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Thread: Have you started to worry about your parents?
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HoreTore 16:59 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
all of whom did their best work after the age of 50
I suggest you reread my posts, as this has very little to do with generational progress.

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Fragony 17:00 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
Next you'll be quoting the Gospel of John, right?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:G..._human_history

Hmmm. Some notables on that list that should have just done away with themselves to make room for the "younger and smarter"

da Vinci--Goethe--Dostoyevsky--Euler--Thomas Bay--Haydn..........all of whom did their best work after the age of 50
The commie is right, simple as that. Wiki-link, but not that bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

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Skullheadhq 17:55 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Fragony:
The commie is right, simple as that. Wiki-link, but not that bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Don't you think this has more to do with an increase of prosperity?

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Fragony 18:57 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Demetrius Scholarius:
Don't you think this has more to do with an increase of prosperity?
Sure. But that doesn't mean our house-commie is wrong

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HoreTore 19:25 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Demetrius Scholarius:
Don't you think this has more to do with an increase of prosperity?
"on the shoulders of giants", and all that.

Each successive generation fixes the mistakes made by the previous generation. Proof? Human history shows that we have continually moved towards a more peaceful and just world. We replaced slavery with feudalism, feudalism with limited democracy, limited democracy by universal suffrage, etc.

As such, the most positive side of growing old is the knowledge that you'll soon get out of the way of the younger, smarter generation which will be free to fix the mistakes you made.

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rajpoot 19:52 10-27-2013
A few numbers on the IQ scale don't prove that our generation is all that smarter. Clearly intelligence does increase, but for a substantial increase, one that is noticable in more forms than just numbers you'll probably need to jump back a few generations.
The reason the previous generation is at a disadvantage, specially when talking about Internet conmen is simply because they grew up with different technology and they find it hard to grasp how to judge right or wrong when using a medium they aren't familiar with. For people of our generation who grew up in the 90s it is easier.
@Shaka_Khan
I can empathize with you. I remember my parents grew argumentative and irritable. I think that's something that happens to everyone around 55 or 60. And as far as not caring about being conned is concerned, at times it is simply better to accept a mishap that cannot be undone, rather than fret about it.

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ReluctantSamurai 21:28 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by :
I suggest you reread my posts, as this has very little to do with generational progress.
I did.

Originally Posted by :
Every generation snce the beginning of time has been smarter than the last.
Originally Posted by :
As such, the most positive side of growing old is the knowledge that you'll soon get out of the way of the younger, smarter generation which will be free to fix the mistakes you made.
So at what age do you step aside for the "younger, smarter" generation? 40? 50? 60?

Originally Posted by :
Each successive generation fixes the mistakes made by the previous generation. Proof? Human history shows that we have continually moved towards a more peaceful and just world.
Absolute horse-hockey. We are slowly killing ourselves and our planet with overpopulation, over-use of natural resources, and pollution, precisely because modern society is so disconnected from its nurturing planet, and with each other. I dare say that we'll be hitting the Matrix sometime in the next 4 or 5 generations.....

Originally Posted by :
The commie is right, simple as that. Wiki-link, but not that bad
Oh Puuleeeese Repeat something often enough and hope that it's true?

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HoreTore 21:43 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
I did.

So at what age do you step aside for the "younger, smarter" generation? 40? 50? 60?
Death. Quite obvious, since we're talking about a generational change.

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
Absolute horse-hockey. We are slowly killing ourselves and our planet with overpopulation, over-use of natural resources, and pollution.
The end of humanity has been announced countless times. Still, we've lived on. They're wrong this time as well.

Why? Because the new generation has been able to solve the problems the previous generation couldn't fix. They'll fix our current batch of problems too, we just need to die first.

