What Is The State Of The Human Condition (humanity)?

[Kit Kat P]

Transient.

[Steven]

Transient.

meaning regression or improvement?

[Fierce Critter]

but we need Leaders, Love....thats why I wish I could have children.

Yeah, but I don't think there's room in the world's future for good, honest, well-intended leaders.

I'm that pessimistic. I think this world is going to hell, and there's nothing that can be done about it, because things have passed the point of no return. The corrupt in power have too much power today. And they're doing their damndest to keep things going on their twisted path.

And what gets me the most despondent are the blinded, ignorant masses who are following their lead based on false pretense & utter bullshit. Sorry, but I think a lot of people aren't really seeing what's going on around them.

Don't ask me to get specific. 'Cause it'll turn into something ugly. And I've had my fill of ugly discussions for a while, thank you very much.

[creatureofthenyte]

Well if the state of the Human condition is gradually startin to hit the shitter,

I hope I'm gone before it hits the fan.

[Steven]

Yeah, but I don't think there's room in the world's future for good, honest, well-intended leaders.

I'm that pessimistic. I think this world is going to hell, and there's nothing that can be done about it, because things have passed the point of no return. The corrupt in power have too much power today. And they're doing their damndest to keep things going on their twisted path.

And what gets me the most despondent are the blinded, ignorant masses who are following their lead based on false pretense & utter bullshit. Sorry, but I think a lot of people aren't really seeing what's going on around them.

Don't ask me to get specific. 'Cause it'll turn into something ugly. And I've had my fill of ugly discussions for a while, thank you very much.

i understand what your saying.

and in many ways I tend to agree with you in terms of the state of humanity and the pace of regression, disfunction, euphamysticm, and general detachment. I see it. Everywhere. especially in the youth

you allready know I follow a biblically modelled lifestyle. So within that I beleive in the theory of good ol armegeddon and gog and magog and freaky demons and cups of wrath and all that kool krap, I beleive it, I see no way to avoid it, I have zero faith in any future age of enlightnement of mankind because our general history simply does not back that up and our daily tenacity to stand is so critically compromised and chemically corrupted and becasue we really no longer have a national identity or even a social one and we therefore lack the ability to stand long term challanges and every year we short circuit a little more and teach that to our children who in turn lead a faithless life.

in the meantime, and afterward, and even now leading up to it.....I think thats where you insert your leaders.

and as we inch closer to absolute chaos (I beleive thats coming too) we'll need them even more.

I also beleive that we live in an age of blindness - some fo it spiritual, most of it deliberate and even desperate. i beleive men like me will be outlawed in this country in my lifetime. I beleive the pursuit of a worldwide universal faith and ideal will be mandated to instill global order but it will instead bring univeral death to scores of people. I beleive America will be hit soon again in a series of terrorism and natural tragedies but that financial collapse of our infrastructure will finish us off and we'll feed on each other in a much less shiny and socially acceptable way than we do allready.

given all of that, I'd still have a kid if I could (everything counts), but thats just me and I totally get why you do not want to do that.

Edited August 22, 2007 by Steven

[Shade Everdark]

you allready know I follow a biblically modelled lifestyle. So within that I beleive in the theory of good ol armegeddon and gog and magog and freaky demons and cups of wrath and all that kool krap, I beleive it, I see no way to avoid it, I have zero faith in any future age of enlightnement of mankind because our general history simply does not back that up and our daily tenacity to stand is so critically compromised and chemically corrupted and becasue we really no longer have a national identity or even a social one and we therefore lack the ability to stand long term challanges and every year we short circuit a little more and teach that to our children who in turn lead a faithless life.

Far be it from me to adopt any stance that is optimistic in nature, but I find myself compelled to play the devil's advocate. You say you have zero faith in a future age of enlightenment. Do you deny that we've had them in the past? Would you overlook the Greek Classical age, the Renaissance, the 18th century?

Humanity certainly seems to be cyclical, and it may be that we're entering a downswing of sorts. But even that downswing can be taken to mean that we're moving forward, surely. It's just a question of which of us gets to move forward with it.

