[The E]

You also said,

Discipline and traditional values developed under difficult preindustrial conditions died out and weren't replaced in decadent modern society where living is easy.

Which is something you really, really should think about again. Because it's incredibly wrong.

[Mustang19]

You also said,

Discipline and traditional values developed under difficult preindustrial conditions died out and weren't replaced in decadent modern society where living is easy.

Which is something you really, really should think about again. Because it's incredibly wrong.

Specific examples? Nothing you mentioned was any less common in the past. I say "easy" and "decadent" relatively speaking.

[The E]

Nope, I won't. You made the theory, you start off by citing examples.

What values do you think have died out? And what makes you think that living today, with a large and growing number of people suffering from future shock, is easier than living 50 or a hundred years ago?

[Mustang19]

Working week/conditions in 1900. This too. Google search: factory conditions 1900 study. Took about five seconds.

What values do you think have died out? And what makes you think that living today, with a large and growing number of people suffering from future shock, is easier than living 50 or a hundred years ago?

Falling church attendance, lower savings rates. Rising crime rates since 1960.

[The E]

What does that have to do with values? What does it have to do with discipline?

Noone is arguing that work conditions haven't changed, they have. But you are arguing that a) modern work conditions are easier and b) that certain values that were instilled by said working conditions do not apply today. And on top of that, you described modern society as "decadent", thereby implying that the old ways were better. Defend that statement.

[Mustang19]

What does that have to do with values? What does it have to do with discipline?

Those conditions were causes, not effects. Living today is easier since the work week and working conditions are much better. Health is better as well; life expectancies are longer.

[The E]

Noone is arguing that work conditions haven't changed, they have. But you are arguing that a) modern work conditions are easier and b) that certain values that were instilled by said working conditions do not apply today. And on top of that, you described modern society as "decadent", thereby implying that the old ways were better. Defend that statement.

[Grizzly]

Living today is easier since the work week and working conditions are much better.

Hmm. I find that I would probably have a much easier life living as a blacksmith in the middle ages then I have in today's society, where I have to deal with a multitide of complex situations, ocassionally simultaniously. That, and many people are expected to do so 24 hours a day, even though they might not be at work at the time.

[Unknown Target]

Living today is easier since the work week and working conditions are much better.

Hmm. I find that I would probably have a much easier life living as a blacksmith in the middle ages then I have in today's society, where I have to deal with a multitide of complex situations, ocassionally simultaniously. That, and many people are expected to do so 24 hours a day, even though they might not be at work at the time.

I'm awake right now at 9:45 AM because my sleeping schedule is shot. Whether or not I get more than 5 hours of sleep a night during the course of a week is a gamble.

Not saying I'm particularly displeased about it, I like the odd hours I keep. But you have a good point -Joshua-.

[General Battuta]

Rising crime rates since 1960.

Do some reading (and think about places other than the US, too)

People in better conditions are more productive. Happiness is pretty intuitive.

There's actually been some work done on the heuristic and genetic factors that create this illusion that 'things were better in the old days'.

[Luis Dias]

There is another problem. What you describe as 'good genes' now, could turn out to be 'awfully bad genes' later, just because of a change in enviroment. For example, some people with a lot of attention to detail are subject to information overload. There was hardly any information overload 50 years ago, so the extreme focus these people was a benefit. Now, with people being required to sample lots of data at once, those people have trouble keeping up with society, and suddenly, these cases have become 'autists', while they would never have been detected as such 50 years ago.

Yeah, sure. But I'm also sure that for every 1 successful "lucky gene", you're probably ignoring 10 others who are not as beneficial.

The more selective you are, the more problems like the one you, and E and others are suggesting will appear. Sure.

There are a lot of cases in crops where selecting for one trait has led to the elimination of others which later on turned to be quite usefull. For example, some fast-growth plants can less-then-perfect soils completely lifeless and practically turn the land into a barren wasteland. Since there's been exclusive selection for crops that grow fast and big, this problem became overlooked, and people with less-then-perfect-soils now have to deal with a small problem: The plants which could grow on their soils have become rather rare.

Nice example.

