Is the World what you thought it would be?

Bill Walker said:
I can't speak for England mate but the roads here are full of new cars.

And loads of bluemooners have been all over the world. Even just to City games.
Ive read that many times on here.

As for the price aren't European flights dirt cheap ?

And .... @Blue Mist has just been to Australia and back :)
Click to expand...
It used to be £10, and, before that, free transportation (provided you completed your sentence)
It's getting worse, not better!

;-)
 
I think progress is a mixture of good and bad and probably always has been. As you get older (or plain old) there's a tendency to look at the past selectively, to remember the good stuff and forget the shit, which in turn leads to nostalgia for an imagined golden age that really never was.

Most problems are caused by human greed and selfishness. They used to call this Original Sin. The bottom line is there are people out there, in substantial numbers, who would unplug your life support to charge their phone. They don't even realise they are evil, and would indignantly deny it if so accused.
 
One of the last episodes of Tomorrows world I remember was saying that we'd soon have 1GB of storage on something the size of a postage stamp.

we certainly surpassed that one!.

Edit: May have actually been credit card size rather than postage stamp.
 
Probably. However, I never imagined I'd see City win the league.
 
Born in 1946 I have had it easy, left school in 1962 and had a choice of jobs to go to. Saw man walk on the moon. Worked for just 2 companies both family owned and with pension schemes. Gave up work at the end of 2007 when I was just 60yrs 8mths old and have kept reasonably fit and healthy.

Then after a Caribbean cruise in the last week of February 2020 I returned home to Covid.

Since then the World has been utter shite. All the pissing about with Covid (I blame the Chinese), then that utter twat Putin invading a peaceful sovereign state, fuel prices going through the ceiling etc etc.

I am glad to be at the later part of my life and fear for the younger generation.
 
To be honest I am still amazed that shop doors open and close without me having to do anything, I can pay for things & get real money out of a wall by waving a bit of plastic about, I have a telephone that works without a wire attached, my car doesnt keep braking down & city are winning things, Yep put me down as happy :-)
 
abu13 said:
Being of a certain age I can remember watching Tomorrows World and looking at all the technology that would make the future so much better. The one thing that stuck in my mind was how automation would make life easier for everyone and how our lives would all be improved and we would have a much better standard of living and increased leisuretime.

The older I have got the more I now realise that the increased leisuretime they were talking about was actually unemployment, I am not for one minute saying the standard of living hasn't improved but I really question if the quality of life has improved.

One thing that hit me was a recent visit to Asda, there were only 3 tills open but there must have been at least 30 self service checkouts all being used. These checkouts were being manned by one poor women who must have been in her mid 50's and looked stressed to hell. I would love to know just how many people these self service checkouts have put out of work. All about profit for corporations, there is no reason other than profit to employing staff to man these tills. And it doesn't end there, what about the impact of Amazon and the like on Town centres and the local community. The out of town retail parks that have decimated local businesses.

What about the media and Politics? There used to be a time when I felt I could trust both but that is now long gone, Fake news and corruption everywhere. A society where we now accept food banks as being a natural part of everyday life and snowflakes everywhere just waiting to be offended.

All in all I think the World I now live in isn't anything like the dream I was sold back in the day.

And yes I do fully understand that this makes me sound like a miserable old bastard who thinks everything was better in his day :)
Click to expand...

I to can remember being told we would be the generation of leisure, I left school on '76.

Instead it looks like I will have to work into my 70's unlike my dad who retired at 50 ! Did well on their endowment mortgage.
 
m7mcfc said:
You are correct life is still tough though. There all these things to make life easier but with no money all is not obtainable. I have a lovely lady and 3 good young sons. But I have to work hard to provide for them. The world is better but you have to be able to afford it. Its tough for people who cannot.
Click to expand...
I agree it is tough. But for the have nots of today, its still infinitely better than it was for the have nots of years gone by.

whos that photographer that pictured salford and hulme etc as recently as the 70s? Cant remember her name. But people were living in utter fuckin dumps. Thank fully thats very rare now
 
Damocles said:
Every animal adapts its surroundings to fit its needs as best it can. We're just really good at it.

There's this sort of nihilistic hopelessness that seems to have coincided with the rise of social media and its not really a true reflection of events. The world has never been more ethical, never been more healthy, never been more free than it currently is today. Humans are, by far, the most successful and nicest species that has ever arisen in the entire Universe that we can tell.

You talk about the bad. There is no species on Earth that will be attacked by something and then defeat it and nurse it back to health in the way that humans do with animals all of the time. There is no species who will protect other species for no other reason than kindness like many humans do from Save the Whales to vegans.

