A weekend thought: How will achievements of man be measured 100 years hence?

How do you think man's achievements in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries will be viewed by future generations? We have made progress? Will it matter to us and the planet as much as nature's own whims?

Asher

Try to find Dougal Dixon, After Man, London, 1981.

Asher,

The track record for predictions of that sort aren't all that good. However, I'll venture to say the peak of Western Civilization was reached with "Let's Make a Deal" and we're now on a downward trajectory.

Small nitpick....

Asher Kelman said:

How do you think man's achievements in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries will be viewed by future generations?...

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Will_Perlis said:

..The track record for predictions of that sort aren't all that good. However, I'll venture to say the peak of Western Civilization was reached with "Let's Make a Deal" and we're now on a downward trajectory.

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Hi Will,

I assume that you did not mean to create the impression that the "man's achievements" is equivalent to the the "Western Civilisation" or vice versa?

Cheers,

Cem

Asher Kelman said:

How do you think man's achievements in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries will be viewed by future generations? We have made progress? Will it matter to us and the planet as much as nature's own whims?

Asher

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Hi Asher,

If you consider things in a cosmic scale, we are just a blink in the history of earth. If you compare the last three centuries to the "known" history of mankind, then I'd say that we have certainly made progress. But as you know all too well, there are people who will disagree as to what constitutes "progress" as such. I am certain that in a couple of millenia, if we are still around then, people will not know about or be interested in this era more than we now know about, say, the 6th to 10th centuries A.D.

Have a nice weekend,

Cem

Cem,

Are you contending some non-Western civilization has surpassed "Let's Make a Deal" as a cultural achievement?

Will

Will_Perlis said:

Cem,

Are you contending some non-Western civilization has surpassed "Let's Make a Deal" as a cultural achievement?

Will

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Hi Will,

If I have offended you unknowingly, I apologise. Not knowing what this "Let's make a deal" is, I would not dare contend anything at all .

So in absence of an anwser from you, I'll keep on assuming that:
a) my initial assumption was correct, and that
b) you are writing all this with a tongue-in-the-cheek (me too) ;-)


Cheers,

Cem

In a hundred years, man's achievements are likely to be judged, if at all, by machines. For lots of fascinating discussion along these lines, see Ray Kurzweil's AI site.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Cem,

Actually, I don't know enough about other civilizations to plumb the depths of their decadence. b) is certainly correct.

Will

Will_Perlis said:

Cem,

Actually, I don't know enough about other civilizations to plumb the depths of their decadence. b) is certainly correct.

Will

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LOL, thanks for the clarification. I am still left with a question though, what the heck is "Let's make a deal"?? This is what I found on the net, is that it?


Cheers,

Cem

That's the one Cem. A truly awful tv gameshow that will unfortunately probably outlive us all.
In 100 years people will be looking back saying "Can you believe it? They actually poisoned themselves by bombarding their bodies with radiation to fight cancer? Good thing Pfizer developed that cancer patch."
Of course I also read where life expectency may reach upwards of 150 by then so I intend on being there to find out personally the answers to your questions.
See you there,
James Newman

Door Number Three

For those of you on other than the North American Continent

http://www.letsmakeadeal.com/

For those of you in America, one of my distant relatives actually WON a Buick Station Wagon in about 1971
One of my other former relatives won 50 canned hams and 25 boxes of Certs!

And here's even more than you ever wanted to know about Let's Make A Deal

OK, here's the deal...

Thanks folks for letting me know what "Let's make a deal" is.
@Asher: I am sorry if your thread has somewhat been hijacked by this issue, my apologies.
@All: let's get back on-topic again

Cheers,

Cem

One things for sure, you will be unlikely to rummage through your grandparents sock drawers, and find some old photo negatives ;-)

Ray,

That's both true and upsetting. I've been trying to scan all those old prints, negatives, and slides from the family and put them up on Picasa for the kids to see and perhaps download and preserve further into the future. The image quality may not be that of the original but better than the nothing most people are going to get.

It's been fun seeing the ostensible subjects of the pictures but also I've enjoyed browsing the books on the bookshelves, seeing the knickknacks on the tables, the pictures on the walls, and the cars on the roads in the backgrounds.

Hi Will,

More is less. Now everybody can take snaps, they are not valued. I guess we will be leaving a layer of plastic for future archaeologists from other planets to discover. Who knows, it may be a valuable energy source for some future power plants.

So, look around you.

How many items more than 200 years old, 100, 50, 20, 30, 10. Draw a graph. That would be interesting. I reckon in USA, not much more than ten years - unless collectors items. I expect in Europe, it may be back further - some houses being quite old. I don't know how it would be for Asia. (talking about household items, not the outside scenery)

Best wishes,

throwaray ;-)

Ray,

There are plenty of older-than-ten things in the US, the place is not entirely disposable.

But we've derailed Asher's thread. I think, in a 100 years or so, people are going to be looking at the internet as a primary cause of "neotribalism". The net has made it too easy to find people who agree with one's notions and who will reinforce them. We have the electronic equivalents of medieval villages.

It's true that one CAN find differing views and engage the people holding them. However, I'm a pessimist when it comes to human nature, if there's a way for people to screw up they will find it.

Hi, Asher,

You wrote:

How will achievements of man be measured 100 years hence?

