*OK*

I am totally stuck on the word 'improvement'. If you mean 'improvements in the world', you cannot mean 'improvements for the human race', because this is often at a disadvantage to other things in 'the world', like the environment, or non-human animal species. Also I don't really know the ultimate human goal - or if there is one - so I cannot accurately define an 'improvement'. I don't mean to be tenacious or 'philosophical', I'm just trying to understand you properly. For now I am going to assume you mean evolution ie survival of the human race, including advances in medicine and physical science.

The single biggest improvement I can think of is water distribution - getting clean water pumped to billions of outlets so we don't have to walk 50/500/5000 miles to the nearest spring.

Everything else (electricity, gas, oil, the wheel, tv, telephones...) have all been used to facilitate travel, war, mass commerce and perceived convenience. Why do we need to travel? People travel and think they're going somewhere. They think the place they're going to will be different! Of course, superficially, it is. But ultimately, people are the same wherever you go, they just have different habits (religion, culture, social set-up). If you think this means they are fundamentally different, you are so mistaken. Even well-travelled people don't seem to realise this. Ok, travel in itself has led to important knowledge about the world, plus it's quite fun, so I'll include that one too.Edit - Which would incorporate electricity, oil, the wheel.

As for the caves, I don't really know anything about that way of life. All I know is that to survive we need food and water and shelter (warmth). Nothing else. Not knowledge, not different countries, not computers.

I don't know the answer to this nor do I care. It doesn't matter who got there or how. All that matters is that the situation now does not work for half of the world's population. You're right - America has produced some of the most important inventions/discoveries as has England/Europe. But if it is truly for the selfless advancement of the human race it doesn't matter who created them.

Obviously 'commerce' has a definition and a meaning. It also serves a purpose. I merely question the ultimate worth of this purpose. There is enough space on this planet for each family unit to survive on their own small patch of land. What is the problem with that?

Yep.

No, absolutely not. It will never work.

Hope this clarifies!

That only works if your great - grandparents lived in this country when it happened. Mine didn't. On either side.

That doesn't mean that what happen isn't wrong, and it doesn't mean my ancestors didn't partake of what was later decided to be some foul shit in their own country.

But I REFUSE to be guilty about what my ancestors did generations ago. This "you owe me for 300 years of opression" is bullshit, and is the cry of person who is looking for an excuse.






edit: clarified the middle paragraph

Well stated

I think where you are coming from is that if humans would be happy living simpler lives, we all would consume less, which would lead to a more functional planet.

Where I am coming from is that as we innovate, we consume less and find better functionality as humans.

To be rude about it: in your world we all agree to turn the thermostats down and learn to like being cold. In my world we set the thermostats how we like and the resulting economic pressure creates 300% more efficient furnaces.

You have a basic pessimism about human nature. I've come to picture you as being as negative and cynical as that guy in "How To Get A Head In Advertising". I think life is better than you think it is and that this is at the root of some of our differences.

I understand your point. I still can't see we why we can't have real wood fires in place of thermostats, though. It's like choosing the best method of battery farming: this is the most efficient way, but it is still battery farming. But I'm never going to convince people to lose their convenience products, so I suppose the economical competition is a good thing in the 'real world'.

Possibly, yes, I think you're right. I am that person to some extent. Perhaps I am pessimistic because I am yet to find someone who understands me fully (it is of course a possiblity that this is because I am talking shit). But these feelings preside; they feel like truth to me. So I'll persevere until I find an answer.

Ooh, real wood fires is a non-starter. They're an ecological disaster! My heat is generated through electronic heat pump, through energy generated by ecologically-friendly nuclear. I can set the thermostat to whatever I like and feel good about it. Until the bill comes.

ok, so you are in favor of a lifestyle from more than a century ago. if we agree to this do we need to keep women's rights or can i just drag my wife around by the hair as i see fit?

minority rights - would it be ok if i get someone whose skin color is different than mine to do the physical labor? obviously they wouldn't be able to the tasks that require higher intelligence, but i could find something for them.

i'm down with woodfires for heat - but does that mean it is ok if i strip all the trees i can find for fuel?

my wife likes gardening so we'll be ok there, but when will i know if i can retire? is someone else going to feed us until i die? actually can i still expect to die in my 70/80's or should i aim more towards my 50's now?

now if i get an infection, should i treat it with leaches, arsenic, or prayer?

if someone in my town steals something, is it ok if i just shoot them, or should the sheriff do it?

if you'll answer these questions we can get started on our way to your perfect society... or you can acknowledge that you have an unreal, overly-romanticized view of how things were in the "good old days" before all this nasty capitalism took hold.

