Civilization So Far: Good or Bad?

[Xzengrim]

Okay! Civilization so far... good thing or bad thing? You can only vote one way, and you have to take everything into account and pick either good or bad.

I'm going to pick good .

This came from an argument I was having with my sister, who's a born-again, the other day. She said that people in Jerusalem were trying to rebuild a temple that somehow had something to do with revelation prophecy. I said that if the temple is going to figure into the end of the world somehow, they should make sure NEVER to build the thing. Raze the land! Salt the earth! Destroy everything.

To which she says: the Rapture would be a good thing, because heaven is much prefferrable to earth. I said that it's a pretty good civilization we've got going here, and we shouldn't ruin it if we can help it. She said that compared to heaven, this whole earth and everyone on it sucks royally. It would be a good thing to go to heaven.

To which Grim said: We could have both!! We could live our lives here, and see everything the earth has, then go to heaven for some more of whatever they got going over there. We could have both!!

I think that all things considered, this is a pretty good civilization we've got going here. We have electricity, cars, the internet... toilet paper. Clothes are cheap and effective. Food is at hand 24 hours a day. Compared to every other society in every other time, we've got it pretty good.

Although, I think that that's just the more basic lupine part of my personality talking. I'm fundamentally amazed by the availability of food, shelter, and peace around here. I think that, from an animalistic standpoint, this place has got some problems, but it's pretty nice.

[LycanSpectre]

I'm gonna say good. Not ideal, but good enough. Civilization has a lot of potential right now. As long as we dont screw up royally, we can still advance, make our lives better and more convenient, but still allow non-human things to exist as well. I'd love to be around for the next 1000 years to see what happens.

[spawnofFenrir]

Im going to say bad for Civilisation is advancement of the human race and yet the more we advance the more we seal our fate its happened many times and will happen again in many ancient civillisations their sucess has been there downfall

[Ender]

Steel. We have steel, massive amounts of it more or less at our disposal. Do you have any idea how fucking amazing THAT alone is? We can mass produce steel and other metals in under a week to build and construct structures and mobiles. Jesus winning a fist fight, thats how amazing that is.

If you step back and take a look at what our ancestors of four, three or even one thousand years ago have accomplished it's really is amazing compared to ANY other organism on this planet. The greatest (IMHO) inventions and advancements have just been made in the last two centuries, so yes, I think the best is yet to come.

A month or so ago it struck me that if I lost my job, then my house and car, what would I do? And I wasn't worried, I didn't know why I wasn't worried though. Being on the 'street', so to speak, should be a horrifying right? No. I, as a Homo sapien, am the baddest chordate this continent has seen in two great exstintions for one. Second, for the last 70 years or so people have been setting up homes and businesses and places to live. Now, if it ever came to the state that I didn't have a place to live and work for the material things I needed, which are FOOD, SHELTER, and A SOURCE OF HEAT, I could simply walk down the road, and there would be ample supply for a week or so. Now, from here (RhoseIsland USA) to California USA there is nothing but this set up. Food, shelter, and sources of heat enough to sustain my body.

"Humanz suck!!!" is something of a up and coming fad among the younger Americans, well, if you can't look around and see what I just pointed out, pull your head out the person's ass you have been listening to for the last 7 years.

[Teej]

I'm on the side of good and bad. We've accomplished amazing things, but I really believe that we could be our own downfall. How's that for an accomplishment? :)

[LycanSpectre]

You can only vote one way, and you have to take everything into account and pick either good or bad.

I'm on the side of good and bad.

So which one is it? Good OR bad?