[Msterbeau]

Far be it from me to adopt any stance that is optimistic in nature, but I find myself compelled to play the devil's advocate. You say you have zero faith in a future age of enlightenment. Do you deny that we've had them in the past? Would you overlook the Greek Classical age, the Renaissance, the 18th century?

Humanity certainly seems to be cyclical, and it may be that we're entering a downswing of sorts. But even that downswing can be taken to mean that we're moving forward, surely. It's just a question of which of us gets to move forward with it.

The problem I see with your idea of cycles (And I was thinking along the same lines) is that there are now so many people with the ability to do so much destruction. Will we survive this downturn is the real question.

[Steven]

Far be it from me to adopt any stance that is optimistic in nature, but I find myself compelled to play the devil's advocate. You say you have zero faith in a future age of enlightenment. Do you deny that we've had them in the past? Would you overlook the Greek Classical age, the Renaissance, the 18th century?

Humanity certainly seems to be cyclical, and it may be that we're entering a downswing of sorts. But even that downswing can be taken to mean that we're moving forward, surely. It's just a question of which of us gets to move forward with it.

good post good points.

No I dont deny there were ages of enlightenment inthe past,not at all.

for example we had these wonderful models for democracy take root during the classical age right? And we had maybe some division over what model was best...to serve the state or to serve the family and some wonderful ideas poured out of that. But it was birthed in the Persian war and that entire period in general was one of war and conquest and dominance between empires. Were still doing that only we consume much more vorasciously when we war in modern times.

and I realize that some important things took place in say...literature and art and the risk of expression in general in the 18th century, but to measure it in modern times which has led us to???? Im not making light of it....I just dont know that its carrying any momentum anymore. Or that enough people care anymore.

with the Renaissance period especially (death to king Louieeeee) Europe was reborn in a sense and stretched herself beyond the cold reins of the dark ages. Social, scientific, and political thought grew exponentially as well. and all of these thigns lead me to what Im talking about now...

after all of this...where are we?

better prepared than ever before to inflict our own doom?

more divided than ever before?

definately more distanced from one another than ever before and that is probably a critical flaw in the theory of any possible future enlightenment....

and most imporatnt....how well equipped are our children to move ahead?

at some point any system will eventually collapse. You made very good points about enlightenment. I just think our regression has brought us to the verge where the only rebuilding we'll be doing is building up from the atomic ashes.

[Daniel]

You guys a depressing. I'm not sure how the majority of you are so much more pessimistic than I am, but it is weird. And depressing. But it is interesting to see who really lacks faith in their fellow human beings.

[Daniel]

The problem I see with your idea of cycles (And I was thinking along the same lines) is that there are now so many people with the ability to do so much destruction. Will we survive this downturn is the real question.

It is kind of difficult to say. I will admit, for humanity to continue to evolve, we need to realistically address the fact that we fully have the capability to destroy ourselves. Unlike previous ages where the best we could do was wage bloody wars, we now can literally destroy every human alive if someone decided to do it.

[Kit Kat P]

meaning regression or improvement?

Neither, I don't think it's necessarily vertical or lateral assessment. I think it's just different, neither good nor bad, just different.

[Steven]

It is kind of difficult to say. I will admit, for humanity to continue to evolve, we need to realistically address the fact that we fully have the capability to destroy ourselves. Unlike previous ages where the best we could do was wage bloody wars, we now can literally destroy every human alive if someone decided to do it.

exxxxxxxxxxxxxxactly.

and yes I have zero faith in human beings to right themselves in time.

I think our own lauded technology will see to that. God like we are (built in his image)- we'll destroy the world just like he did, only we wont be able to rebuild it from nothing...

and hey, dont be depressed Daniel...plenty of happy pills floatin around, especially in America....(pun intended)

[hunhee]

I was actually surprised at Daniel's idealistic "faith" in humanity. I'm also surprised that Steven has no faith in humanity.

This actually reminded me about this story that my pastor told me when I was young, and it stuck with me. It made me chuckle then, and it makes me chuckle now, thinking about it.

Lets see if I can get it right, I haven't thought about it in a while till just now.