By almost any metric that you care to measure, humans are the most ethical and also the most powerful species that has ever arisen. This doesn't mean that we're perfect or that there aren't societal challenges to face, but there's too much of a focus now on the bad without the celebration of all of the good things happening in the world and the lack of balance is hurting everyone.
Click to expand...
I fundamentally agree with most of this:

Humans are indeed exceedingly well-adapted. It's also true that our perception of reality is somewhat skewed by what we're exposed to. Humanity absolutely is at its most ethical: crime rates are lower than ever before; human health is greatly improved (see life expectancy).

Yes, humans are the most successful (although we could of course have a separate discussion around what constitutes 'success' and the pros and cons of that) species by a country mile.

Are we the nicest species that has ever arisen in the entire universe that we can tell? I would have to question that one. Are we nicer than goldfish?

I do get your point that there are many, many humans who proactively do good (as opposed to passively not doing bad, à la goldfish). You give vegans and Save The Whales as good examples of this. However, I would point out that these are in a minority (as things stand, although we can see that veganism is growing exponentially and is already thought to be past tipping point).

So this supports your point about humans being 'nice' and it's true that, as a proportion, there is currently more 'niceness' than ever before. But I don't think this negates the fact that the vast majority of humans do horrific things on a daily basis.

It's the objective reality that factory farming happens on a staggering scale and involves systematic imposition of tremendous suffering on trillions of sentient beings. Whether or not we find ways of justifying it, that behaviour is not 'nice'.

It's true that we are doing proportionally less of it now than we have in the past, but nonetheless, the vast majority of humans still engage in it. In China, live animals are eaten as a delicacy. Live animals! Where is the outrage? If the majority of humans really cared, then we would act to stop this.

Those who protect and nurse animals are very much in a minority because many times more will readily harm animals (or pay others to do it whilst looking the other way). Even many (most?) pets lead miserable lives: birds and rodents spending years in tiny cages for human amusement.

But it goes beyond our treatment of non-human animals. Look at how we (albeit selectively) support wars. Again, many do speak out and protest - but not enough to stop it happening. Our leaders engage in wars yet we continue to give them our votes. Do we really care about the people of Afghanistan, as long as our oil prices don't go up too much?

Human violence is way lower than ever before, as is crime generally. There is more equality, better health and more luxuries for just about all of us. The evidence is overwhelming: we are - without question - heading in the right direction.

Despite all of this, I do believe that the majority is still full of hate, engages in tribalism and contributes to mass suffering as things stand. We tolerate others being exploited; we tolerate being exploited ourselves; we tolerate tremendous privilege for some whilst others live in poverty.
 
Damocles said:
Every animal adapts its surroundings to fit its needs as best it can. We're just really good at it.

There's this sort of nihilistic hopelessness that seems to have coincided with the rise of social media and its not really a true reflection of events. The world has never been more ethical, never been more healthy, never been more free than it currently is today. Humans are, by far, the most successful and nicest species that has ever arisen in the entire Universe that we can tell.

You talk about the bad. There is no species on Earth that will be attacked by something and then defeat it and nurse it back to health in the way that humans do with animals all of the time. There is no species who will protect other species for no other reason than kindness like many humans do from Save the Whales to vegans.

By almost any metric that you care to measure, humans are the most ethical and also the most powerful species that has ever arisen. This doesn't mean that we're perfect or that there aren't societal challenges to face, but there's too much of a focus now on the bad without the celebration of all of the good things happening in the world and the lack of balance is hurting everyone.
Click to expand...
What a positive and uplifting take on the world, Thankyou Mr Clese.

I am now kind of looking forward to humans fucking this planet up beyond repair, necessity being the mother of invention we might pull our finger out and be a true interplanetary race that I envisaged the future world to be.




p.s i only meant the first sentence
 
There's no death robots controlled by a rogue AI killing off all of humanity yet so it's been a bit of a disappointment so far, the next few years look like they could be promising though.
 
BobbyJohnstone said:
Even 90s City?
Click to expand...
trauma-traumatized.gif
 
The world has always been fucked, that’s how it is. Things had improved, but these Trumpian years has uncovered an ugly side to people. Rabid Christianity in the states sees their Taliban wanting to interfere in everyone’s life and at the same time all have a hard on for Armageddon. Same here at home, where demonising the other, when you’re incompetent, crooked vermin, is the new reality.

I blame the parents. And I’m not even joking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top