Thank you for the invitation

[Guest squire]

Thank you for inviting me to this thoughtful forum.

This Is Who We Are...and...is there still time?...and time for what???

Einstein was once asked,..."...what do you think of Western Civilization?..." and I believe the answer was..."...I think...it's...a good idea!"

Shall we truly become civilized?

Kind Regards,

Squire

[Guest tjmasiakowski]

Concept of humanity and being civilized is rather a vague notion.

I think that the first statement about this should be in form of:

"We all have our views on it" because that's exactly how it goes

in my opinion. I don't think so that there is possible unified

version of answers to questions Squire asked.

Societies, our civilization as a whole is constantly in development.

There is no end to it. There always will be trend to improve,

make something better, create something new. In my opinion

that's how development works: it is based on a drive to improve

mostly. So to answer finally the questions:

Is there still time? Time for what?

I think (this is stressed) that there is still, but very little amount of

time for the civilization to turn away all the wrong choices it has done.

We are on the verge of dramatic climate change and we see that

now for quite a long time. Something is changing, that's for sure.

Scientists are not sure about what should be done, theories beat

other theories trying to be proved. We really don't know exactly what

is going on with planet Earth and what is more how to prevent it from

whatever is going on. We have to find it out very quickly because

probably there is some thin red line that will mark the point at which

nothing will be reversable. So, we can't be sure if... there is still time.

Shall we become truly civilized?

Personally, I think it is highly impossible to improve the society itself.

It is too late and there are too many variables to base the assumptions

and trials on. Society always in in neutral position. There are people

who are on the bright side and there are people of the dark side

(I know it sounds trivial but I want to visualize it). We cannot change it

in a way that it will affect large portions of society. Unless of course

there would be some sort of weird, rapid change out of nowhere

(which is quite more and more possible, I mean world events that

can change everything in a matter of hours, like wars for instance).

Sorry for random talks from my side. Just throwing out some

concepts and ideas about the world here. Ideas I described are

only temporary as I am not completely sure about any of them.

Just trying to form a discussion.

[Guest Laurent.]

I'm sorry I missed this topic the first time around.

Social pessimism seems to be cool again these days. It looks to me like a lot of people like the idea that there is nothing left for us to do to give our societies a chance at a better structure. I always felt it was an excuse or apology for not even trying. I don't point this at anyone here, I don't know you personally and I'm sure that, if given the chance, pretty much everyone here would be ready to help make things better.

But here is my thing: Social Darwinism. If you look back in time far enough, you have no choice but to admit that society as evolved. Our social instincts (sympathy, moral...), as bad as some will say they are, are much stronger today than they were centuries ago. I have no reason yet to believe such an evolution would end.. you can't base yourself on the last 50 years only and say that we passed a point of no return.

[Guest tjmasiakowski]

Social pessimism seems to be cool again. That appears to be true

unfortunately. People excuse themselves through it indeed. However,

I am not entirely sure if this is pointless stance. I think that social

pessimism itself is able to raise awarness of what is going on in

some sense. I am not sure if I sound clear here.

I want to say that the existence of such attitude can itself

provide a reason to act, to become engaged in some help

activities. Action - reaction. Presence - reaction to presence.

What about Social Darwinism: yes, the society definitely evolved

in overall sense. The evolution brought with it bright sides and

dark sides and they all count towards this "overall evolution"

which for sure developed. Well, anyway I am too young

to be able to see any specific pattern in evolution as you said.

There are simply too many aspects of it, too many variables

that make us who we are.

Okay, I agree, that was exaggeration at some point that

we don't know if there is time at all. But the thing we know

for sure is that something changes because of our interference

in the environment. If it will be bad I am not able to assess it.

Sure if given a chance of situation, I would try to act and help.