This short ted talk is a bit off topic, but illustrates a good point.
Does anyone here believe that things are worse than they were in the past?
by Trismegistus 45 Replies latest jw friends
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steve2
HBH you make excellent points. Based on population growth alone, the sheer quantity of suffering is numerically greater than at any of time in human history - no argument. However, I make a distinction between this statistical no-brainer and the end-times crowd's fear-mongering when they claim there is a qualitatively significant decline in the morality and lawlessness of "the world" in the time period immediately preceding the end. That crowd also makes a literal comparison with the age we live in and "the days of Noah."
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HBH
Agreed, I think that's part of the hook, along with love bombing. Chances are good that many have been directly impacted at some point in life, by some sort of "immorral" act.
The days of Noah thing is real twisted, Jesus said things would be 'normal' and they "took no note"
The issue of collapse is another story. Many experts (as well as JW's) have been saying collapse is comming for at least the past 50 years. Technically, they are correct. The (mainly monetary) "system" calls for ETERNAL growth, and we live on a finite planet.
HBH
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Apognophos
Yes, there are a number of scary deadlines looming in our future. I think the question is, "Will we move beyond money and limited natural resources before we go off the cliff?" It should theoretically be possible to get to a point where everyone has plenty of everything, at which point money becomes meaningless. I'll just throw a few buzzwords out there: self-replicating nanobots; efficient solar energy collection; personal hydroponics; synthetic meat; auto-doctors. All of these things could happen in the next 50 years, and if they do, it's possible that there will be a sort of utopia on earth. Of course, experience tells us that utopias never happen, so I'm inclined to be skeptical too, but then again, we're talking about new scientific frontiers that have never been tried before.
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kaik
My elder JW parent said that the best living it has right now. They went through a Great Depression, horror of WWII, air raids of 1944, than Red Terror under Stalin. Now they can do whatever they like, no waiting in lines for goods, have guaranteed pension, etc. My granny was born at the turn of the century and lived almost through entire 20th century, where she remembered monarchy, WWI, and everything afterwards until live to the end of the communism and onward. She said that after 1920's the best life came to her in the 1990's, except that the health was failing a bit.
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kaik
I think everything is relative, but in general almost entire human race is better in 2014 than was in 1914. I remember communism, post communist collapse, and subsequent rise of the living standard everywhere in Eastern Block. I was last year in Slovakia, before in Poland and Hungary, and people were dressed nicely, historical city centers were renowated, and everyone had nice care. Prague, Budapest, Krakow or Ljubjana are typical European capitals, not I remember form 1980. The same development happend in East Asia, Persian Gulf, and elsewhere.