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Dunno, but probably not with a reflective spectrophotometer.

Life over which we have assumed dominion has to survive the huge toilet we made of the planet for us to defecate in.

Perhaps to the extent that we treasure, nurture, rescue, safeguard and protect other species on the planet man's success will be measured.

The technology, literature and arts? That can be recreated to some extent, the hummingbird, butterfly and the Ibex cannot!

So when you photograph wild life, you make one small vote towards posterity!

Asher

Question:

Why are you all cultural pessimists?

They lied 100 years ago, they lied 200 years ago, they will do the same in 100 years from now.

In 100 years my bones will have fertilised graslands deer feeds on. Do I care who makes opinions and lies about history in 100 years? Not really.

What I do care about is that there is gras left for deer to feed on.

Hi Dierk,

I guess, because we notice the bad, more than the good, but I think we tend to remember the good, and not the bad.

Maybe, this period is a time of awakening. It will be remembered as the start of the new era. Thanks to a sort of freedom of communication, I can look at an image taken by Barry when he went from Australia to France, and I and millions of others, if they wish, see that it is not so different or is very different, from home. That was not possible in 1907.

At the same time, others are making a fortune, selling fakes, or stealing your 'identity', using the same tool. That is the price of freedom, I guess. People tend to say the internet is either good, or it is bad - they want to put it into a box, make their decision, so they needn't think about it any more. There is just too much to think about now, since we do not have to grow our own food.... (all these labour saving devices - what the heck do people spend their spare time on these days?)

There is a lot more fear, I think. more monitoring of the population is possible. More thought control, (not always apparent).

Maybe this period may be remembered as when folk were more gullible. Maybe as the beginning of the end of personal greed. The start of the thinking, but not yet getting to the acting.

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi, Cem,

Cem Usakligil said:

I am still left with a question though, what the heck is "Let's make a deal"?? This is what I found on the net, is that it?

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Yep, that's it!

Best regards,

Doug

wrt wildlife,

The planet is not a zoo, here for our amusement. Each creature is doing the best it can, in it's circumstances. If you photograph an Ibex, how do you get there, how much disturbance are you causing? Who benefits, you, or the Ibex?

There is interference, by the 'do gooders', into areas they have no understanding of - oddly enough, another post of Barry's- the magpie. The rspb spokesperson, (the 'do gooder') was quoted as saying something like 'the magpie eats fledglings and other birds eggs, but it has a redeeming feature of controlling pest'. Now, leaving aside the definition of what we say are pests, The magpie maybe eats a few hundred eggs a year. So, how many pests would those birds have eaten, if they had hatched and lived? Also, I am pretty sure that the birds do not selectively eat only what we consider as pests. ( I think it was China where they introduced 'a sparrow killing program' a few years ago.)

But. the magpie has increased, because it has adapted to the world as it is now. That is what we do. In its own way, it will change its world. Our worlds overlap. We changed the concept of the magpie, it is not controlled as it used to be. If the magpie succeeds, and drives off other competitors, why should we want to interfere? Its system will stabilise. Do we want to bring back the controls again? Where is this idea of 'fairness' coming from, why do we want to impose that onto other systems?

So, what to do? I think it would be far better, if you were to, say, send the money you would have spent on travel, to a school local to 'Ibex land' for them to buy a couple of cameras, to let the kids take the photo's of 'their Ibex'. Then, maybe you want to promote and publish those in the west. Use the cash from the sales to demolish the evil, greedy, large multi-national corporations, educate the folk local to you, the ones that are causing the changes. Then, the time you saved in travelling, you can spend that in demolishing the fashion crap, or whatever, associated with 'dog breeding', or improving the lot of intensively farmed food animals. As it is, I can find all the photos of 'wildlife', that I or anyone else could possibly need, thanks to today's technology...

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,

Urban man has little knowledge of the world outside. Certainly most of the "educated ones", the lawyers, industrialists and bankers really are mostly in the stone age as far as having any grasp of implications for what they, with their power, influence and authority do.

I personally believe George Bush has no real concept of a the inter-dependancy of life on planet. These guys are not just selfish. They simply do not have the tools to approach todays problems. Worse, believing in creationsism and divine intervention really drops us back 10,000 years when we can now burn up the entire planet!

That's why I think that the next 100 years is critical for many species we value to be able to survive what we do to them!

Man has invented writing in different cultures. No one has as yet invented a hummingbirds!

Asher

Asher, I'm saying that it will not help the humming bird if I take a photo of it, getting there will cause more damage, and cost my time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. Look at the problems in your national parks, for example. You take the humming bird photos, I'll take the mixy infected rabbit photos.

Mankind may have invented writing, but still finds it difficult in communicating, even in the same language, more or less.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,

As much as a stretch as it my be, my feeling, wish and prayer is that making people familiar with wildlife will create an aware society. That in turn that might create an imperative to protect wildlife.

For sure, if people do not understand or appreciate other species, why should they make adaptions on their behalf?

As an expert cynic you may have rightious disdain for such "naive" faith in the potential for man's good heart. Nevertheless, I do believe in the latent altruism that is in man's nature! I just want to wake it up!

Asher

...... and I my add we don't need to trek into the wilderness to become socially aware! On that, Ray, you're unquestionably correct.