Why can't humans solve the problems facing mankind?

@anthony1312002,

Because technology doesn't change human nature, it just gives us new ways to expand our basic behaviors.

@Foofie,

You're a ******* idiot, Miller.

@oralloy,

So, unlike in your first post regarding this, they would not, in either case, be used defensively.

Give someone a hammer, they go around looking for a loose nail.

Joe(bang..bang)Nation

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

We will defend ourselves to the last drop of some poor son of a bitch's blood, so that his survivors may dream of the trickle down prosperity which is just around the corner.

The printing press didn't make people free, happier, healthier, wealthier. Neither did the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile (although it can be argued that the automobile incidentally made us healthier), radio, television nor the internet. What is needed to solve the manufactured problems of humanity is equity, justice. That's not going to happen because capitalists will protect their bottom line, military men and politicians will protect their propserity and their power, doctors, lawyers, engineers and all the other membes of the professional classes will protect the exclusivity of their practice.

Culture, human arifacts, history--all of these change. Human nautre doesn't change. I've got mine, screw you.

On the other hand, we have antibiotics (plus the rest of the pharmacopeia), pasteurization, dentists, medical doctors, food safety, water safety, air conditioning, central heat, tractors, combines, grain elevators, sewage treatment, etc.

And this stuff really is trickling down to the developing countries. They've designed foot-powered washing machines. They've designed single-family water desalinization widgets that can be made from local materials.

We live in an amazing time. Even with war and hatred and terrorism, life expectancy is increasing.

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@DrewDad,

John Snow traced the water pumps in Soho as the vector in a cholera epidemic in London in 1854. He is, therefore, considered to be the father of epidemiology. That was 158 years ago. Most people in the world still do not have reliable sources of clean, abundant water, nor efficient sewage removal and treatment. Thames Water still solicits charitable donations for their program to being clean water to the world's teeming billions.

The rate of your trickle down is ponderously, murderously slow. But i suspect you're just indulging your penchant for arguing becaue you can, and not because you're nearly as well informed as you would like to make yourself out to be.

EDIT: The Romans provided clean water in such abundance 2000 years ago that they established free public baths for the population of the city. From then until now is not even a trickle, more like an intermittent seepage.

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@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

So, unlike in your first post regarding this, they would not, in either case, be used defensively.

Give someone a hammer, they go around looking for a loose nail.

Joe(bang..bang)Nation

Either? You are talking about the nuclear war case as well as the conventional one?

Regarding the conventional war scenario, we would be defending our allies as opposed to defending our own soil, but that is still defense.

If China pulls back and stops hassling our allies, they will not find themselves on the receiving end of our defenses.

As for a Chinese nuclear strike on the US, I'm not really seeing a scenario where that would happen. If they did do such a thing, they'd have less than an hour to ponder their mistake. But I don't think they're that foolish to begin with.

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@rosborne979,

A very true statement.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Because technology doesn't change human nature, it just gives us new ways to expand our basic behaviors.

This. And I'm guessing a pervasive "problem" of ours is the number of people who don't get that. Like a bunch of addicts running around thinking they can go cold turkey and quit being human.

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@rosborne979,

You know, in light of your comment. Which is really right on the money, what do you think it would take for humanity to fix it's problems? We know that money and greed play a major role in the way things are done. And as someone mentioned earlier, there is a great lack of equity and justice.

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@anthony1312002,

I don't want to answer for rosborne, but in keeping with my above analogy: rehab. Lot's and lot's of rehab. Or what psychologists call "sublimation".

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

John Snow traced the water pumps in Soho as the vector in a cholera epidemic in London in 1854. He is, therefore, considered to be the father of epidemiology. That was 158 years ago. Most people in the world still do not have reliable sources of clean, abundant water, nor efficient sewage removal and treatment. Thames Water still solicits charitable donations for their program to being clean water to the world's teeming billions.

They know to boil their water now, though.

I agree that the trickle down is too slow.

Are you going to argue with me about antibiotics and dentistry, as well?

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@anthony1312002,

anthony1312002 wrote:

You know, in light of your comment. Which is really right on the money, what do you think it would take for humanity to fix it's problems?

There are lots of different problems to solve with different root causes.

But many problems would be diminished if we could bring as much of humanity as possible out of poverty and educate people. Humanity also needs to move away from "faith based" mindsets which are far too corruptible.