There was a man who was a devoted Christian. Then the rains came. There were several warnings on the TV about flooding, and to evacuate the area, and get to higher ground immediately. The man said, "God will save me"

The whole surrounding area was flooding, and eventually he was stuck on his roof. A man in a row boat came by and offered for him to get on his boat, and the guy said.. "No thanks, God will save me." The other man just shrugged, and paddled off.

The water kept rising, and he could see the water was at his feet. He started to get worried, but kept praying. Along came a rescue helicopter. The rescue squad lowered a ladder to the man, and said "get on! hurry, the rain isn't stopping!"

The man promptly said, "No thanks, God will save me". The rescue squad shrugged and flew off to help other people.

Suffice it to say, the man died, drowned in the flood. When he got to heaven, he asked God a question. "God, why didn't you save me, wasn't I your loyal servant my entire life?"

God replied, "I did try to save you, who do you think warned you on the T.V., or sent the guy on the paddle boat, or sent the rescue helicopter?"

he he

I probably butchered the story, but you get the gist.

EDIT: And now back to your regularly scheduled program..

Edited August 24, 2007 by hunhee

[Fierce Critter]

Familiar guy on roof in rain story

Hee hee. I quote that one all the time when I try to push the "help themselves" part of faith. :D

[Steven]

I was actually surprised at Daniel's idealistic "faith" in humanity. I'm also surprised that Steven has no faith in humanity.

This actually reminded me about this story that my pastor told me when I was young, and it stuck with me. It made me chuckle then, and it makes me chuckle now, thinking about it.

Lets see if I can get it right, I haven't thought about it in a while till just now.

There was a man who was a devoted Christian. Then the rains came. There were several warnings on the TV about flooding, and to evacuate the area, and get to higher ground immediately. The man said, "God will save me"

The whole surrounding area was flooding, and eventually he was stuck on his roof. A man in a row boat came by and offered for him to get on his boat, and the guy said.. "No thanks, God will save me." The other man just shrugged, and paddled off.

The water kept rising, and he could see the water was at his feet. He started to get worried, but kept praying. Along came a rescue helicopter. The rescue squad lowered a ladder to the man, and said "get on! hurry, the rain isn't stopping!"

The man promptly said, "No thanks, God will save me". The rescue squad shrugged and flew off to help other people.

Suffice it to say, the man died, drowned in the flood. When he got to heaven, he asked God a question. "God, why didn't you save me, wasn't I your loyal servant my entire life?"

God replied, "I did try to save you, who do you think warned you on the T.V., or sent the guy on the paddle boat, or sent the rescue helicopter?"

he he

I probably butchered the story, but you get the gist.

EDIT: And now back to your regularly scheduled program..

it sounds harsh, my lack of faith in humanity, but bear in mind if you can that I see this state of being as an overall peice of the collective puzzle as we march toward zero hour at a much brisker pace...

by the way my lack of faith in humanity is nto meant to sound depressing or self defeating. I jsut think were gluttons for our doom and in need of an intercessor. In the meantime i still try to push myself and others to do the best that they can...

[sass_in_the_pants]

I was actually surprised at Daniel's idealistic "faith" in humanity. I'm also surprised that Steven has no faith in humanity.

This actually reminded me about this story that my pastor told me when I was young, and it stuck with me. It made me chuckle then, and it makes me chuckle now, thinking about it.

Lets see if I can get it right, I haven't thought about it in a while till just now.

There was a man who was a devoted Christian. Then the rains came. There were several warnings on the TV about flooding, and to evacuate the area, and get to higher ground immediately. The man said, "God will save me"

The whole surrounding area was flooding, and eventually he was stuck on his roof. A man in a row boat came by and offered for him to get on his boat, and the guy said.. "No thanks, God will save me." The other man just shrugged, and paddled off.

The water kept rising, and he could see the water was at his feet. He started to get worried, but kept praying. Along came a rescue helicopter. The rescue squad lowered a ladder to the man, and said "get on! hurry, the rain isn't stopping!"

The man promptly said, "No thanks, God will save me". The rescue squad shrugged and flew off to help other people.

