the news is so depressing.

.

Also during 1700 people took more care of poor and sick. The farmers kept their workers with food and other things after they could not work any more.
Special housing for poors were paid by taxes and also hospitals for the sick.

We might not like to have live during 1700 but for people in those days it was a century of progress.

Saab,



What are we arguing about. I agree with this statement. My point is only that life is much better now then it was back then.

(Although I do think you have a overly romantic view of poor houses. There is a reason that modern civilized societies no longer have them.)

(Although I do think you have a overly romantic view of poor houses
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Where on earth did you get such a stupid idea from?
Before 1692 there were no poor houses what so ever. Now at least there were a place under a roof and now and then food - depending where they were.
Otherwise there is very little good to say about them. One room for men - one room for women also for children, handicapped etc.

Ummmm.... OK.... so what are we arguing about?

If you are claiming out that life in general was better in the 1700s then in the 1600s, you won't get any argument from me.

I am simply saying that in general, life is far better in the 2000s then they were in the 1700s.

(And, we haven't even mentioned indoor plumbing yet.)

I'd go without indoor plumbing way before I'd go back to surgery while biting a bullet and drinking whiskey... but then, I'm not a white guy under 40. They've got it about that bad right now. Tough times for them!!

(she said with her tongue in her cheek.)

I have so far not said that people in earlier days had it better than we do.
How many times do I have to tell you that??? Don´t you read or don´t you understand what I am writing???
All I have tried to do is to say that they also had a life of thinking and planning ahead and trying to better their lifes. Something you do not want to accept.
For you it is all materalistic.....you don´t want to accept any form of cultural life, thinking, philosophy, art, music etc excisted. All you can come back about is materealistic things forgetting that people in those days also had a brain to think and mind of their own.

Saab, I have read every word you have written (in this thread), and I think I agree-- although I think in this thread-- titled "the news is so depressing" the whole point comparing today's life with previous eras.

If we are agreeing on everything, it makes this a rather pointless discussion, doesn't it?

I accept that people in the 1700s had some form of cultural life; thinking, art and music all existed. But, 21st cultural life is so much richer than people in the 1700s could have ever dreamed of.

I can go to my local bookstore and get music from Bach to Beethoven to Monk. I can even hear music from the 1700s. For less then an hours wage, I can buy a copy of Beowulf or Dostoevsky or Cervantes. My standard city museum has original art from around the world which is open to the public for a couple of hours wage.

And my city provides full time professional dancers and musicians with access to the music of the world that are accessible to the working class. World-class traveling musicians, again accessible to the average working guy, are common.

I am not saying that in the 1700s people didn't have a cultural life. I am saying that in the 21st century, with our additional leisure time, our cheap and easy access to world wide literary and musical masterpieces and or access to world wide artistic talent we have far richer and more accessible cultural life than ever before.

Combine this with access to affordable and quick travel which allows ordinary working class people to travel abroad every year if they like, the 21st century wins pretty handily.

I can only agree with you that we do have access to much more than they did earlier - even in the 20th century´s beginning to middle.
Wish more people would take advandege of it - less books are read, at least over here, many school children at the age of 14 cannot spell correctly and our language spelling is easier than English. We can travel and see so much and still so many go only for sun and beaches.
At least I live in a not too big city with about one library for every 9000 inhabitants - so reading is not forgotten.

for those who are well enough formed and with enough wealth to take advantage....sure. But you can not escape the spiritual emptiness of our times, the increasing ineguality, and the fact that an easy life materially makes man soft and listless. the easy life part is ending on its own because an irresponsible generation has fucked over their kids, but we have far to go in solving the basic problems of our times that keep many from fully appreciating what technology has brought.

Hawkeye have you ever read one history book in your life?

Yes we know you are unhappy with your lot in the world however all through history before the industry revolution only one or two percent of a population had any real life and the rest was working to maintain that 2 percent or so.

Similar to now in ways however we had gotten so wealthy as a society in the West that even after dealing with the top 2 percent there is still enough that most of the rest of us can live like human beings instead of slave also.

We can have books and computers and can travel across the world almost at whim. We do not need to watch our children die one after another from childhood diseases or slowly starve to death because bad weather had destroy the local crops.

Side note I have a collection of 1870s engineering magazines and their cover price is 5 repeat 5 dollars a large part of a week wages for an average working man of the time.

We had came a long way indeed when it come to access to all kind of information for the masses of people.

Good answer to Hawkeye10, who will get used to it. And, all that crap about women?

Sometimes, when I read your posts i don't know whether to laugh or cry, hawk

ha, i just had a look around the room, looks pretty good from this white (ecru) man's perspective