Is this the best time to be alive?

[Was not Was]

On the other hand, Yuval Noah Harari (in his book, Sapiens, I think) suggests that the highpoint for being alive is just before humans settled 10-11,000 years ago. Since then, our Faustian pact with agriculture has led us as a species to species "cast off our intimate symbiosis with nature and sprint towards greed and alienation".

In short then: "Hooray! we live longer and are psysically healthier than ever" vs "Boo! modern* life is rubbish"

* where "modern" = "since we stopped being hunter-gatherers"

 

[Triggaaar]

'Fewer' people, not 'less' people.

Indeed, thank you.

I thought you were the resident pedant?

I often find pointing out grammatical mistakes on here funny or educational, and that doesn't exclude my mistakes. I make as many as everyone else.

 

[KingstonSeagull]

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
View attachment 79911

Look at em all reading printed text! GEEKS!

 

[portlock seagull]

It will be great when technology has 'advanced' to decimate middle classes as well as working class i.e hardly anyone has a job or income. Providing the super rich minority are prepared to fund the vast majority to lead a happy and contented life it should be ok. After all, they all pay their taxes currently, right? Alternatively, as in our entire history, it's all going to end in a lot of blood and violence when billions of people have no hope, starving, angry...you know, these sorts of daily annoyances.

 

[ofco8]

1966... we WON the World Cup That was a good time to be alive (which I was!!!) View attachment 79910View attachment 79910View attachment 79910View attachment 79910

and then three years later man landed on the moon!

Agree. As internet wasn't even heard of then you didn't miss it. However, the one thing I love today is being able, as I am now, to travel the world. Earlier in my life I didn't think I would ever get outside of Europe.

 

[pearl]

You can't possibly know that. None of us do.

So i'll guess we'll all have to wait to find out.

the waitin' sure beats being dead

 

[Diablo]

The most simple answer is a question: what choice have we got?

build a time machine !!!

 

[Diablo]

Indeed, thank you.
I often find pointing out grammatical mistakes on here funny or educational, and that doesn't exclude my mistakes. I make as many as everyone else.

if you do make as many as "everyone else" you make one helluva lot....

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

When I left school in the 80's I had a reasonably well paid job for those days, with that money I could do the following.
Live in a bed sit or shared flat.
Put a cheap car on the road with tax, fuel and insurance.
Go to the pub with mates Thursday to Sunday including Saturday & Sunday lunchtimes.
Buy clothes and records.
Go clubbing Friday and Saturday
Watch the Albion.
Go on a 2 week Mediterranean holiday with plenty of spending money.

For me when you are young it's about having fun, which is what we did in spades and we all talked to each other, not screens, somehow we managed to cope without mobiles and Facebook.

The internet is both one of the best inventions ever and the most dangerous.

 

[Triggaaar]

if you do make as many as "everyone else" you make one helluva lot....

I no its amasing isnt it.

 

[Megazone]

I no its amasing isnt it.

Sorry to be pedantic, but you forgot the question mark.

 

[Triggaaar]

Sorry to be pedantic but you forgot the question mark.

Damn it!

 

[Joshski]

Interesting video semi related to the topic http://www.anonews.co/change-the-world/

 

[Diego Napier]

On the other hand, Yuval Noah Harari (in his book, Sapiens, I think) suggests that the highpoint for being alive is just before humans settled 10-11,000 years ago. Since then, our Faustian pact with agriculture has led us as a species to species "cast off our intimate symbiosis with nature and sprint towards greed and alienation".

In short then: "Hooray! we live longer and are psysically healthier than ever" vs "Boo! modern* life is rubbish"

* where "modern" = "since we stopped being hunter-gatherers"

Harari's Sapiens is a book that provides extraordinary and startling insights into the human condition. Given the focus on this thread about technology (materialism), his musings about what makes us happy are particularly apposite.

 

[fat old seagull]

Being born in the forties, I have somehow survived being born to a mother who may have smoked drank or both while she carried me. She probably took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, my baby cot was almost certainly covered with bright colored lead-based paint. The family had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. And when I rode my bike (on the road) I had no helmet, then imagine the risks I took hitchhiking .. As a child I would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags, sometimes in the back of a van, loose, which was always great fun. I drank water from the garden hosepipe, sometime a stream, and never from a bottle. I shared one soft drink with several friends from the same cup, and no one actually died from this. I ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but I wasn't overweight because.....I WAS ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING, AND AS HAPPY AS A PIG IN S***
I'd leave home in the morning and play outside all day, and as long as I was back when the streetlights came on, no one cared. I was gone all day. And I was OK. I would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride downhill, with only my feet as a brake. After running into the bushes a few times, I'd learn to solve the problem . I didn't have feckin Technology! Playstations, X-boxes, no video games at all, or come to that a tv for many years. But this meant I had .....FRIENDS and I'd go outside and find them! I fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. I played with worms and mud pies made from dirt. Ate scrumped apples, maggots optional, unless not seen in time. I made up games, threw and fought with sticks and although I was warned it would happen, I didn't poke out any eyes.
If I got into trouble and my parents found out I'd get punished, even sometimes get my arse thrashed, without that turning me into a homicidal maniac when I finally grew up.
Footballers got hurt, got up and tried to pretend they weren't in pain....need I say more!
My parents never attempted to defend my wrong doing, they chastised me for it.
All this however was before the lawyers, government and councils regulated our lives for our own good.
How did I survive?
Best time of our lives....yours maybe, definately not mine, too much hate and mistrust.. I only hate Palace fans Though even that's tongue in cheek...I think. ...