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Kralizec 21:46 10-27-2013
My parents? Not yet, so far. But fairly recently (a year ago, I think) it first hit me that:

A) my parents won't be around forever
B) anywhere between now and death they (and by extension, me) will have to deal with all sorts of age-related problems

Of course this is something that I've "known" forever in the sense that I know it happens to everyone eventually. I'm not sure what triggered my epiphany (an extremely unsettling feeling); it might have been a medical procedure that my father had to undergo - even though it was a fairly mundane one and went well. My parents are in their early sixties, so hopefully it will be many years before significant problems happen.

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ReluctantSamurai 21:55 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by :
Because the new generation has been able to solve the problems the previous generation couldn't fix. They'll fix our current batch of problems too, we just need to die first.
Thanks, but no thanks. I have absolutely no faith that the current generation will be able to solve its lack of connectivity with its surroundings and with each other to be able to fix much of anything. Just hope that a real-life NEO comes along to bail our sorry asses out....

When it's my time to die, then it's my time. But I will live each and every moment, as well as I can, with as much enthusiasm, curiosity, passion, and intelligence at 60--70--80--(or for however long I get) as I did when I was 15, 20, or 25.

....and I have my own father as an example, to thank....which leads me to suspect you've had no such example from your own parents...

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HoreTore 22:06 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
Thanks, but no thanks. I have absolutely no faith that the current generation will be able to solve its lack of connectivity with its surroundings and with each other to be able to fix much of anything. Just hope that a real-life NEO comes along to bail our sorry asses out...
Feel free to join Socrates, but humanity will continue, as it always has. The problem is simply that we are unable to see the solutions. Fortunately, the next generations will. As they always have.

Your distrust in the youngsters is due to a simple inability on your part to understand how they work.

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
When it's my time to die, then it's my time. But I will live each and every moment, as well as I can, with as much enthusiasm, curiosity, passion, and intelligence at 60--70--80--(or for however long I get) as I did when I was 15, 20, or 25.

....and I have my own father as an example, to thank....which leads me to suspect you've had no such example from your own parents...
This has very little(meaning "none at all") to do with anything I've said. A generational change means that the next generations 60-year olds will be smarter than the current 60-year olds, not that the 40-year olds today are smarter than the 60-year olds today.

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ReluctantSamurai 22:21 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by :
Your distrust in the youngsters is due to a simple inability on your part to understand how they work.
A touch arrogant for you to presume what I am able to perceive and what I am not? I have spent many, many hours working with "youngsters" in my line of work, and have been responsible for overseeing their work progress in all various projects I have been involved with. My perceptions are based on my own personal observations. And those perceptions are mixed, but in no way lead me to blindly believe that "progress" by succeeding generations is humanity's saving grace...

....and canned rhetoric on your part, doesn't make me feel any better about humankind's survival.

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HoreTore 22:24 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai:
A touch arrogant for you to presume what I am able to perceive and what I am not? I have spent many, many hours working with "youngsters" in my line of work, and have been responsible for overseeing their work progress in all various projects I have been involved with. My perceptions are based on my own personal observations. And those perceptions are mixed, but in no way lead me to blindly believe that "progress" by succeeding generations is humanity's saving grace...

....and canned rhetoric on your part, doesn't make me feel any better about humankind's survival.
Anecdotal, eh? The stats show clearly that the kids today booze less, do less crime, study harder, etc etc.

We'll meet up in the afterlife and see if humanity ended with us or not. I'll buy you a beer if the earth imploded a century or so after our deaths.

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Fragony 22:34 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
"on the shoulders of giants", and all that.

Each successive generation fixes the mistakes made by the previous generation. Proof? Human history shows that we have continually moved towards a more peaceful and just world. We replaced slavery with feudalism, feudalism with limited democracy, limited democracy by universal suffrage, etc.

As such, the most positive side of growing old is the knowledge that you'll soon get out of the way of the younger, smarter generation which will be free to fix the mistakes you made.
Ffs Horetore you just made the whole world more stupid just by yourself. Slavery is WAY after the feudal perioid you are confused with fiefdom. And there is absolutily nothing that even remotily resembles democracy after the feudal period.

