Civilization in Reverse
My friend recently asked me a question:
"Name one invention whose adverse effects have not eclipsed the good"
He went on to say that man should not civilize and invent new things, because he will surely suffer for it. He suggests that man could have continued to live indefinitely without rudimentary technological innovations such as the wheel, and farming, not to mention fire, by continuing to hunt and forage.
I strongly disagree. What do you think?
"Name one invention whose adverse effects have not eclipsed the good"
He went on to say that man should not civilize and invent new things, because he will surely suffer for it. He suggests that man could have continued to live indefinitely without rudimentary technological innovations such as the wheel, and farming, not to mention fire, by continuing to hunt and forage.
I strongly disagree. What do you think?
pour vous, grace a sykora @ 3:43 AM
12 Comments:
hmmm... me thinks, that however ideal it might seem... man cudnt have stayed without inventing the wheel and going for the ride of his life on it.
It goes against basic human nature to not explore; become curious; find out stuff...if not for anything else but to just see if he can.
It is true that this is the very reason why we are where we are in this world today... sometimes i wonder once we become like the Jetsons, then what? We'll probably move to other planets too.. and then go on to galaxies, if we survive that long though...
ANyway, my point is that, anything that doesnt allow the needle of a balancing scale to not move, has a very good effect and a very bad effect.
it's upto u to see that the needle remains in place... or u cud just blame the company??!
adios!
P.S: if i havent made sense, please excuse me!!
You're excused.
But what if the next argument was that man could have and should have successfully lived himself out in the stone age, and shouldn't have gone any further?
Sykora,
I do believe what your friend said, to a point. Every good advance in civilization has done so much good but has also been used for evil purposes that set mankind back to the stone age in different ways.
Truly, I am glad we have computers, running water, writing, and great minds to make our society function more productivly. I don't think I can debate whether these advances have been good. The advances are not evil in themselves, it is we, as individuals, who choose to use them for evil.
Personally, I think there is so much stone aged people could not feel and enjoy without the advances we have today. The advances have made our society a more thoughtful, beautiful, and interesting place.
I would argue that although these advances are wonderful, what if they go too far and make our society too secular, too un-spiritual and inhuman?
But once again, it is our choices as individuals that would make our society too secular, too lazy, or too busy, advances cannot choose, we do.
Anyway, that is my two cents. A very interesting post, Sykora.
people always wish for something they don't have. in the stone age ppl probably didnt even dream of the stuff we live with today... we on the other hand, at times feel it wudave been a simpler life back then... i'd like to take the best of both worlds... since that's all that is feasible today!!
P.S: what is with this new comments page? it sucks!!
Could you please clarify "new comments page"?
i dnt knw what happd the first time i logged on.. it seems to be alright now.
sorrry!!
I couldn't agree more.
We aren't any happier, in fact I should think that we are less happy than our ancestors were. All our inventions are doing for us are making our lives more complicated. We are in an eternal quest to find happiness, to fulfill our needs, and we create things to help us fulfill these needs.
But the human species will not sit still, it will not be content, it will not be happy with what it has. A human will try to make its life easier and easier by complicating its life more and more, eventually turning the entire course of invention and necessity of invention into a vicious circle.
I admit I'm ashamed to belong to my species.
Kaushik
sounds nuts....
A female once told me
"Man should not research into medicine anymore"
Me: Why?
She: Then the death rate will go up and population will comedown
Mental....
Not every country is over populated...
IMHO: That is complete rubbish. In the chaos that is the universe, Humans are the peak of evolution as we know it. We are the height of development of matter and energy via the constant chaotic dissosiation and recombination by change in state of energy concentration.
Basically, the world is just there for us to exploit. Science is but a tool, a study of the world and the ways it can be exploited...
Humans will keep on moving, growing, developing, spreading, consuming, assimilating, devouring. That's what everything does: If we don't, we'll get devoured. That is how the universe works. If we, as a species, do not exploit, we get exploited. If we do not destroy, we get destroyed.
No god, only infinite Chaos...
I think the problem with the so-called "intelligent race" is that your intelligence will always be overshadowed by your blindness(not that I'm not a human. Fine,I shall use "we" from here onward). WE've evolved in the sense that we've been able to complicate our lives further by inventing all these things, some of them that have worked completely to our advantage. However, I'd have to agree with Kaushik when he says we're probably less happier than our ancestors must've been.
The human race has been able to make life more interesting by bringing in these things into the world and thus creating what we today call "life". This is what life is all about today. We're scientifically moving everyday. But because we've created so much for ourselves scientifically, we've lost touch with ourselves on a personal, emotional and spiritual level. This is what I think Ramkumar(I'm guessing it was him) was refering to as "suffering" from civilisation and invention. Or atleast that is the way I see it.
Another point I would like to make is that the words civilise and invent are hardly related. Man is inventing new things everyday which in a way, leads to "civilisation" trying to find a new way to die, because of the harmful side effects of these inventions. Einstein,the greatest scientist's greatest invention is being misused in such a manner that we often pause to think if it really is the greatest invention.
I could go on and on about this. There's so much more I'd love to say, but I don't know if I'm getting across to any of you.
An interesting piece of information for music lovers and philosophers. Well, if you're a music buff and you also love to go gallivanting around like what we've all done in the comments section, then the "Lifehouse" concept is everything for you. It was originally a concept album that was to be released by "The who", written by the guitarist pete townshend(the greatest). However, it never came out as an album as no one was able to grasp it. But he released it as parts in books and albums and I like many other who fanatics, have been able to catch the idea of it.
Listen to the album "who's next" by The who and "psychoderelict" by Pete Townshend. They deal largely with the ideas behind the "Lifehouse" concept, some of which are very closely related to the topic we've been dicussing here. Pete Townshend himself is a blogger. Visit his blog http://boywhoheardmusic.blogspot.com/ and read his story which is a continuation of the lifehouse series. It is simply amazing. But I warn you, if you're a shallow bonehead and you're aware of it, I suggest you stick to siripu.com or gallata.com.......
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