Is the world more crazy/f'ed up now than any other time in history?

[everythingsxen]

So, this is a serious non-flame-baity thread.

Is the world more F'ed up/insane/flat-out, balls to the wall, bat-shit crazy now than it has been at any other time in history, or does it simply seem that way because we are living through it?

As a brief re-cap of insanity: The War on Terror, The Iraq War, The Israeli-Lebanese War, Syria and Iran threatening to jump into the previous war, Turkey threatening to invade Iraq and the US threatening to stop them, Ethiopia about to invade Somalia, Pakistan and India trading barbs over terror bombings.

I think that is a large part of it. There is of course various genocides and massacres going on all over.

Then we come to the environment; tropical storms forming off the coast of Carolina, record heat waves incinerating a lot of places, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires.

Somehow I doubt it is really any worse now than it's been before, but it sure seems that way.

[shain from kane]

1. Rapture! Bring it on. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

2. I say no

WWII was, IMHO, more threatening than the current situation. However, WWI wins my vote for the craziest, most destructive war fought for nothing reasons.

[Yupster]

34. Thirty Years War

was an even bigger mess I think.

The time after the Roman Empire fell when the barbarian groups fought each other must have been a real mess too.

Fighting Civil Wars during Smallpox epidemics must have been pretty insane in Peru just before the Spanish conquest too.

[rockymountaindem]

35. Yes, but

I would argue that those episodes you mention were more localized. Asking about the whole world, I gotta stick with WWII for pure destruction, and WWI for complete lack of *any* rational thought. 10 million people died over Austria's right to dominate Serbia? If you had told that to a European in 1860 they'd have laughed.

[leftofthedial]

3. civilization has almost always danced along the edge of the cliff

it's just that the cliff keeps getting higher

[Mojambo]

4. I don't think it's the most fucked up

But it's certainly trending higher with each passing day.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

6. No, as a Bible reader, it is about the same. The problem is now

we actually have the ability to know all the bad things going on in far away lands and states.

[Drum]

5. really now...

anyone reading that is OF this time, now. how should we know? how would we know anymore than you??

[everythingsxen]

7. It was a philosophical question, not...

a question of whether you were immortal or owned a time machine.

If you have no input, feel free to hide this thread.

[Drum]

11. True enough...sorry to be hasty.

In response then, I'd say that it's a paradox...

On the one hand, these are times when we have (we may like to think we have) very evolved ideas about "humanity"...we may say that this modern progress makes us less likely to kill or wage war as readily as earlier ("simpler," or "less-civilized") eras.

On another hand we are---and I generalize, of course, about these theoretical things---so inurred to gross violence from the daily simulations we see and the ridiculously powerful weapons some spend their lives developing, that any aggressive act (in micro or macro scale) can do huge damage. Uniquely and modern-ly huge.

In short, I think that we'd all like to believe we're better people nowadays (than ever,) but any "proof" of this virtue is mitigated by a much larger lethality.

[everythingsxen]

14. Thank you for that eloquent and well thought out post

And if you found my initial reply to you offensive, I sincerely apologize. I was still a bit snippy from Flame-war:40,000 out in the rest of GD, and LBN, and I/P, and GD: P and... well you get the idea. :)

On edit, fixed a typo.

[Drum]

16. I dig that, truly.

same screeching led to my post-tone as well. you were absolutely right in the first reply, and i'm glad you called me on it...interrupted an upsettedness in me.
:toast:

[everythingsxen]

25. Cheers!

:toast:

[Herman Munster]

8. NO this is nothing

During World War II, the entire continent of Europe was in ruins with 62 million being the best estimate of the total dead. Yes, when you add both the axis, allied, and civilian deaths, 62 FUCKING MILLION persons dead.

What's going on now is nothing.

[Radio_Lady]

9. Forget about war. Just think about how bad things were in the

Middle Ages, or the Dark Ages. Plagues, pestilence, wars that aren't even listed -- neighbor to neighbor fighting. Who can even know the depth of it?