[General Battuta]

There are a lot of cases in crops where selecting for one trait has led to the elimination of others which later on turned to be quite usefull. For example, some fast-growth plants can less-then-perfect soils completely lifeless and practically turn the land into a barren wasteland. Since there's been exclusive selection for crops that grow fast and big, this problem became overlooked, and people with less-then-perfect-soils now have to deal with a small problem: The plants which could grow on their soils have become rather rare.

Nice example.

Pages were spent discussing that condition already. You should have picked up on that.

[Mustang19]

Noone is arguing that work conditions haven't changed, they have. But you are arguing that a) modern work conditions are easier and b) that certain values that were instilled by said working conditions do not apply today. And on top of that, you described modern society as "decadent", thereby implying that the old ways were better. Defend that statement.

I'm not concerned with values right now. That's a different debate. I say "decadent" in the sense that the work ethic and productionist values have declined. This doesn't mean labor productivity declined if improvements in nutrition, education, and manufacturing technology haven't made up for this.

a) modern work conditions are easier

If you think that working 12 hours a day in a sweatshop with poor ventilation or the same amount of hours a day of manual labor on a farm is easier than what the majority of people do in a typical job today like, say, retail work, I don't know what else to say.

b) that certain values that were instilled by said working conditions do not apply today

To flesh out one of the examples I've mentioned (lower saving rates, church attendance, crime) the combination of rising incomes and rising crime rates after 1960 (followed by a fall to levels still higher than pre-1960 up to today) suggests changes in the degree of social control society exerts to deter crime.

Hmm. I find that I would probably have a much easier life living as a blacksmith in the middle ages then I have in today's society, where I have to deal with a multitide of complex situations, ocassionally simultaniously. That, and many people are expected to do so 24 hours a day, even though they might not be at work at the time.

Maybe so, but the majority of people in the middle ages were serfs and farmers. Now there are workaholics in modern society but must people work an 8 hour day indoors.

People in better conditions are more productive. Happiness is pretty intuitive.

I agree. But changes in cultural values did not contribute to productivity.

[General Battuta]

To flesh out one of the examples I've mentioned (lower saving rates, church attendance, crime) the combination of rising incomes and rising crime rates after 1960 (followed by a fall to levels still higher than pre-1960 up to today) suggests changes in the degree of social control society exerts to deter crime.

No it doesn't. Stop trying to reduce epiphenomenal complex symptoms to simple morality tales.

[General Battuta]

But look, this is obviously not a debate. You are not going to change your position, why are we even having this discussion?

[Grizzly]

There are a lot of cases in crops where selecting for one trait has led to the elimination of others which later on turned to be quite usefull. For example, some fast-growth plants can less-then-perfect soils completely lifeless and practically turn the land into a barren wasteland. Since there's been exclusive selection for crops that grow fast and big, this problem became overlooked, and people with less-then-perfect-soils now have to deal with a small problem: The plants which could grow on their soils have become rather rare.

Nice example.

Pages were spent discussing that condition already. You should have picked up on that.

Hmm. Mabye it got drowned in the vast complexity and size of the preceding arguments.

Hmm. I find that I would probably have a much easier life living as a blacksmith in the middle ages then I have in today's society, where I have to deal with a multitide of complex situations, ocassionally simultaniously. That, and many people are expected to do so 24 hours a day, even though they might not be at work at the time.

Maybe so, but the majority of people in the middle ages were serfs and farmers. Now there are workaholics in modern society but must people work an 8 hour day indoors.

Serfs and farmers do not have to deal with multiple complex situations simultaniously, and are not expected to keep up to date with everything in order to function at work and in society. Today, we have to. Its the second part of the point I was trying to make.

[Unknown Target]

But look, this is obviously not a debate. You are not going to change your position, why are we even having this discussion?

*wanders into thread, munching popcorn*

Well I certainly like watching you gents exercise your analytical skills. Your fingers too!

*wanders back out, taking the popcorn with him*

[Mustang19]

But look, this is obviously not a debate. You are not going to change your position, why are we even having this discussion?

Because it's fun, and you're playing ball.

