What are you suggesting Mike, a return to a carrying, sharing Communism ... or is this just not more "Argumentum Verbosium" (proof by Intimidation)?How many of these people, below, would trade places with
these people in the past? Which is better life in Russia today, 50 years ago or 100 years ago ... (
and how many 70 year olds would expected to still be able to rock and roll back then?).
As I have said before, I am concerned your technique of argument is still too close to the Brahma Kumaris. It is like you have been possessed by soul of Jagdish Chander, after reading too much Marxism and David Icke.
Everything is "global" scale doom and gloom ... you pick mentally traumatising examples that are beyond the comprehension of most ordinary people ... you pepper your arguments with fallacies, false facts, and then ... beat our heads with it all until we submit. But I still don't know what the alternative is and how it is going to come about.
"Argumentum Verbosium" or "Proof by Intimidation" ... a fallacious form of argument.
Proof by intimidation or proof by verbosity is an argument that is so complex, so long-winded and so poorly presented by the arguer that listeners are obliged to accept it, simply to avoid being forced to sift through its minute details. It is beloved of pandits the world over.
OK Mike, you have a habit of not answering questions whilst burying the conversation in doom. Let's be constructive about this. As an enlightened person, how free and different are you exactly? I am being serious now.
What life changes have you made?
Mike26 wrote:And the scene that starts 'What have the Romans ever done for us' The list consists of roads, sanitation, law and order etc. Classic.
Actually, Roman principles of Law and, especially, Latin were two great things that the Romans did for the world. Latin united Europe, spread learning across nations and still underpins scientific and medical understanding. Thank you Caesar for knocking the Celts into order and uniting us. Thank you for public knowledge of civil law and judicial procedures, the evolution of law according to precedent and circumstances, and the idea that universal rights of humanity can provide the basis for positive human made laws ...
somethings the BKs STILL have not got 2,000 years later! I think the UN figures you were looking for are that richest 2% of adults in the world own more than 50% of all "household wealth" (not total wealthy) and that the poorer 50% of the world's population own barely 1% of 'global wealth' ... but then you contradict yourself by saying wealth does make us happy (which I agree with). 100 years ago 90% of the world population own NO wealth, so things are getting better. "Money cannot buy you love" but it can buy you a bed, a house and midwife and some dentistry ... even if it is a myth that a money free existence equates to "dire standards of living and daily struggle".
In the last 50 years, 'statistics' of psychiatric illness have risen because,
a) it is good for the business of the medical companies,
b) people's life expectations are higher, and
c) more have been defined and invented.
Again you contradict yourself because prior to the 20th C, everyone was so overwhelmed with "dire standards of living and daily struggle" that they did not have time to consider how mentally ill they were (or were not). Eccentricity or melancholia was just accepted as normal (as was death by syphilis and life expectancy of 25 - 35). I doubt the proportions have changed significantly ... humans are a faulted design.
Most of what you write are just illness of greed, laziness, and overconsumption ... not evil design by the conspiracy. People just have to stop eating too much of what they cannot have.
On the other hand, look at all the free cataract, harelip, and other operations done in the Developing nations that have changed millions of lives which before were hellish.
Look at the fantastic improvements in Maternal Mortality ... down to 20, or even 0 per 100,000, where it was once 100 times that.
Greece ... for most people life goes on just the same as it always has done. Life is still FAR better than it was in the 1960s and 70s when the military junta ruled. If anyone wants to know the reality of the situation, there is a
very good article here. (Short version, it would not be in trouble is everyone paid all the taxes they should and they are struggling under 10% illegal immigration).
For Western women, "heart disease, alcohol addiction" etc are not obligatory. They are just illness of increased wealth and greed, not management jobs nor corporations. Ditto, heart disease is due to increase age. Change diet and lifestyle.
Cancer rates have risen because we live longer. 50 years we were all dead by 65. Now we live to 80, and die by cancer. We need to die somehow and our current diet says cancer or heart attack, it is written into our DNA.
Life expectancy in South Africa is 51 years, not 35, and 70 if you are white. If South Africa is so bad, why have the number of UK citizens living there doubled in the last 5 years? I am sure you will agree, life is far better than it was under Apartheid.
The problem with some Blacks in Africa, just like many Homosexuals in the West, is that the men just will not control their trouser snakes. In Africa, it is all bound up with primitive male attitudes towards sex and superstitions. Should we really be that surprised if nature finds its own ways of re-balancing imbalances and teaching us harsh lessons? In the 19th C it was Syphilis, in the 20 th C it was AIDs. It is simple to cure, stay faithful to your wife and keep you zipper up (
oh, I am sorry I forgot ... AIDs was a conspiracy designed by the Jewish-American Elite to kill off all the Africans so they could steal their lands, was it?).
Yes, we have still child abuse ... but we don't have child weddings any more. Nor the levels of child prostitution we had in the Victorian Period and before. I'd could easily tear apart your "biggest ever" claim ... in the 16th Century, history claims the Christians shipped anything up to 500,000 sex slaves out of Japan alone.
What was previously considered "normal" is now considered wrong ... and we have "high levels" because now we are enlightened enough to pay for systems to record, criminalise and police it, where before we did not.
Now we have a world wide system with which people can witness disasters half the world away and respond instantly with concern and vast generosity, as we have seen with the recent tsunamis ... human being grow when challenged.
Life has always been unequal and unfair ... a lottery of birth. Life does not owe us, sadly, but it is full of miracles.
Even if it is not "better", it is certainly getting longer ... (see below, World Life Expectancy 1950 to 2005).