No, I think human conflict and problems are probably just different now.

And, of course, we get moment by moment reports -- not by teletype, Morse code, or radio -- but right there on our TV.

Turn off the tube. Maybe you'll call me an ostrich, and I have been known to put my head in the sand before.

[bloom]

15. nowadays - Each year, 15 million children die of hunger-related causes.

According to - http://www.womenaid.org/press/info/food/food4.html (est. vary)

this year almost 11 million children under the age of five will die from a preventable disease.- http://ask.yahoo.com/20051128.html

3 million die of AIDS.

And then there is sectarian violence.


So it's not nothing. Over 25 million preventable deaths/year. Probably over 30 million.

[rucky]

21. There's also exponentially more people...

which is a problem in and of itself, but if you want the numbers in context, it should be a per-capita.


edit: I have no idea what those numbers are.

[bloom]

24. I tried to find more numbers

I did find this -

"In the 20th century, an estimated 191 million people died as a result of warfare, half of them civilians, the report said."

&

"Humans have a remarkable capacity for committing violence against themselves and others, causing 1.6 million violent deaths a year"

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/FivePrecepts/AnnualViolence.html

___________________

The 1.6 million yr. might be an average for the century? :shrug:

[rucky]

26. I think I hit the mother lode:

http://www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/52

I could get lost here for awhile.

[rucky]

28. Seven bucks for the details, but here's an abstract...

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/847

Worldwatch Paper #143: Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem

September 1998
Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner, Brian Halweil
ISBN: 1-878071-45-9
89 pages
Print Version $7.00 Add to Cart

Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue. Overwhelmed by the need to educate children, create jobs, and deal with the environmental effects of population growth, governments faced with a major new threat-such as AIDS or aquifer depletion-often cannot cope.

In our demographically divided world, fertility has dropped and population has stabilized or is declining in some countries; but in others where fertility is still high, population is projected to double or even triple before stabilizing. As recent experi ence with AIDS in Africa shows, some of these high-fertility countries are simply overwhelmed when a new threat appears. While industrial countries have held HIV infection rates among their adult populations to 1 percent or less, infection rates are as hi gh as 26 percent of the adult population in some African countries. With their rising mortality trends, more reminiscent of the Dark Ages than the bright millennium so many had hoped for, these countries are falling back to an earlier demographic stage wi th high death rates and high birth rates, and no growth in population.

In examining the stakes involved in potentially adding another 3.3 billion people over the next 50 years, the study calls for immediate expansion of international family planning assistance to the millions of couples who still lack access, and new investm ent in educating young people, especially women, in the Third World, to promote a shift to smaller families.
Table of Contents


Crikey!

[bloom]

29. "immediate expansion of international family planning assistance"

This should be the first order of business.

It burns me up - that right-wingers insist on keeping birth control from people - whose children will end die from lack of resources.

That does not strike me as humane.

[rucky]

31. It's the Pope who has the real global influence....

all he has to do is say the word. The Catholic church has changed doctrine before for the common good (Jews didn't kill Christ, evolution doesn't contradict creation).

[rucky]

20. I'm with Munster

but things nowadays have the potential to get alot worse, as we've found more efficient ways to kill people.

[Emit]

10. My concern?

The technology, the weaponry, etc. For example, just the fact that we get news from across the world so much more quickly now, IMHO, adds to people's fears, frustrations, concerns, and ultimately, affects their attitudes and behaviors.

[bloom]

12. I think it's worse -

mostly because our weapons are worse.

It's easier for us to damage each other.

The rising world population also increases the potential for conflicts.

Of course - that is sort of offset by healthcare advances.

But then healthcare advances are offset by increased pollution/toxins.


On the one hand, society-wise, groups are probably not MORE antagonistic toward each other than they have been in the past - as a whole. There have always been conflicts.

