01/17 03:44 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

The myth that we represent the current pinnacle of human achievement originates with Darwin's theory of evolution. Prior to this, because of Christian understandings, it was felt that humanity was actually deteriorating (ever since the Fall). The idea that progress or evolution is a linear and uninterrupted process isn't really what Darwin articulated, but that's what it has become in the public imagination.

This impoverished understanding of evolution justified all sorts of horrific acts (i.e. cultural and actual genocide, on the basis that indigenous people were 'less advanced' and needed 'civilising'. Australian aborigines were classified as fauna until 1967- no shit). It also completely elides all the really shitty things we do in the present, because we can reassure ourselves that however bad things are, they MUST have been worst in the past. To an extent this is true, but in many other ways we are more barbaric now than even the most 'primitive' earlier societies.

I think human nature remains unchanged. It's just that the social conditions which regulate our interactions with each other change (and not necessarily in a progressive way either). At the moment, society values money and individualism. And look where that's gotten us.


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InvisibletHEfLY
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: Mike O. Phile]
    #24211336 - 04/01/17 04:38 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Completely agree. It seems almost every traditional culture has held a cyclic view of history, where cultures rise and fall like the seasons from spring to winter, or an individual going through the stages of life from birth to death. All forms of life follow the same basic pattern. It makes me think of Philip K. Dick's mystical experience in 1974 when his immediate surroundings disappeared and the underlying archetypal structure of ancient Rome was revealed, leading him to the conclusion that time itself doesn't even exist, let alone "progress". The important thing is the timeless spirit behind it all.


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OfflinePlantManBee
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: tHEfLY]
    #24211372 - 04/01/17 04:54 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

tHEfLY said:
It makes me think of Philip K. Dick's mystical experience in 1974 when his immediate surroundings disappeared and the underlying archetypal structure of ancient Rome was revealed, leading him to the conclusion that time itself doesn't even exist, let alone "progress".




This leads me to believe that Meth is either the best drug.... or the worst drug.

I think he was right.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: PlantManBee]
    #24213662 - 04/02/17 04:55 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

true


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Is civilization really advanced? [Re: PlantManBee] * 1
    #24213708 - 04/02/17 05:22 PM (6 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

PlantManBee said:
Quote:

tHEfLY said:
It makes me think of Philip K. Dick's mystical experience in 1974 when his immediate surroundings disappeared and the underlying archetypal structure of ancient Rome was revealed, leading him to the conclusion that time itself doesn't even exist, let alone "progress".




This leads me to believe that Meth is either the best drug.... or the worst drug.

I think he was right.




Let us not forget Patrick Henry who said "Give me liberty or give me meth!" He was an all or nothing type guy. :shrug:


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