[TheForge] The World Village OT and already threatening to [d]evolve... :)

[Andy Vida]

George Dixon wrote:
> 
> The litany from 'the world village' demonstrates how successful western
> economic and human rights concepts (such as are embodied in an 18th
> century, western document, the US Constitution)  truly are.
> The US has a lander on Mars and the third world still lives in mud huts.
> While everyone started out in the same "cave", choices along the path
> have led to stark differences.

	This is so, but look a the toll that has been exacted in the
	name of "progress".  Do you think it has been worth it?  I'm
	not sure it has been.  I find technology truly wondrous, but
	the other side of that coin is very ugly.   For example, one
	also gets Big Brother, horrific pollution, all manner of new
	and horrible diseases due to it and the stresses of living
	like rats in a cage, autocratic-totalitarian government in
	its current incarnation is possible only though technology.
	I would in fact assert that our technology has reshaped the
	basis of political thought almost to the most radical level
	except perhaps the fundamentally morbid drive to control 
	others which doesn't seem to have changed much in the past 
	6000++ years in certain places.

	One of the most commonly used arguments for justifying and
	in fact glorifying our current system of living is to cite
	how horrible life was "back then".  I seriously doubt that
	this is true, at least in most cases.  The worst living
	appears to have been precisely in those places where the
	technology was the most hignly developed.    Those who
	lived under circumstances where they could be eaten by
	wild animals knew no differently and I'd bet that in most
	cases such people did more living in any given five minutes
	of their lives than many or perhaps even any of your typical
	technology-up-the-wazoo couch potatos do in a lifetime.

	Don't get me wrong, I find technology very seductive.  It is
	so precisely because it appears to be so empowering, but I
	am not convinced that it is anything better than just another
	form of psychological shackle that enslaves, once one gives
	their minds up to it and allows dependency to take hold.  This
	wouldn't be so bad if people proceeded in moderation, but
	history incontrovertibly illustrates that lowest denominator
	mindsets invariably win out over all others the rats 
	scrambling for their fortresses and guns in frantically
	morbid fear.  That's a learned response.  It's a taught
	way of thinking about one's environment and those surrounding
	you.

	Sometimes I'm not sure we wouldn't have been collectively better
	off as mummers.  As usual, I am probably wrong.