The problem inherent with this is that humans are flawed, and most humans are destructive rather than creative.

In the end, do we really consume less as we innovate? To use an example: Lets say that we use 1 acre of trees to build one log cabin. After innovations in concrete and steel, we use less wood (say 1/2 acre) but in using other materials, we're not using less overall, just different amounts.

Now, since wood was at a premium (since there were acres of trees cut down for cabins) and we're using less wood, the New Improved cabins are cheaper. Since they are cheaper, more people can afford to buy them. So now, instead of having 10 all wood cabins (using 10 acres of woods) we have 20 hybrid cabins (using 10 acres of woods + additional materials like concrete and steel).

Do you get what I'm trying to say here? Sometimes innovations (nuclear physics become nuclear power *and* nuclear bombs) set us further back in many ways. Can it be a case of two steps forward and one step back?

Cat alluded to this in one of her posts...with the internet, if we all used it solely for information dissemination...what it was created for....that's not a bad thing. Unless we're disseminating terrorist plans worldwide. But since we don't use it solely for that purpose, are we better off as a society?

There's a part of the movie Contact, where Palmer Joss is being interviewed on Larry King, and he posits that question.

Are we really better off socially? Emailing mom instead of calling, or better still, going to visit? Are we better off moving far far away from family? Some that don't get along with their families might say "hell yeah!" but I mean generally, as a society.

you cannot stagnate. you must move forward or move backward. the problem is that for each move there will be someone who perceives it to be forward and another who calls it backward.

Most everyone in the world does little to nothing to advance mankind. Most of us are simply part of a large support structure. We maintain the status quo. From this large mass of people and products come, every now and then, someone who actually advances mankind. Unfortunately, that is what innovation takes to make. We cannot know, for example, that a silly attempt to play chess would result in software structures that underpin the entire computer industry and the internet. And yet so many advances result from absurd and time wasting things such as games.

One problem with America in the depression was that so many were not out there doing convenience products. As a result, so little new was also being developed. IOW we can never know what or where the great next breakthrough will come from. And so we all do our jobs every day just maintaining the status quo. From this comes the rare, new or innovative idea.

Open heath fireplaces were good when wood was so plentiful, when there was so much clean air to dirty, and when your neighbor was miles away, and when your front yard was full of trees. The Ben Franklin pot belly stove was a classic example of major innovation. Try heating with wood sometime. Appreciate how much more efficient, cleaner, and more convenient the Ben Franklin stove is. It was a classic example of innovation. How long did everyone use open hearths until one man finally discovered something so simple? Welcome to how innovation happens. Painfully slow.

Now to muddy the waters. Rape and infidelity are such destructive events. And yet genetic research has demonstrated how rape and infidelity were also so helpful and necessary in the advancement of mankind; the 'mixing of the gene pool'. Why is one event so destructive from one perspective become so productive from another perspective? Please don't get hung up with the emotional baggage associate with 'immoral' sex. Deal with the overall concept.

The point is that innovation is so difficult to obtain. We put thousands to work if only to get one person who advances mankind. We tell others how they are doing so good. But really, it is a rare person who advances mankind. And then we must add perspective to the analysis. Not only is innovation so difficult to see under your nose, but, many things necessary to advance mankind's future may actually appear to be so destructive in the short term.

Why would anybody want to be a soldier? It depends on top management whether you are really working for the common good. After all, did the so called good nation do any good why bombing Vietnam back into the stone age?

A soldier typically is doing nothing to advance mankind. Often he is just maintaining the status quo. One need only see the movie Band of Brothers to appreciate so much pain and sweat to but protect the status quo. How could you tell them they did not advance mankind? But then we need most people to only maintain the status quo so that the rare advancement can come from the so very few. We have no other proven way to advance mankind. Most people do nothing but daily maintain the status quo.

It doesn't clarify it for me because you don't seem to be advancing a position. To be honest, what I have gotten from your posts in this thread is that everyone is parading around in an artificial reality with "conveniences" separating us from our true human nature and Emperor's clothes protecting us from the the cold reality of "the truth." I'm not calling you a homeless bag lady but that's only a couple of degrees removed from homeless bag lady talk.

