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Goodbye Jesus

Our Modern World


HuaiDan

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For millions of years, our human and prehuman ancestors, going back to the primordial slime, lived under the unforgiving sky. They pulled their naked bodies through slime and filth, were rained upon, preyed upon others and were preyed upon, and regarded their world in the most concrete, non-verbal way, surviving in a brutal world partially by following their specific instincts and partially by dumb luck, communicating with others with a "raaaaauuugh" or a "hummmmppph" or a "caw caw".

This happened as the earth turned unstoppably, for millions and millions of years, endlessly....

 

Welcome the age of reason and consumerism. Now we're filming high definition video on tiny microchips, sending messages around the globe in a split second, wearing clothes that we made from something that was made from something else that was made from something else, deciphering and manipulating our own DNA, reverse-engineering the basic building blocks of matter and energy. Every new advance that's made and integrated into our technoculture is rapidly taken for granted. How long have any of these innovations been around.

 

Does it freak anyone out that all this stuff is happening right now, during the generation you and I just happened to be born in, for the first time ever in the history of the universe, for all we know? I kind of get the feeling like I'm a piece of plankton at the forefront of the crest of a wave crashing on the beach. We've never been here before. No one has. Ever.

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Sometime around the industrial revolution, our survival stopped depending on how well and efficiently we could use existing things, and started depending on how fast we could develop and distribute new things.

 

 

I get kind of a 'Matrix' feeling to all of it.

I mean just imagine! All this shit just happened to occur in the brief cosmic split second you and I are living in. Ok, sure, people have always had innovations, but never at this magnitude, and humans as a whole have only been around for a brief cosmic split-second themselves! So I don't quite think "the ocean always reaches the shore" quite applies here.

 

The day I was born: no such thing as a microchip. Today: Everything we do is based on microchip technology in some way. This is ultrarevolutionary. And gives me quite the "pale blue dot" perspective.

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In a way our tool use is the ultimate evolutionary advantage. We can modify our environment or attune ourselves to it to allow us to live in even those most hostile to us. While we are not the only species on this planet to do this, we are those currently most proficient at it. [

 

As far as technological advancement, I am not sure that we are advancing at a faster pace than before. Every generation has their revolutionary change(s), they redefine life for people, and seems like a quantum leap forward. It is telling though, that despite all of our advancement, we are still dealing with many of the same issues that we have been dealing with for at least the last 2000 years or longer (I can only speak that far back, Latin is fun language for social commentary going way back), not only in society, but maladies, and dealing with the world at large.

 

Also the ultraadvanced view is rather myopic. Looking beyond the first world, you have a time warp with other societies in countries that don't have access to resources that allow the infrastructure of the first world to allow for what appears to be this accelerating change in tech.

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It is pretty amazing, but I wonder if we will continue advancing at this pace much longer.

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It is pretty amazing, but I wonder if we will continue advancing at this pace much longer.

 

Probably not. Eventually, many of our resources will run out. There's only so much iron and copper in the ground.

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For millions of years, our human and prehuman ancestors, going back to the primordial slime, lived under the unforgiving sky. They pulled their naked bodies through slime and filth, were rained upon, preyed upon others and were preyed upon, and regarded their world in the most concrete, non-verbal way, surviving in a brutal world partially by following their specific instincts and partially by dumb luck, communicating with others with a "raaaaauuugh" or a "hummmmppph" or a "caw caw".

This happened as the earth turned unstoppably, for millions and millions of years, endlessly....

 

Welcome the age of reason and consumerism. Now we're filming high definition video on tiny microchips, sending messages around the globe in a split second, wearing clothes that we made from something that was made from something else that was made from something else, deciphering and manipulating our own DNA, reverse-engineering the basic building blocks of matter and energy. Every new advance that's made and integrated into our technoculture is rapidly taken for granted. How long have any of these innovations been around.

 

Does it freak anyone out that all this stuff is happening right now, during the generation you and I just happened to be born in, for the first time ever in the history of the universe, for all we know? I kind of get the feeling like I'm a piece of plankton at the forefront of the crest of a wave crashing on the beach. We've never been here before. No one has. Ever.

 

Sign of the times. Excellent post Dan.

 

Now I risk being labeled a nutcase here. But I suspect that other organisms in the universe, and perhaps our galaxy, have shared such experiences.

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In 1893 J. Frank and Charles E. Duryea produced the first successful gasoline-powered automobile in the United States.

 

A mere 114 years ago.

 

My father was nearly grown before he saw his first automobile.

 

He died just as the term, "computer," was entering the vocabulary of the average American.

 

I think all the time about the escalating telescoping of events, and of Future Shock.

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My grandfather was born before the civil war. No shit, that's not a misprint. I am 50, my dad is 85, and his dad was 68 in 1922 when he (my dad) was born. I, too, am in awe of the changes in just 2 generations.

It's amazing to me that the civil rights movement here in the US was only 45 or so years ago. And it far from over. Can you believe that we've only within the last half century begun to treat our fellow humans as equals? Technologically, we're advancing at an exponential rate. As humans, not nearly as quickly.

