so much spiritual talk

... it boils down to more learning - wonderful new lessons.

Blessings on your way

 

yes those things can certainly be defined as progress. There are other elements in our current civilization that I would still define as regression. Consider also that the rising standard of living in first world, industrialized nations often comes at the expense of third world nations. The US for example has had its hand dipped into Africa's resources for a number of years.

Cars and planes were not meant to be an accurate synopsis of the Industrial Revolution. I was citing them as an example separate from the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution has been sustainable since the 1700s because of fossil fuels which will eventually run out. The same concept applies to cars and planes. How can you define this as sustainable, exactly? Do you think fossil fuels will last indefinately?

Longer than 500 years, definitely.

I think thats rather short sighted. "We do not inherit the earth from our grandparents, we borrow it from our grandchildren." I'm sure you've heard that proverb before. We cannot think only a few generations forward. We have to consider people who will need the earth's resources thousands of years from now. We have to consider that the human race might not even make it that long but other species will continue to exist that also need the earth's resources. We have to consider that we share this earth with thousands upon thousands of other species and we cannot claim sole ownership of the earth.

I do enjoy the rapid exchange of information. Who doesnt? I think the rapid exchange of information is causing humans to evolve mentally at an unprecedented pace. I hope that this mental evolution eventually will make humans realize that we cannot survive forever on fossil fuels, we can not continue to pollute the air we breathe or the water we drink, we cannot continue to destroy the earth because it is the only thing that sustains us. I hope that our evolution eventually takes us to a more sustainable (interpret that as something that is sustainable for longer than a few hundred years) way of life.

 

neodude-

the advances in technology that have come about as the result of the industrial revolution do have their merits. but with them you could also name a plethora of other problems. the stock market, corporate business, free-market regulation, unemployment, genetic invariability in crops, to name a few. i won't even get in to the ethical reprecussions of what having our modern standard of living can cause. it's a two-sided coin.

but as far as i'm concerned, we are consuming resources at a faster rate than they are being produced. that isn't sustainable to me.

 

tried to rep you, desos, but i guess ive already repped you today. you've just got too many good things to say you said what i was trying to say but I just ended up sounding like a dopey tree hugging hippie lol

 

thanks. you voiced alot of the things i was thinking as well.

 

I think you guys are all missing a very important point...



You could see evolution as progression, or you can just see that it is a part of nature and that it's not really progression because it's going to happen anyways. It's both subjective and objective depending on how you look at it. I don't even know why you guys are relating it to things like natural resources. I mean shit, I could very easily see some technology in the future that will change the molecular structure of any material, and turn it into something we need for sustainability. So I wouldn't really even compare sustainability in today's terms, much less even try to predict the future, or give a shit about it.

 

Maybe you are going about it the wrong way, looking at it with a wrong attitude.

Try playing the game for a while


As Ram Dass says, "How to be in the world; but not of the world, to play the game of life; but not get lost in it".

 

seems like you were saying that starving people have brought it upon themselves. not true in my opinion.


neodude - i don't think that we need to all revert back to hunter gatherer ways and completely "regress," but i have to admit that our current way of living is not really sustainable (i guess depending on how you define that word). so screw that word. our current way of living has some negatives to it.

the average american produces something like a TON of garbage per year. it goes in landfills. some ends up in oceans. then this happens. well fuck, the link is down.

it was graphic pictures of dead sea birds with bits of plastic in their stomachs and throats. they can't tell the difference btwn those and food, so they die because humans polluted the ocean. that's kinda destroying the earth.

i could list a few more examples, but i gotta go

 

:2thumbsup:

Buddha has RRSPs.

 

Thats not what I was saying, I should have put starving in quotes. My point was, people complain about money for food blah blah blah when in reality food is always staring you in the face. I beleive plants have just as much a right to live as animals and humans, so fuck all that veggi BS. Plants are def conscious, too bad for you if you cant see it.

 

in large cities, i don't see how this is true

 

well I guess technically its staring them in the face with a fat $6.50 sign right next to it.

 

lol you have never been to a large city then. Pigeons are totally eatable. You got anything else to debunk, pork?

 

where you gonna cook that pigeon? First you got to chase the damn thing around which may draw suspicious attention, then when you catch it and beat it to death in public are you just going to eat a possibly disease ridden, bacteria filled, featherful pidgeon raw?

 

Any food could be disease and bacteria ridden. If you are starving, you will find a way to cook it man. :2thumbsup:

 

At first, but spirituality is something you integrate into your everyday life. If you don't like your financial situation there are ways to change it, although accepting things the way they are can be a good step. I'm piss ass broke myself and need to work but it's being unhappy about it that is a choice

 

As difficult as it might be to fathom, we do not need to live on money. Money is an agreement to have money be valuable. You will need money to the extent that money is valuable to you, however the monetary system is not the only energy exchange system available to us. Sharing produces efficiencies that far and away exceed the productive power of the profit motive.

 

Like how TwoDogs rolls?

 

How would that system work in a modern society without a currency in regards to account for things like housing and specifying your location for buisnesses. I mean what allows one person to lay claim to properties if there is no contractual agreement to it that involves pricing a value to it?

 

We do not need to live on money but many of us still choose to, I don't expect the OP to start hiking around with a backpack and nothing else as a solution to his problem (albeit quite possible).