[Qyv]

im on the side of good here, for a change.

we have achieved so much in our existence, to start we learnt to walk upright.then theres the whole fire thing, what a concept, a way to keep warm even when its freakin freezin outside the cave/shelter, wow. clothing, another wow, a way to keep warm when we arent in the loving heat of a fire. spears (or just big pointy sticks) all that meat, a damned good way to grow big and strong. farming, so we can have food at our beck and call (give or take the odd drought) farming animals, even bigger wow, we no longer need to knacker ourselves out chasing our bloody food, it sits in a field and waits for you to come along and kill it.
communities, sweet, i can learn what Ug from the next valley knows without doing it (hell, why should i get my arm ripped off by a wolf if i can learn from him not to try and pet one) we also find out the really clever way he wrapped his wound up in a piece of fur and stopped the bleeding, and the blue skin demons (read: gangrene)havent come because the fur stopped them getting in, learning starts, we need to find a way of communicating ideas, language and written language evolves. scary guys with their noses pierced with bone crop up saying they can cure you basically shoving different plants down your mouth till you get better, hence modern medecine is formed
also, markets, weve got loads of meat but no apples [best i could think of alright!] lets go swap some meat with Ug from the next valley for his apples. transport, another sweet idea, we dont have to just trade with Ug from the next valley anymore we can now travel a days walk in a few hours now, lets trade with Ugg from the other side of the mountain aswell, hes got lots of clay we can make into pots to store our meat and apples. from there we go to boats, hell yeah, we can travel across big water now, just as well as our valleys gettin a bit crowded, lets send some of the young ones out to make new homes. from there we get to the humble letter, look our sons come home with letters from the other explorers to their families.
then malls, cinemas, aeroplanes, mobile phones, the internet....
now i know this a bit of a jump, but hey, whats a few millenia between friends. i also know ive left out other details but hey, what am i, your personal history teacher?
i can now get to australia or amerca in days not months, i can speak to people in other countries in an instant and not have to wait for mail to be delivered.

ps, i do know that in many cases trade with can be substituted for make war with, but hey, diversity is the spice of life

but all in all im gonna say current civilisation is pretty damned good, the majority of the world has food, shelter and scary guys with noses pierced with bone to shove various concoctions down our throats till we get better, we also have those that work towards trying to make the majority into all so that none need go hungry, cold or ill.

sod the rapture, ill stay here thank you very much. who wants a perfect world anyway what would there be to learn?

[Thought]

I think it started out as good, but that has been in a decline.

Sure we have a lot of things at our disposal,like steel, but how long will that last. Every single major civilization in the world has crumbled, to be replaced by something else that works, but only for awhile. Egypt, Rome, and China hae had some of the most successful civilizations in history. Egypt has crumbled. Rome has fallen. China is transformed.

The only nation in the entire world that had a truly long lasting and productive civilization was China, and while they are still very strong, they are nothing like what they once were.

Our civilization in North America, is not really all that stable. Corruption is rampant in all areas of Government and Law. Many laws are not enforced. We are in decline. It seems inevitable that it will crumble like all the others.

Civilization is bad. We need something new.

[Ender]

Egypt and Rome are still where they were at their peak of strength and greatness, they have suffered some failures, sure, they are getting back on their feet though. I wouldn't consider Egypt to have been all that 'good' at it's peak for that matter. Slavery, disease, not enough food for it's people, and nutty leaders telling them to build enormous pyrimids to apease their religions at the time, sounds like a horrible way to live to me.

[Thought]

It's not that Egypt had a lot of bad policies, it's what the managed to accomplish. Building a pyramid is a feat of genius. They were kind of short on things that could easily move 2-ton rocks across the dessert.

As far as being where they where, that's only geographically. At one point in time, they where the focal points of the known world. They had the best armies, and the citizens lived the most comfortable lives. The same can be said for the present day U.S.

[Ender]

Granted, two or three similarities among a possible five thousand hardly warrants a decent comparison.

[Wolffy13]

I think Civilization and Society are two separate things.

Civilization is good, especially these days. You can have a limb amputated without fear of gangrene, no one gets buried alive anymore, and my husband can play PC games every morning, with his best friend who is states away because of the internet, and I can use a phone anytime to check on relatives.

Society, in my opinion, is just downright aweful. Women kill themselves all the time to look like the current trendy actress/supermodel/singer, it's almost normal to be obese and continue the habits that make one that way, and too many criminals are walking the streets.

Just my two cents worth.