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Technologically, we're advancing at an exponential rate. As humans, not nearly as quickly.

This is what I'm concerned about for the world of my grandchildren.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well.........To be honest, I can't help but wonder if perhaps those that lived during the Roman Empire were convinced that society had reached its social, political and scientific pinnacle, a sentiment that was shared by those living during the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.

 

I kinda doubt that at any period of time, people said, "Isn't it something how we're stuck in a time warp and haven't created anything new or progressive in hundreds of years?" I'll bet that even those that lived during the Dark Ages considered themselves to be living in a very interesting time, indeed.

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interesting that most religions think that they are living in the last age, or one of the last generations. this seems especially true for fundies who predict apacolypse every few years only to come up short. just look at the money hal lindsey makes predicting rapture. his books are best sellers. i guess people find it comforting knowing that they are going to be the vacumed generation

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Yeah, I remember reading in the Arabian Nights, the Fisherman reporting to the Jinni (who'd been entrapped in a bottle for 400 years) that they were living in the last days of the world, and those stories were recording in the Middle Ages and Rennaissance. It seems the belief that God's Judgement is just around the corner is something seen in both Christian and Muslim cultures, across all ages.

 

But I was thinking about this: For the past millenia, we've been divided by tribe, nation, continent, and culture. Now it seems we are very slowly starting to view ourselves more as a single society, albeit full of wonderful (and sometimes not-so-wonderful) variations, inhabiting a single place: Earth. Perhaps it is this understanding of the population that leads to further contact with outside life forms; once we are done looking at each other, we can start looking outside our own realm.

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I feel like I've been lost in the landslide of technology because of pricing. I can't afford to spend my money on these new gadgets when they require $40 monthly fees on top of taxes and long distance calls--for cell phones and ISP for wireless stuff at WIFIs. I looked forward to the day when these things would be available--I grew up reading Popular Mechanics and other magazines that wrote about the future. Now it is available but the cost is too high for me to ignore other responsibilities just so I can play with all the neat stuff. I have the cable internet with TV, mortgage and utilities and gasoline and with no let up in rising prices for these other necessities, I may go back to mailing letters instead of using the internet. I may quit driving my car too. There is a limit to what I will pay for the privilege for having internet, car, insurance, whatever ...

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Does it freak anyone out that all this stuff is happening right now, during the generation you and I just happened to be born in, for the first time ever in the history of the universe, for all we know? I kind of get the feeling like I'm a piece of plankton at the forefront of the crest of a wave crashing on the beach. We've never been here before. No one has. Ever.

 

Not really. To me it is the result of the "snowball effect". Once the ball starts rolling, it gets bigger rapidly by momentum. All around the globe, tech is growing as one person or persons, add the the invention of another. It cannot help but accelerate. Remove religion from the globe, and the advancements will increase exponentially.

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Sometime around the industrial revolution, our survival stopped depending on how well and efficiently we could use existing things, and started depending on how fast we could develop and distribute new things.

 

 

I get kind of a 'Matrix' feeling to all of it.

I mean just imagine! All this shit just happened to occur in the brief cosmic split second you and I are living in. Ok, sure, people have always had innovations, but never at this magnitude, and humans as a whole have only been around for a brief cosmic split-second themselves! So I don't quite think "the ocean always reaches the shore" quite applies here.

 

The day I was born: no such thing as a microchip. Today: Everything we do is based on microchip technology in some way. This is ultrarevolutionary. And gives me quite the "pale blue dot" perspective.

 

 

I know the feeling you are driving at. Like you won a cosmic superball lotto. Well, truth is you did. However, all the ones that lost this lotto, don't know they have lost because they are dead or never were born. It could be an unknowable moving number, spinning forward. Infinity. Congrats, you win! However, the losers have no idea the lottery took place.

 

Make sense? Here, take a hit of this... (passes pipe)

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Now I risk being labeled a nutcase here. But I suspect that other organisms in the universe, and perhaps our galaxy, have shared such experiences.

 

Oh in a truly infinite multiverse, which is likely, you are probably closer to the truth then you think, not a nutjob at all.

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My grandfather was born before the civil war. No shit, that's not a misprint. I am 50, my dad is 85, and his dad was 68 in 1922 when he (my dad) was born. I, too, am in awe of the changes in just 2 generations.

It's amazing to me that the civil rights movement here in the US was only 45 or so years ago. And it far from over. Can you believe that we've only within the last half century begun to treat our fellow humans as equals? Technologically, we're advancing at an exponential rate. As humans, not nearly as quickly.

 

That's amazing to me par! My grandparents go pretty far back too, but they are all dead now. But they had very interesting stories to tell.

 

I remember the kennedy assasination through the eyes of a child, and only because my grandmother started crying, and so did my mom. You probably remember that too, as well as king's assasination, nixon's empeachment, lunar landings, the hippie movement.. LOL I feel old when I realize all the history I witnessed, imagine what your grand father thinks/thought.

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