How Human PROGRESSION will actually go into regression.?

Question

One of the primary reasons we came out of the stone-age, was once we didn't have to worry 24-7-365 about strictly survival/food, we actually started thinking, and morphed into some greater than past generations. We started to create more tools, writing, literature, science, math, poetry, etc

Now with the world on a 24-7-365 mode of being entertained(or killing "boredom"), with I-PODs, CellPhones, E-Mail, ad nauseum, with no real time to think and process/assimilate information, where are we going?

Can you think of a totally new musical instrument in the past 100 years, or great philosopher? We have "cured" disease only for those same ones to come back in newer strains that drugs can't even touch.

Where are the great minds of the past 50 years? Or leaders for that matter?

A keyboard, synthisizer, or jazz whistles?

The first two are electronic PIANO's...and the whistle...I think man has been whistling for some time before another "jazz" version came out.

Polio, TB, are BACK...with a vengence and SUPER-strained...

Answer 1

You basic premise is flawed. Mankind progresses the fastest and goes further when stressed to the limits of survivability. That is how we became what we are today.

All the things you refer to require minds to develop and market more so today than at any other time.

As to musical instruments I can think of three midi-keyboard, synthesizer, jazz whistle. That does not cover the modifications to instruments or innovative techniques.

Philosophers I can name are mostly modern physicists. Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, Plank, Einstein. I no there are many modern pure philosophers. I just can't remember them. Been too long since I studied them and some have come along since I was in school.

Answer 2

Your notion of convenience only looks at the negative
perspective. The way your question reads to me is
that convenience assumes the role of motivation
inhibitor by essentially giving people better(a matter
of opinion) things to do. However, even if this
assertion is true then what implications does it
have on advancement. People who are truly
enthusiastic about devoting time to improvement
won't view non-stop entertainment as better.
Therefore, the highly motivated will be more illuminated
against the backdrop of an opportunity to spend
their time on non-stop entertainment. In this regard,
those great minds will be more distinguishable by
their free choice to apply effort to advancement.
The 20th century has procured many great minds
in the fields of health and technology among other
fields. Would the people of earlier centuries have
enjoyed the luxuries of present day, I would state
that I think they would have. Would the people of
earlier centuries condone ignorance and disbanding
of the economy of today which their lifes' efforts
brought us to, I would think that they would have
hoped that their efforts could grant the world a
higher quality of life.

Answer 3

Your problem is that you are standing so close to the mountain that all you see is a bunch of rock.

Just keep in mind were we were fifty years ago. Slide rules instead of pocket computer/cell phones. No satellites. Penicillin just discovered. Go back another fifty years and you'll have eliminated most of what we consider to be modern products of science.

Yes, some people just use the Internet to download porn. But some use it to gain an education, communicate, and direct activities from thousands of miles away. Yes, some diseases are adapting to sloppily-applied treatments. But some diseases have been eradicated completely. If you want a new instrument, you shouldn't be looking for crude tubes of brass or boxes of springs - look at the synthesizer.

As for who is a 'great' and who is not... that's the kind of thing that is difficult to assess until centuries after the fact. Do you think Japan would have considered Isaac Newton great in the 1700's? They wouldn't have even HEARD of him. But they have now. Though I don't think some of the people the future considers great will be a surprise, neither would it surprise me if many were similarly obscure. They're just people doing things that eventually have a massive impact.

You'll see. If anything, the free flow of information makes us MORE prone to have great minds than at any time in history!

Answer 4

I understand exactly where you are going with this and in that sense of "regression" I have to agree. We are regressing. I partially blame technological advances for making us lazy thinkers. The educational system these days is far more lax than in years past. Children are always "bored" out of their minds because they were never encouraged to imagine and pretend (thus think for themselves). I don't see a "cure" for our regression either. We are going down...

There will be a time again where there are only a few great thinkers because their minds won't be numbed by the constant impediment of technology. Don't get me wrong, I like technology as much as the next, but I think we should do a better job of enforcing individual thought and mind development.

