Humankind will continue to “progress”?

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Humankind will continue to “progress”?

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:05:52 AM EDT

Are we automatically going to progress with more and more technological innovation, better medical care, faster computers, building more and newer buildings etc?

Or could we have an event that is not a setback but a turning point where our conditions deteriorate. To the extent that future generations live in conditions we only know if from history?

ETA: Rodents thread about transitioning from oil got me wondering how many people simply don’t believe we could blow it and screw up modern civilization.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:10:24 AM EDT

[#1]

To me progress is rather realative. I think that we are much better off today tahn we were 2K years ago from the standpoint of freedom, but the romans has indoor plumbing too. Call me when the flying cars that we were promised in the 17 er 1950s come along.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:10:38 AM EDT

[#2]

With mankind, the price of education is usually high.

Our species will most certainly move forward, but not without some heavy bruising.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:17:47 AM EDT

[#3]

History has shown that society has fluctuated in its progress .It all depends if there are factors or influences that will temporarily stomp out the progression of knowledge. Today that sort of thing would include a worldwide nuclear war, in the past it meant simply the collapse of the dominant society that drove intellectual progress. Imagine if the Roman Empire had not fallen and the Dark Ages had not occured, where society would be today without several hundred years of learning and progress hanging on by the merest thread. I would guess that we would have been in space centuries ago, for one thing. Imagine where we'd be if the societies of Egypt that were able to build the Pyramids had continued in their intellectual superiority and not collapsed. The examples abound.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:18:09 AM EDT

[#4]

One Word...

GIANT ASTEROID OF DOOM!!!!!!!

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:19:45 AM EDT

[#5]

As long as there's porn - there'll unbelievable progress in IT.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:22:02 AM EDT

[#6]

I don't believe we are progressing now. Technology alone is not the measure of a stable or sustainable society. If we keep up with the crime and debauchery, technology will not be able to save us and we will eventually devolve.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:22:06 AM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
With mankind, the price of education is usually high.

Our species will most certainly move forward, but not without some heavy bruising.

+1

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:22:48 AM EDT

[#8]

No.
We are NOT going to automatically progress.
Did the Romans "automatically" progress?
The Roman Empire decayed as it was assaulted from all sides by barbarian hordes. Result; one thousand years of economic, political and cultural reversals and stagnation.
The thing that's really scary is that during the Middle Ages there were educated people who knew damn well that the average Roman citizen enjoyed a standard of living much higher than the standard of living of the average vassel, but no one could "get back to the Roman way of life".
We are confronting a very real danger today. If the God damn Islamists ever get their hands on nuclear weapons I really don't think they would have to destroy our entire country to initiate a chain reaction of negatives that could send the developed world into a tailspin that would make the Dark Ages seem like the Enlightenment.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:26:36 AM EDT

[#9]

Quoted:
No.
We are NOT going to automatically progress.
Did the Romans "automatically" progress?
The Roman Empire decayed as it was assaulted from all sides by barbarian hordes. Result; one thousand years of economic, political and cultural reversals and stagnation.
The thing that's really scary is that during the Middle Ages there were educated people who knew damn well that the average Roman citizen enjoyed a standard of living much higher than the standard of living of the average vassel, but no one could "get back to the Roman way of life".
We are confronting a very real danger today. If the God damn Islamists ever get their hands on nuclear weapons I really don't think they would have to destroy our entire country to initiate a chain reaction of negatives that could send the developed world into a tailspin that would make the Dark Ages seem like the Enlightenment.

Your post inspired me to pick up an extra roll of duct tape!

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:27:18 AM EDT

[#10]

There are always setbacks. The Romans fell to the barbarians and we went back, then the Dark Ages, its only a matter of time before war or disease or natural disaster will put us into another dark age. Then later we will emerge better than ever.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:30:28 AM EDT

[#11]

The sum total of human knowledge was greater at the end of the Dark Ages than at the beginning. Progress was made scietifically. Socially it was backwards as your average serf knew far less than a Roman citizen, but knowledge itself was advanced and recorded.

Thus in any even short of something eliminating all sources of records on the planet, mankind will never loose the knowledge he has. We might stagnate for a while, but we will pick up where we left off at some point. We're not going to have start over from square one.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:30:53 AM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:
No.
We are NOT going to automatically progress.
Did the Romans "automatically" progress?
The Roman Empire decayed as it was assaulted from all sides by barbarian hordes. Result; one thousand years of economic, political and cultural reversals and stagnation.
The thing that's really scary is that during the Middle Ages there were educated people who knew damn well that the average Roman citizen enjoyed a standard of living much higher than the standard of living of the average vassel, but no one could "get back to the Roman way of life".
We are confronting a very real danger today. If the God damn Islamists ever get their hands on nuclear weapons I really don't think they would have to destroy our entire country to initiate a chain reaction of negatives that could send the developed world into a tailspin that would make the Dark Ages seem like the Enlightenment.

As long as society does not have something that retards the growth of knowledge, yes, it progresses. The Romans certainly progressed technologically, and their domination of the known world allowed those concepts to spread further than ideas or knowledge that might have been developed elsewhere.Same with the Egyptians and who knows how many other societies that have since been lost in pre-history.

You are right about our technology being very tenuous. It wouldn't take the Middle East to do us in; simply losing a per centage of our population well into the double digits would do it to us. Go hang out in the survival forum a while and you'll get a sense of just how barely our level of civilization hangs on.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:31:47 AM EDT

[#13]

In many ways, we know even less than we did 2,000 years ago.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:43:35 AM EDT

[#14]

Terms like "humankind" are exactly why we may stagnate.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:49:09 AM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:
In many ways, we know even less than we did 2,000 years ago.

Umm like how? I dont buy that for an instant! Are you on crack?

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:50:50 AM EDT

[#16]

Quoted:
One Word...

GIANT ASTEROID OF DOOM!!!!!!!

Mathematics

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:52:56 AM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:
Terms like "humankind" are exactly why we may stagnate.

Why is that?

Posted: 8/24/2005 9:05:50 AM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:
One Word...

GIANT ASTEROID OF DOOM!!!!!!!

<counts...1, 2, 3, 4.>
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

We'll advance...except mathematically.........
Just ribbin ya, Strats!

Posted: 8/24/2005 9:07:30 AM EDT

[#19]

I expect it to all go to hell sometime, but Im always the cheerful one

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Humankind will continue to “progress”?

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