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The bottom line is that greed and profits are sufficient causes of the perpetuation of most of our problems. Looking for secondary benefits for the curse of war does not cut it for me.

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@JLNobody,

You beat around the bush too much. Just get too it man!

You're saying all the stuff people have said before. Stop using these conceptions and dig deeper.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Setanta wrote:

John Snow traced the water pumps in Soho as the vector in a cholera epidemic in London in 1854. He is, therefore, considered to be the father of epidemiology. That was 158 years ago. Most people in the world still do not have reliable sources of clean, abundant water, nor efficient sewage removal and treatment. Thames Water still solicits charitable donations for their program to being clean water to the world's teeming billions.

They know to boil their water now, though.

I agree that the trickle down is too slow.

Are you going to argue with me about antibiotics and dentistry, as well?

Antibiotics have been overused to the extent they could become useless, creating superbugs instead of killing them.

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@rosborne979,

I completely understand your point when you say that we need to move away from faith based mindsets because they are far too corruptible. And history has shown that when this avenue is misued it has proven to be most destructive as is the case with any vehicle the purpose of which is to shape minds and hearts, be they religous or otherwise. On the otherhand, when the tool of religion is used correctly, it can have a most positive affect. For example, for a faith based solution to be truly affective in a positive light, its precepts, requirements and other elements would have to be free of personal bias. This is a rare thing today but I do believe that it exists.

1 Reply

@anthony1312002,

anthony1312002 wrote:

On the otherhand, when the tool of religion is used correctly, it can have a most positive affect.

People say that a lot, but there's no evidence for it.

People say "you gotta have Faith", like Faith is a good thing, but it's not. Hope is a good thing, but Faith is not. They are different. Faith is virtually synonymous with Delusion. And a planet full of delusional people who all think they are right and everyone else is wrong just because they have Faith in their own way of thinking... well, that's not the solution to humanity's problems, it's the cause of humanity's problems.

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@rosborne979,

You are exactly right in stating that faith and hope are two different things. But there is an additional point that we can look at regarding faith. For example, Note this definition of faith: "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." I read that in the Bible at Hebrews chapter 11 and vs 1. In otherwords, faith is based on evidence.

To illustrate, if a person has a car and has taken very good care of it, he is confident or, has faith, that when he puts the key into the ignition that the car will start. Why, because of the evidence that includes the car having started the last time he used it. But that is the problem with most people who say they have faith. What they call faith is not really faith at all but in most cases credulity, that is, a state of willingness to believe in one or many people or things in the absence of reasonable proof or knowledge.

Thus true faith is based on evidence and knowlege.

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@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

They know to boil their water now, though.

I agree that the trickle down is too slow.

Are you going to argue with me about antibiotics and dentistry, as well?

I'll go slowly for you here. The topic is problems facing mankind--not some of mankind, not a subset of mankind, but all of mankind. It doesn't matter if people in industrialized nations have abundant clean water, or antibiotics or dentistry--the question is what would profit us all so that we all enjoy such benefits.

This is not a case of my arguing with you, it is a case of you failing to understand the topic.

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Religion never made a bad man good, nor has the want of it ever mande a good man bad. If anything, religion is a major source of the proglem and not its cure. People are going to hell because they're homosexual, or because they're promiscuous, or Catholic, or Muslim. "God" moves in mysterious wasy, or they're being punished (or we're being punished) for out sins. Religion does not cure selfishness. Just as is the case with ideology, social philosophy or technology, religion does not cure the individual or tribal greed, venality, cupidity and indifference which means that some people have abundant clean water but most people don't, and the same for any other positive source of human benefit. Many, many people think in terms of the needs of all of humanity, but by no means even a significant fraction of us all. Even fewer people who weild real political or social power give any cnsideration to the needs of all mankind. Whether it's the individual or the clan or the tribe, variations on the theme of "I've got mine, screw you" prevail.

That is why, earlier, i said this is boring. I've heard this question asked, and never satifactorily answered all my life. My reading tells me that it has been asked and met by silence down throught the ages. Technology, no more tha nreligion nor ideology won't make life better for all of mankind. The only thing that will accomplish that will be the development of a universal fellow feeling. I don't know where or how one is going to foster that.

1 Reply

Why can't humans solve the problems facing mankind?

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