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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The world now and then
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose that many Christians want to see Christianity as implicated in modern progress, since presumably the 'God of history' leads somewhere, or has a goal, a direction. Fair enough, but it seems a bit lame to me to say that there has been progress in the West, the West has been mainly Christian, therefore the root of progress is Christian. Or maybe that is too crude a summary.
It sounds like post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Put like that, I agree. The problem is that it's difficult to dissociate things done during a time when most people pledged allegiance to Christianity, and which are because of that, with things done in the name of Christianity which would have been done anyway. It works both ways of course.
I think it gets easier when you look at individual examples such as founding of almshouses, the Samaritans, etc. etc.
However, the matter of the teleological view of history, which is intimately associated with what this thread is all about, is by no means confined to religious types. It can be very dangerous. There's a very interesting discussion on this subject, and its close colleague utopianism, if anybody is interested in pursuing it, in John Gray's "Black Mass".
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Well, there is the old idea that the idealist is the most dangerous person in any society, as they can easily start to force you to agree with them, and then punish you, if you don't. Of course, politics is full of such movements, as well as religion.
It's customary to quote Robespierre at this point, so here goes, 'virtue without violence is impotent; terror without virtue is something something something'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Put the word "potentially" in that first line and we have agreement. We still need idealists for other things, such as supplying heads to be lopped off.
More realistically, we also need idealists for positive purposes.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Robespierre also said that no-one likes armed missionaries, yet that's what he became in a way. It's so tempting, just a little extra persuasion, coercion. After all, we are bringing civilization to the unwashed, and one day, they will be grateful (and dead).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Robespierre is poison now of course. But he was a conscientious man who always lived modestly. A confirmed pacifist, a man who devoted much of his effort to the defence of the poor, and an opponent of capital punishment. Until he got into power. He genuinely believed the noble ends justified the means.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl quote:
but it seems a bit lame to me to say that there has been progress in the West, the West has been mainly Christian, therefore the root of progress is Christian
I know this is all a bit off topic, but a quick check shows many civilisations lasting far longer than the Christian era barely getting beyond some good mathematics and stone buildings.
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl quote:
I know this is all a bit off topic, but a quick check shows many civilisations lasting far longer than the Christian era barely getting beyond some good mathematics and stone buildings.
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundamental has changed.
For a large part standing on the shoulders of giants.
Exaggerated with a bit of chronological superiority where e-mail, webpages, google, facebook, ... each count as their own advance, but even the steam engine is sufficiently long ago to be the 'steam engine'.
In addition there are lots of things that give big feedback, it's much easier to have education if you can eat. It's a lot easier to avoid reinventing the wheel if you can google it. And certain mathematics are useful to get to Newfoundland let alone the moon.
As to why us, you can't avoid the I,C,S words either. Obviously they've worked in both directions, (shores of tripoli, and all that).
But those feedback factors mentioned above, once it's the Hindu's starving to send the grain (indirectly) to Christendom's universities* (rather than on more regional levels), then who do you expect to reach the moon first.
Also climate and other effects, in particular western europe has good weather (relatively) and got off lightly with the mongols (unlike say the Islamic world and China), while still getting the tech swapping from the east (and previously the middle east).
*ok it's more complicated than that, it's Indian's starving to grow opium to sell to the Chinese...
[ 15. April 2016, 21:19: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
The author was unconvinced that Christianity had any causal role to play in starting the scientific revolution off. Though it occurs to me that Christianity is the only major world religion in which the central revelation is confessedly a new revelation and not a retrieval of ancient wisdom.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I avoided this thread but the Columbus reference provoked me. It's all about frame of reference. If European or European descended, the party may be on. If not, you're not invited. The economic system promoted since the 1970s has been reported as increasing rich and poor gaps within developed countries, and between countries.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
That's such unmitigated crap it hardly warrants a response.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Hmmm...seems to me that we've got a really tangled skein of yarn here--maybe several tangled-together skeins that picked up all sorts of detritus, had Neapolitan ice cream spilled on them, lay at tide's edge on a remote beach for a couple centuries, and picked up enough more detritus to start a cargo cult. Then someone sprinkled confetti on the whole thing, sold it to a wealthy tourist, and retired to Vermont.