Suffice it to say, the man died, drowned in the flood. When he got to heaven, he asked God a question. "God, why didn't you save me, wasn't I your loyal servant my entire life?"

God replied, "I did try to save you, who do you think warned you on the T.V., or sent the guy on the paddle boat, or sent the rescue helicopter?"

he he

I probably butchered the story, but you get the gist.

EDIT: And now back to your regularly scheduled program..

That's one of my priest's favorites, too!

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I grew up in a community that was always pointing out the "evils" of society and that it was a harbinger of our eventual doom. But, this is focusing on the negatives and ignoring the positives. It is not (and still is not) taken into perspective. The overall quality of life (from any other measure other than perhaps "moral uprightness") is more positive now than it has ever been.

From any way i can really "measure" Crime, Social Freedoms, Health, Employment , Science, Technology everything is better now than it has ever been over the longer term (say on the order of centuries) War is another thing that is far less widespread than it has ever been. There are small conflicts here and there, but there are not the level of involvement worldwide as there once was. We are more and more becoming "one" society and wars / conflicts are not nearly as widespread across the globe and as often as they once were. "Civilization" has advanced and will continue to advance.

There are ups and downs but the general direction is up. A baby born today is far more likely to grow up, live safer and live longer than a baby born 100 years ago. It is likely that Technology/Science/Health-care/Civilization will improve with time not arbitrarily devolve to some medieval state.

[ttogreh]

I am ever so glad that you are an optimist, Troy. The world is getting better. Think about this... if the world WAS getting more rude, would we even notice? If the world was pretty much the same in the amount of rudeness, would we post our worries that the world was getting more rude on an internet forum?

We worry about what is important to us. We value common courtesy and kindness.

[Steven]

I grew up in a community that was always pointing out the "evils" of society and that it was a harbinger of our eventual doom. But, this is focusing on the negatives and ignoring the positives. It is not (and still is not) taken into perspective. The overall quality of life (from any other measure other than perhaps "moral uprightness") is more positive now than it has ever been.

From any way i can really "measure" Crime, Social Freedoms, Health, Employment , Science, Technology everything is better now than it has ever been over the longer term (say on the order of centuries) War is another thing that is far less widespread than it has ever been. There are small conflicts here and there, but there are not the level of involvement worldwide as there once was. We are more and more becoming "one" society and wars / conflicts are not nearly as widespread across the globe and as often as they once were. "Civilization" has advanced and will continue to advance.

There are ups and downs but the general direction is up. A baby born today is far more likely to grow up, live safer and live longer than a baby born 100 years ago. It is likely that Technology/Science/Health-care/Civilization will improve with time not arbitrarily devolve to some medieval state.

I grew up in a similar type of overtly religous community (JW's).

And yes they did overstate the obvious as a conditioning tool.

But - lets look at some things youve suggested ....

for example lets go with ...war.

do you beleive then that the long term effects of modern warfare - the impact generated, not the frequency of outbreaks worldwide in terms of global impact - would you say the impact is lesser overall? Thats a tough one for me to swallow. For example this middle east situation that is bleeding our $$$ resources like a massive hemmorage.....i see that as generationally and globally very degenerative. And in terms of outright genocidal impact.....take a look at say...teh conflcits in Africa......to me that is extremely disturbing. yes we are in a technological wonder age. But over there you have thousands of children who eat and live in garbage dumps and are forced to become killing machines or have their amrs and legs hacked off. So although I can see yoru point about lesser volumes of conflict, to me the pressure mounting is much greater on a worldwide scale, and the ability via technology to destroy and pollute an eco system and introduce long term devestation to a surrounding culture is far greater. thousands of years ago when you overthrew a nation or region one of your primary goasl was to intermingle your culture with theirs, until theirs was thinned out of its former potency. We have the internet and mass media now...it takes alot less time to change values.

and in terms of health....on the surface I can see that argument, but to me it depends onwhat data your attracted to. For example as a nation (America) it can be argued that we are less nourished and more prone to cancers and food allergans and clotting and blood pressure issues than ever before. The data is measurable there. We are definately more overweight across the board, which leads to a host of other health issues and even social issues. Our young generations are more pharmecutically inclined within the system than ever before. 50 years ago you couldent open the sports page and find depression clinic ads next to the tittie bar ads next to the divore for only $99.00 dollar ads. Now you can. I see those sorts of thigns as evidence as well.