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HoreTore 22:43 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Fragony:
Ffs Horetore you just made the whole world more stupid just by yourself. Slavery is WAY after the feudal perioid you are confused with fiefdom. And there is absolutily nothing that even remotily resembles democracy after the feudal period.
Uhm, what?

Roman Empire - slavery
Medieval Europe - feudalism
Industrial Europe - limited democracy
Modern Europe - democracy

I fail to see where I got things wrong?

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Fragony 22:52 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Uhm, what?

Roman Empire - slavery
Medieval Europe - feudalism
Industrial Europe - limited democracy
Modern Europe - democracy

I fail to see where I got things wrong?
How about missing at least half a millenium of history. That's what you got wrong.

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HoreTore 22:55 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Fragony:
How about missing at least half a millenium of history. That's what you got wrong.
How, where, when?

Are you suggesting that feudalism existed prior to the Romans, or what?

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Fragony 23:01 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
How, where, when?

Are you suggesting that feudalism existed prior to the Romans, or what?
I am suggesting that you should take some history lessons as your knowledge is kinda lacking, read up, then I'll oblige.

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HoreTore 23:16 10-27-2013
Originally Posted by Fragony:
I am suggesting that you should take some history lessons as your knowledge is kinda lacking, read up, then I'll oblige.
Well, I guess I have earned that reply from you....

First of all, my summary was:

1. Brief(since I can't be arsed to do more)
2. Eurocentric(because nobody cares about blacks or asians, and in fact I disregarded large parts of europe as well)

I started with slavery, which we found in the cultures around the med in the classical period, ie. Romans, Greeks(semi, I know), and so on. Then I skipped through the dark ages, because I'm afraid of the dark, to medieval Europe with feudalism. Here different parts of Europe went different ways, with serfdom remaining in Russia to the 19th century, but I skipped the absolute monarchies of the Rennessaince anyway. Then I went into the Industrial age, with the french and yank revolutions giving us a limited form of democracy(disregarding the brits, who desperately try to convince everyone they're aliens), before ending up with the universal suffrage of the 20th century.

And a question for you, frags: If you add a "primitive/natural stage" to the start of my list, and replace "modern europe and democracy" with "future", whose historical analysis would that be?

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Rhyfelwyr 01:36 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
And a question for you, frags: If you add a "primitive/natural stage" to the start of my list, and replace "modern europe and democracy" with "future", whose historical analysis would that be?
Adam Smith's. I'm serious, look up 'stadial theory'. The Marxist narrative really just an extension of a historiographic trend going back to the Scottish School and even the likes of Grotius and Pufendorf.

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a completely inoffensive name 02:43 10-28-2013
HoreTore's position is unverifiable. If the Greatest Generation/Baby Boomers had let the world die during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we would not be here. His argument depends on the luck of having successive generations merely keep the bare minimum of staying alive for another generation to be born. But that says nothing about whether we are smarter than them, because anyone can throw generalizations of arbitrary generational lines.

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Montmorency 03:25 10-28-2013
Of course, as a good socialist Horetore also knows deep down that people are only suited for their particular historical context. A very great majority of us would utterly fail if obliged to deal with the peculiar problems of ages past - and it is precisely because those problems were solved that we can no longer deal with them. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

The true realization of Horetore's dream lies not in any notion of "generation progress"; it would be for us humans to design and tutor a whole new race of sentient Non-Men, and subsequently allow ourselves to be "phased out" as obsolete material, so that the Non-Men might raise their glorious new race and civilization upon the dust of our bones...

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HoreTore 08:52 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr:
Adam Smith's. I'm serious, look up 'stadial theory'. The Marxist narrative really just an extension of a historiographic trend going back to the Scottish School and even the likes of Grotius and Pufendorf.
'ol Smithy had hunter/gatherer->pastoralism->agriculture->commerce, didn't he?