 

[Was not Was]

Being born in the forties, I have somehow survived being born to a mother who may have smoked drank or both while she carried me. She probably took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, my baby cot was almost certainly covered with bright colored lead-based paint. The family had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. And when I rode my bike (on the road) I had no helmet, then imagine the risks I took hitchhiking .. As a child I would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags, sometimes in the back of a van, loose, which was always great fun. I drank water from the garden hosepipe, sometime a stream, and never from a bottle. I shared one soft drink with several friends from the same cup, and no one actually died from this. I ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but I wasn't overweight because.....I WAS ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING, AND AS HAPPY AS A PIG IN S***
I'd leave home in the morning and play outside all day, and as long as I was back when the streetlights came on, no one cared. I was gone all day. And I was OK. I would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride downhill, with only my feet as a brake. After running into the bushes a few times, I'd learn to solve the problem . I didn't have feckin Technology! Playstations, X-boxes, no video games at all, or come to that a tv for many years. But this meant I had .....FRIENDS and I'd go outside and find them! I fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. I played with worms and mud pies made from dirt. Ate scrumped apples, maggots optional, unless not seen in time. I made up games, threw and fought with sticks and although I was warned it would happen, I didn't poke out any eyes.
If I got into trouble and my parents found out I'd get punished, even sometimes get my arse thrashed, without that turning me into a homicidal maniac when I finally grew up.
Footballers got hurt, got up and tried to pretend they weren't in pain....need I say more!
My parents never attempted to defend my wrong doing, they chastised me for it.
All this however was before the lawyers, government and councils regulated our lives for our own good.
How did I survive?
Best time of our lives....yours maybe, definately not mine, too much hate and mistrust.. I only hate Palace fans Though even that's tongue in cheek...I think. ...

I agree with a lot of this (though I think you under-estimate how social a lot of young people's online life is).

But I can't agree that it's government/council regulation that has created the changes you describe. It's people, of our own free will - obsessed with status, possessions, cars, privacy, and fuelled by humans' really poor understanding of risk. We've dug these holes for ourselves. And when we blame governments, elites, 'political correctness gone mad', etc, we're just carrying on digging.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

All this however was before the lawyers, government and councils regulated our lives for our own good.
How did I survive?

Yes - let's do away with all this child protection nonsense for a start! Let paedophile football coaches have free rein, that's what I say.

I too was brought up in an age before computers and spent all day Saturday playing football in the park, or going to the Beach or the Downs and had a great time, but do not necessarily buy all the rose-tinted "those were the days" stuff.

And anyone who rides a bike without a helmet is an idiot.

 

[BigGully]

Yes - let's do away with all this child protection nonsense for a start! Let paedophile football coaches have free rein, that's what I say.

I too was brought up in an age before computers and spent all day Saturday playing football in the park, or going to the Beach or the Downs and had a great time, but do not necessarily buy all the rose-tinted "those were the days" stuff.

And anyone who rides a bike without a helmet is an idiot.

I agree in part but you must admit that sometimes youngsters must feel a little stifled, just by say well meaning yet over protective parents and perhaps even society as a whole, I cannot be sure of the current threshold these days where children might play, loiter, laugh, good forbid get into some mischieve on their own, is it 10, 11 or 14 I am guessing the age increases each year and no doubt with each national tragedy or scandel ??

There hardly seems a time when up to a certain age there is never adult supervision, which in turn results in reports back and sanctions by the relevent supervisor to the associated parent and so on, it dumbs down play and perhaps childrens own natural interactions.

 

[SeagullinExile]

Are you using a fake quote to back up your claim or make yourself look stupid? I can not tell.

Neither. Im posting it tongue in cheek. Hence why no comment with the post.

I think everybody knows which one of us is stupid now. Well played

 

[SeagullinExile]

I think you just fell for the fake quote.

Whatever you want to believe. Your opinion is irrelevant to me. And if something like that really bothers you, then you really need to get out more

Now do f**k off and annoy somebody else