and then lets discuss social health. for example you siad a child born today is more likely to live longer than a child born 100 years ago. maybe that is true. but I would also suggest that a child born in this generation is far more likely to be saddled with various types of modern social pre conditioning and pharmecutical intermingling to sustain itself. I think thats dangerous. for example my grandmother is in her mid 90's. She was born in a 3rd world country and at one time her family had to hide from the government for 6 years (she lived in a cave in Mexico). Her stories are unbeleivable with the shit that she had to go thru. But she herself has told me how much harder younger people have it now in this free America and how she does not understand how much pressure they have to cope with - she sees it - as much harder, and she's been in this country since her 20's, owns properties, had her own business, etc, shes been around the block and she is by no means a fearful person. But she is able to recognize a trend with eyes that have seen a completely different world....

the question of perspective in and of itself is a tough one, because eventually we will all align ourselves by that which we desire.

[Nivek Novisad]

Well honestly speaking you can never gauge progress or regression on a historical scale when you are even a marginal participant in it. Your personal experiences both negative or positive taint your perspective on humankind's demise, or evolution both biologically and socially.

Really i don't feel that humankind has regressed nor progressed. On an evolutionary point our species has not changed very much in thosands of years. No one is really any smarter than in the past, we just have used our gained collective knowledge and technologies to alter out environment. Each idea and technology is added on to a pre-existing one. With every added piece of technology, humankind's biological push to adapt has stagnated.

On a social basis it is difficult to measure our progress. Things progress 3 steps in terms of social acceptence then take 2 steps back. When caught in the riptide effect of cultural change it is hard to tell what is actually happening. Today, globally, things are no worse than they were 100-200 years ago. Now it is better in many ways. More stressfull possibly, but in a different way. We worry about our debt, our paychecks being enough or keeping a paycheckor about the violence in the world. People world wide use to worry about crops failing and having nothing to eat for enormous portions of the Earth. They worried about their children making it to the age of 5. Yes this still occurs today but in less places in the world.

Stress yes, but different... and Yeah, life sucks today but we continue. Locally in Detroit and Michigan things blow. It is hard for us to see the big picture at this point in time... But at this point... not worrying about unforseen tragedy, thing really aren't that bad on a whole.

People just need to pay a little more attention to what is happening around them even a little further then their own personal bubbles. If more people can try to understand the reasons for someone else's rudeness or lack of class and caring, things can and could get better....

Who knows, or it could just be my Remeron speaking....

Edited August 29, 2007 by Nivek Novisad

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Um, you started off right on the money.. then wandered off into left field...

As for the evolutionary scale, we can measure change (progress) from just 100 years ago. We are taller, average IQ is higher along with a few other things that are less in your face.

Socially and Culturally we have change a million fold. We have in essence, gone threw how many ages? The Industrial age has come and gone... and we are deep into the digital age... We are so vastly different than we were even 50 years ago, let alone any farther back, that a person brought from our recent past would be hard pressed to fit in. They would see "magic" every where.

You might also want to check your figures... More people starve to death today than 100 years ago. We are also more likely to die from disease. (Actually, we lost something after the neolithic age and started dieing from decease more often) It's one of the major reasons I oppose the UN. Their main job is to fight starvation and prevent wars. Yet, when you look at the numbers, the UN has made things worse. Death from starvation and disease went up and still goes up since they got involved.

But, you are right, it is hard to see social and cultural changes when your not looking at the big picture. You can't just read the news and blogs of your favorite political pundits and think you know whats going on in the world.

[Steven]

good points all.

all I will ad thus far is that I've only lived in MI for 4 years, I was a sunny california boy prior to - and my perspective was the same there...in fact maybe even worse (tainted?. YES) because of the plastic nature of the people and social clicks.

other than that - I would assume all humans have tainted points of view based ontheir personal experience and environments, but I think thats ok.