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Andres 09:12 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Each successive generation fixes the mistakes made by the previous generation. Proof? Human history shows that we have continually moved towards a more peaceful and just world. We replaced slavery with feudalism, feudalism with limited democracy, limited democracy by universal suffrage, etc.
So, the organised massacres that took place in the 20th century were an improvement over previous centuries? Why exactly? Because they were better organised and we never managed to kill as many people in such a short time before?

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Husar 10:09 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by Montmorency:
Of course, as a good socialist Horetore also knows deep down that people are only suited for their particular historical context. A very great majority of us would utterly fail if obliged to deal with the peculiar problems of ages past - and it is precisely because those problems were solved that we can no longer deal with them. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

The true realization of Horetore's dream lies not in any notion of "generation progress"; it would be for us humans to design and tutor a whole new race of sentient Non-Men, and subsequently allow ourselves to be "phased out" as obsolete material, so that the Non-Men might raise their glorious new race and civilization upon the dust of our bones...
You and your worldview again...
Why do you hate humanity?

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
Inevitable as time travel in a Terminator movie though.
Don't agree with the Monterminator!
Rather go buy a powerful gun and hope he isn't made of self-repairing liquid with a nuclear generator...somewhere...

Originally Posted by Andres:
So, the organised massacres that took place in the 20th century were an improvement over previous centuries? Why exactly? Because they were better organised and we never managed to kill as many people in such a short time before?
Progress is progress.
If you people do not agree with HoreTore's point that old people getting replaced by new people is a good thing, would you prefer:
a. Just one eternal generation of humans with no reproduction
b. Babies! But old people don't die

and why do you think these options would be preferable over death and replacement and what would be the implications?

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Fragony 10:26 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Well, I guess I have earned that reply from you....

First of all, my summary was:

1. Brief(since I can't be arsed to do more)
2. Eurocentric(because nobody cares about blacks or asians, and in fact I disregarded large parts of europe as well)

I started with slavery, which we found in the cultures around the med in the classical period, ie. Romans, Greeks(semi, I know), and so on. Then I skipped through the dark ages, because I'm afraid of the dark, to medieval Europe with feudalism. Here different parts of Europe went different ways, with serfdom remaining in Russia to the 19th century, but I skipped the absolute monarchies of the Rennessaince anyway. Then I went into the Industrial age, with the french and yank revolutions giving us a limited form of democracy(disregarding the brits, who desperately try to convince everyone they're aliens), before ending up with the universal suffrage of the 20th century.

And a question for you, frags: If you add a "primitive/natural stage" to the start of my list, and replace "modern europe and democracy" with "future", whose historical analysis would that be?
Ffs Horetore the age of colonism was WAY after the Feudal period. It's true that serfdom was still in Russia in the 19th century but it doesn't apply to Europe the Feudal period ended century's before that

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HoreTore 11:28 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by Fragony:
Ffs Horetore the age of colonism was WAY after the Feudal period. It's true that serfdom was still in Russia in the 19th century but it doesn't apply to Europe the Feudal period ended century's before that
I didn't touch on colonialism at all, because the world outside Europe doesn't matter.

"Slavery" in a historical sense refers to the time when the European states included a slave class, ie. the Romans, not the later african slave trade.

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Fragony 11:49 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
I didn't touch on colonialism at all, because the world outside Europe doesn't matter.

"Slavery" in a historical sense refers to the time when the European states included a slave class, ie. the Romans, not the later african slave trade.
Uhm, no

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rajpoot 12:05 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
I didn't touch on colonialism at all, because the world outside Europe doesn't matter.

"Slavery" in a historical sense refers to the time when the European states included a slave class, ie. the Romans, not the later african slave trade.
A quick Google search about 'slavery historical' gives a result where 8 out of 11 links lead to pages about transatlantic slavery. You need to reassess that historical sense.

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Montmorency 12:30 10-28-2013
Originally Posted by Husar:
Why do you hate humanity?
No, I do love it - but I must destroy that which I love.

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