Answer 5

Where are we going?

The same as always:

Have a peasant class of low-intellectual-threshold laborers who, though slightly miffed at being at the bottom of the social (and intellectual?) pyramid, are nonetheless contented with the newfangled amusements that seep down from the top. Today's peasant class is resembling the middle class of yesteryear more and more, due to the ever-lower prices of tech toys.

Of course, the peasant class must be followed by the middle-class, but since the middle-class is pretty-darn-near indistinguishable from the peasant class (aside from the fact that they can afford TWO cars instead of one...), we move on to...

...the big brains running society today. They're smart, they know it, and they're getting big money for it. Today's is the technocratic society - big government can't work if its computer-noded gears aren't properly oiled by techies. What's more, technology is the separator between the developed mediocrity and ultramodern superiority. Where would we be without our chipped-up missiles and gizmo'd army?

But wait, there's one more demographic we still haven't looked at yet: the wage-slave. The very lowest of the lowermost rung of the social ladder, today's wage-slave is usually most recognizable by the number of jobs they work at (at least 2; more if part-time ones are counted) and the hours they work (example: graveyard shifts). The most typical example is the McDonald's Restaurant drone, although variations may be found in other mega-corporations, not to overlook those slaving away in private businesses (in restaurants, farms, etc.).

But never fear: the over-achiever (soon-to-be-the-guy/gal-running-the-world-behind-the-scenes) is a hardy species. While slightly fewer in number in complacent, developed countries, the same complacent, developed countries in question may always resort to importing their gray matter; or, at the very worst, outsource it.

In music, I shall not dissuade you from your opinions - mainstrain music, no matter how foottapping-worthy, will never be said to equal the maestros of old in complexity and intricacy.

On the question of philosophy, however, I beg to differ. There are many writers and thinkers - leaders in thought - living within the last hundred years who are praiseworthy. The problem is that they are not news-making stories, and thus do not get the press they deserve. Walk into a bookstore, and let us begin our tour: C.S. Lewis in the Spirituality section, Einstein in Science, Noam Chomsky in Linguistics, Stephen Hawking in Science (again!), Gandhi in Government, Winston Churchill in Politics/History, Howard Zinn in History, Jared Diamond in History, and - the list goes on.

"Respect is greater from a distance" - perhaps many more years down the road, someone you've never heard of will be in the textbooks for an equally obscure discovery. After all, it takes those textbook writers a heck of a long time to figure out who did what and why. Fifty years is the time it takes for historians to be able to judge a historical figure or event relatively objectively.

On disease, I must offer up my opposition again: having had close ties with the field of medicine all my life, the ever-inevitable return of diseases in ever-more virulent strains is very much explainable, by one very simple fact - organisms are designed to adapt (or, take care of themselves on their own), and the pathogen simply does what it does all too well. Every disease is a challenge to get rid of, and finding a vaccine is only the very first of a great many steps in eradicating an illness forever, with polio being a pristine example of the case, SINCE IT IS STILL OUT AND ABOUT, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE MEANS OF ANNIHILATING IT HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR DECADES, NOT TO MENTION THE SCORES OF OTHER AILMENTS SUCH AS MALARIA OR MALNUTRITION*. For that, you have only to thank God (or Nature, whatever you prefer, though my choice is the former).

Every generation has its share of people lamenting intellectual/moral decadence. The problem is that, with the passage of time and space, it's ever harder to pick out the blemishes and faults of a past era. Thus, one would be wise to take comfort in the miracles of modern plumbing and co-ed schools, and be content. Watching the Lord Chamberlain's Men play King Lear might be a tempting spectacle, but the stink of Shakespearean England, rotting garbage and all, should prove a whole lot harder to idealize.

Cheers.

*Note: Regarding the section on polio, I appended supplementary material to the sentence (in all-caps, to denote the revision) so as to clarify my meaning. The campaign to Kick Polio Out of Africa is still on; we know.

Answer 6

Maybe it's about time we all become great philosophers....Know Thyself.

Good luck!