[the phantom]

They said that they could never make a ship better than that. I as a human being cannot understand that. How is it possible to reach a pinnacle? I just simply cannot fanthom the idea that you can make something and be unable to make something better. I think that that is the great thing about humans in ME and in general, they can always improve.

I also remember feeling uncomfortable when reading about the Teleri never being able to make better ships.

I mean, they have a few thousand years to get better, but they can't. Uhg.

that it might not be progress for a better and happier world we have made, personally I think the 20th century the worst ever, followed by the 19th

Ummm... I would say that the years when people had to work all day to stay alive, the years that life expectancy was less than half what it is now, the years where iron-fisted and cruel rulership practices were more common because no one was there to challenge them, and the years when people knew jack about the human body and diseases were much worse centuries than the past two.

Everyone should try going without any modern thing for a couple weeks and see what it's like. Go into the middle of the woods naked, with no tools and food, and make your own clothes, try to find food, if you can make a weapon then try to catch something, and so on. After two weeks, your stench alone (from not having soap, shampoo, running water, deodorant, or cologne) will make you long for the modern conveniences developed over time.

And what if you fall and break your arm. With a doc handy, you can fix the arm up and use it again in a few weeks. With no medical technology, if you broke it just the wrong way it's possible that you could never use the arm again.

Or what if you have gum trouble, or tooth trouble, or get bit by a bug and get West Nile Virus.

Think about that, and then I think you'll be thankful that you live in our current day and age.

(Plus, there was NO BARROW-DOWNS back then!! Aahhh!!)

Of course, the second world war had upsides, the ousting of Fascism and so on but it does not compare to the downsides

I don't know. The war killed people, but if the war wouldn't have been fought, then Hitler takes over whatever he feels like. I think Hitler running the world (and perhaps doing a worldwide ethnic cleansing of all non-Germans) is a huge downside that we averted by fighting the war (making it a positive), in which case the positives would far outweigh the negatives.

Unless you're meaning that it would've been better if the war had never even been necessary (in other words, everybody got along), then OF COURSE. We'd all pick everyone getting along over having a nasty war. But that would require everyone being good boys and girls, and that's sadly not the way it is.

Men are destroyers of the natural world, who have made no advancements in living, really.

No advancements in...what...are you kidding?

I must be misinterpreting your statement (I hope I am).

True enough, but is this development really positive at all? Certainly World War II led to the advancement in the nuclear arms race, which has altered society drastically but has not had any desirable effect.

Very true. The advancements are scary ones, but unfortunately, necessary in this scary world.

(Well, I doubt this post is good for my popularity, but whatever. Part of the reason some people come to The Downs is to see varying opinions.)

[ August 23, 2003: Message edited by: the phantom ]