Lisa Shea Forums General Discussion Life, The Universe, and Everything Previous civilizations! Humane? Better?

I am sitting here in one of my favorite layover spots, waiting for a call, watching the large trucks maneuver in and out of these little spots at the truck stop and it just came to me that for all of the time I have spent trying to work towards ideals I never have really tried to figure out which past civilization was better organized - socially, economically or perhaps that is just the problem - perhaps I just made the first mistake in the quagmire because "economics" always seems to be where our minds take us these days. With the technology of today there could easily be enough food, shelter and water for everyone to be comfortable so why should "Money" be a part of the equation?

No my trivial thoughts today center on which past or current part of civilization has had the most equal and longest lasting amount of peace and non-threatened stint of cooperation between the peoples of our little planet?

Really are you satisfied? The polls are in and the answer is a resounding "NO" because otherwise why would there be a need for reports of "Mass School Shootings" or even "WAR" or perhaps those little words that people use daily like Abortion, Suicide or even Addiction. Some people may very well be happy but they are in denial because their neighbors are not thus can any real human be happy when the world is in such crappy shape? I don't think so only because the etymology of the word civilization means "People working together towards a common goal." or "To be civilized to one another."

It never fails to amaze me when I watch these trucks in action because here are men and women from all over the Americas, perhaps speaking different languages but communicating just perfectly.

we are screwed because in one camp we have the socialists who believe the state and economy should serve the needs of the masses and in the opposite camp, and in power we have the capitalists who believe that the masses should serve in the interest of profit, which is the ultimate goal as they see it. money matters, people don't and much of what is wrong with the world, from slavery to obamas drone strikes and big oil flows from that.

we've been living with that model since alexander the great, whose head adorns the earliest universal currency which represents the abstraction of wealth. and it not about to go away.

i believe it was the anasazi who were believed to be the longest running peaceful civilisation in our history. over 1200 years and they left no weapons, no depictions of war or any other violence. what they did leave was loads of musical instruments, sex toys and pipes for smoking coca leaves. now there was a society which knew what life was for.

I think we have gotten more aware of many harms - we know more how slavery hurts, how child abuse and spousal abuse hurts, how bullying hurts, and so on. So I think we're much more aware of a variety of issues. Clearly we still have enormous numbers of issues that we do anyway as a society.

I think we're making slow, steady progress, and I hope with each new generation that we get better. In the 1800s most people would think slavery was sort of OK. Nowadays I think you'd find very few who think that way. Right now we have a portion of people who think racism or anti-homosexuality is OK. But it drops away with each decade. So eventually I do believe we'll get better.

Lisa,

Our personal ideas about slavery, probably the definition of and how it is perceived, could not be more different. Only the face of slavery has changed and in my opinion it has gotten much worse because now when slaveowners are through with their slaves for the day they just toss them out on the street and take no responsibility for them at all. The new driving force of slavery today is called "wage slavery". The minimum wage stands to serve as a base for our entire wage system.

I agree with your other assertions to a tee. Thank you for responding to my post.

yeah - slavery never went away, it just got rebranded. whether you're talking about chinese sweatshops making plastic toys or the construction workers that built the dubai resorts, it most certainly is slavery. working for minimal gain under harsh conditions with no rights.

i would define religion as slavery as well in that it ultimately leads people to abandon their independent thought and moral reasoning. what muslim law does in countries like saudi and christianity does in the phillipines subjugates peoples freedoms and rights in an abhorrent manner.

so i would say that the only real difference we have now is awareness. eradication of slavery and emancipation of all the working classes of the world is a very long way off i'd say.

Human trafficking goes on and is both hidden and terrifying.

PDM,

Ya know there are a couple of really good movies about that subject. I torrented one in Russian that starred my dream mistress Rachel Weiss' though I cannot remember the name right off but the stats are rather horrifying. Supposedly there are more people sold into bondage now - per year - than there were in any decade in the mid eighteen hundreds with 80% of them coming from the lower to middle Mediterranean(Ukraine to Slovak region) of the former USSR and that is the one place I would like to go back to and spend my retirement. Just in my opinion the "Borderland to the Carpathian Mountains" is the single most amazing place in the world and it also contains the world's most amazing people.

I guess what's really horrifying about the human slavery thing is that most of the people sold into this practice are sold into bondage right here in this country and that is exactly what I mean when I preach about Capitalism knows no limits and corporations have no souls but are still considered people under the law. This truly is the age of profit.

Jan,
Are you required to be a Muslim in Saudi Arabia, and a Christian in the Philippines? I really don't know much of anything about the practices of religions overseas, and it's not for lack of study, it's just there is so much and so many to study. The church used to have a great deal of power everywhere so slavery is a word that I would have used to describe them back in the day but today it's really more like subjugation, in Europe and the USA, and the only example I need is someone like Sarah Palin or even one of my cousins.

It is quite terrifying what some human beings will do to other human beings ~ often for financial gain.

mongrel - yes in both case -pretty much. suffices to say a non musilim in saudi and a non catholic in the phillipines are in for a bad time.

don't start me on palin. on word - moron.