Is the human race better off now?

All knows all. We just keep forgetting where we put it..

 

Yes, I agree in medical advancements, things are better now....

 

Maybe ancient civilazations were so smart and knew how to do things like read the stars, build the pyramids and do all kinds of things, some seemingly impossible things....because they did not have any technological distractions or modern convenience distractions, so they were more in tune with things, as you said, Ernesto......and used their own brains more in some capacities, other than letting something else do the thinking for them.

 

I see a lot of ethnocentric responses here, although by no means am I a sociologist or expert on the subject. I will post some stats that are kind of stunning and makes us realize that even the working class person in the 1st world is a minority in terms of income and living conditions.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

 

For the sake of discussion, even this could be argued.

Despite our medical advancements, a ton of people still suffer daily. For instance I need a neck surgery. I can't and won't get one for two reasons. One is that I can't afford it. The other is that I think it's risky, cocky, and excessive. I earned this pain by being a dumbass and I will either heal naturally, not heal and use it to strengthen my will, or let it kill me.

In a way, our medical advancements are devolving us. People are passing genetic traits like myopia, bad teeth, mental issues, etc because there are medicines/tech to "fix" those problems so they end up breeding anyway. Since money is the key to access to health care, the most aggressive and sinister psychopaths have access to the best treatment so they're continuing to thrive, where in a more natural system, they'd either be reformed or shunned to die alone in nature.

When a person has good genes and is living in a natural, sustainable environment, they aren't exposed to the toxins and stress of this unsustainable society so they're more likely to be healthy.

So we have a few problems with modern healthcare. One is that it goes against the natural system of evolution that got us this far and it's making us genetically weaker as a species. Another is that it's only available to the most well off, and effectively most evil/apathetic/greedy/etc, effectively making it easier for them to keep control. There is probably a whole book full of other reasons too but I think these two illustrate my point effectively.

There's a tribe in the Amazon where no one suffers from sickness or genetic health issues, and they don't suffer very long from injuries. They ritualistically injest psychedelics their whole lives and commit voluntary suicide at age 35. If a baby is born deformed or too sick, or to a woman that can't keep a man around (I think), they take it out into the jungle and let the wildlife return it to nature. If one of them is injured to the point that they might become a burden, they walk off into the jungle to return to nature. They have no fear of death, unless they have an annoying relative on the other side that they don't want to see, and say quite matter of factly that when they die, they go visit their dead relatives and friends for a while and when they're ready to come back, it's just like walking through a door. They just come back and try again. I'd argue that their healthcare system is much more sustainable, human, and realistic than ours is and that because of it they live much happier, freer lives. I share their views on death though. From my experiences, we just transition to a different dimension for a bit...probably a dimension we create when we die, or as we live...and we can come back to meatspace whenever we're ready.

 

Love this post btw!

 

I'm certainly grateful for any medical advancements that have and will help me live a long and fruitful life.

but I am very aware any advancements which extend life and help the population grow come at the detriment of the very earth which sustains life and also at the expense of the world's poorest.

 

Oh....you just kill me! LOL!!!

I am a very specially trained and expert as well as Teacher in various forms of survival...Jungle, Desert, Ocean, Arctic...etc.

I give you....8 days perhaps 7....before you died if you were dropped off in a forest in say...Upstate New York in late November.

I have gone 17 days without eating anything.

I have drank my own urine to survive Desert Training.

You....in the Desert....36 hours...you would be DEAD!!!

Things are much better for people and the ancient Human's did NOT live in Harmony with nature...THEY BATTLED AGAINST IT EVERY MOMENT OF THE DAY!!!

TooReal

 

I sometimes wish i lived in a hunter/gatherer society

 

But then you think to yourself, fuck. Walking dead is on tonight. Right?

 

You know what they say about assumptions?

If someone dropped me off in Upstate NY in the woods in November, I'd be hitchhiked back to a climate that's hospitable to humans within 48 hours and be toasty warm and fed every night until I got there. Worst case sceneraio, I can walk 20 miles a day easily and have walked as much as 100 in a day, for three days straight. I can hotwire and repair cars, motorcycles and trucks, ride/drive anything, including horses. Building shelter and finding food in a forest is easy. I'm the mechanic and chase truck driver for a three year, first in class, vintage baja motorcycle race team made up of wounded vets, Army Rangers, Seals, etc and a lot of the time, I'm the one keeping them going.

If you went 17 days without eating anything, that's not a very good example of your oh so badass survival skills. If you're battling against nature, you're doing it all wrong. That cheesy show Dual Survival will show you that! The only reason that I called it cheesy was that they had that nimrod army guy on fighting with Cody AND nature, all of the time. I frequently fast for 5-7 days just to cleanse. I have taken naps longer than 7 days... Urine is sterile and doesn't taste bad at all, and the chinese use urine treatment as a therapy. But why drink piss when water's easy to fiind, collect, and filter. I've made it for a few months at a time, in the desert, twice, with very little equipment, and once in the summer in Santa Margarita with a completely exploded knee. You ever eaten rattlesnake, grasshoppers, ants? Do you know that there's groundwater every 5 sq miles out here if you know how to find it, and all over the palce in plants/cacti. I don't knoiw how to survive in nature. I know how to thrive in nature. I don't care if its a mountain top or a desert.

The cool thing is though, is that I'm working on a way to have free shelter, power, and transportation with me al all times so my only needs will be foor, water, and community. We have this cool new thing called technoloy where we can communicate cool ideas, and organize the regrowth of natural food systems all over our world! It's actually easier than petrochemical agriculture too. Fukuoka gleefully throws seed balls everywhere, see what grows naturally where, and copies it. Joel Salatin uses intense disturbance techniques and raises 400 head of cattle on something like 20 acres, plus grows gardens, has chickens, egggs, goats, grain crops..... Our ancestors might have had it a little bit tough due to ignorance but the preponderance of anthroplogical evidence points to the fact that they actively and sustainably managed their environment...then 10-12000 years ago, something went terribly wrong. Agriculture, civilization, and statism.

Anyway, I walk my talk....and usually I walk alone.


Sorry I might be shaking up your paradigm a bit.

 

Fixed

 

the longer I live the more I get convinced homo sapiens is a failed evolutionary experiment - in other words no we seem to be attempting to wipe ourselves out , and many innocent species are going along for the ride

 

Actually....war and the extermination of competing anaimal species including insects such as Ant Colonies etc...is simply a part of nature.

The Earth is a self correcting system.

What happens when too many fish breed in a tank?

Their own waste poisons them and competition for food and area causes them to kill each other.

Eventually enough fish die to again reestablsh a balance within the tank.

TooReal

 

Insect Warfare is awesome. And battles are brutal.

 

Some ants even steal the other ant colonies eggs and those ants are born into slavery.

TooReal

 

This thread is shortening my lifespan as I read... Why did I come in here?

 

Curiosity killed the Cat.

TooReal

 

Omg so much better I'm sorry but everything is much more fair and just than it's ever been also we are so much cleaner like so much people were so disgusting in the past. It's still shit but it's much better