--People did good works before Christianity.
--People came up with clever things before Christianity. Some examples:
"5 Advanced Ancient Technologies That Shouldn't Be Possible." (And no, not ancient astronauts.)
Ancient technology (Wikipedia).
--ISTM that, if Christianity's true, it applies to *everyone*, whether they hunt with flint-tipped spears, live in a palace, or drift around in the Int'l Space Station.
--Some of the ideas on this thread are entirely too self-congratulatory--on behalf of Christianity, Western civilization, modern times and technology, and sliced bread. Rather like humans saying that humans are the peak of all Creation.
--There's a theory that Columbus was Jewish, and converted to save his hide. So you could credit Judaism, at least as much as Christianity, for his explorations.
--Columbus was hardly the first explorer. Humans, by nature and circumstance, go elsewhere--due to curiosity, low food supplies, war, natural disasters, etc.
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
--This really sounds like some sort of Golden Age theory. (Wikipedia)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I recently read a book that dated the scientific revolution to the fact that Columbus discovered a new continent where there wasn't supposed to be a continent. And it was that that made people start thinking that there might be knowledge to be gained that nobody had known before.
That's such unmitigated crap it hardly warrants a response.
Why? (Other than that I'm trying to summarise a chapter of a book in one over-complex sentence?)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
There's a theory that Columbus was Jewish, and converted to save his hide. So you could credit Judaism, at least as much as Christianity, for his explorations.
The Columbus argument is from someone who doesn't credit Christianity.
(Wikipedia doesn't mention anything of Columbus having Jewish background.)
[ 16. April 2016, 07:12: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Golden Key wrote:
quote:
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
Yes, this one baffled me. I suppose smartphones were intended by God after all, I wish he'd improve the batteries.
There is a common argument that science took off in the West, because there was the premise that God had a goal for humans, and therefore nature could be seen as the book, wherein that plan was written.
It's an interesting idea, although somewhat guessy.
You could actually reverse it - that science took off once it was free of superstitious stuff. Quote, 'I have no need of that hypothesis', (Laplace), now reckoned to be somewhat apocryphal.
Well, the supernatural just gets in the way, doesn't it? I think Newton suggested that God intervened to keep the solar system stable, but that was shown to be unnecessary by Laplace.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
People came up with clever things before Christianity.
Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
Are not these the exceptions that prove the rule?
My belief is that social change powered the dramatic advance of technology in the Christian west, and social change is the prime result of Christian teaching. This despite the natural tendency of anyone in power (and I include "Christian hierarchy") to suppress anything that weakens it.
Technological advance is obviously not the aim of Christian teaching but a side effect.
quote:
ISTM that, if Christianity's true, it applies to *everyone*, whether they hunt with flint-tipped spears, live in a palace, or drift around in the Int'l Space Station.
That statement seems so vague and garbled that I can't make a reasonable reply, except to say that you at least have to know the news before you can act on it.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Technological advances are also powered by the development of capitalism; still, I suppose you could argue that Jesus foresaw leveraged finance, so 3 cheers for him, now I know why my mortgage was so **** expensive.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I think that anyone can argue "progress is because of [my favourite world view]." I don't see much value in this.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Tangent on GoldenKey's link about ancient technologies. Apropos of nothing, really, but last time I looked the Lycurgus cup was in the British museum.
M.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, Dafyd: Sounds like you're assuming it has anti-Christian roots, rather than having heard/read anything about it.
I'm assuming that the argument is Christian-neutral because I've read the book.
I think we're really talking past each other.
I read a book (Invention of Science) by David Wootton. He thinks the scientific revolution was started off by Columbus discovering America. He does not think Christianity had much of an effect either way.
I don't have an opinion either way on Columbus being Jewish. If Columbus had been Spanish I would have thought it highly likely - a lot of interesting Spanish people probably did, but he wasn't Spanish; he was Italian. The Huffington Post article looks terribly flimsy to me. There's an awful lot of mights about the evidence - it's almost at William Shakespeare didn't write the plays levels.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I'm not sure that I've ever read any history of science that dealt with anything called "supernatural". They tend to deal with earlier beliefs in other ways entirely. Having just looked it up, as far as I can see it first puts in an appearance in Thomas Aquinas, though that is of course in the context of scholastic philosophy. Its modern usage doesn't seem to appear until around the mid-1500s.