To flesh out one of the examples I've mentioned (lower saving rates, church attendance, crime) the combination of rising incomes and rising crime rates after 1960 (followed by a fall to levels still higher than pre-1960 up to today) suggests changes in the degree of social control society exerts to deter crime.

No it doesn't. Stop trying to reduce epiphenomenal complex symptoms to simple morality tales.

Do you have an alternate explanation? Just curious, not being passive aggressive or anything.

Serfs and farmers do not have to deal with multiple complex situations simultaniously, and are not expected to keep up to date with everything in order to function at work and in society. Today, we have to. Its the second part of the point I was trying to make.

Look at it this way. I don't think many people today would want a serf's work.

[Luis Dias]

I don't understand why you think this is an argument. We've been messing with the gene pool of our food for thousands of years, and I'm yet to see anything other than benefits to that.

EXCEPT that we can never, ever STOP tinkering.

Awh, the burden of responsibility!

We can increase crop yield, we can increase resistance against certain diseases or climates, but we can not leave these things alone lest they get wiped out due to a new attack that hits these plants where they are weak. Now, in plants, this is easy to do, and even beneficial for us, but do you want to do the same things with humans?

How many times do I have to repeat the things I have stated, and paraphrasing you now, "IN THIS THREAD" that such kind of human selection would be dystopian? It's quite literally a nazi program we are discussing here. My point is that it "works", not that we should "desire it".

Please address the issue of how to do a large-scale genetic engineering program on humans so that it is controllable within the average humans planning horizon. You need several generations of engineering before you can see benefits, which means that you'll have to wait 20 or more years before you can be sure your tinkering has actually worked, and EVEN THEN, you can't be sure it did because you cannot raise lots of humans in a controlled environment.

Genetic tinkering will be only done when it benefits the users directly, or their offspring for that matter (Gattaca, etc.). It will create a swarm of ethical problems, and I'm not so sure we will solve them in a way I consider satisfactory. It will happen.

But why spend all this time and effort managing something that is able to self-correct?

How can something that has stepped out of any selection pressures is "able to self-correct"? Even if true, nature is still very slow. We always like to make it faster. Analogically, "why should we build cars if we are able to walk on foot?"

Let me remind you, most of the conditions that you want treated via gene modifications can also be treated safely and reliably via medication. If I would have to choose between taking pills, and undergoing genetic modifications, I know I'd choose the pills, because I know that we don't know all that much about how all this gene stuff works together.

Yeah, many people talked in the same vein about antibiotics and pesticides. And it was true for some time: we didn't know enough about it. We even banned DDT for a stupid reason. It turned out that the banning was just half stupid: there are problems associated with the spamming of too much of these chemicals.

Personally, I'd rather leave off the banging and continue living, but that's just me I guess. Look, your whole argumentation seems to be based on technological optimism. Which is good, any SF fan has that in spades, myself included. But where is the skepticism you were so proud of in that other thread?

My skepticism is towards the notion that "gene selection in humans is impossible".

If the motion was that "genetics will be wonderful" I'd be proudly skeptical of that too. As I said, lots of dangers lurking in the landscape of possibilities there. But the priiiiiizee...

I'm quite sure we will. However, I am equally sure that, for the reasons outlined above, it will not be something that will be large-scale. Individuals may opt to have their genes modded, but entire societies? Not in my lifetime, I think.

Yeah, not in our lifetime. Unless the rapture for the geeks comes first. hehe.

[General Battuta]

But look, this is obviously not a debate. You are not going to change your position, why are we even having this discussion?

Because it's fun, and you're playing ball.

To flesh out one of the examples I've mentioned (lower saving rates, church attendance, crime) the combination of rising incomes and rising crime rates after 1960 (followed by a fall to levels still higher than pre-1960 up to today) suggests changes in the degree of social control society exerts to deter crime.

No it doesn't. Stop trying to reduce epiphenomenal complex symptoms to simple morality tales.

Do you have an alternate explanation? Just curious, not being passive aggressive or anything.

Yeah I think it's pretty obvious, it involves drugs, immigration, and the economy