And to say that you're pessimistic because "no one understands me" is lame. So you can't be optimistic untill someone agrees with you?

To me, that sounds like "my delusion can beat up your delusion."

tw's point is well-made, but I don't think it's accurate. Most of the time we're only maintaining the status quo, but it's through tiny improvements that each of us make daily that the larger "improvements for mankind" happen. We are constantly looking for easier, faster, more comfortable ways of getting through our daily lives; eventually, someone comes up with a new, striking way that attains broader use. Enough people got tired of the jarring they got from riding wooden wheels on dirt roads that one of em finally came up with tires and asphalt.

The individual soldier is part of a larger unit that is working toward some goal ("take the hill" or some such) which is, in turn, part of a larger plan. While the soldier's bellycrawl across a field isn't advancing the overall state of humanity in and of itself, it is part of an advancement.

And the advancement could be on many levels other than warfare. There are numerous products in use today that have a military history, particularly things like waterproof fabrics, transportation advancements, communications, etc.

I think we're always moving forward, I'm just not sure our destination is what we think it is.

But you make my point. How many millions of crappy wooden wheels were made on how many millions of miles of pot holed roads before one little person in the millions came up with a rubber tire or asphalt? Everyone else was simply doing the same thing repeatedly. To better appreciate the concept, try Clayton Christensen's "Innovators Dilemma".

The soldier crawls on his belly only because the political negotiators could not do their job. He takes a hill. Status quo. Either he is only taking back the hill, or it will change hands when the political negotiations finally go back to the conference table. Why do we kill so many people in war? Because the politicians failed to do their job AND because the political situation now had to be changed by massive death so that negotiations could start anew. Now maybe due to war, some innovations may arise. The soldier has absolutely nothing to do with innovations or changes that occur at much higher levels. He is just doing the status quo.

There is no innovation by a soldier on his belly sacrificing his life for some hill. He is nothing more than a victim of top management (the politicians) who failed to do their job.

Yes, some people do add a little something to the mix. Maybe out of 100 people on the assembly line, someone finally comes up with an easier way to attach a widget. One thing that was always a problem for me (due to my upbringing, my peers, and my background) is that most people are adverse to change. It is not as bad as it was in the 1970s when literally most all innovation was stifled. But too many Americans don't even want to understand what compound interest is ... as their credit card debits skyrocket. This being a recent example that I tried to teach three separate people - and all did not want to know.

This discussion group is devoid of such people which is why The Cellar is a rather interesting place. Out there on the street, on a bus, in a coffee shop, etc - and mostly with 'born and breed' Americans, this adversity to change (as well as to math and science) is quite wide spread ... and getting worse. Most of us don't really innovate. When we crawl on our belly to take a hill or *use* a new technology, we *feel* we are being innovative? Nonsense. That is what top management tells us when they need something accomplished - because reality is sometimes so difficult to comprehend.

The Steel Industry is another classic example. Those MBAs swore how they were innovating because they were spending big bucks buying and using computers. Nonsense. Where were the new steels? Where were the electric arc furnaces? They bought computers to do the same old thing and called that innovation? Yes, many of us fail to understand how anti-innovative we really are. Again, "Innovator's Dilemma" only touches on one aspect of this mindset. Very few among us really innovate. Most of us just maintain the status quo every day - our productivity only increasing when the very few innovators provide new tools for our hands. We didn't innovate. They did.

The thing about innovation that always fascinated me was that with almost every major invention in history, several people independently arrived at the same inspiration and were working on similar prototypes right around the same time, without ever communicating with one another. It's like mankind was "ready" for that new direction.

The Renaissance was a period when suddenly artists were drawing with a more realistic perspective of the world. Did this just happen independently in the art world? Actually, artist first had some new tools. They were using a concave lens to reflect the image on their canvas, and then sketching that image into the canvas. One reason why breakthroughs appear to happen simultaneously in different locations is the sudden availability of new tools. So were those Renaissance artists really innovative?

Usually there is a series of inventions(discoveries) that make it possible for that invention to happen.
Quite often people work on a problem for years and years, then somebody else discovers a new material or process that is the key to the inventors solution. When a number of people are working on the same problem independently, usually it's the one that hears about the new discovery first, that wins.
Today news travels so fast, virtually everyone might hear, right away. :)