Which might just be another geeky fact, but the point to be drawn from it is that it is difficult to avoid the observation that it looks like a construct of the modern era and our way of thinking. Its hard to see how something only conceptualized long after the development of rigorous empiricism (Friar Bacon, mid 13th century) could be what hindered the development of scientific methodology. Not to mention that Bacon was - er - a friar.
Nice try though. Next theory please.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
Well, there's this thing called "paradigm shift". See under Thomas Kuhn or philosophy of science, Wikipedia, etc. If we are talking about scientific progress, then the observation is exactly that it does involve pivotal moments.
I'm not arguing for it here - that would be a bigger thing to attempt. But I don't think this particular objection is sustainable, at least according to current thinking. Which come to think of it, is itself empirically testable.
Though if you are saying that the simplistic part is the absence of other factors that also need to be in place, then I agree.
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
The other way to think of it is the longer view. We have a civilization. Why did the velociraptors not have a civilization? For all we know they were great poets, dramatists of genius, songsters more glorious than any human opera troupe. Some achievements do not last and leave no record.
So imagine cultures, species even, stepping up to the plate and hefting the bat. They have their innings, for good or for ill, and then they fade and it's someone else's turn. Some hit the ball farther than others. Finally, we happen to really get it up and out there.
Is that due to any particular virtue or specialness in us? Or is it because somebody eventually had to get the bat onto the ball at just the right angle to get a good hit?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
My remark about sending rockets to the moon was only off the cuff - it could have been heart transplants.
As I have said "Technological advance is obviously not the aim of Christian teaching but a side effect"
Social change has preserved technological change which in other civilisations has seemed to be still born. Since technological advance is exponential this does explain the dramatic advances in the Christian era. My aurgument remains that the social change effected by Christian teaching is ultimately the reason for today's advanced technology.
However, I would be interested to be told of any books that give another explanation.
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
However, I would be interested to be told of any books that give another explanation.
I too am a fan of the idea that religion is the real cause of technological and social progress. However there are plenty of other points of view.
Among those alternative explanations, my favorite is the one advanced by Jared Diamond in his 2005 best seller "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
Wikipedia sums up the book this way:
quote:
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops.
I found the book persuasive and fascinating, nor do I think that it contradicts the positive impact of Christianity on the development of society and technological advance. It simply becomes one of the "positive feedback loops."
Among the many interesting observations made in the book are his comments about the long term effects of the domestication of large animals. It just so happened that Eurasians had easily domesticated animals in their environment - something lacking everywhere else. These animals changed everything. How strange is that?
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
I suppose me making the point that warfare has the habit of creating heightened ingenuity, the Mother of invention and all that, doesn't exactly steal credibility from the effect of Christianity. It being no stranger to conflict both internal and external.
It is though interesting to view the geography of technological progress and wonder why places like Africa, which has had plenty going for it, hasn't advanced at the same pace as somewhere like N. America.
Industry and order does undoubtly of have something to do with it. Maybe I'll accept Christianity for all it's faults and squabblings has, to a large degree, fostered the ordered work ethic which lead to European supremacy and it's spread.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Another theory, which is as good as any other, is that it has to do with finance. The systems that allow you to lend at interest, and be more or less assured that the other party doesn't abscond with your money, allow all modern finance. With loans, you can build big business.
I would hesitate very much indeed, to attribute any of this to Christianity. If Jesus showed any interest in the advance of technology, the progress of civilization, or the generation of world wealth, He contrived to entirely avoid mentioning it in His earthly life. I believe this tendency could entirely be laid to propinquity -- the disaster you know best is surely the worst, and the empire or era or civilization you are in is surely the greatest.
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A Sojourner
Apprentice
# 17776
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
Why would you say today's civilisation has gone to the moon and back? Something fundemental has changed.
Noting of course that the rocket technology used in Space exploration by the U.S. was liberated from the Nazis at the end of WW2.
I think we enter murky water when we try to analysis that which is or isn't good for human progress. IMO it is a tad simplistic to attribute all such progress to one individual who went down in history as being God's only Son.
