Come on now - hand on heart - is planetary human development improving?

Joey

Joey

Member
Since say our earlier toddler/youth days. Extended families breaking down - many with mobile phones and engaged in a private and ceaseless diversion of talking to invisible others? Crime stats increasing in some non-advanced countries say Hiati bit also in advanced countries like USA.

Overall with all your memories and experiences do you really feel life for all of us; well excluding the filthy rich perhaps; has become more enriched ; more rewarding and a real advancement in human behaviors overall ; not forgetting all the animals in the world too? you don't need to write a thesis - just a YEs or No will do but with a few reasoned arguments will be acceptable? my view - tell you at the end whenever that is?
 

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No, we are getting worse. Too much reliance on technology is eroding our common sense and basic physical survival skills. A few small examples:
People can't change tires or jump start car batteries. People can longer write in cursive. Some people can't even read analog clocks. People don't know anything about insects or even ever touched one. People try to take selfies with wild animals. The space program can't seem to be able to land people on the moon anymore. If the next generation is worse than this soft one.......We are doomed.
 
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HermitHogan said:
People were idiots when we were young and they're idiots now. At least with modern technology, we can avoid them if we so choose.

The worst thing today is the cost of housing. It was cheap to live when we were young. Now you need to earn nearly $100k/year in order to be able to afford even a little ranch house.
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Not true at all. Most of the home owners I know don't make $100k a year, and they have nice homes.
 
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We are now living between the electromechanical age and the fully developed computerised information age. Decades ago, when I was teaching elementary computing to junior HS girls, we looked at the Industrial Revolution and saw how it brought change to established societies and social norms. A couple of World Wars were also very disrupting.

IMO the advent of computerised technology is having the same effect and simultaneously there are numerous hot spots around the world that have the potential to cause disruption on a global scale.

It's not all bad. Just take the advances in medical technology and transport. If we have the will to do so, we can do something to mitigate the down sides of our profligate burning of fossil fuels, as well as find ways to feed all the hungry of this world.

There is no turning back to some imagined earlier Golden Age. The Arrow of Progress, like the Arrow of Time, flies forward, not backward. We adapt, or retreat to an imaginary past.
 
Warrigal said:
We are now living between the electromechanical age and the fully developed computerised information age. Decades ago, when I was teaching elementary computing to junior HS girls, we looked at the Industrial Revolution and saw how it brought change to established societies and social norms. A couple of World Wars were also very disrupting.

IMO the advent of computerised technology is having the same effect and simultaneously there are numerous hot spots around the world that have the potential to cause disruption on a global scale.

It's not all bad. Just take the advances in medical technology and transport. If we have the will to do so, we can do something to mitigate the down sides of our profligate burning of fossil fuels, as well as find ways to feed all the hungry of this world.

There is no turning back to some imagined earlier Golden Age. The Arrow of Progress, like the Arrow of Time, flies forward, not backward. We adapt, or retreat to an imaginary past.
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well put clear and succinct and bloody true too!
 
Oldeagle66 said:
Not true at all. Most of the home owners I know don't make $100k a year, and they have nice homes.
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Here in the UK the typical first-time buyer now buys a home worth five times their gross annual salary, down from a high of 5.8 times annual income between April and June 2022. However, property remains much less affordable than it was in decades past. The long-running average ratio for house prices to earnings is 3.9 times.

When I bought my first home the income to borrowing ratio was just two and a half times salary. It was not only possible, the amount left was comfortable to live on.
 
so the world keeps getting a better place for some to live in then?? I wonder whether the ratio between well off rich giving to lame animals and homeless kids in the world has increased or decreased these last five decades?
 
Rakaia said:
I've had conversations with my (adult) kids and I've decided that, paradoxically, the world has gotten both better and worse.
Ya win some, ya lose some...
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could you get the worse list off of them ?
 
Joey said:
a YEs or No will do but with a few reasoned arguments will be acceptable?
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No. Despite the technological advancements and our extensive understanding of the environment, humanity continues to wage brutal wars, such as those between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine. Regulations designed to protect the populace are being dismantled in favor of increased profits. Medical debt remains the leading cause of bankruptcy. Our education system is deteriorating with no solutions in sight, our young are graduating college strapped with a lifetime of debt. Social Security urgently requires additional funding, yet it seems the only beneficiaries of financial assistance are the wealthiest 1%, who are not in least in need of more profit.
 
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Its gotten worse. Hands down. Cost of living compared to income is horrible, crime, health care gotten exponentially worse, tech has and is destroying the younger generations (and some older ones as well). Violations of many countries constitutions/laws has eroded trust and belief in the governments world wide. The media itself is a censorship tool for who has the money, THE truth, has been replaced by MY truth (now there are many truths apparently about the same subject), education teaches nothing except read and regurgitate-not actually learn anything.
Parents have now lost their rights to make decisions about their children in many places, in some countries-esp UK and Germany, if you question anything or say anything that the 'govt' doesn't approve, you get fined, or jailed-(like, is there no actual freedom anymore?)...
Housing is off the charts, everything is more expensive no matter what it is, politicians don't know or don't want to do anything about these problems-they just want photo shoots shaking hands and smiling like everything's OK. Did any country ask the people what they want before making DRASTIC changes?
Did any country ask its populace if massive overbearing and system straining immigration is OK? Doesn't matter where they are from or why, just that do you want to allow this? Can the system handle it? Heck no. Did they ask the majority if supporting this/that war, and sending billions of your own tax dollars was OK? Uh nope. They just did it.
Some may say well govt does what they were elected to do, rule. But...only and I mean ONLY help out others if your own backyard is in order. Massive homelessness, poverty and crime in your country...MAYBE not send billions elsewhere! Use it to help your own people who created and paid those taxes.

Maybe I am venting...but I see the world the way it is and its not good. There is no one doing anything about it, so I don't foresee it getting much better anytime soon.
 
People are basically people. We are the same critters we were a half million year ago. We created Civilization to mutually benefit us. And one of those benefits is technology. Without technology, we would still be small bands of wandering hunter/gatherers. Civilization and increasing technology force us to face new experiences. We long for some past Utopian Eden, which never existed, feeling like everything is going to hell. Yet, we're still here, plodding away. Now, there are over 8 billion of us. And most are fed and productive.
Not bad for hairless apes.
 
chic said:
Where do you live? That makes a diff. Where I am in suburbia in the N.E. decent spacious homes like I grew up in are around a mil. Truth. How can we expect our young to buy a home, marry and raise a family if they can't afford it? We can't and it's so sad.
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Northeast Ohio
 

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