Yet - the potential for inequality is very high in our world - the disparities have never been greater.

The potential for communication is also greater. As is the potential to communicate hateful propaganda.

[charlie]

13. No

It's just that we can see its fucked-upness in real time now, every bit of it, from the picayune to world-shaking.

[Herman Munster]

17. the israel hezbollah conflict

is not even the worst thing going on now. The Iraq war isn't.

It's the genocide in Darfur that nobody cares about. Half a million dead and counting.

[charlie]

37. Not talking about those

I'm talking about everything, from local to worldwide, banal or otherwise, on TV, on radio, on your computer, and in your newspaper.

[The2ndWheel]

18. Everything is just on a bigger scale today

An ever increasing scale.

[Mind_your_head]

19. We can kill people 'faster'/'better'

"better" (<-----that's 'sarcasm' talking there) than ever before.

Today's medical technology can save so many people too....that's why we think we've "progressed", yet we still "WAR".

We still kill....we still 'war'....we, as a human family, haven't figured out any "better way" (well, maybe a few people did...Ghandi, Jesus come to mind at first, but look, what happens to people like them?!?!? JFK?????)

Humans haven't made any REAL progress at all.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. Not necessarily. Think of the Middle Ages

Crusades, witch hunts, wars between petty kingdoms, not to mention 1/3 of the population dying of bubonic plague and a "little Ice Age" of unusually cold winters in a society that had no central heating.

And that was just in Europe!

[RagAss]

23. WWI ...... nasty stuff.....

[blonndee]

30. Indeed.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

--Wilfred Owen

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. No...

but in the past we didn't have the instant communication that satellite television, cable news networks, and the Internet make possible. It just SEEMS worse because we are MORE AWARE of everything than people were 50, or 100, or 500 years ago.

Human history is a chronicle of uninterrupted fucked-upness; from the dawn of civilisation forward, we have: centuries of war between the city-states of Mesopotamia; Records of many more centuries of war and conquest carried out by the Egyptians; yet more war and infighting among the city-states of ancient Greece; centuries of war and conquest by the Roman empire; the collapse of Roman power in the West, and many more centuries of war between the descendants of the various Germanic tribes who swept in to pick up the pieces; the conflict between Islam and Christianity that guttered in Iberia for hundreds of years, and in the Eastern Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople, that flared up into that series of spectacularly ill-advised military adventures known collectively as the Crusades starting in the eleventh century; the Scandinavian/Viking invasions and conquests of the ninth and tenth centuries (England, Normandy, Ireland, Kiev, et cetera); intermittent violence directed against pagans on the fringes of Christian Europe; roaming hordes of rampaging Mongols, Huns, Avars, and so on; all this against a constant backdrop of slavery, serfdom, religious inquisitions, the burning of heretics and the forced conversion of Jews, plague, famine, peasant uprisings...and I haven't even gotten to the fifteenth century CE yet (nor have I touched on Asia, Africa, or South America, the other places with complex, highly developed civilisations, which were basically just as fucked-up).

[conflictgirl]

32. Unfortunately, no

As bad as things are now, and as potentially bad as the near future looks, I don't think this is the worst it has ever been. Humanity has a tendency to start wars, exploit others, commit genocides, fall victim to pandemics and natural disasters, and do many things overall just are not in our own best interest.

What I do really worry about that might become much worse than other points in recent human history are irreversible changes, like a massive die-off due to catastrophic climate change, or that one of these crazy nations (including ours) will decide to begin nuclear war.

So yes, it's bad, and we're on a track where things could get much, much worse. But sadly it's been just as bad or worse at other times in the past.

[nealmhughes]

33. No, it is 1914 all over again.

eom

[Rex]

36. Seems that way, but I doubt it.

I'm sure it was far worse say, during Genghis Khan's raids from China to Poland.

IMO, we're about to face some mass extintion, it will depend on what roll that has in our ecosystem/food chain.