Well, there's this thing called "paradigm shift". See under Thomas Kuhn or philosophy of science, Wikipedia, etc. If we are talking about scientific progress, then the observation is exactly that it does involve pivotal moments.
I'm not arguing for it here - that would be a bigger thing to attempt. But I don't think this particular objection is sustainable, at least according to current thinking. Which come to think of it, is itself empirically testable.
Though if you are saying that the simplistic part is the absence of other factors that also need to be in place, then I agree.
I do think the rocket to the moon exemplar isn't a particularly good choice, though. Personally I think it looked more like a bit of international willy-waving. Putting useful satellites into orbit might have been a better example, though it doesn't have quite the gee-whiz factor.
If you want two examples of techological change which have radically changed society for the better. The bicycle and the washing machine.
The Bicycle gave ordinary people (and especially women) a freedom of mobility that was previously unheard of. For middle class women in particular it actually meant that they were allowed to wonder without a man in a way that would have been scandalous a decade or two earlier.
The Washing Machine has been even more revolutionary. Before it washing clothes was a time-consuming task which would have eaten large portions of a woman's day (and it was almost always women who washed the clothes.) The arrival of the washing machine meant that woman who may have once been stuck washing clothes for much of the day suddenly had a lot more time on their hands whether for work, study or play.
It's the unglmaourous inventions which have truly revolutionised the way we live for the better.
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
A Sojourner, my late mother would definitely agree with you as regards to the washing machine. In her married life she went from washing my oldest brother's nappies (diapers) in a stream, using a copper to heat the water to wash the clothes, to a non-automatic washing machine for the youngest son's nappies. Then finally an automatic machine (after all the offspring were long over the need for nappies).
I don't think Christianity caused any of this, but on really cold mornings she frequently blessed the inventors.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Luther's comment: Other men laugh at a man hanging out his son's nappies to dry, but God smiles with pleasure.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
I put it down to the neoliberal ideas which started to get a hold in UK politics under Callaghan and have been with us ever since through all administrations.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Dafyd--
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW, Dafyd: Sounds like you're assuming it has anti-Christian roots, rather than having heard/read anything about it.
I'm assuming that the argument is Christian-neutral because I've read the book.
I think we're really talking past each other.
Yes, sorry. I read your comment about (IIRC) "the author does not credit Christianity" as referring to the Columbus theory, rather than the book you cited.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Tangent on GoldenKey's link about ancient technologies. Apropos of nothing, really, but last time I looked the Lycurgus cup was in the British museum.
I looked at the article last night. There's a link in the cup section to the British Museum. Don't know if the article writer was wrong about it being at the Smithsonian, or maybe the BM lent it out?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by shadeson:
I'm not trying to put a Christian gloss on Stevan Pinker's book but I am convinced it all started 2000 years ago and the world will continue to get better.
I used to think that - a combination of my socialism and the idea that we are building God's kingdom on earth - but I stopped belioeving it when thatcher came to power in 1978 and undid all the improvements we had mae - and again when the coalition came to power in 2010.
For every step forwards, it seems we fall back too.
I put it down to the neoliberal ideas which started to get a hold in UK politics under Callaghan and have been with us ever since through all administrations.
I find this interesting, in relation to ideas about 'the God of history', or whatever name it is given, the God who has a plan in history, or who directs history.
I suppose if you support neo-liberalism, then you could argue that this is God-driven. Well, aren't there Christians who see capitalism as the acme of historical progress?
It all seems to become rather chaotic to me as an explanation of history, but I suppose you might be able to discern God's plan working in the chaos. Auschwitz was a strike by the anti-Christ maybe, and then 70 years' peace in Europe a blow against the anti-Christ? It's just a bit cartoon-like.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
Many thanks for all the points of view. It does appear that most would prefer (given an informed choice) to live today rather than a few generations back. Certainly I don't see technology as the great advantage - though it has done a lot to make the world a more caring community. And this happening without organised religion which I think is now left a bit floundering.
Posts: 136 | From: uk | Registered: May 2012
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
Technology, in the form of media attention as video, audio, and written accounts, has done a lot to expose less-than-caring behavior.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
Possibly television and mobile communications?
