possible paradigm shifts following y2k

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

hmmmm,my last post must not have been p.c.enough,sysop must get quite a charge keeping their little world safe from troubling ideas.My deleted thread proposed that a serious enough y2k chaos might induce enough distrust of out of control,run away technological advances that checks and ballances might be put on the technocrats who never ask if a thing should be done,only if it could be done(nukes,genetic engineering,fossile fuels,germ labs).History teaches that Dynasties and civilizations rise and fall endlessly, as will ours,sooner or later.Perhaps if our child race gets its fingers burned badly enough we will learn to consider consequences of playing with fire before self-immolating.

-- doomer(not trolling) (Hopeful doomer@prepping.com), October 31, 1999

Answers

Please do not respond to this 'polly provocateur' pretending to be a doomer. He/She/It is trying to discredit people prepping by implying that they want a die-out and societal chaos.

-- X (X@X.com), October 31, 1999.

Yes, blame technology. Tell everyone we should have magically found a natural way to stop it without imposing laws, which you would oppose if we did.

If you had a son or daughter, wouldnt you want your child to grow up to be better than you and smarter than you. Something that you could look down at and say "That's my kid!". Dont you think God is glad we took his little experiment we call "Earth" and made it into the greatest "Ant Farm" one could ever hope for. Even with war, even with man made catastrophies, God is probably very happy with us as a whole.

Do you really think God is angry that we do genetic experiements?. Why is that so wrong?. Why cant we do things like making people healthier or controlling certain aspects of what a person will be. Nobody thought it was bad when we created antibiotics, nobody thinks its bad when we do organ transplants, nobody thinks its bad when we make fake appendages so people can walk or hear or use their hands. At what point does it become criminal to enhance life or make the world a better place through science and technology. So what if we get it wrong and go to far and create something we will regret, at what point can you really say "Dont go any further, we might regret it". Because if we dont fly to the moon, if we dont splice genes, if we dont do cloning research we will never know what we can do and be sucessful.

You technophobes, people yearning for the days of horse and buggy, of self-sufficiency have a weakeness or an adgenda and might not even know it.

What makes you think that if Y2k is TEOTWAWKI we wont pick back up from where we were and make it even more technologically advanced. Do you remember what the Japanese did after we bombed them?. Technology will never look back, even if society falters or even collapses. We know too much, we have too much experience and resources to ever allow ourselves to go back to the "good old days".

If TEOTWAWKI comes we will rise out of the ashes and build a more complex and advanced society at a much faster pace than we ever did before. We will always have the technophobes who are afraid of the future and want to cling to the past.

Try to adjust and understand you take the good with the bad.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), October 31, 1999.


I've got a years worth of food that says I'm serious about y2k's potential.I just feel that adversity has the potential for growth.It might take chaos on the scale of y2k's potential to produce a catharsis strong enough to break us free of our consumerist induced fugue.Once history places a few generations between us y2k might become reguarded as the event that saved humanity from itself.

-- doomer (Hopeful doomer@prepping.com), October 31, 1999.

Try to adjust and understand you take the good with the bad.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), October 31, 1999. -------------------------------------------------------------- We wouldn't need to take the good with the bad if we followed the founding fathers advice and put the bad up against the wall every twenty years or so and showed the people what needs to be done to those who would be tyrants over the people. "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8)

-- apokoliptik (apokoliptik@yahoo.com), October 31, 1999.


Being happy is not the same thing as having fun.Despite what our televised indoctrinators tell us.What except worldwide chaos could possibly wake us up from our narcoleptic slumber?This thread is both sincere and germain.Don't be so quick to label as troll anything that troubles your little viewpoint.

-- doomer (Hopeful doomer@prepping.com), October 31, 1999.


In order for humans who are alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling junkies..(name another behavioral sickness) to change their behavior, they must first 'hit bottom'. Things have to get pretty bad in order to make a serious lifestyle change.

Things are pretty good for most of us right now. And our leaders; gov't and corporate, are telling us Y2k is under control and won't be a problem. Why should we make a change? Why buy into the doomers relentless, daily rants.

What will happen will happen and we will change when it happens. Not before, not before, not before. Only when it gets bad will we change. Those who are smart and can SEE will prepare as they see fit. The drunks will party on. Don't waste your time discussing it with them any longer. We have not hit bottom yet and the way things look to most, we never will. This is America you see. It can't happen here because it never has happened here..... at least in their lifetimes.

-- mack (info@gasmasks.com), October 31, 1999.


Our society does seem to embrace technology without question.I have a friend who loves tech and the more optimistic scifi.He longs for the far fetched day that he might have I/O jacks put into his head so he could input info straight into his twisted mind.To me that's simply orwellian nightmares but he could never see the negatives outweighing the positives.Lemmings rushing headlong indeed.

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), October 31, 1999.

Zoobie,

Why bother with I/O jacks? I hear a makita cordless with a 1" auger wood bit works nicely...

-- cavscout (nomore@holes.inmyhead), October 31, 1999.


Hamster wrote: "Even with war, even with man made catastrophies, God is probably very happy with us as a whole."

Even with murder, even with hatred, even with envy, even with greed, even with apathy, even with lies upon lies upon lies...

No. God is not very happy with us at all.

-- PKM (.@...), October 31, 1999.


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