I'm gonna open the argument with a profound prophecy.
In spite of the holy promises of people to banish war once and for all, in spite of the cry of millions “never again war” in spite of all the hopes for a better future I have this to say: If the present monetary system based on interest and compound interest remains in operation, I dare to predict today that it will take less than twenty-five years until we have a new and even worse war. I can foresee the coming development clearly. The present degree of technological advancement will quickly result in a record performance of industry. The buildup of capital will be fast in spite of the enormous losses during the war, and through the oversupply [of money] the interest rate will be lowered [until the money speculators refuse to lower their rates any further]. Money will then be hoarded [causing predictable deflation], economic activities will diminish, and increasing numbers of unemployed persons will roam the streets … within these discontented masses, wild, revolutionary ideas will arise and with it also the poisonous plant called “Super Nationalism” will proliferate. No country will understand the other, and the end can only be war again.–Silvio Gesell, writing in 1918
Hmmm, a cycle of unprecedented technological advancement (80s/90s) leading to a record performance of industry and fast buildup of capital (90s and beyond) leading to oversupply of money leading to lowered interest rates leading to hoarding (00s) leading to increase in unemployment leading to super nationalist ideas (10s) leading to breaks between countries leading to war (????).....Gesell was describing what he saw in the buildup to World War I and what he was predicting would happen as a buildup to World War II.....but we haven't seen anything at all like that recently, have we?
Irony of Maschine Man? what does that even mean?
also, for context....my name is a play on words...I'm a Producer/DJ, and use this all the time. It's also the name of a comic book character.
Machine Man - Wikipedia
It's ironic because the most extreme proponents of the "constant progress" narrative are technophiles who
are now talking about "augmented humanity" and "transcending biology" and turning people into actual cyborgs, even though an obsessive dependence on technology as demonstrated in the smart phone/social media world has actually led to a devaluing of the human experience, with greater objectification, commercialization, and instant gratification than ever before leading to growth in depression and suicide rates, greater anxiety and lower feelings of fulfillment.
And your screen name is a literal android.
You do also realize that there has been progress from the 20th century to now right?
my point is that progress is STILL occurring and constantly happening. do you still see the same time of conflict and devastation as we saw in WW2? wasn't that my point?
We are now in the 21st century and you are using 20th century statistics to try and prove me wrong??
From 2001-Now the biggest war that we have seen would be in Afghanistan and over those 18 years (3 times as long as WW2) there have been less than 1% of the casualties including civilian and military (31,000 civilian/3500 military) compared to what..the 60 million or so ppl killed during ww2??
add on the about 450,000 Casualties in Iraq over twice that time, and you can barely get to 1%.
This is the PERFECT example of the cherry-picking narrative I'm talking about.
We're now going to talk about the last 17 years as if that proves the narrative? Hell, as of 1914 there hadn't been a serious war in Europe yet in the 20th century, the United States hadn't had a war with major causalities in nearly 50 years (something like ONE American got killed in the Spanish-American War), we were more peaceful than ever before, right? Oh, wait, then we had the worst war in history.
But then World War I was the "War to end all Wars", right, and we were all good? Nothing big for 20 years, right? Oh, until we had an even worse war than the "War to end all Wars" was.
In the 20th century alone we've had half a million people killed in Syria, another half a million killed in Iraq, hundreds of thousands dead in Sudan's civil war, a hundred thousand dead in the Mexican drug wars, and hundreds of thousands more dead in ongoing wars in Nigeria, Congo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Burundi, Sierra Lione...and where next? You can't just dismiss millions of war dead, and you can't be certain that an even worse one isn't right around the corner. If Putin's power is seriously threatened, who does he strike out against? If China has a depression or even simple recession, how close are they to separatist movements and civil war? India and Pakistan? Iran and Israel, Iraq and Syria? It's been, what, one year since we were feeling like we were on the verge of nuclear war with North Korea?
the problem with nowadays is the "Availability Bias" makes everyone think that thinks are way worse than they are , and that shyt occurs more frequently than it does. The fact that we can constantly be connected to every SINGLE event that occurs within seconds just pushes that point even more
shyt here are a few articles to help even more.
Amazing Graphic Shows That We’re Closer Than We’ve Ever Been To World Peace
The world is actually safer than ever. And here's the data to prove that
Is the World More Dangerous Now Than Ever?
Ignore Political Fear-Mongering, You're Safer Now Than Anyone Ever
We Enjoy The Most Peaceful Period On Earth Ever | HuffPost
Again, totally cherry-picked data. The first graph starts in the 1940s, as if world history is only 70 years old, and then it only goes up to 2005 so it totally misses the increase in deaths caused by the Iraq War, ISIS, and the Syrian Civil War. If war deaths increased to unprecedented levels in the first half the 20th century with peaks in the 1910s and 1940s, then had two somewhat lower peaks hit again in the 1960s and 1980s, how do you know the decrease since then is actual progress and not just a lull in the curve?
The second link is even worse - don't you realize that EVERY graph they show starts in a different place and involves a different set of countries? If they wanted an objective look at progress, wouldn't they start graphs at the same time and with the same countries? But no, one graph starts in 1940s (because that's when World War II's death peaks make the "war deaths" trend look good) while another graph starts in the 1870s (because that's when the Industrial Revolution's work hour peaks make the "work hour" trend look good). One death includes world casualties to disease (lets make sure to obscure the fact that life expectancy in the USA has plateaued and appears to be decreasing now), yet another graph only includes a few Western murder rates (don't want terrible murder rates in those pesky third-world countries getting in the way of a good narrative).
Want to see a cherry-picked graph they wouldn't want to show you?
How about the environmental destruction per year? How about the retreat from Democracy and number of hard-right or straight fascist regimes that have come to power in the last decade (telling that their "increasing democracy" graph conveniently ended in 2009)? How about the vast increases in economic inequality, or total debt, which have no clear end game?
and natives were doing the same thing before the white man even got here.
Raping, pillaging and complete genocide of other tribes was very common.
You see, these are the bullshyt justifications that are often just made up by Liberal Renaissance Men and Hard-right Christian Conservatives both who want to claim that the "wild savage" was doing so many bad things before civilized White men got here. Most of the time the actual receipts for any sort of provable case are bullshyt.
There are strong cases that in many regions of the Americas, White people introduced types of total warfare that were unknown to the native populations in those regions. There are strong cases that for many tribes, women's rights went DOWN when White people arrived. There are strong cases that the sexual exploitation of women increased dramatically when White people arrived.
One of the most interesting arguments was by the sociologist James W. Loewen, who pointed out that during the colonial period both White people and Black people often fled White colonies to voluntarily live among the Native Americans, but
stories of Native Americans willfully leaving established Native settlements in order to live with White people are almost completely absent. When Natives came to live with White people, it was almost exclusively after their own tribe or their own land had already been destroyed. But White and Black people both would often go to live with Natives even if their own homes were intact, solely because they liked that life better.
I ain't saying there's anything perfect about Native culture, and I ain't hating on everything about White culture. I think there were good advancements, like the core of Christianity (not the institutional distortions) and aspects of medical progress. But it should have been a melding and a sharing. Instead it was a wiping out and a forcing. And that ain't progress.
these are some hard questions.
Sure, probably has baggage to deal with from that, but everybody has baggage. Like you said, it's not her fault so why should I hold her to a consequence of not being able to be intimate with another human being because of something some monster did.
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