Posts: 136 | From: uk | Registered: May 2012
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
I am sure everyone reading this is old enough to remember 9-11. The power of TV and cell phone and internet made that a world event. I remember going to London that October. I speak like an American, and people stopped me in the streets of London to offer me condolences.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Everything is televised. Even the recent earthquakes were being filmed on mobile phones as the buildings fell upon them.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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shadeson
Shipmate
# 17132
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Posted
Possibly the poet is NO PROPHET because I think the last line should read "The revolution is live".
The hidden fact of a revolution that started 2000 years ago has resulted in a tree which is so big that the roots cannot be seen from the top. But "the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches" and will continue to do so. Religion or no religion.
Posts: 136 | From: uk | Registered: May 2012
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
shadeson--
How has technology "done a lot to make the world a more caring community"?
Technology, in the form of media attention as video, audio, and written accounts, has done a lot to expose less-than-caring behavior.
And given new means for less-than-caring behavior. Ask all the people who've been bullied online. People who've been scammed. People whose loved ones have been recruited to do bad things. People who've had news cameras shoved in their faces, in the middle of trauma. People who've been stalked. People who've had their identities stolen. People who've been trafficked.
Media can be used for both good and bad purposes.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Media can be used for both good and bad purposes.
No argument. Yes it can.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I think there’s more to it than television coverage. Social media has changed the game in other ways.
Having grown up in the UK prior to the IRA ceasefire, I’ve been exposed to my fair share of terrorist incidents. Like many British people, I can be fairly calm and unruffled in the face of terrorism. It’s a fact of life, if it’s not your day, it’s not your day etc.
However, the Paris attacks of 13 November felt very, very different to me to anything I’d known before. The reason was that everyone was following the full horror in real time on social media. I mentioned at the time how on that night facebook geolocalised all their Parisian users via their smartphones and sent out an automated message, “x was in the danger zone, check they’re ok”. (I know this because we were indeed at a party 300 metres away from the cafés that got shot up and my husband’s smartphone did exactly this without his knowledge or consent.) We travelled home with a Canadian friend who had never been in an incident of this kind before and he was completely terrified. I think he would have been less traumatised had his phone not been beeping the updated death toll at him every two minutes.
This got lots of concern and sympathy but a lot of it felt very mawkish to me. I’m not sure it’s healthy.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Everything is televised. Even the recent earthquakes were being filmed on mobile phones as the buildings fell upon them.
That's not a revolution. That's plate tectonics. It's what we don't see that is significant. We see Brussels and Paris but not Aleppo or Ankara: barely anything that we did which created the vacuum which created ISIS.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Our forefathers made the same complaint. Victorians feared how these sleazy news sheets degraded discourse and made people fascinated with ooky adulteries and murders. Broadsheets and police news sheets catered shamelessly to prurient tastes. Did it do you any good to know of these things? was the cry. Women and children are exposed to awful events!
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Golden Key wrote:
quote:
--Why does technological "progress" have to have any connection to Christianity? Especially considering the ways that Christian hierarchy interfered with various scientists?
There is a common argument that science took off in the West, because there was the premise that God had a goal for humans, and therefore nature could be seen as the book, wherein that plan was written...
You could actually reverse it - that science took off once it was free of superstitious stuff. Quote, 'I have no need of that hypothesis', (Laplace), now reckoned to be somewhat apocryphal.
Seems to me that the human race as a whole has made some progress against the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse in the last 50 years. And even more if you compare the present with 500 years ago.
And whilst organised Christianity may not seem to have done much to help the process in the last 50 years, I guess we're saying that technology is cumulative, so whatever set western civilization off on its scientific/technological journey can claim much of the credit ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Even for the things that are not better at an individual level you now have somewhere to go or ask advice or get some redress.
That was not the case in the past.
I am thinking particularly of sexual assaults and various types of "coming out". The individual today probably goes through the same doubt, uncertainty, pain, angst etc as everyone in my day and before, but they need not be alone in their suffering now. There are internet sites, forums, telephone hotlines and knowledgeable, supportive and helpful people behind them.
Awareness, acceptance and the public discourse are much more free and open than was the situation, say, 40 years ago "when I were a lass". Even if your own family's or friends' reactions are less than postive you have sources of help and support outside that circle
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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